NYC motion picture industry
One hundred years ago today … In the Daily News, experts predicted that the US movie industry would start abandoning Hollywood and returning to the NYC area that had been its capital in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century. Producer E. H. Griffith said. "A picture can be made in New York for much less money than in California." Director S. E. V. Taylor added "Hollywood is stagnating."
The article mentions two films that were supposed to be shot in the NYC area: Free Air, which wound up shot in Minnesota, and Smoke Bellew, which seems to have not been made for another eight years.
The full text of the article:
Edward H. Griffith. Motion Picture News, March 27 1920, p. 2921. Internet Archive.
NEW YORK BACK IN FAVOR AS THE MOVIE CENTER
Directors and producers of motion pictures yesterday declared that this winter would see increased motion picture production in and about New York.
"A picture can be made in New York for much less money than in California," said E. H. Griffith, who is producing Sinclair Lewis's boy story, "Free Air," as a film here.
Logical.
"New York certainly is the logical producing center. Most of the important actors are never far from Broadway, and it is much easier to obtain theatrical properties in New York than in California."
S. E. V. Taylor, who is directing a screen version of one of Jack London's “Smoke Bellew” stories, the first Indian film to be made in the East in seven years, also favors New York for production.
"Hollywood is stagnating," he said. "Pictures made in the California studios are becoming stamped with the same deadening influences. The Hollywood colony is so closely affiliated with it is losing touch with the world outside. The recent scandals there have created an unpleasant atmosphere, and certainly working conditions are not favorable."
Largest.
Famous Players-Lasky announced yesterday that their Long Island studios, the largest in the world, would be open again before January 1.
William Fox has begun production at Fort Lee, N. J., and the Paragon, World, Metro and Selznick companies are working there.
When New York production ceased in the motion picture industry ten months ago, between five and six thousand persons in the city were thrown out of employment. Companies then concentrated production at Hollywood.
(Daily News, 18 October 1921, p. 5.)
– Jonathan Goldman, Oct 18, 2021
TAGS: movies, cinema, film, entertainment, business, California, producer, director