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During the period just before and after the first World War, Fort Lee, NJ, served as an incubator, home to the first concentration of motion picture studios in the United States. While the stars and studios eventually went West, Fort Lee is where the movies outgrew their roots and emerged as both an art and an industry.
Is it love that makes the world go round? Or is it money? Either way, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Hollywood superstars who were also shrewd producers and devoted soul mates, set it spinning. They were the first of that now-familiar species: the Power Couple.
On July 14, 2023, the New York Asian Film Foundation and Film at Lincoln Center will kick off the 22nd edition of the New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF), with 60+ new and classic titles, a greatly expanded selection of short films, and an exciting slate of celebrated guests from Asia and the diaspora. The festival runs from July 14–30, 2023 at Film at Lincoln Center (FLC), with a special weekend of screenings (July 21–23) at a new venue, the historic Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, New Jersey, the birthplace of the motion picture industry in America.
In a red box at the center: John Barrymore, the vaunted actor of stage and screen. Born in 1882, he would become one of the pillars of America’s first Hollywood — Fort Lee. In a golden box off to the left: John’s granddaughter Drew Barrymore. The actor, born in 1975, is now a talk show host and social media sensation known for taking great joy in the little things, like running into the rain. The $16 million Barrymore Film Center, a new 21,500-square-foot cultural space in Fort Lee with a 260-seat movie theater and museum that opened Friday, is a tribute to the borough’s status as the birthplace of the United States film industry.
The new $16 million Barrymore Film Center in Fort Lee, finally opening Oct. 21 after two years of COVID-related delays, is a lot of things. It's a museum. It's a 267-seat repertory film theater. It's a reception space. It's a tribute to Fort Lee's role, 120 years ago, as the birthplace of the movie industry. It's also a monument — the greatest since Joyce Kilmer — to a tree.
The bright lights of Hollywood have overshadowed Fort Lee's contributions to the film industry, but now a new museum highlights its rich past. Hollywood may be Tinsel Town, but Fort Lee, New Jersey is where the movie industry got its start. "It bloomed to the point where there were 17 studios here," said Nelson Page, Executive Director of Barrymore Film Center. "Many, many more production companies." The studios in Fort Lee were just blocks away from each other and attracted many big stars performing in New York City's theatre district.
In continuing my search for unknown locations featured in Houdini's 1922 film, The Man From Beyond, here is a bit of exciting news! The iconic landmark which showcases the dramatic and deadly struggle between Houdini's Howard Hillary and Arthur Maude's Dr. Gilbert Trent atop a towering cliff has been found in the precipices of Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey.