South Florida filmmakers held high hopes for local studios in the 1920s

By Jane Feehan

The motion picture industry in the U.S. was launched in the early 1900s by D.W. Griffith and a few other filmmakers. Of acclaim was his controversial Birth of a Nation filmed in California in 1915. Four years later, Griffith came to Fort Lauderdale to make Idol Dancer*. By the early 1920s, a few industry hopefuls opened studios in Florida.

Miami Studios, Inc. was built in Hialeah, eight miles from downtown Miami in 1921. Its two buildings contained two studios each with stages configured 125 by 60 feet for interior shots. Construction progressed “just as though a permanent building is being erected except using plaster board instead of plaster and it was being painted more carefully than a hotel,” reported the Miami Daily Metropolis  (Jul. 28, 1921).

The first movie out of the studio was  Outlaws of the Sea (1923). It was based on Filigree Flask, a story about rum runners written by Miami area resident EH Lebel (Prohibition had been underway since 1920). John Brunton produced the action film shot on Miami’s streets and waterfront. Jack Okey, who went on to have a long career in the film industry, directed the project starring Marguerite Courtot, Pierre Gendron, Gordon Standing and HH Patlee. 

Another movie released the same year was Where the Pavement Ends based on a novel by John Russell. It was directed by Rex Ingram and starred Edward Connelly, Alice Terry and Ramon Navarro. A desert scene was filmed on the beach near today’s Fontainebleau Hotel. Part of the movie was also shot in Cuba. Unfortunately, the film is lost.

Studio principals also hoped to produce a movie about Thomas A Edison’s life to commemorate the 40^th anniversary of his invention of the incandescent light bulb. It’s doubtful this came to pass; no record exists of such a film produced by the company. No other films are mentioned in news of those years about the studio, the “largest motion picture plant in the South, where the greatest personages of filmdom have operated.” D.W. Griffith shot White Roses in Florida and Louisiana but it wasn't a production of Miami Studios. Newspapers of 1923 show attempts to sell lots owned by the company. By that time, Hollywood was the place to be in the film industry and Florida’s chances as a movie production center were all but a dream. Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

*For DW Griffith and other early film makers in Florida, see:

janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/09/early-filmmakers-embrace-fort-lauderdale.html

Additional Sources

Miami Daily Metropolis, Feb. 2, 1923

Miami Daily Metropolis, Mar. 5, 1923

Miami Daily Metropolis, July 8, 1922

Tags: Miami history, film industry history in Miami, film industry history South Florida, 

DW Griffith, movies made in Miami, Miami movie studio,  Hialeah movie studio, film studios in Miami, 

Warner Bros film showcases Florida, boosts tourism - 1950s

Chasing the Sun – Warner Bros., 1957
The Wonders of Nature’s Playground! On Land – and Under the Sea
Owen Crump and Charles L. Tedford, Writers
Andre de la Varre, Director

By Jane Feehan

In 1957, Warner Brothers released Chasing the Sun, a short movie that Herb Rau of the Miami News praised as doing the best job of selling Florida than was ever witnessed. The 31-minute film, directed by Andre de la Varre, told a story of travel in Central and South Florida seen through the eyes of an Austrian artist. Much of it highlighted attractions; some of those remain open today.

Color cameras caught the iconic water skiing girls at Dick Pope’s Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven (closed in 2009). The film also featured Miami attractions: Parrot Jungle (now Jungle Island), Rare Bird Farm (closed), Monkey Jungle (open) and Theater of the Sea in Islamorada (open).

A publicity piece provided by Warner Brothers, who had released 19 films about Florida during the 20 years prior to the 1957 film claimed, “Without question, Chasing the Sun does the greatest selling job for Florida to date, either by magazine, newspaper, or motion picture.” They expected 50 million to view the movie across the U.S.

Before the film was released, however, Miami Beach was drawing hordes of tourists to the Fontainebleau, Eden Roc and a growing roster of glamorous hotels. Arthur Godfrey was broadcasting his popular TV show from the Kenilworth. In 1957 the first leg of the Florida Turnpike was completed. New towns were established in Broward County, including Plantation in 1953. National Airlines saw a need to establish a route to accommodate keen interest in Florida and, in 1958, began non-stop passenger jet service between New York and Miami.

It could be the film reflected as well as promoted the growing interest in Florida.

Sources:

Miami News, Nov. 10, 1957

IMDB.org

Tags: Films about South Florida, Miami Beach in the 1950s, Miami in the 1950s, 
Florida film industry research

MGM: California soaking the rich; move studios to Florida (1935)

By Mateusz Kudła (Own work) 

By Jane Feehan

During the early days of filmmaking, Florida held a place in the collective mind of the industry. A few studios were established during the early 1900s in Miami and Hialeah (see index). But they closed as California evolved into a movie making epicenter with the founding of Warner Bros* in 1923 and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1924. Other studio giants followed: Fox, RKO, 20th Century Pictures.

