Thanhouser Company

Thanhouser Company

Logo of the Thanhouser Company
Founded	1909, New Rochelle, New York
Founder	Edwin Thanhouser, Gertrude Thanhouser, Lloyd Lonergan
Defunct	1920
Products	Film
Website	thanhouser.org

The Thanhouser Company (later the Thanhouser Film Corporation) was one of the first motion picture studios, founded in 1909 by Edwin Thanhouser, his wife Gertrude and his brother-in-law Lloyd Lonergan. It operated in New York City until 1918, producing over a thousand films.

Edwin Thanhouser constructed a studio in New Rochelle, New York. The company thrived under his leadership and by the summer of 1910, it had established itself as the best of the independents in the industry. Frank E. Woods of the American Biograph Company would pen an editorial in The New York Dramatic Mirror as "The Spectator", praising the Thanhouser company to this effect.

It was sold to Mutual Film Corporation on April 15, 1912, for $250,000. Charles J. Hite took charge.

On January 13, 1913, a fire destroyed the main facility in New Rochelle; much equipment and many costumes and negatives of films in production were lost. However, subsidiary studios that had been set up were able to meet distributors' needs while it was being rebuilt.

After Hite's death in an automobile accident, the company continued for another three years. After a period of floundering under inexperienced leadership, Edwin Thanhouser was hired to take charge, but he could not recreate the success of his earlier years. The film industry had evolved and was more competitive by this time, and although films featuring star Florence La Badie were still successful, other ventures were not. La Badie left Thanhouser Corporation in 1917, only weeks before her own death on October 13, 1917, due to injuries sustained in an automobile accident in late August. In 1918, Thanhouser Corporation was liquidated.

The Thanhouser Company's first release was The Actor's Children on March 15, 1910. The plot focused on a family of theater actors who struggle to pay the rent. While the parents are out, their kids are left out on the street where they dance to the music of an organ grinder. They are later rescued by a theater manager and are reunited with their parents at the theater. The film's conclusion is an example of the deus ex machina dramatic technique, which Lonergan used to conclude many scenarios. Though it was the first release, it was not the first film to be produced, it was The Mad Hermit. Produced in the autumn of 1909, the film would not be released until August 1910. According to Lloyd Lonergan, the first script he wrote was for Aunt Nancy Telegraphs. The film was shot in December 1909 and it was never released.