The Red Rooster Scare

Making Cinema American, 1900-1910

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by Richard Abel

University of California Press

Due/Published March 1999, 320 pages, paper

ISBN 0520214781

Only once in cinema history have imported films dominated the American market: during the nickelodeon era in the early years of the twentieth century, when the Pathé company's "Red Rooster" films could be found "everywhere." Abel demonstrates how crucial French films were in making the practice of going to the movies popular in the United States, first in vaudeville houses and then in nickelodeons.

Abel then exposes the consequences of that popularity. He shows how, in the midst of fears about mass immigration and concern that women and children (many of them immigrants) were the principal audience for moving pictures, the nickelodeon became a contested site of Americanization. Pathé's Red Rooster films came to be defined as dangerously foreign and alien and even feminine (especially in relation to "American subjects" like westerns). Their impact was thwarted, and they were nearly excluded from the market, all in order to ensure that the American cinema would be truly American.

"This outstanding work offers a new description of the evolution of American cinema in the nickelodeon period. . . . With his usual groundbreaking research, Abel demonstrates the key role PathŽ films played in this transformation. . . . Although clearly of crucial importance to film studies and film history, this treatment of the issues of the rise of nationalism within the cinema should make the work of great interest to historians dealing with modern nationalism and its relation to mass media."--Tom Gunning, author of D. W. Griffith and the Origins of Narrative Film

Review

There have been several scares in American history associated with the color red, the one associated with a rooster, however, has received very little attention. The Red Rooster, Abel refers to in this engrossing film history, is the logo of the French film company Pathe, which helped to legitimize movies in America but were later viewed as a threat to the purity of American culture. Abel’s work emerges not only as a lively retelling of the early years of cinema but also a sophisticated and original analysis of nationalism, specifically the process of Americanization in relation to modernity and film. Abel explains the significance of the "red rooster scare," "In the United States, in other words, where the institutionalization of the cinema constituted a defining moment of modernity, the debate over Americanization acted as a significant framing, even determining, discourse." Abel’s excellent work is distinguished by his superb archival work as his study is colorfully punctuated with reviews and news items from the time. Also included are "entr’actes" in which Abel presents issues and questions relatively neglected in the history of early cinema, including trademarks, the trade press, and sound. Abel likens his style to that of a wonder cabinet and his creative and vibrant history lives up to his own billing. In a review of the book Tom Gunning writes, "This outstanding work offers a new description of the evolution of American cinema in the nickelodeon period...With his usual groundbreaking research, Abel demonstrates the key role Pathé films played in this transformation...Although clearly of crucial importance to film studies and film history, this treatment of this issues of the rise of nationalism within the cinema should make the work of great interest to historians dealing with modern nationalism and its relation to mass media."