For one last time the spotlight turned on Florida in 1935 as a potential haven for the film industry. MGM threatened to lead a movie studio exodus from California to the Sunshine State to escape high taxes. Key MGM player (and later 20^th Century Pictures co-founder) Joseph M. Schenck voiced apprehension about California’s tendencies toward “soaking the rich.”   

The 1930s saw a huge increase in federal income taxes; California followed suit. As a result, highly paid actors and directors chose to work less. Schenck pointed to a proposed 35 percent tax on film industry incomes as reason to leave the state. 

He called for the people of Florida to raise $10 million through subscriptions to build motion picture studios to be rented to the film industry for $250,000 a year. The interest rate for the arrangement would not exceed 2.5 percent. 

Schenck told The New York Times he was about to meet with Sidney Kent of Fox Studios in Boca Raton to discuss the plans. Florida would be fine as a new locale, he said. Good transportation to and from the state was an asset. And, most scenes were shot indoors. If mountain scenery was needed, North Carolina was nearby.

The plan was probably a threat; the movie industry was firmly planted in California by 1935. During that decade of the Great Depression, a roster of movie classics was produced that includes: Wizard of Oz, The Public Enemy, King Kong, Petrified Forest, Gone with the Wind and Little Caesar. And the actors soaring to fame through those and other films—Bette Davis, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Judy Garland – were synonymous with Hollywood. It was after, all the “Golden Age of Hollywood.”

Whether threat or plan, Hollywood’s complaining in the media about taxes during the 1930s earned its place in popular debate about the subject—and about politics. And Florida still holds a special mention: The state continues to attract the film industry with its production locations. In 2006 the state ranked third in the nation (behind California and New York) in the film industry; the state recently ranked only in the top 20.

Let’s hope Florida beefs up incentives for filmmaking.

*Albert Warner owned an estate on Miami Beach; it was later sold to make way for the Eden Roc Hotel.

Sources:

The New York Times, Mar. 5, 1935
Film History: An International Journal: Vol. 22 (2010) Number 1

IMDB

MGM

Tags: Florida history, film industry, Jane Feehan film researcher, MGM history, Florida film industry

Kalem Company films Miami: "Paradise of the eastern south, the California that is right at home"

Kalem actors circa 1915
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan

Miami attracted a series of filmmakers in its early days (see labels for additional posts on the subject), including D.W Griffith in 1919. 

One of the most prolific in the business was the Kalem Company, which filmed daily life in Miami as early as 1913. 

Kalem's filmmaker, L.A. Darling, came to Miami in March of that year and his activities made front page news of the local newspaper.

He produced 14 films in a matter of days capturing shots of tourists at the Royal Palm hotel, millionaire yachtsmen returning from a day of fishing, the Great Commoner William Jennings Bryan—a new resident of Coconut Grove—and pioneer and large land holder Mary Brickell. He also filmed six Seminoles in traditional dress. It was reported that the “film was to advertise to the continent the Paradise of the eastern south, the California that is right at home.”

Darling’s mission was to film an accurate representation of life in the sub-tropics, including its ocean waters, palm trees and coconuts. One film, aimed at the “lady suffragettes,” showed Mary Brickell “bossing the job” or directing a man as he gathered coconuts. Another shows one of Seminoles at “Indian headquarters, Girtman’s Cash grocery,” who, only after much cajoling, moved around for the camera. The Seminoles were convinced Darling didn’t know what he was doing; they assumed the only pictures were still shots.   

Political celebrity William Jennings Bryan, who served as congressman for Nebraska, ran for U.S. president three times and later argued for the state in the Scopes trial, came to Coconut Grove to build a home in 1913. Darling caught him on film with his sleeves rolled up directing construction workers on the site.The filmmaker regretted he hadn’t stopped by three weeks earlier when he could have found Bryan hoeing in his radish patch.

Darling also captured shots of a grapefruit packing house, residential neighborhoods and traffic in business areas. His work took a matter of weeks, including the making of negatives to sell to local movie houses. Theater owners needed lots of product to change up programs on a weekly or even daily basis.

Established in New York City in 1907 and operating from 131 West 24th Street, Kalem Company filmed on location throughout the U.S and Ireland. They opened studios in California and Jacksonville and in doing so, became the first company to film year-round. The company made the first Ben-Hur and the first adaptation of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Its legacy includes more than 1,200 films including several about Florida: The Seminole’s Vengeance, A Florida Feud: or, Love in the Everglades, In Old Florida, St. Augustine, Florida, the Celery Industry in Florida, and Cypress Logging in Florida. 

Copyright © 2014. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Kalem was purchased in 1917 by Vitagraph Studios.

Sources:

Miami Metropolis, March 12, 1913

Miami Metropolis, March 13, 1913

Mast, Gerald. A Short History of the Movies. New York: Pegasus, 1971

Wikipedia

IMDB.org

Florida Memories

Tags: early filmmakers in Florida, Fort Lauderdale historian, Miami historian, Florida movie studios, Kalem Company,Jane Feehan film researcher, Miami history