Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, N.J.  (1964)

Theatrical Release Information:
Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, N.J.

Due the fact that Hollywood and California have become virtually synonymous since the late 20th century, many film fanatics aren't aware that the film industry as we know if flourished on the East Coast long before the inception of Tinseltown. Conceiving Black Maria, the first American movie studio, under a small, tarpaper shack outside of his New Jersey studio, inventor Thomas Edison successfully gave birth to the modern moving image. Soon thereafter, hordes of aspiring filmmakers realized that the untainted nature of New Jersey could serve as a convincing replication of the Wild West, sparking a slew of immediately profitable, but long-since disbanded, movie studios. It was here that such early cinematic heavyweights as D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett honed their skills, and thanks to filmmaker Thomas Hanlon, viewers can now witness the birth of a pre-Hollywood studio system that many never knew existed. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide