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The year 1919 in film involved some significant events.

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Top-grossing films (U.S.)

The top six 1919 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows:

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="margin:auto; margin:auto;"

|+Highest-grossing films of 1919

|-

! Rank!! Title !! Studio !! Domestic rentals

|-

! style="text-align:center;"| 1

|Male and Female

|Paramount

| $1,256,267

|-

! style="text-align:center;"| 2

|Daddy-Long-Legs

|First National

| $1,250,000

|-

! style="text-align:center;"| 3

|The Miracle Man

| Paramount

| $1,000,000

|-

! style="text-align:center;"| 5

|Don't Change Your Husband

| rowspan="2"|Paramount

| $292,394

  • September 25 – Dalagang Bukid (The Country Maiden), the first Filipino feature-length film made in the Philippines, released.
  • October 24 – The Capitol Theatre in New York City becomes one of the largest cinemas in the world with 4,000 seats.
  • November 16 – Constance Talmadge becomes a star with the release of A Virtuous Vamp.
  • November 23 – Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female is released and grosses $1,256,226.59, establishing Gloria Swanson as a worldwide star.
  • Harold Lloyd begins holding test screenings of his films and modifying them based on audience feedback, a technique which continues in use.
  • Tri-Ergon sound-on-film technology is developed by three German inventors, Josef Engl, Hans Vogt (engineer), and Joseph Massole; however, the era of sound films is over 6 years away.

Notable films released in 1919 around the world

A

  • Anne of Green Gables, directed by William Desmond Taylor; starring Mary Miles Minter and Paul Kelly
  • The Avalanche directed by George Fitzmaurice starring Elsie Ferguson
  • L'atleta fantasma/ The Ghost Athlete (Italian), directed by Raimondo Scotti, starring Mario Guaita-Ausonia and Elsa Zara, features a masked superhero/ wrestler character

B

  • The Beetle, directed by Alexander Butler – (GB) based on the 1897 novel The Beetle: A Mystery by Richard Marsh
  • The Belle of New York, directed by Julius Steger; starring Marion Davies
  • The Better 'Ole – (GB)
  • Blind Husbands, directed by and starring Erich von Stroheim
  • Bolshevism on Trial, directed by Harley Knoles
  • The Boy in Blue (Knabe in Blau), directed by F. W. Murnau – (Germany)
  • Broken Blossoms, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess
  • Bumping into Broadway, starring Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels

C

  • Captain Kidd's Kids, a Harold Lloyd short
  • The Cinema Murder, directed by George D. Baker; starring Marion Davies
  • Country Maiden (Dalagang Bukid), directed by José Nepomuceno; starring Atang de la Rama – Philippines
  • Creaking Stairs (aka Dearie) directed by Rupert Julian for Universal Pictures, starring Mary MacLaren and Herbert Prior

D

  • Daddy-Long-Legs, starring Mary Pickford
  • Damaged Goods, directed by Alexander Butler – (GB)
  • Dance of Death/ Totentanz (German) written by Fritz Lang, directed by Otto Rippert, starring Werner Krauss
  • The Dark Star, directed by Allan Dwan; starring Marion Davies and Norman Kerry
  • The Delicious Little Devil, starring Mae Murray and Rudolph Valentino
  • The Devil's Locksmith (Austrian) directed by Franz Ferdinand, starring Ferdinand and Herr Ruibar
  • Different from the Others, directed by Richard Oswald, starring Conrad Veidt – (Germany)
  • The Doll, directed by Ernst Lubitsch – (Germany)
  • Don't Change Your Husband, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Gloria Swanson

E

  • The Echo of Youth, directed by Ivan Abramson

F

  • The Face at the Window (Australian) directed by Charles Villiers, starring D.B. O'Conner, Agnes Dobson and Claude Turton, based on the 1897 stage play by F. Brooke Warren
  • The False Faces, directed by Irvin Willat, starring Henry B. Walthall and Lon Chaney
  • The First Men in the Moon – (GB)

G

  • Getting Mary Married, directed by Allan Dwan; starring Marion Davies and Matt Moore
  • The Grim Game, starring Harry Houdini

