# 1915 in film

The year 1915 in film involved some significant events.

## Events

* February 1: Fox Film Corporation founded
* February 8: D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation premieres at Clune's Auditorium Los Angeles and breaks both box office and film length records (running at a total length of over three hours).
* February: Metro Pictures, a forerunner of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is founded
* February 22: The Allan Dwan directed film David Harum is released. The film is the first in long line of a successful romantic onscreen pairings of actors May Allison and Harold Lockwood.
* March 15: Universal Studios Hollywood opens (1964).
* June 18: The Motion Picture Directors Association (MPDA) is formed by twenty-six film directors in Los Angeles, California.
* July: Triangle Film Corporation is founded in Culver City, California and attracts filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett
* September 11: A nitrate fire at Famous Players in New York destroys several completed but unreleased silent films which are later remade. Films lost include Mary Pickford's Esmerelda and The Foundling and John Barrymore's The Red Widow.
* October 1: A US court rules in United States v. Motion Picture Patents Co. that the Motion Picture Patents Company trust is monopolistic and orders it to be dissolved.
* November 18: Release of Inspiration, the first mainstream movie in which a leading actress (Audrey Munson) appears nude.
* December 13: Sessue Hayakawa becomes the first Asian actor to become a star in the US after his performance in The Cheat.
* The Duplex Corporation creates a Split Duplex, an early widescreen film format where the film image is rotated 90 degrees and occupies half of a conventional frame.
* Max Fleischer invents the rotoscoping animation process in the US.
* The Kinematograph Renters’ Society of Great Britain and Ireland is formed to represent film distribution companies

## Top-grossing films (U.S.)

The top ten 1915 released films by box office gross in North America are as follows:
Highest-grossing films of 1915 :
| Rank | Title | Studio | Gross |
| 1 | The Birth of a Nation | Epoch | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | Carmen | Paramount | $147,600 |
| 3 | The Cheat | Paramount | $137,364 |
| 4 | Temptation | Paramount | $102,437 |
| 5 | The Girl of the Golden West | Paramount | $102,224 |
| 6 | The Warrens of Virginia | Paramount | $85,770 |
| 7 | The Golden Chance | Paramount | $83,504 |
| 8 | Chimmie Fadden | Paramount | $78,944 |
| 9 | Chimmie Fadden Out West | Paramount | $72,036 |
| 10 | The Arab | Paramount | $68,526 |

## Notable films released in 1915

United States unless stated

### A

* Adachihara Ubagaike Yurei (Japanese), starring Matsunosuke Onoe, produced in Japan by Nikkatsu
* Agony of Fear, directed by Giles Warren
* Alice in Wonderland by W.W. Young
* Are You a Mason?, directed by Thomas N. Heffron, starring John Barrymore
* The Arrow Maiden, directed by Francis Powers
* Assunta Spina, starring Francesca Bertini – (Italy)
* The Avenging Hand (British) aka The Wraith of the Tomb, directed by Charles Calvert, written by William J. Elliott

### B

* Barnaby Rudge, directed by Thomas Bentley (Britain)
* The Birth of a Nation, directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Lillian Gish
* The Blood Seedling, produced by William Selig, directed by (and starring) Tom Santschi
* The Bribe, short film directed by Lucius Henderson for Universal, starring Charles Ogle

### C

* Call From the Dead, early zombie film directed by Clem Easton for Thanhouser Films
* The Caprices of Kitty, directed by Phillips Smalley, starring Elsie Janis
* Carmen, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Geraldine Farrar
* Carmen, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Theda Bara
* The Case of Becky, directed by Frank Reicher, starring Blanche Sweet
* The Castle of Thornfield (Italian) adapted from the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
* The Champion, starring Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance
* The Cheat, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Fannie Ward and Sessue Hayakawa
* The Cheval Mystery, directed by (and starring) Harry Myers for Victor Films
* The Chronicles of Bloom Center, short comedy directed by Marshall Neilan
* The Circular Staircase, directed by Edward J. LeSaint for Selig Films, based on the novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart, starring Eugenie Besserer and Stella Razeto
* The Crazy Clock Maker, comedy starring Oliver Hardy
* A Cry in the Night (British) a science fiction film about a winged gorilla created by a mad scientist, directed by Ernest G. Batley

