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Before Hollywood,
There Was
Fort Lee, N.J.
Early Moviemaking
in New Jersey
(1964)

This documentary covers the early years of film production, which was somewhat concentrated in Fort Lee, outside the city of New York.

Film Preservation Associates
2003 DVD edition

Before Hollywood, There Was Fort Lee, N.J.: Early Moveiemaking in New Jersey (1964), color and black & white, 40 minutes, not rated, with The New York Hat (1912), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated, The Wishing Ring (1914), color-toned black & white, 60 minutes, not rated, and A Girl’s Folly (1917) [exerpts], color-toned black & white, 30 minutes, not rated.

Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment, ID1855DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-18552-2.
One single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; 10 chapter stops; insert booklet; standard DVD keepcase; $24.99.
Release date: 20 May 2003.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 7 / audio: 7 / additional content: 7 / overall: 7.

This DVD edition of Thomas Hanlon’s documentary is presented from a very-good source print, with modern picture inserts of some of the sample film clips.

The supplemental material includes a booklet essay by Richard Koszarski.

Surprisingly, with such a short documentary, we feel that the films should be the focus of this disc and the documentary should be its supplementary material. Overall, the image quality is very-good and the experience a little like sitting in a classroom and watching a 16mm school district circulation print.

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