Did you know that New Jersey was the birthplace of cinema in the United States? Here in which city and how the industry is reborn in the state

NEW JERSEY – New Jersey’s film industry is growing in strength and the state is becoming the “Hollywood” of America’s East Coast.

Governor Phil Murphy has announced major investments in the state related to this industry in recent months. For example, the Democrat unveiled in late 2022 that Netflix would develop a state-of-the-art production facility on the former Fort Monmouth campus in Monmouth County, turning a property largely unoccupied for more than a decade into a powerhouse. economic. it is estimated that it will create more than 1,500 permanent manufacturing jobs and more than 3,500 construction-related jobs in the state.

Separately, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) announced a few days later the granting of the first Studio Partner designation under the Garden State Film and Digital Media Jobs Act. The designation has been given to Lions Gate Films Inc., which will lease space in the Newark studio that Great Point Studios is building, after approval by the NJEDA board of directors.

Additionally, Governor Phil Murphy and the New Jersey Film and Television Commission revealed in January that total spending on film production in the state topped $650 million in 2022, surpassing the previous record high of $500 million. million set for 2021. The announcement came early. of a series of meetings in California between Governor Murphy and the film, television and technology industries.

All of this news is positive for a state that would become a primary source in the creation of films and cinematic products.

What many don’t know is that a city in New Jersey played a fundamental role in the history of cinema in the United States. In fact, the Garden State is where the modern film industry was born, not in Hollywood as most might think.

Which city in New Jersey was the birthplace of cinema in the United States?

This is the town of Fort Lee, which is just across the famous Washington Bridge from New York. This city was considered the Mecca of silent cinema in the country.

To begin with, as the New Jersey documents explain, movies were first invented and produced at Thomas Edison’s laboratory and studio in West Orange. Fort Lee became a key site for early film productions.

During the 1910s, movies permeated every aspect of life in this suburban New Jersey community. Filmmakers like DW Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Mack Sennett imported entire companies of actors from across the Hudson River to pose against the palisades during what became known as the “Nickelodeon era.”

Theda Bara, “Fatty” Arbuckle and Douglas Fairbanks worked in the ranks of major greenhouse studios that sprang up in this thriving film town and neighboring communities, and income from taxes, studios and labs filled the municipal bank accounts.

But just as the Fort Lee production facility was gaining momentum, Nestor Studios of Bayonne, NJ built the first studio in Hollywood, CA in 1911. Nestor Studios later merged with Universal Studios.

California’s more hospitable and profitable days led to the eventual shift of virtual cinema to the West Coast in the 1930s. Fort Lee, the movie town once hailed as the center of America’s motion picture industry, languished. The stages that once filled Paramount and Universal were rented out by independent producers or used as paint shops by Broadway artists. Much of Fort Lee’s cinematic history has gradually faded away.

A film excerpt like “Iron Man”, the animated film “The Little Mermaid”, a terror movie classic like “Carrie” and romantic comedies like “When Harry Met Sally” will be preserved for posterity by the Biblioteca del Congreso the United States.

What movies were filmed in Fort Lee?

According to the Fort Lee Film Commission, here is the chronological order of the story:

• 1900: Broadway actor and Coytesville resident Maurice Barrymore hosted a charity event to raise money to build a fire station for Company No. 2 on Washington Avenue in Coytesville. His son, John, 18, is making his acting debut at the charity event. Barrymore also held another fundraiser to purchase uniforms for the No. 2 Company.
• 1907: Saved from an eagle’s nest by Thomas Edison was filmed at Fort Lee Palisades. DW Movie features Griffith’s first starring role as an actor, having appeared in small roles in several now-identified films.
• 1908: Comedy The Curtain Pole of Biography (directed by DW Griffith and starring Mack Sennett), filmed on the streets of Fort Lee (Main Street). IMP (Independent Motion Picture Company, which later merged with other independents to form Universal) shot the first film in Coytesville, Hiawatha.
• 1909: DW Griffith directed Mary Pickford in The lonely villa at Fort Lee. The film embodied Griffith’s first sophisticated use of the technique of “cross-cutting”, or clipping, to generate tension. Champion Film Company, the first permanent film studio in the Fort Lee-Coytesville area, became the busiest production center in New Jersey. Located in a remote area of ​​Coytesville, north of Fort Lee, to evade detectives from the Motion Picture Patents Company Trust. Champion was one of the companies that joined in founding the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912 (Carl Laemmle was its driving force, heading Universal Studios until 1936).
• 1912: DW Griffith directed Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy Gish and Lillian Gish in The New York Hatwritten by Anita Loos and filmed on Washington Avenue in Coytesville and Main Street in Fort Lee.
• 1913: Herbert Brenon conducted King Baggot and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for IMP-Universal, the first of many great horror films released by this studio.
• 1915: The famous actress “for you“Theda Bara made her film debut in there was a foolfilmed at Fox/Willat Studio on Linwood Avenue.
• 1918: Wretched, a Fox Studio production, featured the largest outdoor stage ever built at Fort Lee. This studio also produced the epic A Tale of Two Cities in 1917. (The film was long considered lost, but a copy was recently found in Warsaw, Poland by Commission member Richard Koszarski; FLFC negotiate currently to bring the film to the United States so he can fund the restoration).
• 1919: Films by pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux In our doors at Fort Lee, showcasing the other side of the The birth of a nation by Griffith of 1915 during the presentation of black perspective.
• 1922: The Marx Brothers appeared in their first film, humor hazard, filmed in Fort Lee. The film screened in the Bronx and was lost soon after. Groucho Marx claimed in the 1970s that he would pay thousands of dollars to get the film back.
• 1928: On August 13, WRNY in Coytesville became the first station to air a television image, a 1.5-inch square image of a woman’s face, in New York City, where it is seen by 500 people.
• 1930: Due to stricter fire laws in place in Manhattan after the Pathé studio fire, RKO moved production of WC Fields’ first “talkie”. The golf specialistfrom his study of 24th street at Ideal Studio in Hudson Heights.
• 1931: First version “while speaking” from Alice in Wonderland, starring Ruth Gilbert, shot at Metropolitan Studios.
• 1947: 20th century fox returns to the town where he was born to shoot interiors for the classic film noir kiss of death at the Holy Angels Academy, across from his old studio.
• 1948: Oscar Micheaux is shooting his latest film, The treasonin Fort Lee.

See a map of historic sites here.

Where can I learn more about the history of cinema in Fort Lee?

The Barrymore Film Center is a 260-seat movie theater, film museum and archive dedicated to Fort Lee, New Jersey’s role as the birthplace of the American film industry. People can watch films of the time and discover the role of a city that many ignore as essential in the seventh art. To visit the museum and learn more about the history of Fort Lee, go here.