H

  • The Haunted Bedroom (aka The Ghost of Whispering Oaks) directed by Fred Niblo for Thomas H. Ince, starring Enid Bennett (Niblo's wife) and Dorcas Matthews
  • Haunting Shadows, directed by Henry King, starring H. B. Warner and Edward Peil Sr., based on the 1906 novel The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson
  • Hawthorne of the U.S.A. directed by James Cruze, starring Wallace Reid
  • Heart o' the Hills directed by Sidney Franklin, starring Mary Pickford
  • Here Comes the Bride directed by John S. Robertson, starring John Barrymore, Faire Binney
  • His Majesty, the American, starring Douglas Fairbanks
  • The Homesteader, directed by Oscar Micheaux, starring Evelyn Preer

I

  • Intoxication, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Asta Nielsen (Germany)

J

  • The Jack of Hearts, starring Hoot Gibson
  • J'accuse (French), written and directed by Abel Gance for Pathe Films – (France) starring Romuald Joubé, Severin-Mars, and Maryse Dauvray; this was Gance's most acclaimed film and he remade it with sound in 1938
  • Juan Sin Ropa, Argentine film directed by Georges Benoît, starring Camila Quiroga and Héctor G. Quiroga, and produced by Quiroga-Benoît Film, a company made up of the three of them. It was one of the great successes of Argentina's silent film boom of the mid-to-late 1910s and continues to be celebrated retrospectively.

K

  • The Knickerbocker Buckaroo, starring Douglas Fairbanks

L

  • The Life Line, directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Wallace Beery
  • Lilith and Ly (Austrian) written by Fritz Lang, directed by Erich Kober, starring Elga Beck and Ernst Escherich
  • The Lost Battalion
  • The Love Cheat, starring June Caprice and Creighton Hale
  • Love's Prisoner, starring Olive Thomas
  • Lucrezia Borgia (Italian) directed by Augusto Genina, starring Diana Karenne

M

  • Madame Dubarry, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, starring Pola Negri and Emil Jannings – (Germany)
  • Madness / Wahnsinn (German) produced and directed by Conrad Veidt, who also starred in the film; adapted from a novel by Kurt Muenzner
  • Male and Female, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan
  • The Master Mystery, (serial), starring Harry Houdini
  • The Miracle Man, starring Thomas Meighan, Lon Chaney and Betty Compson
  • The Mistress of the World, directed by Joe May (Weimar Republic)
  • The Monkey's Paw (British), lost film based on the story by W. W. Jacobs first published by 1902, and the related one-act stage play written by Louis N. Parker in 1907
  • My Lady's Garter, directed by Maurice Tourneur
  • My Wife, the Movie Star, directed by Ernst Lubitsch (Germany)

N

  • Nabeshima Neko Sodo (Japanese) a ghost-cat film produced by Nikkatsu Films, starring Matsunosuke Onoe, based on the Kabuki play by Joko Segawa III
  • Okazaki Kaibyo-den (Japanese) starring Matsunosuke Onoe, another ghost-cat movie based on an early 1820s Japanese novel (which was adapted as a Kabuki play in 1827)
  • The Sentimental Bloke – (Australia)
  • Sir Arne's Treasure (Herr Arnes pengar), directed by Mauritz Stiller, starring Richard Lund – (Sweden)
  • A Society Exile directed by George Fitzmaurice starring Elsie Ferguson
  • Sons of Ingmar (Ingmarssönerna), directed by Victor Sjöström – (Sweden)
  • South (documentary of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Endurance Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition), filmed by Frank Hurley – (GB)

T

  • The Test of Honor, directed by John S. Robertson, starring John Barrymore, and Constance Binney
  • The Thirteenth Chair, directed by Leonce Perret, starring Yvonne Delva and Creighton Hale, based on a play by Bayard Veiller; this film was later remade by Tod Browning in 1929 with sound
  • The Trembling Hour, directed by George Siegmann for Universal Films, starring Kenneth Harlan and Helen Jerome Eddy; parts of this film were shot in San Quentin State Prison in California
  • Victory, directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Lon Chaney, Seena Owen, Wallace Beery, Jack Holt

