Cut... and print! An Episcopal priest invents film in Newark

Newark has attracted more than its share of creative thinkers who've made huge contributions to their professions and industries. As we learned earlier this year, scientist James Jay Mapes revolutionized agriculture through experiments on his farm in the current-day South Ward. The prolific Seth Boyden had his own lab in Newark to develop new methods of producing patent leather and malleable iron. And, of course, New Jersey's most prolific inventor, Thomas Edison, set up shop in the city before moving operations to the more rural Menlo Park.

Rev. Hannibal Goodwin

A less likely Newark inventor came to mind on my recent stop at the Plume House, now more familiar to Newarkers as the rectory of the Episcopal House of Prayer. Reverend Hannibal Goodwin lived in the home during his service as the church's rector from 1867 until his retirement in 1887. No doubt he served the congregation well, but he's better known for his work outside the ministry.

Like many inventors, Goodwin was driven by a problem in need of a solution. Wanting to make Bible lessons more interesting to his congregants, he started using images printed on glass plates, projected through a stereopticon or "magic lantern." The plates were subject to cracking and breakage, leading him to seek out another transparent material that would be more flexible and immune to damage. Rev. Goodwin took to the workshop and lab he'd assembled in the attic of the Plume House, looking for a solution. He wasn't a chemist by training but taught himself sufficiently to work on a solution without blowing the roof off the rectory.

Newark was already becoming a center for the development of plastics, but apparently none with the properties Goodwin sought. Celluloid pioneer John Wesley Hyatt had relocated to Ferry Street in Newark in the 1870s to manufacture false teeth, billiards balls and other durable solids, but apparently hadn't seen the potential for photographic use. Amateur photographer Rev. Goodwin did. After some experimentation, he developed cellulose nitrate photographic film, also known as flexible celluloid film.

House of Prayer: birthplace of flexible film.
Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey

Goodwin quickly realized that he hadn't just solved the problem of cracked Bible illustrations, he'd also opened the door to a new trend in photography. Upon his retirement from the Episcopal church in 1887, he filed a patent application for a "photographic pellicle and process for producing same," noting that the invention was for a "transparent sensitive pellicle [membrane] better adapted for photographic purposes."

Though he was first to the U.S. Patent Office with the concept, Goodwin's application wasn't immediately accepted. His lack of formal training as a chemist showed in the lack of detail and need for further clarification and amendments. Meanwhile, others, including George Eastman, came forth with more nuanced and complete petitions for patent. By the time Goodwin was awarded the patent in 1898, Eastman Kodak had been manufacturing and selling flexible film using its own processes for several years.

Goodwin unfortunately lost the opportunity to make up for lost time. Patent in hand, he incorporated the Goodwin Film and Camera Company in 1900 but died in a street accident before production started. His wife sold the company to Anthony and Scovill (later known as Ansco) which sued Eastman Kodak for patent infringement. After more than a decade of dispute in the courts, Goodwin's rightful place as inventor of flexible film was confirmed.

Consider that within the radius of just a few miles, New Jersey holds three locations crucial to the birth and growth of the film industry: the attic of a small Dutch colonial house in Newark where the film itself was born, Edison's West Orange lab where the motion picture was invented, and Fort Lee where the studio system grew from infancy to a major industry. Rochester, Hollywood, eat our dust!

In Fort Lee, naturally: groundbreaking filmmaker Alice Guy Blache

Quick! Who was the first woman film producer?

Back in April we learned about Fort Lee's hidden but critically important contributions to the development of the motion picture industry. It shouldn't be a surprise that the world's first female film producer - indeed the first to own a studio - lived and worked right here in New Jersey. In fact, she'll be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in October.

Her name is Alice Guy Blache, and though she only spent about 20 years of her long life in the United States, her impact on American cinema was both profound and lasting. Her boosters in Fort Lee call her a "reel Jersey girl."

Born in France in 1873, Guy entered the early filmmaking industry as a secretary for Leon Gaumont, an inventor who initially was in the business of manufacturing and selling motion picture equipment. To demonstrate his products, Gaumont opened a studio in Paris, producing brief films that were later shown in penny arcades. At the time, that's basically what movies were: "shorts" of a minute or less that showed slices of life like street scenes or athletic feats.

The 23 year old Guy saw other possibilities and reportedly asked Gaumont if she could use the equipment for a project. Starting with La Fee aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy), she was soon turning out movies with scripted plots, becoming the first producer to capitalize on filmmaking technology to tell a story. Using new Gaumont technologies in 1905 and 1906, she even experimented with adding sound to her productions.

