The Erbograph Company was an American film-production and film-processing company founded in New York in 1909 by cinematographer and laboratory executive Ludwig G. B. Erb, his wife Emma Erb and director Joseph A. Golden. Continuously operated by Erb, the company opened a purpose-built developing and printing plant in Harlem in 1915. The facility also functioned as a production studio for Erbograph and outside producers.
Erbograph handled the photography and physical production of the sixteen-episode serial The Crimson Stain Mystery in 1916 and produced a series of five-reel features for the Art Dramas program in 1917. Throughout this period it also processed films for other companies, and laboratory work became its principal business after its regular feature-production program ended. In 1924 Erbograph's laboratory operations were combined with three other Eastern laboratories to form Consolidated Film Industries, with Erb joining the new company's board as chief technical adviser.
History
Formation and early activity
Erbograph was incorporated in New York in November 1909 with capital of $5,000. Its directors were Ludwig G. B. Erb, Emma Erb and Joseph A. Golden. The company was organized to deal in motion-picture films, contract with performers and other talent, and lease theaters. Erb and Golden subsequently worked together for Pat Powers and organized the Crystal Film Company in 1911.
Erbograph continued to operate while Erb headed Crystal. The Interborough Amusement Company opened the Comet Theatre at 1013–1015 Boston Road in the Bronx in 1910 as a ten-cent vaudeville and motion-picture house. The following year it leased the theater to Erbograph for five years. The recorded lease listed Erbograph's address as 289 East 203rd Street and named Samuel Fine, one of Crystal's incorporators, as its attorney. By 1913, G. and S. Amusement Company was operating at the address and had borrowed $2,500 from Erbograph, using its rights to the premises as security.
West 146th Street plant
After selling his interest in Crystal to Golden in 1914, Erb headed United Motion Picture Producers and later Combined Photoplay Producers. In November 1914, Erbograph leased a 125-foot-wide parcel on the north side of West 146th Street, west of Seventh Avenue, from Charles M. Rosenthal. The fifteen-year lease was to begin upon completion of a building on the site.
The plant, listed as 203–211 West 146th Street, opened in 1915 for developing and printing motion-picture film. Erb was president and Benjamin Goetz was treasurer. Construction of the plant continued through the summer of 1915.
An Erbograph advertisement described the plant as a fireproof steel, brick and concrete building with an automatic sprinkler system and 15,000 square feet of floor space. The company emphasized personal supervision of laboratory work and promoted what it called the “Erbograph way” of processing film. A 1917 studio directory described a temperature-controlled laboratory supplied with filtered air and water, six film perforators, printing and testing machines designed by Erb, two film polishers, eight drying drums, projection rooms, film-storage vaults and a 35-ton refrigeration machine. It reported a weekly capacity of approximately one million feet of film, including developing, printing, tinting and chemical toning.
Production and laboratory work
Erbograph operated the plant as both a production studio and a commercial film laboratory. By August 1916, it was performing printing and developing work for outside producers, including the Equity Motion Picture Company. At the same time, it supplied the studio, photography and physical production for the sixteen-episode serial The Crimson Stain Mystery. The Consolidated Film Corporation presented the serial and arranged its release through Metro Pictures. T. Hayes Hunter directed and Erb supervised the photographic and technical work.
In 1917 Erbograph became one of the producers supplying features to the Art Dramas program, which released rather than produced the films. Its first announced contribution, Infidelity, starred Anna Q. Nilsson and Eugene Strong and was written and directed by Ashley Miller. Two further Erbograph features released through the program also starred Nilsson: The Moral Code, written and directed by Miller and co-starring Walter Hitchcock, and The Inevitable, co-starring Chester Barnett.
In April, Erb organized a second company of players, headed by Marion Swayne and directed by Joseph Levering. Its first feature was Little Miss Fortune, written for Swayne by Clarence J. Harris. Levering next directed Swayne in The Road Between and The Little Samaritan. Arthur M. Brilant headed Erbograph's scenario department. Erbograph also produced The Millstone, a five-reel adaptation of a story by Albert Payson Terhune, directed by Ben M. Goetz.
Feature production did not displace the plant's processing business. A September 1917 account of the locally produced one-reeler A Hero for a Minute reported that its film had been developed by Erbograph, which it described as processing features for several major producers. This combination of production and contract laboratory work also characterized the plant the following year. After touring it in 1918, journalist Stephen H. Horgan described a continuous workflow in which exposed negatives arriving from outside producers were developed, washed, dried, printed, polished and prepared for shipment. He also observed a dramatic production being filmed there under an arrangement with the Catholic Art Association.
