Fort Lee: Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry

by Fort Lee Film Commission

Overview

A favorite locale of such film pioneers as D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford, the historic borough of Fort Lee was the first center of the American motion picture industry. Studios lined both sides of Main Street, and enormous film laboratories fed the nickelodeon market with thousands of reels of comedies and cliffhangers. Broadway stars and producers came here to make many of their first feature-length films; but by the 1920s, Theda Bara, Fatty Arbuckle, and Douglas Fairbanks were gone. Yet even after the studios closed down, the film industry was still the backbone of the local economy, with hundreds working behind the scenes in the printing, storage, and distribution of movies being made in Hollywood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780738545011
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/20/2006
Series:	Images of America Series
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,144,787
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.31(d)

About the Author

The Fort Lee Film Commission, established in 2000 to preserve and promote Fort Lee's role in the American motion picture industry, actively preserves films made in Fort Lee and works with filmmakers who support Fort Lee's role as birthplace of the American film industry. The film commission also collects and preserves artifacts and photographs, some of which can be seen in this book. The film commission's work aims to preserve the past through the Cliffhanger Film Festival and promote the future through the Jersey Filmmakers of Tomorrow High School Student Film Festival.