Alice Guy-Blaché
Directing
Born July 1, 1873 · Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France
Alice Guy-Blaché (July 1, 1873 – March 24, 1968) is generally considered to be the world's first female director. French-born Alice Guy entered the film business as a secretary at Gaumont-Paris in 1896. The next year Gaumont changed from manufacturing cameras to producing movies, and Guy became one of its first film directors. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising the company's other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran the company's British and German offices. The pair soon went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 she set up her own production company in New York and built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, her company's fortunes declined and she eventually shut down the studio. Although she secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, she returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blache. She was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, and never made a film again. In 1964 she returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughters, where she died in 1968.
Directed (170)
Fantastic Flowers
2025
Butterfly Dances
2007
Gaumont Treasures 1897-1913
2005
Tarnished Reputations
1920
The Great Adventure
1918
Behind the Mask
1917
When You and I Were Young
1917
House of Cards
1917
The Empress
1917
The Adventurer
1917
The Ocean Waif
1916
The Scarlet Woman
1916
What Will People Say?
1916
My Madonna
1915
The Song of the Wage Slave
1915
The Vampire
1915
Heart of a Painted Woman
1915
The Tigress
1914
The Lure
1914
The Woman of Mystery
1914
The Monster and the Girl
1914
The Dream Woman
1914
The Rogues of Paris
1913
The Pit and the Pendulum
1913
Matrimony's Speed Limit
1913
A House Divided
1913
A Severe Test
1913
Dick Whittington and His Cat
1913
Burstup Homes' Murder Case
1913
Officer Henderson
1913
Napoleon
1913
Burstup Homes
1913
The Thief
1913
The Coming of Sunbeam
1913
The Roads That Lead Home
1913
Cousins of Sherlocko
1913
The Woman Behind the Man
1912
Hearts Unknown
1912
The Girl in the Arm-Chair
1912
The Hater of Women
1912
The Face at the Window
1912
A Comedy of Errors
1912
The New Love And The Old
1912
Making an American Citizen
1912
The High Cost of Living
1912
Canned Harmony
1912
The Love of the Flag
1912
Treasures on the Wing
1912
The Fight in the Dark
1912
Playing Trumps
1912
His Double
1912
Phantom Paradise
1912
The Strike
1912
Two Little Rangers
1912
Broken Oaths
1912
For Love of the Flag
1912
Fra Diavolo
1912
In the Year 2000
1912
Souls in the Shadow
1912
The Wooing of Alice
1912
The Reformation of Mary
1912
Child of the Tenements
1912
Falling Leaves
1912
Blighted Lives
1912
Algie, the Miner
1912
God Disposes
1912
Hubby Does the Washing
1912
The Detective's Dog
1912
A Terrible Lesson
1912
Mrs. Cranston's Jewels
1912
Mignon
1912
Frozen on Love's Trail
1912
A Man's a Man
1912
Parson Sue
1912
A Fool and His Money
1912
Someone's Luck Society
1912
A Solax Celebration
1912
The Violin Maker of Nuremberg
1911
His Mother's Hymn
1911
Outwitted by Horse and Lariat
1911
Starting Something
1911
Greater Love Hath No Man
1911
Cupid and the Comet
1911
Across the Mexican Line
1911
Tramp Strategy
1911
From the Valley of Shadows
1911
Mixed Pets
1911
When Marian was Married
1911
Le Coq dressé de Cook et Rilly
1910
On the Barricade
1907
The Irresistible Piano
1907
The Glue
1907
The Rolling Bed
1907
The Cleaning Man
1907
The Fur Hat
1907
The Banknote
1907
The Race for the Sausage
1907
Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris
1907
The Consequences of Feminism
1906
The Dirigible 'Homeland'
1906
Dranem Performs "Five O'Clock Tea"
1906
The Drunken Mattress
1906
The Stepmother
1906
The Mouse in the Crinoline
1906
Madame's Cravings
1906
The Game-Keeper's Son
1906
Course de taureaux
1906
Mireille
1906
The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ
1906
L'Honneur du Corse
1906
A Priest's Conscience
1906
Ocean Studies
1906
Les Druides
1906
The Sock
1905
Esmeralda
1905
The Fairy of Spring
1905
The Magician's Alms
1905
Tango
1905
The Statue
1905
Spain
1905
The Bricklayers
1905
Clown, Dog and Balloon
1905
Cook & Rilly's Trained Rooster
1905
Le Cake-walk de nouveau cirque
1905
Saharet Performs the Bolero
1905
Polin Performs "The Anatomy of a Draftee"
1905
Dranem Performs The True Jiu-Jitsu
1905
Félix Mayol Performs "Indiscreet Questions"
1905
Félix Mayol Performs "The Trottins' Polka"
1905
Félix Mayol Performs "White Lilacs"
1905
Faust
1905
The Malagueña and the Bullfighter
1905
In a Bamboo Hut
1905
The Crime on Temple Street
1904
Token of Love
1904
The First Cigarette
1904
Faust and Mephistopheles
1903
How Monsieur Takes His Bath
1903
Midwife to the Upper Class
1902
Les malabares: Les acrobats
1902
La Gigue
1902
Danse fantaisiste
1902
Eccentric Dance
1902
Serpentine Dance
1902
Miss Dundee and Her Performing Dogs
1902
Danse basque
1901
Danse Serpentine (In a Lion's Cage)
1900
Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance
1900
Coucher d'une Parisienne
1900
At the Photographer's
1900
At the Floral Ball
1900
Avenue de l'Opéra
1900
The Landlady
1900
Turn-of-the-Century Surgery
1900
Pierrette's Escapades
1900
The Cabbage-Patch Fairy
1900
Danse du papillon
1900
Gavotte directoire
1900
At the Club
1899
Wonderful Absinthe
1899
Entrée Et Sortie De La Mine
1899
At the Hypnotist's
1898
Disappearing Act
1898
Danse Fleur de Lotus
1897
Ballet Libella
1897
Bathing in a Stream
1897
Serpentine Dance by Mme. Bob Walter
1897
The Cabbage-Patch Fairy
1896
Alice Guy - 13 Courts-métrages
Shadows of the Moulin Rouge
Acting (11)
Alice Guy, the First Female Filmmaker
2021
Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
2018
The Women Who Run Hollywood
2016
The Lost Garden: The Life and Cinema of Alice Guy-Blaché
1995
Qui est Alice Guy?
1976
A Solax Celebration
1912
Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris
1907
Mireille
1906
Spain
1905
The Cabbage-Patch Fairy
1896
Animated Portrait Shot by L and A Lumière
1895