Fort Lee was already a favorite location for New York filmmakers when Mark Dintenfass arrived in 1910 and established Champion as the first of many studios in that sleepy town. Biograph, Éclair, Kalem, Fox and Universal soon followed making Fort Lee and New Jersey the birthplace of the American motion picture industry. Curated by Richard Koszarski, author of Fort Lee, The Film Town and the enclosed 20-page booklet, this special edition 2-disc Blu-ray set gathers 14 wonderful and historically significant films and 2 documentaries from archives around the world. Featuring two restored Biograph chase films by D.W. Griffith (The Curtain Pole and The Cord of Life), the legendary The Vampire (1913), which popularized the character of the “vamp” or “femme fatale,” the earliest surviving film version of Robin Hood, and a new 4K restoration of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Ukrainian operetta Cossacks in Exile (1939) famously shot at Little Flower Monastery in Newton, Made in New Jersey: Films From Fort Lee is a landmark release for cinema history and simply a joy to watch.
Special Features:
• Booklet with essay and film notes by Richard Koszarski
DISC 1: BEFORE HOLLYWOOD
• The Curtain Pole (Biograph, 1909)*
• The Cord of Life (Biograph, 1909)*
• Robin Hood (Éclair, 1912)**
• The Champion (Documentary about Fort Lee, 2015)
• The Indian Land Grab (Champion Studios, 1910)***
• A Daughter of Dixie (Champion Studios, 1911)***
• Not Like Other Girls (Universal Victor, 1912)***
• Flo’s Discipline (Universal Victor, 1912)***
• Marked Cards (Universal Champion, 1913)***
• The Vampire (Kalem, 1913)****
• A Girl of the West (Vitagraph, 1912)***
• A Grocery Clerk’s Romance (Keystone, 1912)**
• There She Goes (Pathé, 1913)***
DISC 2 : AFTER HOLLYWOOD
The Danger Game (Goldwyn, 1918)*
• Cossacks in Exile (Edgar Ulmer, 1939)
• Ghost Town: The Story of Fort Lee (1935)***
*Music Composed and Performed by Donald Sosin
**Music by Rodney Sauer and Performed by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
***Music Composed and Performed by Ben Model
****Musical Accompaniment Composed and Performed by Philip C. Carli
- MPAA rating : NR (Not Rated)
- Package Dimensions : 7 x 5 x 1 inches; 7.04 ounces
- Director : D.W. Griffith, Edgar G. Ulmer
- Media Format : Blu-ray
- Run time : 6 hours and 23 minutes
- Release date : June 24, 2025
- Actors : Mack Sennett, Florence Lawrence, Owen Moore
- Studio : Milestone Films
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 2
