1 January, Paris: Pathé has released Aladdin and His Magic Lamp, Albert Capellani's 250-metre film and Méliès' 384-metre Robert, Macaire et Bertrand. 15 January, Paris: Georges Hatot's most recent film, Les Débuts d'un chauffeur, starring André Deed, has been released for sale by Pathé. 26 January, Paris: Pathé has organized the Compagnie des cinematographes Théophile Pathé with a starting capital of 2 million francs. This new company intends to produce low-budget films for fairground shows. 1 February, Berlin: The newspaper Der Komet has attributed the invention of the cinema to photographer Max Skladonowsky whose first sessions of Bioskop were held on 1 November 1895 in the Wintergarten. The claim has been refuted by French journalists, thus starting a controversy about who invented the cinema. 16 February, Sweden: N. H. Nylander, a cycle repairman, sets up the AB Svenska Biografteatern cinema chain in Kristianstad. 22 February, London: Former magic-lantern showman Joshua Duckworth has opened the first purpose-built cinema in Britain. Central Hall in Colne, Lancashire, cost £2,000 to build. 1 March, Paris: Today the new Vitagraph film The Haunted Hotel is going on sale to French exhibitors. It's a novely animated film in which furniture moves mysteriously about as if by its own agency. The man who dreamed this up is an Englishman, John Stuart Blackton, who went to America at the age of 10 in 1885. It was Blackton's good fortune as a young journalist to interview Thomas Edison in 1895 and to convince the great inventor of his own talent as a designer. Two years later, in conjunction with William T. Rock and Albert E. Smith, Blackton founded the Vitagraph Co. In 1906 Blackton produced Humorous Phases of Funny Faces that uses the technique of showing an artist drawing a still picture that then magically comes alive and moves. The effect was created using cardboard cutouts, but some genuinely animated sequences can be seen at the beginning of the film -- notably a man sporting a bowler hat and umbrella seemingly drawing himself, and a man and a woman rolling their eyes. Blackton refers to this widely-used technique as the "American movement." 12 March, Copenhagen: Following the success of The White Slave, in which he starred with Gerda Jensen, Nordisk's accredited producer Vigo Larsen has filmed Rovernens Brud with Robert Storm and Clara Nebelong. 22 March, Brussels: The Belgian capital has been swept up in the vogue of the Cinematograph, a trend coming mainly from Paris. Since 1905, Louis Van Goitsenhoven, the director of the Theatre of the Cinematograph, has also been running the Eden Theatre. He claims it is equipped for the presentation of "all the latest cinematographic productions from all over the world." In the autumn of 1900, the Pathé brothers were the first to present animated films. The last few years have seen the rise of many competitors, but, on the other hand, the Molière Theatre has proudly made it known that it is "the only theater that the Cinematograph has not yet invaded." March, Chicago: The creation of the Bell & Howell Co., the first manufacturer of cameras and lenses in America. April, Turin: Arturo Ambrosio's production firm has become a stock company with backing from the Commercial Bank of Turin. Carlo Rossi, who founded his own firm, has taken on Charles Lépine, former director at Pathé, as well as an accountant named Giovanni Pastrone. 1 April, Paris: Zecca's The Life and Passion of Christ has been released for sale by Pathé. This is a new version of the 1902 film. 1 April, Paris: There have been quite a number of upheavals at Gaumont. Louis Feuillade, who came in as a scenarist in 1905 under Alice Guy's direction, has replaced her as head of the department of theaters and production. Guy, who took charge of cinematographic production in 1899, got married a short while ago to the Belgian Herbert Blaché. Gaumont has appointed Blaché to the job of sales agent for the Chronophone, the projection apparatus of sound films, in Cleveland, Ohio in the US. Facing such a major relocation has been very sad for Guy. With great reluctance, she has been forced to quit the Buttes-Chaumont Theatre that she managed with so much talent. In fact, she herself had recommended Feuillade to the post when Gaumont made his decision known. 11 May, Paris: The magazine Photo-Ciné-Gazette is organizing a big festival at the Elysée-Montmartre. An audience of 2,000 will be treated to a session of "talking pictures with the Chronomegaphone." The projection of the films combined with the Elgéphone is going to produce a "powerful, new sound," according to the manufacturer Léon Gaumont. 