W

  • Weird Tales/ Unheimliche Geschichten/ Uncanny Tales (German) horror anthology written and directed by Richard Oswald, starring Conrad Veidt and Anita Berber; composed of 5 weird stories adapted from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and others
  • August 22 – Alma Beltran, Mexican-American actress (died 2007)
  • September 2 – Marge Champion, American dancer and actress (died 2020)
  • September 6 – John Mitchum, American actor (died 2001)
  • September 7 – Howard Morris, American actor, comedian and director (died 2005)
  • September 9 – Jacques Marin, French actor (died 2001)
  • September 17 – Helmut Ashley, Austrian cinematographer and director (died 2021)
  • September 18 – Diana Lewis, American actress (died 1997)
  • September 21 – Nigel Stock, British actor (died 1986)
  • September 24 – Rick Vallin, Russian-born actor (died 1977)
  • October 5 – Donald Pleasence, British actor (died 1995)
  • October 8 – Gabriel Dell, American actor (died 1988)
  • October 18 – Orlando Drummond, Brazilian actor, voice artist and comedian (died 2021)
  • October 20 – Lia Origoni, Italian actress and singer (died 2022)
  • October 25 – Rico Alaniz, Mexican-American actor (died 2015)
  • October 28 – Ezz El-Dine Zulficar, Egyptian director and producer (died 1963)
  • November 2 – Warren Stevens, American actor (died 2012)
  • November 3 – Bert Freed, American actor (died 1994)
  • November 4
  • Shirley Mitchell, American actress (died 2013)
  • Martin Balsam, American actor (died 1996)
  • November 7 – Aline Towne, American actress (died 1996)
  • November 13 – Mary Beth Hughes, American actress (died 1995)
  • November 15 – Nova Pilbeam, British actress (died 2015)
  • November 19
  • Lynn Merrick, American actress (died 2007)
  • Alan Young, British actor (died 2016)
  • November 20 – Phyllis Thaxter, American actress (died 2012)
  • November 21 – Steve Brodie, American actor (died 1992)
  • November 24 – David Kossoff, British actor (died 2005)
  • December 5 – Guido Gorgatti, Italian-born Argentine actor (died 2023)
  • December 7 – Lis Løwert, Danish actress (died 2009)
  • December 11 – Marie Windsor, American actress (died 2000)
  • December 12 – Adriana Benetti, Italian actress (died 2016)
  • December 18 – Lynn Bari, American actress (died 1989)
  • December 21
  • Ove Sprogøe, Danish actor (died 2004)
  • Doug Young, American voice actor (died 2018)

Deaths

  • January 14 – Shelley Hull, 34, American stage & film actor, husband of Josephine Hull, brother of Henry Hull
  • January 31 – Nat Goodwin, 59, veteran stage star & silent film actor
  • February 3 – Mary Moore, 29, Irish actress, sister of Joe, Matt, Owen and Tom Moore, A Million a Minute
  • February 17 – Vera Kholodnaya, 25, Russian silent film actress, A Corpse Living, The Woman Who Invented Love, Her Sister's Rival, Song of Triumphant Love
  • April 9 – Sidney Drew, 55, American stage & film actor A Florida Enchantment
  • May 3 – Daniel Gilfether, 70, American actor of stage & screen
  • May 21 – Lamar Johnstone, 34, American silent film actor
  • August 27 – Clifford Bruce, 34, American silent film actor
  • November 24 – William Stowell, 34, American silent film star

Film debuts

  • Ernie Adams – A Regular Girl
  • Vilma Bánky – Im letzten Augenblick
  • Renée Björling – The Downy Girl
  • Jeanne Carpenter – Daddy-Long-Legs
  • Ronald Colman – The Toilers
  • Bebe Daniels – Male and Female
  • Miss DuPont – Lombardi, Ltd.
  • Ruth Dwyer – The Lurking Peril
  • Mary Forbes – Women Who Win
  • Gladys George – Red Hot Dollars
  • Ella Gombaszögi – Átok Vára
  • Sascha Gura – The Dance of Death
  • Boris Karloff – The Lightning Raider
  • Roscoe Karns – Poor Relations
  • Fritz Lang (director) – Halbblut
  • Laura La Plante – The Great Gamble
  • Helen Lowell – The Virtuous Model
  • Sybill Morel – Opium
  • Jack Perrin – Toton
  • Lydia Potechina – Anita Jo
  • Annie Rosar – Der Mord an der Bajadere
  • Christian Rub – The Belle of New York
  • Estelle Taylor – A Broadway Saint
  • Guinn "Big Boy" Williams – Almost a Husband
  • Claire Windsor – The Pest
  • Carl-Gunnar Wingård – The Downy Girl
  • Anna May Wong – The Red Lantern

See also

  • List of American films of 1919

References

  • List of 1919 films at IMDb
  • List of 1919 deaths at IMDb
  • List of 1919 births at IMDb