Guy married cameraman and coworker Herbert Blache, and the pair came to the United States in 1907 to promote their employer's talking film system. The producing bug, however, still stirred inside her. Finding no opportunity to continue directing films for Gaumont in the U.S., she and Herbert formed Solax, their own production company, in 1910. Working first out of Gaumont's Flushing studio, Guy soon found the facilities inadequate for her purposes. It was clearly time to move, and what better place than Fort Lee, the established film capital of the world? Since Herbert couldn't get out of his contract with Gaumont, the couple agreed that he'd stay at his job while Alice managed the construction and operation of the Fort Lee studio.

The couple purchased land on Lemoine Avenue in 1911 and a year later celebrated the completion of a $100,000 state-of-the-art studio. Designed for maximum efficiency and productivity, the brick and steel structure was four stories tall, with a film studio large enough to accommodate five stage settings at a time. Glass roof panels let natural sunlight in for more intimate outdoor scenes, while a large outdoor lot was landscaped for larger group settings.

At the studio, Guy wrote, directed and produced over 700 films, often giving camera operators and technicians step by step instructions on how to achieve the effects she sought. To calm the nerves of stage-trained actors during their early experiences before a motion picture camera, she reminded them to "be natural," even posting a sign with those words above the studio stage.

Guy herself attracted industry attention for her achievements. One trade publication described her as "the presiding genius of the Solax Company... a remarkable personality, combining a true artistic temperament with executive ability and business acumen." Today, film scholars credit her with being the first to use film to address topics including immigration, relationships and homosexuality.

While her impact was profound, Guy was effectively out of the film business by the early 1920s. Illness kept her from working for several years after 1918, during which the Solax studios were rented to other production companies. She and Herbert divorced in 1922, diminshing her influence in an industry which was becoming increasingly more and more bureaucratic and focused on commercial success.

The studios themselves were making the transition from the East Coast to the sunnier, more temperate climes of Southern California, but Guy chose to return to France with her two children to cast her fortunes there. Still recovering from the devastation of World War I, her native country was anything but a fertile environment in which to rebuild a film career, and Guy settled for a career novelizing film scripts and delivering lectures. Long overlooked for her achievements, it wasn't until 1953 that she received official French recognition with the Legion of Honor. Even her former employer, Leon Gaument, neglected to mention her contributions to his business in his own memoirs.

Alice Guy returned to New Jersey in 1964 to be closer to her children, who'd returned to the United States in adulthood. Nearly 95 years old at her death in 1968, she's buried at Maryrest Cemetery in Mahwah. Thanks to the Fort Lee Film Commission, her gravestone now credits her as a film pioneer. The Solax studio building is long gone, with an A&P supermarket now standing in its place, but an informative historic marker invites shoppers to consider the history that was made where they now shop for produce and canned goods.

Saving Rambo's: a last vestige of Fort Lee's movie-making history

In our last post, we talked about Fort Lee's history as the world's first moviemaking capital, and the near absence of any visible relics of that past. A series of devastating fires reduced many of the studio facilities to ashes and rubble following the production companies' moves to California. Other historic buildings were repurposed and eventually torn down. And, of course, time and the inevitable development after the construction of the George Washington Bridge obliterated the rustic scenery that had made the town such a great substitute for any number of remote movie settings.

Fort Lee's Rambo's, as seen in one of the many silent movies
filmed outside its doors.

There is one structure left to represent both the business of moviemaking and the versatile Fort Lee scenery: Rambo's on First Street in the Coytesville section of town.

An unassuming old two-story building with a porch, Rambo's stood on a dusty road and could easily fit into just about any story a producer could conjure. Need a Western saloon or a stagecoach stop? How about a New England tavern? Rambo's was it. With no utility lines to mar the scene, viewers could be easily convinced that they were transported to 1867, the year Rambo's was built.

Scores of films were shot outside and around Rambo's, including Mack Sennett's A Grocery Clerk's Romance, and Friends, starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore. Many more silent movies shot there have been lost over time, through fires or deterioration.

Rambo's today: an uncertain future.

Perhaps even more important to cinema history, Rambo's was an industry gathering place where crews and actors could exchange ideas and expertise. Sitting at long tables in the grove outside of the saloon, they'd lunch on the daily ham-and-eggs meal (it was always ham and eggs) and work through innovative filming techniques. Every day offered the opportunity for new breakthroughs in moviemaking, and Rambo's was the incubator. You might say that it was to film what the garage was to Silicon Valley pioneers Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

What's more, the property had sufficient room to accommodate many of the off-screen necessities of moviemaking. Production companies capitalized on the second floor for dressing rooms, and auditions were regularly held there. One can only conjecture how many careers were launched there, whether they be as short as one film or decades-long success in entertainment. In fact, a child actor named Milton Berle got his first movie role after being chosen during a cattle call at Rambo's. The movie? The 1914 classic The Perils of Pauline.

New Jersey's filmmaking history is popularly known to have been launched in Edison's labs, but the Black Maria studio on his West Orange property is but a re-creation, built in 1954. That would make Rambo's even more notable to the history of film here and globally.

Unfortunately, Rambo's faces an uncertain future. Last serving as multi-unit housing, it's now in danger of being torn down and replaced by a new two-family home. The Fort Lee Film Commission and Historical Society would like to see it preserved, purchased by the local government and used as office space for the Commission and an educational resource to teach residents about local film history. The previous owner left the building in excellent condition, eliminating the need and expense of making it habitable.

Before the current owner/developer can move forward with demolition and construction, the Fort Lee Zoning Board must issue variances to allow the planned structure to be built. The issue will be discussed at a meeting on April 4 (the publication date of this article), and the Historical Society will be representing public opinion through their online petition. You have the opportunity to influence their decision, whether you live in Fort Lee or not.

Rambo's is a truly Hidden New Jersey gem, and we can't afford to have it fade from view, its site hosting only a commemorative sign. Drop by the petition at http://thefortleehistoricalsociety.org/saverambos.html to support the effort. 

Lights, camera.... Fort Lee!

Keep your eyes open when you drive around Fort Lee, and you'll see something curious. Instead of the usual nondescript signs, some street corners boast black and white markers bordered with sprocket holes. They're emblazoned with names like Theda Bara, Carl Laemmele and Universal Studios, and a closer look reveals the logo of the Fort Lee Film Commission.

Indeed, the town was Hollywood before Hollywood was Hollywood. Though it's fairly common knowledge that scores of TV shows and contemporary movies have been shot in New Jersey, few realize that a century ago, Fort Lee was the movie capital of the world. I got an eye-opening education in film history during a recent visit to the Fort Lee Museum, courtesy of Film Commission Executive Director Tom Meyers and Commission member Donna Brennan.

Before there were coming attractions, lantern
cards like these advertised upcoming movies.  

The roots of the film industry run deep through New Jersey, starting with Newark resident Hannibal Goodwin's patent of nitrocellulose film in 1887. Thomas Edison's West Orange team developed the kinetoscope between 1889 and 1892, building the Black Maria as the first true film studio. Once the American public got a look at moving pictures, it didn't take long before they clamored for productions that left fake studio backgrounds for more realistic open-air settings.

Considering how built-up Fort Lee is today, it's hard to believe that filmmakers once saw it as the perfect setting for Wild West movies. In the early 1900s, the town's dirt roads and rustic buildings were apt substitutes for the great frontier, just a subway and ferry ride away from downtown Manhattan. Plus, the nearby Palisades offered irresistable opportunities for suspenseful plot twists (cliffhanger, anyone?). Before long, emerging film moguls like Carl Laemmle (IMP and its successor Universal Studios), William Fox (Fox Entertainment) and Samuel Goldwyn (formerly Goldfish, in a predecessor to today's MGM) were building studios along the Hudson River.

Along with them, naturally, came actors, some of whom bought or built houses in the nearby Coytesville settlement. Most notably, Maurice Barrymore settled his family in town; his son John made his acting debut in a benefit for the local fire department. Silent screen legends like Fatty Arbuckle, Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand were regular sights in and around Fort Lee.

Filmmaking got so big that virtually everyone in Fort Lee worked for one of the production companies, one way or another. The studios didn't just shoot scenes in town, they essentially built factories where movies were duplicated and stored, and promotional materials were created and printed. Carpenters built sets that transformed empty lots into medieval cities. Actors and crew had to be fed, creating jobs for cooks and service staff. Even the kids got involved: schools were sometimes closed to allow students to serve as extras in crowd scenes.

If things were working so well in Fort Lee, then why did the business move to California? Weather is often cited as a reason, but as with most situations, there were several contributing factors. Residents were increasingly frustrated by the noise and inconvenience caused by large-scale outdoor shoots, leading local officials to wonder whether the entire town might be blown up during a battle scene. After fires decimated their Fort Lee facilities, some film companies chose to relocate in warmer climes, encouraged by a very welcoming Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Fort Lee, on the other hand, did nothing to encourage rebuilding. One by one, the studios left for Hollywood, leaving only their film vaults behind.

Of the many buildings that supported Fort Lee's film industry, only two still stand. We'll be visiting one of them in the next installment of Hidden New Jersey.