It’s become a cliche by now, but in what movie did an EMNC first appear?
Does Spectre count?
In **Our Man Flint ** the villain turned out to be
The Telephone Company.
Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” from 1927?
Oooh, no no no! I wanna change my answer.
How about A Corner in Wheat by D.W. Griffith made in 1909? I’ve seen it too!
I believe you’re thinking of The President’s Analyst.
The first multinational corporation I can think of that was explicitly referred to as such was CCA, the megacorp behind UBS, the network in Network.
I think that Roller-ball and Silent Movie were released earlier than Network and had mega-corps as the villains.
Mega Corp studio Engulf & Devour in Mel Brooks’ Silent Movie. 
I would think that any early movie dealing with the American revolution that mentioned the Mother of the Modern Multinationals, the East India Company, would qualify.
So far, and if we can get confirmation, Two Many Cats has the earliest movie with am evil corporation, but was the corporation multinational?
James Coburn in In Like Flint and The President’s Analyst both 1967 spy spoofs. Our Man Flint was 1966.
Were there any multinational corporations in real life before the mid-20th Century?
East India Company springs to mind.
:smack: same star.
Are we defining “multinational corporation” by multinational operations or multinational ownership?
Not that it matters for dramatic purposes. As we have seen, the EI(T)C does very well for a movie villain.
Well, Wikipedia does say the villain was trying to corner the world market in wheat. I suppose you have to have international connections to do that.
It’s based on the book The Pit, which was a muckraker type of novel about the stock exchange. I saw the movie, but I can’t say for certain that the corporation being multinational was ever mentioned.
Come to think of it, the East India Co. is the EMNC in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
The IMMC, which owned the White Star Line, which in turn owned the Titanic, was established in 1902 by a consortium of American and British shipping execs. It had profit-sharing agreements with German shipping lines, too. Despite not having enough lifeboats aboard its best-known liner, it wasn’t terribly evil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mercantile_Marine_Co.
Standard Oil.
True. I see it was marketing oil in China in the 1890s; hadn’t known that before: Standard Oil - Wikipedia
While I don’t know which evil corporation was first in the movies, or which one is the most evil, I am certain that the one with the best name is “The Very Big Corporation of America” from Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame’s short film, “The Crimson Permanent Assurance.” 