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Culture and Recreation

Movies

What were newsreels?

Newsreels got their start in 1910 when the pioneer film newsreel Pathé Gazette was shown in Britain and the United States. French cinematographer Charles Pathé (1863–1957) and his brother Emil (1860–1937) were Paris agents for the Edison phonograph. They visited London to acquire filmmaking equipment and secured financial support in order to set up production units in Britain, the United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan. These short movies, covering current events, were predominately used during wartime and were shown in theaters before motion pictures were shown. Superseded by television newscasts, the last newsreels were screened in 1967.



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