20 May, Paris: There are now 15 cinemas in the capital, and 15 new cinematographs have opened since last week. 29 May, Helsinki: The first fiction film to be produced in Finland, Salaviinan Polttajat, but Louis Sparre and Teuvo Puro, is now showing. 1 June, Paris: Pathé has released La Lutte pour la vie (Struggle for Life), the story of a railwayman who makes good, written by André Herzé. 7 June, New York: The Vitagraph Co.'s most popular leading lady is diminutive, demure Florence Turner, star of How to Cure a Cold. The 22-year-old Turner, quite a successful stage performer, has been in the acting profession since the age of three. She was spotted in a crowd watching a Vitagraph production and was immediately taken on by the company as a wardrobe mistress at a salary of $18 a week with an extra $5 whenever she acted in a film. Like everyone in films, Turner is expected to combine several jobs in a production, but she is attracting more attention than other Vitagraph players. As yet her name has not yet been revealed to the public, and she is known simply as "The Vitagraph Girl." Film companies are still reluctant to name their most popular players. After all, these new stars might take the opportunity to ask for more money! 16 June, Paris: The Variety Theatre is showing a filmed play, The Prodigal Child, by the director Michel Carré with performances by George Wague and Christiane Mendelys. 1 July, Paris: Méliès has released a burlesque fantasy called Le Tunnel sous la Manche ou le Cauchemar franco-anglaise (The Tunnel Under the English Channel or the Anglo-French Nightmare). 12 July, Paris: Who is Edmond Benoît-Lévy? He signed an exclusive contract today with Charles Pathé that will allow him the monopoly of Pathé films in nine French provinces as well as in Switzerland. Benoît-Lévy has gradually become the confidant of Pathé, being involved in every decision made by the Vincennes master. A former trial lawyer, he practiced law for 20 years before branching out into other activities, one of which was a lecture position at the Popular Society of Fine Arts. In 1905 Benoît-Lévy published the Phono-Gazette, which at the end of the year became the Phono-Ciné-Gazette. After organizing the Union of Cinematographic Exhibitors, on 2 November 1906, he went on to found a company for the showing of the Pathé Cinematograph at the headquarters of his paper and of the Ciné Club founded in April of this year. This newspaper supported Pathé invaluably at the time that it was decided to hire the films out. Benoît-Lévy, whose firm has just changed its name to Omnia, has Pathé's permission to establish a network of Cinematographs -- permanent halls or traveling stalls -- that would project only Pathé films. With a capital of up to 12 million francs, Benoît-Lévy has managed to consolidate the cinematographic industry, although remaining in the constant shadow of Charles Pathé. 18 July, Paris: Creation of the French Union of Directors. Léon Brézillon has been elected president. 1 August, Paris: As a follow-up to the comic Cul-de-jatte emballé, Gaumont has released Roméo Bosetti's L'Homme aimanté. 31 August, Montreal: The largest luxury theater for the screening of animated pictures in North America, curiously named Ouimetoscope, has just opened its doors at the corner of Montcalm and Sainte-Catherine. Its 1,200 seats constitues a world record. Léo-Ernest Ouimet, the owner, began his career as a stage electrician at the National Theatre and at the Sohmer Park, among others. In January 1906, he bought the former Poiré Hall and transformed it into a projection theater. Despite its success, the first Ouimetoscope was pulled down during the summer of 1907; since then an army of workers has rebuilt the hall of gigantic proportions on its ruins. August, St. Petersburg: Alexander O. Drankov, who opened the first Russian film studio, has filmed extracts from Pushkin's play Boris Godounov, directed by Ivan Chouvalov. August, Singapore: Charles Pathé has opened his 18th overseas branch. He began with subsidiaries in Moscow, New York and Brussels in 1904, added Berlin, Vienna and St. Petersburg in 1905, and in 1906 Amsterdam, Barcelona, Milan, Odessa and London. This year, offices have opened in Rostov, Kiev, Budapest, Calcutta and Warsaw. 21 October, Paris: In his report on the cinema industry for the administration at Orsay, Edmond Benoît-Lévy stated: Gaumont employs 650 workmen in its 12,000 square-metre factory and turns out 15,000 metres of film a day. But Pathé, with factories in Vincennes, Joinville-le-Pont and in New York, turns out 100,000 metres of film a day, has studios in Vincennes and Montreuil and had a turnover of 4 million francs for 1906-1907. October, New York: Jeremiah Kennedy, a consultant engineer, has taken over as director of Biograph. He will handle the reorganization of the company under the supervision of the Empire trust company, on whom Biograph is financially dependant. 