### D

* Destiny's Skein, directed and scripted by George Terwilliger, about a murderer with a split personality
* The Devil (aka Satan's Pawn), based on the play by Ferenc Molnar, this film was produced and co-directed by Thomas H. Ince, starring Arthur Maude and Bessie Barriscale
* The Devil to Pay (British) short film directed by Edwin J. Collins, with a story similar to Faust
* The Devil's Profession (British) written and directed by F.C.S. Tudor, foreshadowing Val Lewton's Bedlam (1946)
* Double Trouble, starring Douglas Fairbanks
* A Drama of the Castle, or Do the Dead Return? (French) 6-minute film written and directed by Abel Gance
* The Dream Dance, directed by Leon D. Kent for Lubin Films, starring Lee Shumway
* The Duel in the Dark, starring Arthur Bauer and Carey L. Hastings, features an evil hypnotist
* The Dust of Egypt, mummy film directed by George D. Baker, starring Antonio Moreno and Edith Storey

### E

* The Eleventh Dimension, science fiction film produced and written by Raymond L. Schrock, directed by Clem Easton
* Enoch Arden, starring Lillian Gish

### F

* Fatty's Spooning Days, starring Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, and The Keystone Cops
* Faust, directed by Edward Sloman who also stars in the film
* Filibus – (Italy)
* A Fool There Was, starring Theda Bara
* Four Feathers
* The Fox Woman, directed by Lloyd Ingraham, starring Seena Owen and Elmer Clifton

### G

* A Gentleman of Leisure, directed by George Melford, starring Wallace Eddinger
* The Ghost Fakirs, a "Heinie and Louie" comedy short involving a haunted house
* The Ghost of Twisted Oaks, voodoo film directed by Sidney Olcott for Lubin Films, starring Olcott's wife Valentine Grant
* The Golden Chance, directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Cleo Ridgely and Wallace Reid
* The Golem, aka Der Golem und Wie auf de Welt Kam (German/ Deutsche-Bioscop), directed by Paul Wegener and Henrik Galeen, starring Paul Wegener and Lyda Salmonova (Germany)
* The Gray Horror, a haunted house film directed by Joseph W. Smiley, who also starred in it
* The Greater Will, directed by Harley Knowles, starring Montagu Love, Cyril Maude and Lois Meredith

### H

* The Hand of the Skeleton, French special effects film directed by Danish director George Schneevoight
* The Haunting of Silas P. Gould (British) directed by Elwin Neame, starring (his wife) Ivy Close
* Haunting Winds, directed by Carl M. Leviness for Universal, starring Frank MacQuarrie and Sydney Ayres
* His Egyptian Affinity, reincarnated mummy film directed by Al Christie for Nestor Films, starring Victoria Ford
* His Phantom Sweetheart, short horror/comedy produced and directed by Ralph W. Ince; the writer Earle Williams was also the star
* Horrible Hyde, a 5-minute comedy version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", directed by and starring Howell Hansel, filmed in Florida
* The Hound of the Baskervilles Parts 3 and 4 (German film) directed by Richard Oswald, starring Alwin Neuss as Sherlock Holmes; Part 3 was called "The Uncanny Room" and Part 4 was "Legend of the Hound"(see 1914 for first two parts)
* The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Dark Castle (German) Vitascope made their own conclusion to their earlier 1914 two-parter with this entry, directed by Willy Zeyn, starring Eugen Burg as Sherlock Holmes
* The House of a Thousand Candles, haunted house film based on the novel by Meredith Nicholson, directed by Thomas N. Heffron, starring Harry Mestayer and Edgar Nelson
* The House With Nobody In It, a haunted house film based on the poem by Joyce Kilmer as well as a story by Clarence J. Harris; directed by Richard Garrick

