Midsummer Issue 2023

34
HISTORY
During the first decades of the 20th
century, when movies were in their
infant stage and Hollywood was mostly orange
groves, Fort Lee, New Jersey, was the center of
American film production.
New Jersey’s connection to the film industry
started even earlier, when Thomas Edison and
his West Orange company demonstrated the
concept of motion pictures in 1891 with the
Kinetoscope, a device that allowed one person
at a time to view a strip of film passed rapidly
between a lens and an electric light bulb.
Edison anticipated the public would buy
individual machines to view a film and never
envisioned mass audiences for moving
pictures. That innovation took place in Paris in
1895, when the Lumière brothers unveiled their
film projector, enabling groups to watch at the
same time.
While these early films were under a minute
long, audiences were captivated by their ability
to capture movement. It was not long before
entrepreneurs saw the potential of this new
technology.
Edison’s Black Maria in West Orange,
considered the world’s first film studio,
was completed in 1893 and dozens of small
companies soon sprang up on the East Coast
to fill the growing demand for moving pictures.
As the 20th century dawned, these early
filmmakers invented an industry by constantly
advancing film technique and technology.
New York City had the largest concentration
of early studios, and filmmakers quickly
LAKE HOPATCONG NEWS Midsummer 2023
Lake Hopatcong on the Silver Screen
by MARTY KANE
Photos courtesy
of the
LAKE HOPATCONG
HISTORICAL
MUSEUM
discovered that New Jersey offered a wide
variety of scenery just a short ferry ride away.
The area around Fort Lee soon became
a particularly popular film location due to
its diverse landscape. The sheer cliffs of the
Palisades stood in for canyons of the Wild
West, while the Hudson River below could look
like a seaside harbor, coastal stretch or even an
ocean. The open plateaus and tall trees atop
the Palisades could resemble the woods of
England, and the town of Fort Lee itself—with
its wood-frame houses, narrow streets and
stone and granite businesses—could serve as
Anytown, USA.
Fort Lee welcomed the film industry with
open arms. At its height, over a dozen studios
operated within the town or in nearby Hudson
Heights, Cliffside Park and Jersey City.
Champion Studios opened in 1910 and was
joined within the next few years by many of
the studios that would soon dominate the new
industry, including Universal, Goldwyn and Fox.
The biggest entertainers of the day filmed
in Fort Lee: Will Rogers, Rudolph Valentino,
Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, Theda Bara,
Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Pearl White
and Mary Pickford, along with the Barrymore
family, who actually made their home in Fort
Lee.
One of the most influential figures in film
history, D.W. Griffith, honed his craft by
shooting nearly 100 pictures there.
In addition to utilizing Fort Lee’s natural
resources and studio backlots, filmmakers
looked to other nearby locales to capture just
the right background and scenery. This is what
brought film to Lake Hopatcong. A large lake
with resort hotels that was easily accessible by
train made for a useful location.
At least six filmmakers shot scenes at the lake
in the 1910s, including Louis B. Mayer, Alice Guy
Blaché and Léonce Perret.
The most expensive and star-studded film
shot at the lake was “Virtuous Wives,” Mayer’s
first film. Filmed in 1918, it featured Anita
Stewart, one of America’s first movie stars, in
Left to right: Anita Stewart and William Boyd in 1918
stand on Hudson Maxim’s dock in a scene from “Virtuous
Wives.” (Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club can be seen in the
background.) Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels in “Purple
Rose of Cairo,” filmed at Bertrand Island Park in 1983.
a plot that called for a country estate and an
out-of-control motorboat.
Director George L. Tucker found the type
of lakefront scenery he was seeking at Lake
Hopatcong, along with volunteers willing to
loan their motorboats. The film made use
of the Phoebe Snow (a lake tour boat) and
locales such as Air Castle Isles, Hudson Maxim’s
boathouse and the Bertrand Island beach.
Another notable director who filmed at the
lake was Alice Guy Blaché, a French film pioneer
who wrote, directed and produced films as well
as running her own studio at Fort Lee.
The September 20, 1913 issue of Moving
Picture World reported that “Madame
Blaché, president of the Solax Company,
and a company of 50 people, together with
property men and numerous assistants and an
equipment of three wagon loads of properties
and sceneries, have left for Lake Hopatcong
where numerous scenes in the forthcoming
Solax feature, entitled Rogues of Paris will
be staged. The transfer of the company and
equipment to this famous lake resort means an
expense of more than $2,000.”
The Fort Lee Film Commission lists this film
as one of the most notable made by Blaché at
Solax.
At the Lake Hopatcong Historical Museum,
we have long thought it would be fascinating
to see these professional movies shot at the
lake during its peak resort years. Until last year,
however, it was believed that all such films
were lost, with only still photos surviving.
This is not surprising, as it is estimated that
only 10 percent of films made between 1910
and 1920 still exist. The nitrate film used in
early motion pictures was not only extremely
unstable and flammable but decomposed and
turned to powder if not stored in optimum
conditions.
In addition, silent films were not considered
valuable once “talkies” came along. With
television, DVDs and on-demand viewing
decades in the future, there was no market for
silent films after their initial release. Prints were
often destroyed to retrieve
the silver contained within
nitrate stock, which sometimes
financed a filmmaker’s next
project.
We were aware of an August
31, 1918 Lake Hopatcong Breeze
report that “an independent
motion picture company under
the direction of M. Perret… will
arrive at the Alamac [Hotel]…
and will remain for several days.”
The article states that scenes
would be shot at the hotel and
around the lake for a French