The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema (2014), produced and directed by Ned Thanhouser, tells the story of an independent film studio founded by Ned's grandparents, Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser, along with Lloyd Lonergan in 1909. The company turned out an astonishing number of innovative, even groundbreaking pictures, but it lasted just nine years and was forgotten almost as soon as it closed its doors, largely because its negatives were destroyed.

In recent years, Ned Thanhouser became fascinated with the idea of tracking down as many of his grandparents' existing movies as possible, restoring them, and making them available once again for viewing. And he set out to make a film that would ensure his family's story is not again forgotten. The resulting 52-minute documentary premiered at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in October 2014.

By all accounts, the Thanhouser Studio was a respected and major producer of shorts, serials and features for the nine years it existed. It employed popular stars such as James Cruze, Jeanne Eagels, and Florence La Badie, the latter of whom was possibly its biggest at the time. (She died in 1917, at the peak of her stardom, in a car crash.) Many Thanhouser films were quite sophisticated. There were literary adaptations such as David Copperfield (1911), A Winter's Tale (1910), The Tempest (1911), Nicholas Nickleby (1912), and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912). There were comedies, dramas, biblical epics, and even movies about filmmaking, as in The Evidence of the Film (1913) and When the Studio Burned (1913), the latter made to cash in on publicity after a fire destroyed the studio's main building. Two Thanhouser productions have been inducted into the National Film Registry.

The studio was located in New Rochelle, NY, and operated at a time of great upheaval in the film industry. The Motion Picture Patents Company had a monopoly on cameras and other physical production equipment, and it often strong-armed independent companies who tried to run afoul of licensing. Eventually, these and other forces -- including the shift of the industry from New York to Hollywood -- led the Thanhousers to close their doors after producing some 1000 titles over nine years. Edwin Thanhouser burned his negatives out of a combination of bitterness and a failure to see any value in paying for storage costs.

In 1986, Ned Thanhouser became intrigued with finding any prints that might remain of his ancestors' movies. Soon he was able to locate and buy -- for $86 -- 16mm prints of two films. He rented a theater and showed them with live musical accompaniment. In the years ahead, he discovered that a great many Thanhouser prints still existed, scattered all over the world in archival and private collections. To date he has recovered 225 films -- almost a quarter of the overall output -- and made some available online or on DVD.

Of his new documentary, Ned Thanhouser has stated, "The documentary recounts the untold story of the rise and fall of this remarkable pioneering motion picture studio during the first decade of the twentieth century. It traces the evolution of one family's career as it transitioned from producing live theater to establishing one of the most successful independent silent motion picture studios in early cinema. Set against a backdrop of Thomas A. Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Trust companies dominating the industry, the story plays out in New York, Florida and California. It is a compelling story of fame and fortune, twisted by the vagaries of fate and ending on a bittersweet note."

By Jeremy Arnold