### I

* The Immigrant
* The Inner Brute, starring Warren Waite, Warda Howard and John Lorenz
* An Innocent Sinner, directed by Kenean Buel, starring Katherine LaSalle and Guy Coombs
* Inspiration
* The Italian

### J

* Jane Eyre, based on the novel by Charlotte Bronte, directed by Travers Vale, starring Franklyn Ritchie, Louise Vale and Gretchen Hartman
* The Japanese Mask, an obscure French/U.S. co-production made by Pathe/Aetna Films

### L

* The Lamb, starring Douglas Fairbanks
* Legend of the Lone Tree, a "weird western" film directed by Ulysses Davis for Vitagraph, starring Myrtle Gnzalez and Alfred Vosburgh
* Life Without Soul, first full-length adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein (running 70 minutes); directed by Joseph W. Smiley, starring William A. Cohill as the scientist; the film was somewhat re-edited and re-released in 1916 also
* The Live Mummy (British) a 13-minute comedy short
* London's Yellow Peril (British) directed by Maurice Elvey, written by Eliot Stannard; Elvey later went on to make a series of silent Fu Manchu movies
* Lord John in New York, first in a Universal Pictures series of five silent detective films, starring William Garwood as Lord John, directed by Edward LeSaint

### M

* Madame Butterfly, directed by Sidney Olcott, starring Mary Pickford
* The Magic Skin, directed by Richard Ridgely for Thomas Edison's film company; this was the third film adaptation of Honore de Balzac's novel Le Peau de Chagrin
* The Man Who Couldn't Beat God, directed by Maurice Costello and Robert Gaillard, both of whom starred also
* The Man Who Stayed at Home – (GB)
* Martyrs of the Alamo
* The Mesmerist (British) directed by Percy Nash, starring Douglas Payne
* Miss Jekyll and Madame Hyde, directed by Charles L. Gaskill and starring Helen Gardner; strangely this was more of an adaptation of Faust than the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
* The Missing Mummy, silent comedy directed by William Beaudine, starring Bud Duncan and Charles Inslee
* The Monkey's Paw (British) this first film adaptation of the 1902 novel seems to have been based more on the 1907 play instead of the novel; directed by Sidney Northcote, starring John Lawson (who also starred in the play)
* The Moonstone, directed by Frank Hall Crane, starring Eugene O'Brien and Elaine Hammerstein, based on the 1868 novel by Wilkie Collins; this was the best known of the silent film versions
* Mortmain, directed by Theodore Marston for Vitagraph, starring Robert Edeson; this surgical horror film's plot eerily foreshadowed that of the later Conrad Veidt film The Hands of Orlac (1924).

### P

* Peer Gynt, directed by Raoul Walsh and Oscar Apfel
* The Picture of Dorian Gray (Russian) - third film adaptation of the 1890 Oscar Wilde novel, wherein Dorian Gray is oddly played by a female actress (Varvara Yanova); directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold and Mikhail Doronin (both of whom also co-starred in the film)
* The Picture of Dorian Gray, directed by Eugene Moore for Thanhouser Films (U.S.), starring Harris Gordon (as Dorian) and Helen Fulton; this was the fourth film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde novel
* The Portrait (Russian) 8-minute fantasy film written and directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz, who later went on to direct The Viy that same year
* The Prisoner of Zenda, starring Henry Ainley and Gerald Ames (GB)

### R

* The Raven, directed by Charles Brabin, starring Henry B. Walthall and Wanda Howard, this was the third biopic to cover the life story of Edgar Allan Poe
* Regeneration, directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Rockliffe Fellowes and Anna Q. Nilsson
* The Return of Maurice Donnelly, directed by William Humphrey, starring Leo Delaney and Anders Randolph, conceived as a social fable against capital punishment
* The Return of Richard Neal, mesmerism film directed by Edward T. Lowe Jr., starring Francis X. Bushman, Neil Craig and Ernest Maupin

