1911 in film

Years in film
1870s
1880s 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889
1890s 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899
1900s 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909
1910s 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
1920s 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
1930s 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
1940s 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
1950s 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959
1960s 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969
1970s 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979
1980s 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
1990s 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999
2000s 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
2010s 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
2020s 2020

The year 1911 in film involved some significant events.

Events

• March 23: D. W. Griffith shows the first major close-up shot on film with the successful release of The Lonedale Operator proving his ever growing mastery of how to utilise film.
• October 27: David Horsley's Nestor Motion Picture Company opens the first motion picture studio in Hollywood.
• Defence of Sevastopol premiers at the palace of Tsar Nicholas II and becomes the first feature-length film made in the Russian Empire and one of the first in the world.
• The Kalem Company of New York pays the estate of author Lew Wallace $25,000 in legal settlement for having adapted Ben Hur (1907 film) from his novel without securing prior rights.

Films released in 1911

• Aerial Anarchists
• Alkali Ike's Auto
• Les Aventures de baron de Munchhausen, directed by Georges Melies
• Baseball and Bloomers
• The Battle, directed by D. W. Griffith
• The Black Arrow
• Brown of Harvard
• The Buddhist Priestess
• Cally's Comet
• The Coffin Ship
• The Colonel and the King
• Courting Across the Court
• The Cowboy and the Lady
• David Copperfield
• Defence of Sevastopol
• The Diabolical Church Window, directed by Georges Melies
• The Dream, directed by Thomas H. Ince, starring Mary Pickford
• Enoch Arden, directed by D. W. Griffith
• The Fall Of Troy, directed by Giovanni Pastrone
• First Indy 500 (First year footage from the auto race. Filmed on May 30, 1911.)
• Flames and Fortune
• For Her Sake
• His Trust, directed by D. W. Griffith
• His Trust Fulfilled, directed by D. W. Griffith. The sequel to Griffith's earlier 1911 short film "His Trust"
• Her Crowning Glory
• The Inferno (L'Inferno), adapted from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. First blockbuster feature film in cinema. First feature-length horror film.
• Little Nemo
• The Higher Law
• The Lonedale Operator, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Blanche Sweet
• The Miser's Heart, directed by D. W. Griffith
• Der Müller und sein Kind
• The Pasha's Daughter
• Princess Clementina
• The Railroad Builder
• The Scarlet Letter
• The Smuggler
• Sweet Memories
• Swords and Hearts, directed by D. W. Griffith
• A Tale of Two Cities
• That's Happiness
• What Shall We Do with Our Old?
• Windsor McCay And His Animated Pictures
• Won by Wireless

Births

• (undated) - Louise Campbell, actress (died 1997)^[1]
• January 5 - Jean-Pierre Aumont, actor (died 2001)
• January 7 - Butterfly McQueen, actress (died 1995)
• January 22 - Mary Hayley Bell, actress, writer and dramatist, wife of Sir John Mills (d 2005)
• February 6 - Ronald Reagan, actor, United States President (died 2004)
• February 9 - Gypsy Rose Lee, actress and burlesque dancer (died 1970)
• February 14 - Florence Rice, actress (died 1974)
• February 19 - Merle Oberon, actress (died 1979)
• February 28 - Ishiro Honda, director (died 1993)
• March 3 - Jean Harlow, actress (died 1937)
• March 18 - Smiley Burnette, actor, musician (died 1967)
• May 11 - Phil Silvers, actor (died 1985)
• May 17 - Maureen O'Sullivan, actress (died 1998)
• May 18 - Sigrid Gurie, actress (died 1969)
• May 27 - Vincent Price, actor (died 1993)
• June 3 - Ellen Corby, actress (died 1999)
• June 20 - Gail Patrick (died 1980)
• June 29 - Bernard Hermann, composer (died 1975)
• July 6 - Laverne Andrews, singer, actress, member of Andrews Sisters (died 1967)
• July 14 - Terry-Thomas, actor (died 1990)
• July 16 - Ginger Rogers, actress, dancer (died 1995)
• July 18 - Hume Cronyn, actor (died 2003)
• August 5 - Robert Taylor, actor (died 1969)
• August 6 - Lucille Ball, actress (died 1989)
• August 7 - Nicholas Ray, director (died 1979)
• August 12 - Cantinflas, actor (died 1993)
• September 2 - Erwin Hillier, cinematographer (died 2005)
• October 13 - Ashok Kumar, actor, India (died 2001)
• October 20 - Will Rogers, Jr., actor (died 1993)
• October 27 - Leif Erickson, actor (died 1986)
• November 5 - Roy Rogers, singer, actor (died 1998)
• November 10 - Harry Andrews, actor (died 1989)
• December 8 - Lee J. Cobb, actor (died 1976)
• December 30 - Jeanette Nolan, actress (died 1998)

Deaths

• January 18 - Arthur Marvin, cinematographer, (born 1859)
• May 29 - W. S. Gilbert, producer of musicals, half of the team of Gilbert and Sullivan, (born 1836)
• July 18 - Genevieve Lantelme, actress, (born 1883)
• August 11 - Verner Clarges, actor, (born 1846)
• October 27 - Francis Boggs, director, (born 1870)
• November 2 - Kyrle Bellew, actor, (born 1855)
• December 22 - Wright Lorimer, stage actor, screenwriter, (born 1874)
• Unknown - Woodville Latham, producer and exhibitor whose desire to shoot an entire boxing match on a single reel of film led to the invention of the Latham loop (born 1837)

Debuts

• Francis X. Bushman - His Friend's Wife (short)
• Paul Kelly - Jimmie's Job (short)
• Ann Little - The Indian Maiden's Lesson (short)
• Harold Lockwood - The White Red Man (short)
• Anna Q. Nilsson - Molly Pitcher (short)
• Lillian Russell - La Tosca (short)
• Anita Stewart - A Tale of Two Cities as Anna Stewart
• Lenore Ulric - The First Man (1911 short)
• Lois Weber - director, actress, A Heroine of '76 (short); writer, On the Brink (short)

References