Reliance Film Company

Reliance Film Company was founded in 1910 by Adam Kessel Jr. and Charles O. Baumann in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York City.^[1][2] It was a subsidiary of the New York Motion Picture Company. They were also the founders of the Bison Film Company on the West Coast.^[2]

In 1911, Baumann stepped down from leadership at the company in order to focus more time at the Bison Film Company; control and management was succeeded by J. V. Ritchey and J. C. Graham.^[3] From 1910 until 1912, Kessel and Baumann were joined at the company by Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber, both were actors and filmmakers.^[2][4]

The studio took over the offices of the Sanford White studio in Manhattan. It also operated a 10,000 sq ft factory on Coney Island.^[5] It published The Film, a weekly.^[6] Actor Max Davidson portrayed the character 'Izzy' in a series of Reliance films shorts in 1914.^[7]

• A Brass Button (1911)
• Her Son (1911)
• Jealousy (1912 film)^[8]
• Votes for Women (film) (1912), about women's suffrage produced in partnership with the National American Woman Suffrage Association
• The Rose Bush of Memories (1914)
• The Huron Converts (1915) with Joseph Henabery
• Man (1913 film), a Reliance film directed by Oscar Apfel starring James Ashley, Gertrude Robinson
• Before the White Man Came
• At Cripple Creek
• The Victoria Cross (1912 film) (The Charge of the Light Brigade), directed by Hal Reid
• A Man's Duty^[9]
• The Secret Service Man
• Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight (1912)
• His Mother's Son (1913)
• Kaintuck (1912), a Kaintuck is a native of Kentucky
• Virginius (film) (1912), based on the play by James Sheridan Knowles
• The Second Mrs. Roebuck (1914)
• The Great Leap; Until Death Do Us Part (1914)
• The Three Brothers (1915 film) (1915)
• Station Content (1915 film) (1915)
• The Craven (1915)
• Sympathy Sal (1915)
• The Outlaw's Revenge (1915)
• Macbeth^[10]
• Rosanna's Dream
• Solomon's Son
• When Men Love
• Invasion of the Wilderness
• The Girl Who Waited
• The Reckoning