Early career Willy and Albert's father, Albertus Abraham Mullens (30 July 1847
Hoorn - 1890), alias "A. Alber(t)", and a German by the name of Ahrens Basch had founded a theater company (Koninklijk Nederlandsch Cagliostro-Théâtre Alber & Basch"), specializing in "mysterious and pseudo-scientific spectacles". After Albert Senior's death, their mother Christina Mullens-Verpoort continued to direct the company. Before getting started in the movies, Willy Mullens also worked at a fair in
The Hague as a
human cannonball. They chose the French name "Alberts Frères" for their production company, since the movie business at the time was predominantly French.
Alberts Frères In 1914, the company started touring the halls and theaters of the country during the winter, and soon became one of the main attractions at fairs throughout the country. '' (1905) Besides showing movies, Alberts Frères quickly started making them. Often focusing on comedy, the Mullens brothers pulled practical jokes and filmed them, and along the way generated headlines and built a reputation. Their most successful production is also one of the oldest surviving Dutch fictional movies,
The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach, which in 2007 was "canonized" as one of sixteen canonical films by the
Netherlands Film Festival. The six-minute film, consisting of eight scenes, was filmed by Albert and directed by Willy, the latter also playing the lead after the intended actor was not allowed (by his fiancée) to appear pantless on-camera. During World War I (the Netherlands were neutral), the company was hired by
Kaiser Wilhelm's Dutch legate to film German children celebrating Queen Wilhelmina's birthday in 1919. The German Bild- und Filmamt (which aimed at the production of propaganda) was to procure copies for the German market, in hopes of maintaining good relations between Germany and the Netherlands; it is not known if that actually happened.
Haghefilm "Haghefilm" (named for "The Hague") was founded by Willy Mullens in 1914, and quickly established a reputation as the largest and best-known Dutch movie production company. Willy Mullens later became a well-known producer of
documentary films; his
Holland Neutraal: Leger en Vlootfilm (1917) received a royal
premiere, in the presence of
Queen Wilhelmina and
Prince Hendrik. The two and a half hour long movie was the first documentary which attracted a mass audience. It showcased the Dutch
army and
navy and was commissioned by the Dutch Minister of War Bosboom, who intended for the movie to rally popular support for Dutch neutrality during
World War I; on the other hand, the movie, with its display of military might, also aimed to show that the Dutch, despite their neutrality, were not to be thought of lightly. During
World War II, Haghefilm delivered
subtitles for the Dutch version of the
Die Deutsche Wochenschau, the official German-supplied
newsreel. Twice Mullens traveled to the
Dutch East Indies, in 1924 to film for the
oil industry, and in 1926 on assignment by the Dutch government, a nine-month trip; his were some of the first images shot in the Dutch colony. The company also produced
cinema newsreels, and were an early competitor of
Polygoon, the company that operated from 1919 to 1987 and dominated the Dutch market after
World War II.
Legacy Besides being canonized by the Netherlands Film Institute and honored as a movie pioneer, Mullens also had a very practical impact on Dutch cinema as one of the founders of the Nederlandsch Centraal Filmarchief (1919), the first audio-visual archive in the Netherlands. The name Haghefilm still lives on in the modern
film laboratory called Haghefilm, in Amsterdam. Their origins date back to 1926-27, to the lab founded by Willy Mullens in The Hague. Its name was changed to "Color Film Center" in 1977-78, then folded in 1984 due to mismanagement and competition. Four of the employees became directors of their own enterprise and acquired the rights to the Haghefilm name; their lab now devotes itself to working on archival films. ==Filmography==