The Delhi Durbar Comes to Moscow: Charles Urban and Kinemacolor in Russia, 1910–1916

Abstract

This article examines the exhibition and reception of Kinemacolor in Russia from 1910 to 1916. Kinemacolor was a British method of filming and projecting in natural color invented by George Albert Smith and financed by Charles Urban, a US-born entrepreneur; film historians generally regard it as the most commercially viable color process before the outbreak of war in 1914. The article investigates Urban's interest in Russia as a potential market for Kinemacolor and as a source of interesting filmic material. In addition to identifying the extent of Kinemacolor's exhibition and distribution in Russia between 1910 and 1916, it also examines the Russian subjects filmed by Urban's companies in black and white and color, and identifies two occasions (1909 and 1913) on which Tsar Nikolai II and Tsarina Aleksandra Fedorovna were filmed in Kinemacolor. The article argues that the reception of Kinemacolor was widespread and diverse, and included members of the Russian imperial family and the Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin. It references the specialist film-trade press in Britain, Russia, Europe, and North America; theater listings in Britain and Russia; and contemporary reports on Kinemacolor exhibitions in the British and Russian media. The article also draws upon the extensive archive of Urban's private papers, which is currently preserved in Bradford's National Science and Media Museum.