Pathé
Pathé SAS is a French major film production and distribution company, owning a number of cinema chains through its subsidiary Pathé Cinémas and television networks across Europe. Pathé is the second-oldest operating film company, behind Gaumont, which was established in 1895.
It is the name of a network of French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest film equipment and production company, as well as a major producer of phonograph records. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in cinemas before a feature film.
Since Gaumont studio sold its cinemas to Pathé in 2017, Pathé Cinéma has become the oldest cinema circuit in the worldand is currently the biggest circuit in France and the Netherlands.
Pathé is also still one of the biggest production companies in France and Europe today, regularly producing films with budgets around $50 million. For example, in 2024, the historic group has released the successful The Count of Monte Cristo.
History
The company was founded as Société Pathé Frères in Paris, France on 28 September 1896, by the four brothers Charles, Émile, Théophile and Jacques Pathé. During the first part of the 20th century, Pathé became the largest film equipment and production company in the world, as well as a major producer of phonograph records.At its peak, Charles Pathé's company had almost 50% of the world film market, including in the United States.
Pathé Records
The driving force behind the film operation and phonograph business was Charles Pathé, who had helped open a phonograph shop in 1894 and established a phonograph factory at Chatou on the western outskirts of Paris. The Pathé brothers began selling Edison and Columbia phonographs and accompanying cylinder records and later, the brothers designed and sold their own phonographs that incorporated elements of other brands. Soon after, they also started marketing pre-recorded cylinder records. By 1896 the Pathé brothers had offices and recording studios not only in Paris, but also in London, Milan, and St. Petersburg. Pathé manufactured cylinder records until approximately 1914. In 1905, the Pathé brothers entered the growing field of disc records.In France, Pathé became the largest and most successful distributor of cylinder records and phonographs. These, however, failed to make headway in foreign markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States where other brands were already in widespread use.
In December 1928, the French and British Pathé phonograph assets were sold to the British Columbia Graphophone Company. In July 1929, the assets of the American Pathé record company were merged into the newly formed American Record Corporation.
The Pathé and Pathé-Marconi labels and catalogue still survive, first as imprints of EMI and now currently EMI's successor Parlophone Records. In 1967 EMI Italiana took control of the entire catalog. In turn, the Universal Music Group acquired EMI Italiana in 2013.
Pathé films
As the phonograph business became successful, Pathé saw the opportunities offered by new means of entertainment and in particular by the fledgling motion picture industry. Having decided to expand the record business to include film equipment, the company expanded dramatically. To finance its growth, the company took the name Compagnie Générale des Établissements Pathé Frères Phonographes & Cinématographes in 1897, and its shares were listed on the Paris Stock Exchange. In 1896, Mitchell Mark of Buffalo, New York, became the first American to import Pathé films to the United States, where they were shown in the Vitascope Theater.In 1901, Ferdinand Zecca and Charles Pathé decided to capitalize on the public's morbid penchant for gory crime stories by creating Histoire d'un crime, which is considered the first realistic drama in the history of cinema. Histoire d'un crime e also invented the first flashback in the cinema. The final scene, which shows a beheading, caused a scandal. The film was a notable success, launching a wave of similar films.
In 1906, Charles Pathé opened one of the first permanent movie theater with the Omnia-Pathé, which also became the oldest cinema of the Pathé group. By the following year, more than 300 Pathé theaters already existed, and the network was rapidly expanding in the rest of the world. As with production and distribution, the French company established itself as the world leader in movie theaters for several years. Today, Pathé Cinemas remains the leading theater operator in France and the Netherlands, and the oldest still in operation worldwide.
In 1907, Pathé acquired the Lumière brothers' patents and then set about to design an improved studio camera and to make their own film stock. Their technologically advanced equipment, new processing facilities built at Vincennes, and aggressive merchandising combined with efficient distribution systems allowed them to capture a huge share of the international market. They first expanded to London in 1902 where they set up production facilities and a chain of cinemas.
