Ivan Abramson

Ivan Abramson (1869 – September 15, 1934) was a director of American silent films in the 1910s and 1920s.[1]

Ivan Abramson
Born1869
Russia
DiedSeptember 15, 1934 (aged 64–65)
Manhattan, New York City, New York

Abramson emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire in the 1880s and soon became involved in the Jewish newspaper field. In 1905, he founded an opera company. In 1914, he founded Ivan Film Productions to produce silent films, with Sins of the Parents as the first release. In 1917, after success with pictures including One Law for Both and Enlighten Thy Daughter, he partnered with William Randolph Hearst to form the Graphic Film Corporation (GFC).[2]

Abramson's films are often melodramas with titillating titles such as Forbidden Fruit (1915) and A Child for Sale (1920), and sexual hygiene films such as The Sex Lure (1916) and Enlighten Thy Daughter (1917).[3][4] Abramson often aimed to make a moral argument with his films. He stated that the intention of his films was to "point out an evil in life through one character and at the same time show the manner in which that evil might be cured through another character."[5] The GFC ended with the 1919 release of The Echo of Youth.

In 1923, Abramson and Sidney M. Goldin directed East and West, filmed in Austria and starring Molly Picon, and which had English and Yiddish subtitles.[1]

Abramson died on September 15, 1934, in New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, survived by his wife Liza Einhorn.[6][7]

Selected filmography
The Sex Lure (1916)
Her Husband's Wife (1916)

References
  1. Klein, Uru (10 December 2009). Cinema in the time of war Archived 2015-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, Haaretz
  2. Pizzitola, Louis. Hearst over Hollywood, p. 111-125 (2002)
  3. McLaren, Angus. Twentieth-century sexuality: a history, p. 42 (1999)
  4. Ivan Film Productions v. Bell (New York Courts, 1916)
  5. Pizzitola, Louis (2002). Hearst Over Hollywood: Power, Passion, and Propaganda in the Movies. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 119. ISBN 9780231116466.
  6. (16 September 1934). Ivan Abramson, Movie Man, Dies Archived 2021-10-09 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times
  7. (16 January 1945). Mrs. Ivan Abramson (obituary) Archived 2022-10-23 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times
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