### S

* Sagebrush Tom, starring Tom Mix
* Satanic Rhapsody (Italian) directed by Nino Oxilia (who died in WWI), starring Lyda Borelli and Ugo Bazzini as Mephistopheles; film featured some tinted and hand-stenciled color scenes
* The Scorpion's Sting (British) aka The Devil's Bondman, directed by Percy Nash, starring George Bellamy
* The Secret Room, directed by Tom Moore for Kalem Films (he also starred in the film)
* The Senator, directed by Joseph A. Golden
* Shunen no hebi (translation: The Vengeful Snake) Japanese film directed by Uichiro Tamura
* The Silent Command, directed by Robert Z. Leonard for Universal, starring Leonard and Ella Hall
* The Soul of Broadway
* The Soul of Phyra, directed by Charles Swickard, starring Enid Markey
* The Spectre of the Vault (Italian) haunted tomb film directed by Ubaldo Maria Del Colle
* The Strange Unknown, directed by Wilbe Melville, starring Helen Eddy and Dorothy Barrett; plot was influenced by Jane Eyre and The Woman in White

### T

* The Three Wishes, (French) obscure 8-minute fantasy film similar to The Monkey's Paw
* Togakushi-yama no kijo (Japanese) short ghost film directed by Shozo Makino for Nikkatsu Films, starring Matsunosuke Onoe
* The Tramp, directed by and starring Charles Chaplin
* Le traquenard, starring Irène Bordoni – (France)
* Trilby, directed by Maurice Tourneur, starring Clara Kimball Young as Trilby and Wilton Lackaye as Svengali; the film was slightly edited and re-released in 1917 and again in 1920
* The Two Orphans, starring Theda Bara

### U

* The Unfaithful Wife, directed by J. Gordon Edwards, starring Genevieve Hamper and Warner Oland in one of his earliest roles

### V

* The Vivisectionist, directed by James W. Horne, starring Marin Sais and William H. West

### W

* The Warning (aka The Eternal Penalty), directed by Edmund Lawrence starring Henry Kolker; this moral diatribe against alcohol abuse involves a dream trip to Hell
* The Wheels of Justice, directed by Theodore Marston
* When the Spirits Moved, directed by Al Christie for Universal Pictures, starring Lee Moran and Eddie Lyons
* Which is Witch? (British) 6-minute short directed by Edwin J. Collins
* A Witch of Salem Town, directed by Lucius Henderson, starring Mary Fuller and Curtis Benton
* Work, directed by & starring Charles Chaplin
* The Wraith of Haddon Towers, directed by Arthur Maude, starring Constance Crawley and Arthur Maude

### Y

* Yurei Yashiki (Japanese) translation The Haunted House, directed by Kyomatsu Hosomaya for Nikksatsu

## Short film series

* Broncho Billy Anderson (1910–1916)
* Harold Lloyd (1913–1921)
* Charlie Chaplin (1914–1923)

