We’re all familiar with the term “cliffhanger”, used to describe a movie filled with suspense, danger, and “seat-of-your pants” thrills. But did you know that the term originated out of the early serials filmed on the New Jersey Palisades in Fort Lee–the birthplace of the motion picture industry in America?

The movies came to Fort Lee when pioneer companies started to look for new filming locations. In 1907, it was found that the Palisades near Fort Lee and Coytesville could be used for “Wild West” scenes and other outdoor scenes. Rambo’s Hotel on First Street was used as a place to dress as well as for the exterior of a Western saloon.

In 1907, Thomas Alva Edison used the cliffs of the Palisades for the exterior of Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest. It was in this picture that D.W. Griffith, later to become more famous as a director, first appeared in a starring role as an actor. Although his first directorial effort, The Adventures of Dolly, was actually made in Sound Beach, CT, rather than in Fort Lee (as is listed in some secondary sources), Griffith did direct Mary Pickford in The Lonely Villa in Fort Lee in 1909. In this film, Griffith employed his most sophisticated use to date of the technique of “cross-cutting” or the cut-back to build up tension. In The New York Hat, with Mary Pickford, he presented many members of the Biograph family: Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy and Lillian Gish, and Jack Pickford. In The Battle, which was shot in the Coytesville section of the Borough in 1911, he introduced all the “battle photography” which he later expanded in his film The Birth of a Nation.

An early example of the “slapstick” comedy was Biograph’s The Curtain Pole, directed by D.W. Griffith. It was shot on the streets of Fort Lee in late 1908 and started the career of the “King of Comedy”, Mack Sennett.

Timeline of Key Events

1900: Broadway actor and Coytesville resident Maurice Barrymore threw a benefit to raise money to build a firehouse for Company #2 on Washington Avenue in Coytesville. His son, John, age 18, makes his acting debut at this benefit. Barrymore also ran another fundraiser for the purchase of uniforms for Company #2.

1907: Thomas Edison’s Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest shot on location on the Fort Lee Palisades. Film features D.W. Griffith’s first starring role as an actor, having appeared in bit parts in several films now identified.

1908: Early “slapstick” comedy, Biograph’s The Curtain Pole (directed by D.W. Griffith and featuring Mack Sennett), shot on streets of Fort Lee (Main Street).

1908: IMP (Independent Motion Picture Company, which later joined with other independents to form Universal) shot first film on location in Coytesville, Hiawatha.

1909: D.W. Griffith directed Mary Pickford in The Lonely Villa in Fort Lee. The film embodied Griffith’s first sophisticated use of the technique of “cross cutting”, or the cut-back, to build tension.

1909: Champion Film Company, first permanent film studio in Fort Lee-Coytesville area, became New Jersey’s busiest production center. Located in remote area of Coytesville, north of Fort Lee, to evade Motion Picture Patents Company Trust detectives. Champion was one of the companies that joined in the founding of Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1912 (Carl Laemmle was the moving force behind this and served as head of Universal Studios until 1936).

1911: The Battle shot in Coytesville on Hammett’s Hill. Directed by D.W. Griffith, film featured many Biograph stars including a young Lionel Barrymore. (A restored German print of The Battle was screened at the October 2001 Pordenone Film Festival in Italy, and the Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile also screened a reconstructed version in 2000.)

1912: D.W. Griffith directed Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Dorothy Gish, and Lillian Gish in the Anita Loos-scripted The New York Hat, shot on Washington Avenue in Coytesville and Main Street in Fort Lee.

1915: Famous “vamp” actress Theda Bara made her movie debut in A Fool There Was, filmed at the Fox/Willat Studio on Linwood Avenue.

1918: Les Miserables, a Fox Studio production, featured the largest outdoor set ever built in Fort Lee. This studio also produced the epic Tale of Two Cities in 1917. (Film has long been considered lost, but a copy has recently been found in Warsaw, Poland by Commission member Richard Koszarski; the FLFC is currently negotiating to have the film brought to the United States so that it can fund restoration.)

1919: Pioneer African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux shoots Within Our Gates in Fort Lee, presenting the flip side of Griffith’s 1915 The Birth of a Nation by presenting the black perspective.

1922: Marx Brothers appeared in their first film, Humor Risk, shot in Fort Lee. Film had one screening in the Bronx and was lost soon thereafter. Groucho Marx claimed in the 1970s that he would pay thousands to get the film back.

1928: On August 13, WRNY in Coytesville became the first station to broadcast a television image, a 1.5 inch square image of a woman’s face, to New York City, where it is viewed by 500 people.

1930: As a result of stricter fire laws in effect in Manhattan after the Pathé studio burned down, RKO moved production of W.C. Fields’ first “talkie”, The Golf Specialist, from its 24th Street studio to the Ideal Studio in Hudson Heights.

1931: The Exile, first all “talkie” African-American film, shot by Oscar Micheaux at Metropolitan Studios in Fort Lee.

1931: First “talking” version of Alice in Wonderland, starring Ruth Gilbert, filmed at Metropolitan Studios.

1947: 20th Century Fox returns to town of its birth to shoot interiors for the film noir classic Kiss of Death at Holy Angels Academy, across the street from its old studio.

1948: Oscar Micheaux shoots his final film, The Betrayal, in Fort Lee.