OK, take a look at that palm tree right over there.
That’s not a California palm tree, it’s a Florida palm tree.
And I’m currently in a city that had more than 30 movie studios and made 100s of films.
This city was locked in a fight with Hollywood
and if it won, it could have changed our culture.
But this gutted old movie studio is just about all that’s left of it today.
And the fact that this city lost says something about early movies and how hard it is for
cities to embrace change.
But if things had gone just a little differently, Jacksonville, Florida, might have been the
world’s movie capital.
This is a typical movie studio around 1910.
Notice the ceiling?
It’s glass covered by thin paper.
Physical film strips at the time needed so much light that the studios were like greenhouses,
and pricey artificial lights were just starting to get good in the 1910s.
Most early American silent movies were made in New York — and this lighting requirement
created some problems.
It was just one of the reasons movie studios felt “the call of jacksonville.”
New York’s light didn’t compare to “the rays of the sun” in warmer climates, and
this was especially important with primitive film.
Cold weather also hurt cameras, and cameramen claimed it caused static that produced
cracks and scratches on the film.
Location was limited as well.
New York could play a city, but producers wanted to be near beaches and jungles.
Jacksonville and LA both did that - but Jacksonville was a relatively short 26 hour train ride
from New York.
So it became a winter hub.
The Vim headquarters in New York wanted a presence in Jacksonville, so they set up an
outpost, and the famous Thanhouser Film Company did the same.
Massive new studios were built.
This is the former home of Eagle Studios — a Jacksonville native studio —in 1916, where
they shot movies like this one: A Bathtub Elopement, featuring goofy silent film comedian
Marcel Perez.
This is the production office.
This is the safe where they stored flammable film.
And this is the on-lot generator.
So why is it empty today?
OK, this is almost it.
Imagine this happening in your city.
Right not I’m at Monroe and Davis in Jacksonville, where a mob of more than 1,000 extras almost
destroyed a saloon while shooting the movie “The Clarion.”
Like, totally destroyed it.
OK, do I look like that guy? “ARGH!”
This happened more than once.
Here’s a crowd chasing a baby carriage down the street in downtown Jacksonville.
It held a very large “baby.”
By the mid-1910s, Jacksonville residents were starting to get sick of movies overrunning
their town.
Jacksonville had extended a “genuine welcome” to film, like Vim Comedy and Eagle Film.
The mayor was a film booster who thought film would bring a “new era to Jacksonville.”
He had the support of every production company in Jacksonville, and the city was set to be
a hub.
He was up for election in 1917, a year after that big riot during the shooting of “The
Clarion.”
Businessmen were behind the mayor and he asked the people of Jacksonville to vote for him
and support the motion picture film companies he brought in.
He lost.
It was a vote against corruption, but also against the movies running wild through Jacksonville.
During this time, Hollywood had grown a lot, despite being further away from New York.
Mismanagement of companies in Jacksonville, World War I, and an influenza outbreak didn’t
help the Florida city.
There was a lot of bad luck.
After the 1917 election, a lot of studios closed up shop in Florida.
The city had, in effect, voted against a future in movies.
In the meantime, hit movies, like those made by legendary director DW Griffith, had made
Hollywood a home for film..
Hollywood was ready to be a movie town.
Jacksonville couldn’t make the jump.
Jacksonville shows us an alternate universe for movies.
One where different comedy teams became legendary, where the duo of Laurel and Hardy was “Plump
and Runt” instead.
And there are other reasons too, beyond movie stars.
That sign up top should say Norman Laboratories.
After Eagle Studios closed, a producer named Richard Norman bought it.
While Hollywood made movies featuring actors in blackface, Norman Studios made films like
the Flying Ace, starring heroic black characters, played by black actors.
It was one of a few film studios that focused on black audiences and black characters, and
it sat outside the Hollywood system.
It wasn’t the mainstream.
If things had gone a little differently in Jacksonville, our culture could have been
shaped by an entirely different set of stories.
But instead, all we have are a few restored films and some buildings that are waiting
for the same.
Alright, that’s it for this episode in our series about big changes to movies that came
from outside Hollywood.
A lot of places have actually started to surpass Hollywood — there’s Nollywood, there’s
Bollywood, there’s Y’allywood — these are all real, Google them.
So I wanna know if you think Hollywood will endure.
Let me know in the comments.
I also want to give a shout out to almost Hollywood by Blair Miller.
All those library scenes where I’m looking up stuff on microfiche, I’m basically looking
up footnotes in this book and finding them in the original newspaper.
So if you want to nerd out a lot more on the history of Jacksonville, Florida, get into
the specifics, this is the book for you.