## Births

* January 1 – Maxine Doyle, actress (died 1973)
* January 9
** Anita Louise, actress (died 1970)
** Fernando Lamas, actor (died 1982)
* January 11 – Veda Ann Borg, actress (died 1973)
* January 18 – Catherine Craig, actress (died 2004)
* January 26 – William Hopper, actor; son of Hedda Hopper (died 1970)
* January 29 – Bill Peet, Disney author and illustrator (died 2002)
* January 30 – Dorothy Dell, actress (died 1934)
* February 7 – Eddie Bracken, actor (died 2002)
* February 12 – Lorne Greene, actor (died 1987)
* February 18 – Phyllis Calvert, actress (died 2002)
* February 20 – Philip Friend, actor (died 1987)
* February 21 – Ann Sheridan, actress (died 1967)
* February 23 – Jon Hall, actor (died 1979)
* February 28 – Zero Mostel, actor (died 1977)
* March 2 – Lona Andre, actress (died 1992)
* March 17 – Henry Bumstead, art director (died 2006)
* March 19 – Patricia Morison, actress (died 2018)
* April 10 – Harry Morgan, American actor (died 2011)
* April 21 – Anthony Quinn, actor (died 2001)
* May 5
** Alice Faye, actress, (died 1998)
** Ben Wright (English actor), (died 1989)
* May 6 – Orson Welles, actor, director (died 1985)
* May 8 – John Archer, American actor (died 1999)
* May 15 – Bill Williams, actor, (died 1992)
* May 19 – Renée Asherson, actress, (died 2014)
* May 31 – Barbara Pepper, actress, (died 1969)
* June 1 - John Randolph (actor), American actor (died 2004)
* June 12 – Priscilla Lane, singer, actress (died 1995)
* June 16 - Anthony Sharp, English actor (died 1984)
* June 20 - Terence Young (director), Irish director and screenwriter (died 1994)
* July 18 – Phyllis Brooks, American actress, model (died 1995)
* August 2 – Gary Merrill, actor (died 1990)
* August 11 – Jean Parker, American actress (died 2005)
* August 15 – Signe Hasso, Swedish actress (died 2002)
* August 29 – Ingrid Bergman, Swedish-born actress (died 1982)
* September 5 – Jack Buetel, actor (died 1989)
* September 10 – Edmond O'Brien, actor (died 1985)
* September 14 – Douglas Kennedy, actor (died 1973)
* September 25 – Betty Box, English producer (died 1999)
* September 29
** Brenda Marshall, American actress (died 1992)
** Anne Nagel, American actress (died 1966)
* October 29 – Evi Rauer, Estonian actress (died 2004)
* October 31 - Lennard Pearce, British actor (died 1984)
* December 7 – Eli Wallach, American actor (died 2014)
* December 12 – Frank Sinatra, American singer, actor (died 1998)
* December 13 – Curd Jürgens, German actor (died 1982)
* December 14 – Dan Dailey, American actor (died 1978)
* December 17 – Joan Woodbury, American actress (died 1989)
* December 22 – Barbara Billingsley, American actress (died 2010)
* December 29 – Jo Van Fleet, American actress (died 1996)

## Deaths

* January 10 – Marshall Pinckney Wilder, 55, American diminutive stage and screen actor
* April 26 – John Bunny, 51, American silent film comedian, A Strand of Blond Hair, Bunny's Little Brother, Bunny Backslides
* June 5 – John C. Rice, 58, stage and film actor, The Kiss
* June 16 – Elmer Booth, 32, American silent screen actor, brother of film editor Margaret Booth, The Musketeers of Pig Alley, The Narrow Road, An Unseen Enemy
* October 31 – Blanche Walsh, 42, American stage actress appeared in Zukor's 3 reel feature "Resurrection" 1912

## Film debuts

* Mary Boland – The Edge of the Abyss
* Alice Brady – The Boss
* Donald Brian – The Voice in the Fog
* Marie Cahill – Judy Forgot
* Yakima Canutt – Foreman of Bar Z Ranch (uncredited)
* Laura Hope Crews – The Fighting Hope
* Reginald Denny – Niobe
* Elliott Dexter – Heléne of the North
* Marie Doro – The Morals of Marcus
* Douglas Fairbanks – The Lamb
* Geraldine Farrar – Carmen
* W. C. Fields – Pool Sharks
* Pauline Frederick – The Eternal City
* John Gilbert – Aloha Oe (uncredited)
* Charlotte Greenwood – Jane
* Otto Kruger – A Mother's Confession
* Edmund Lowe – The Wild Olive
* Victor Moore – Snobs
* Edna Purviance – A Night Out (short) (uncredited)
* Esther Ralston – The Deep Purple (uncredited)
* Valeska Suratt – The Soul of Broadway
* Erich Von Stroheim – actor, assistant director, The Birth of a Nation (uncredited); costume designer, wardrobe assistant, Ghosts
* Charlotte Walker – Kindling
* Fannie Ward – The Marriage of Kitty