Once Erbograph's regular Art Dramas output ended, outside productions made increasing use of its studio. In 1919, the Rogers Film Corporation began making two-reel comedy dramas starring the child performers Jane and Katherine Lee there under the direction of Tefft Johnson. Edward José later announced an adaptation of Thomas Dixon's The Way of a Man for production at the plant by Film Specials, Inc. At the end of the year, Goldwyn Pictures transferred its New York production staff from the former Biograph studio to Erbograph. Its first announced project there was a Mabel Normand picture directed by Victor Schertzinger, carrying the working title Maggie and based on a play by Edward Peple.
Later operations and consolidation
In the summer of 1920, Erbograph was among more than a dozen New York-area plants affected by a strike of motion-picture laboratory workers. The workers were organized through the Laboratory Workers' Union and the International Association of Motion Picture Craftsmen, with support from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Their demands included collective bargaining and union recognition, a 25-percent wage increase and a 44-hour week; union representatives also cited uneven pay, rising living costs and poor working conditions in the laboratories. Contemporary accounts agreed that the walkout substantially reduced Erbograph's workforce, although estimates from the union and employers differed. The employees returned at the beginning of August while representatives arranged further negotiations over wages and other differences; a report the following week said that Erbograph's workforce was increasing and that the affected laboratories were approaching full operation.
By then, commercial processing had become Erbograph's principal business, although it continued to rent its studio to outside producers. In November, Lyric Productions began making the first of a proposed series of features starring Rubye De Remer at Erbograph for distribution by the Arrow Film Corporation.
Erbograph reinforced its laboratory operations in 1921. The General Machine Company supplied complete equipment for the plant, while the company advertised principally as a developing-and-printing concern under Erb's presidency. That year it joined the Allied Film Laboratories Association, an organization of commercial laboratories in the eastern and western United States.
The plant's technical development continued during the following two years. In July 1923, Harry M. Goetz of Erbograph described the use of mechanical refrigeration to control heat and humidity inside the laboratory. He stated that the plant then operated a 75-ton refrigeration machine, allowing film to be processed during hot and humid weather. Later that year, Roscoe C. Hubbard presented the Society of Motion Picture Engineers with a paper describing the “Erbograph Machine”, a friction-feed apparatus for developing, fixing, washing, tinting and drying positive motion-picture film. Goetz also represented Erbograph at the formation of the Film Laboratories Credit Association, established to reduce losses caused by speculative producers and distributors who ordered prints but failed to accept them.
By early 1924, independent laboratories were facing pressure to reduce overhead and increase their volume of business. A February trade report said that Erbograph, Craftsmen Film Laboratories and Republic Laboratories were discussing a combination for that purpose. It estimated Erbograph's capacity at approximately 750,000 feet of film a week; Erb acknowledged that consolidation had been discussed for some time, although no agreement had then been announced. In April, the three laboratories and Commercial Traders Cinema Corporation were combined to form Consolidated Film Industries, a company capitalized at $6 million. The new company acquired their assets and businesses and coordinated laboratory operations in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Erb became a director and chief technical adviser; contemporary reporting described the transaction as his retirement from active laboratory management.
Legacy
The former plant site was later redeveloped as Erbograph Apartments, an eight-story affordable senior-housing development completed in 2013. The building is now known as Dr. Muriel Petioni Plaza.
Selected productions
The table includes productions expressly attributed to Erbograph. Films made by outside producers using its studio or laboratory are excluded.
Year Title Notes 1916 The Crimson Stain Mystery Sixteen-episode serial physically produced at Erbograph for Consolidated Film Corporation 1917 Infidelity Art Dramas feature starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Eugene Strong; written and directed by Ashley Miller 1917 The Moral Code Art Dramas feature starring Nilsson and Walter Hitchcock; written and directed by Miller 1917 The Inevitable Art Dramas feature starring Nilsson and Chester Barnett 1917 Little Miss Fortune Art Dramas feature starring Marion Swayne; directed by Joseph Levering 1917 The Road Between Art Dramas feature starring Swayne; directed by Levering 1917 The Little Samaritan Art Dramas feature starring Swayne; directed by Levering 1917 The Millstone Five-reel adaptation of a story by Albert Payson Terhune; directed by Ben M. Goetz
References