4 November, Chicago: Recent developments in the Windy City suggest that Chicago is set to rival New York as the leading filmmaking center in the US. In fact, this city is already ahead of New York in one respect: censorship. The authorities have passed the first local censorship ordinance in the country "prohibiting the exhibition of obscene and immoral pictures commonly shown in Mutoscopes, Kinetoscopes, Cinematographs and penny arcades." Earlier this year, projectionist Donald Bell and camera repairman Albert Howell founded the Bell & Howell Camera Co. that hopes to play an important role if the industry continues to grow at the same rapid pace as during recent years.     But most important of all has been the formation of the Essanay Co. in February by George K. Spoor and actor-producer Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, who is best known for the Westerns he has made for William N. Selig since 1904 (the company name is derived from the two founders' initials, "S" and "A"). Wasting no time, Essanay is already filming in its studio at 501 Wells Street, having announced their first production, An Awful Skate or The Hobo on Rollers, on 27 July in The Moving Picture World. Not to be outdone, local entrepreneur Selig has just moved into his new plant on Western Avenue. 4 November, Chicago: The American film industry is once again in ferment. Some of the most important producers have just met in secret. Among them were George Kleine of Kalem Pictures, J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith from Vitagraph, Essanay's George K. Spoor, and William N. Selig and Sigmund Lubin of, respectively, Selig and Lubin. A French presence is provided by Georges Méliès, who represents Star Films, and Jacques-Emile Berst of Pathé. The meeting originally had been called to study a proposal put forth by the Edison Manufacturing Co. Edison has been proposing to award producers a license in return for a payment of a levy of half-a-cent for each foot of film printed or sold. The levy would be collected by the Eastman-Kodak foundation, that would then discount any excell profit in their accounts with the Edison Co. In exchange for signing up with the scheme, Edison will undertake to protect the licensees and to take vigorous legal action on their behalf against any pirated prints, unauthorized screenings or other activites prejudicial to their interests. This is clearly an attempt to form a motion picture cartel. Edison's proposal was favorably received by the producers present, uniting bitter rivals in agreement.     What lies behind this sudden change of heart? Since its birth 10 years ago the motion picture business has been characterized by endless legal disputes. William Selig, founder in 1896 of the Selig Polyscope Co., has the dubious distinction of being on the receiving end of the largest number of writs. Only last October he was found guilty by a Chicago judge of using camera that infringed upon patents taken out by Thomas Edison. This ruling had important consequences. It looked as if motion pictures would, by the same token, become the exclusive property of the Wizard of West Orange. The possibility of this precedent being enforced sent a wave of alarm through the ranks of film producers. George Kleine was delegated to thrash out some common ground with the Edison Co. As a result, Kleine and Edison's business manager, Mr. Gilmore, met and agreed on the proposals that have just been considered in secret conclave by the most important figures in the industry. Observers are predicting that after several years of legal wrangling the end of the tunnle is in sight. The resolution of these problems is welcome as an important financial shot in the arm. 1 December, Paris: Gaumont's newest Le Médecin de campagne (The Country Doctor), directed by Etienne Arnaud, and the comic film Le Lit à roulette (The Bed on Wheels), made by Roméo Bosetti, are now on the market. 15 December, Paris: Gaumont has released Bluebeard, produced by Etienne Arnaud. The film, judged too cruel, has undergone "a few changes." His other recent releases include The Future Revealed by the Sole of the Foot, la Poudre Rigolo (Funny Powder) and The Sewer Worker's Fiancée. 24 December, Paris: A permanente cinematograph that was designed by the architect Malo was opened at the Winter Circus today in the presence of the owner Charles Pathé, Max Linder, Gaston Velle and Albert Capellani. 31 December, Paris: The young German, Erich Pommer, has started a career in the cinema with Léon Gaumont. 31 December, Calcutta: The cinema Elphinstone Palace has been opened here by J.F. Maden.