By 1909, Pathé had built more than 200 cinemas in France and Belgium and by the following year they had facilities in Madrid, Moscow, Rome and New York City plus Australia and Japan. Slightly later, they opened a film exchange in Buffalo, New York. Through its American subsidiary, it was part of the MPPC cartel of production in the United States. It participated in the Paris Film Congress in February 1909 as part of a plan to create a similar European organisation. The company withdrew from the project in a second meeting in April which fatally undermined the proposal. In 1906, Pathé Frères had pioneered the luxury cinema with the opening of the Omnia Cinéma-Pathé in Paris.
Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Pathé dominated Europe's market in motion picture cameras and projectors. It has been estimated that at one time, 60 percent of all films were shot with Pathé equipment. In 1908, Pathé distributed Excursion to the Moon by Segundo de Chomón, an imitation of Georges Méliès's A Trip to the Moon. Pathé and Méliès worked together in 1911. Méliès made a film Baron Munchausen's Dream, his first film to be distributed by Pathé. Pathé's relationship with Méliès soured, and after he went bankrupt in 1913, his last film was never released by Pathé.
After World War I, Charles Pathé started divesting himself from various film interests, believing that the French film industry would never recover after 1918. The company's subsequent decline relegated Pathé primarily as a distributor of short subjects and it became a minor player in the mainstream film industry.
In 1929, Charles Pathé retired from cinema and entrusted the management of the company to Bernard Natan. Bernard Natan partially revived Pathé, which once again became the leading player in French cinema. He relaunched film production, notably with Les Misérables, and expanded the Pathé Cinema network in France, including the construction of the Pathé Bellecour in Lyon, which remains in operation under the Pathé group today.
Deported to Auschwitz during the Second World War as he was Jewish, Bernard Natan was murdered by the Nazi regime in 1942. Despite severe weakening, Pathé survived and gradually resumed its activities towards the end of the Second World War, most notably with the release of Children of Paradise.
In 2024, Pathé Films released The Count of Monte Cristo. The film exceeded all expectations and quickly became the biggest success for a Pathé film since Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis. Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis remains the second highest-grossing French box office, ahead for example of Avatar.
Innovations
Worldwide, the company emphasised research, investing in such experiments the synchronisation of film and gramophone recordings. In 1908, Pathé invented the newsreel that was shown in theatres prior to the feature film. The news clips featured the Pathé logo of a crowing rooster at the beginning of each reel. In 1912, it introduced 28 mm non-flammable film and equipment under the brand name Pathescope. Pathé News produced cinema newsreels from 1910, up until the 1970s when production ceased as a result of mass television ownership.In 1907, the Pathé group decided to abandon the outright sale of film prints and instead establish a novel rental system for cinema operators. This measure, motivated by the market's profitability crisis and the saturation caused by the resale of worn-out prints, marked a decisive break in the film industry: for the first time, a producer-distributor retained ownership of the prints and rented them to cinemas, ensuring the quality of screenings and regular revenue. This innovation, initiated by Charles Pathé, laid the foundations for the modern film distribution model, still based today on the rental of films.
In the United States, beginning in 1914, the company built film production studios in Fort Lee and Jersey City, New Jersey, where their building still stands. The Heights, Jersey City produced the extremely successful serialised episodes called The Perils of Pauline. By 1918 Pathé had grown to the point where it was necessary to separate operations into two distinct divisions. With Emile Pathé as chief executive, Pathé Records dealt exclusively with phonographs and recordings. Brother Charles managed Pathé-Cinéma, which was responsible for film production, distribution, and exhibition.
In 1922 they introduced the Pathé Baby home film system using a new 9.5 mm film stock, which became popular during the next few decades. In 1921, Pathé sold off its United States motion picture production arm. It was renamed "Pathé Exchange" and later merged into RKO Pictures, disappearing as an independent brand in 1931. Pathé sold its British film studios to Eastman Kodak in 1927, while maintaining the theatre and distribution arm.