Jules Greenbaum (5 January 1867 – 1 November 1924) was a German pioneering film producer. He founded the production companies Deutsche Bioscope, Deutsche Vitascope and Greenbaum-Film and was a dominant figure in German cinema in the years before the First World War. He is also known for his early experiments with sound films around twenty years before the success of The Jazz Singer made them a more established feature of cinema.
Early career and Deutsche Bioscope
Greenbaum was born in Berlin in 1867 as Julius Grünbaum. He married Emma Karstein in c1887 and moved to Chicago in the United States, where his first son Georg was born 1 November 1889. He originally worked in the textile industry, but on his return to Berlin in 1895 aged around 42 Greenbaum moved into the newly established film business and founded Deutsche Bioscope () in 1899. This name has various contemporary spellings, including Bioscope, Bioskope and Bioskop. Greenbaum acquired a camera in Amsterdam, and a cameraman, Georg Furkel. Furkel worked as his technical director until 1912, along with another Dutch cameraman, Martin Knoop.
Deutsche Bioscope's first independent film was the 60-metre 1899 newsreel picture Spring Parade featuring German Kaiser Wilhelm II. His firm released more newsreels in 1901/02, importing American and French features and manufacturing cinema equipment.
Deutsche Bioscope GmbH, Berlin, was incorporated on 18 June 1902 with a capital of 20,000 marks The main offices were at 131d Friedrichstraße, where the firm supplied equipment (including the American Biograph camera), and an 8-hour guaranteed film copying service. Bioscope's cameramen were sent to Vienna, Munich, Leipzig, Halle, Nuremberg, Kiel, Hamburg, Poznan, Lviv and Riga in search of vaudeville/variety acts to film.
Studios at 123 Chausseestraße
Bioscope built new offices in 1906 at 123 Chausseestraße, in the east of Berlin; a glasshouse studio was erected in the large courtyard at the rear of the Jugendstil building, where Continental-Kunstfilm would later film In Nacht und Eis in 1912.
Vitascope-Theater
Greenbaum began acquiring cinemas, opening a Vitascope cinema at 10 Friedrichstraße, and in March 1907 he registered Vitascope Theater GmbH as a limited company. Its partners were Louis Rosenfeld and Otto Heinemann. This established a vertically integrated network with Vitascope handling the distribution for Bioscope films.
Sale of Deutsche Bioscope
As his business increased, Greenbaum made a deal with the chemist Carl Moritz Schleussner of the photochemicals firm Schleussner AG in Frankfurt/Main. Carl Schleussner had been involved since 1896 in producing negative film stock for Röntgen photography soon after its discovery. In February 1908 Carl Schleussner bought Deutsche Bioscop as a manufacturing, copying and sales operation, for a 2/3 share of 140,000 marks, with 1/3 provided by Greenbaum and his brother Max. Deutsche Bioskop was re-registered on 27 February 1908, and Schleussner bought out the Greenbaums' remaining share in 1909.
Under its new owner, Deutsche Bioskop AG moved to Babelsberg Studio in November 1911, which is well-known as the oldest large-scale film studio in the world and still today producing well-known blockbusters. Deutsche Bioskop AG later merged with Erich Pommer's Decla-Film in 1920 to create Decla-Bioskop AG.
Bioscope-Theater
Greenbaum registered a new cinema company, Bioskope-Theater GmbH, on 24 February 1908. The directors were Jules' brother, Max Greenbaum (an experienced banker), and Erich Zeiske. In October 1908, Greenbaum opened the Vitascope cinema, a showpiece 500-seat movie theatre equipped to show sound films on Hermannplatz, 1–2 Berliner Straße. When Greenbaum left Deutsche Bioscop on 8 September 1909, the Bioskope-Theater became Deutsche Vitaskope Gmbh, releasing films under the 'Deutsche Vitascope' name.