In a 1913 letter to the editors of Le Courrier cinématographique, cinema pioneer Georges Méliès contests the suggestion, made in a previous issue, that his company's American affiliate is not French. Noting both his French nationality and that of his brother Gaston, who managed the American branch, Méliès proudly observes that the Maison Méliès once had the distinction of being one of only two French firms licensed to access the technologies and distribution rights of the Motion Pictures Patent Company (Thomas Edison's ‘Trust’). After characterising Gaston's operation as ‘a French firm planted in America, and making, on site, American subjects’, he asserts: ‘Being, as you know, one of the oldest founders of our industry, I am absolutely determined to render unto France what is French; to each his pride, no?’

A number of ironies attend Méliès's good-natured bout of pique, not least the fact that the firm he revindicates for France had, in 1913, all but ceased to exist: Gaston and his outfit had left America, and Méliès himself was bankrupt and no longer made films. The evidence he cites to support his claim further undercuts its decisiveness. The firm's prior participation in a multinational trust that regulated finances, technologies and networks of distribution would seem more starkly to show how, from its earliest years, film production has been enmeshed in a global industry that overflows the decisive national frame he is seeking to enforce. Moreover, the Méliès Company previously promoted not the French provenance but the authentic Americanness of The Redemption of Rawhide (1911), The Immortal Alamo (1911), The Spring Round-Up (1911) and at least 70 other western-themed films in which Gaston's outfit specialised. Filming on location at the Star Film Ranch in San Antonio and later in California, with American actors and directors (including Francis Ford, John Ford's brother), Gaston distributed his ‘American subjects’ under the name ‘American Wildwest’ and advertised them as the ‘real, genuine article’ of the American West.