Younger Than the Mountains: Coal country on celluloid

While Hollywood has long stood as the film capital of the world, the center of the cinematic universe wasn’t always so undisputed. In the earliest days of the movie industry, studios were spread far and wide across America, from Thomas Edison’s studio in New Jersey (and later New York) to snowbird studios in Florida. An oft-forgotten would-be hub of early film production, however, was Northeastern Pennsylvania. In the latter half of the 1910s, several companies endeavored to make motion pictures in the Wyoming Valley, the most successful of which was the United States Motion Picture Corporation, who produced dozens of “Black Diamond Comedies” from their studio in Forty-Fort between 1916 and 1919.

Initial plans for the company were announced in August 1914. While other Pennsylvania cities were considered for its headquarters, Wilkes-Barre won out at the insistence of city treasurer Daniel L. Hart and Fred W. Hermann, manager of the Savoy Theater on Public Square. Earlier that year, the city had played host to the third annual convention of the Motion Picture Exhibitors League of Pennsylvania, with Hart and Hermann in attendance.

“I have seen so many of my theatrical friends become millionaires that I marvel at the fact that enterprising Wilkes-Barreans have not interested themselves in something of the kind,” Hart told a reporter for the Wilkes-Barre Record. “You have no idea of the demand for films and the great famine we have had in this country with only thirty-four studios attempting to supply the demand of 40,000 theatres,” Hermann added.

Daniel L. Hart was born in 1866 in a house on Hazle Street. His father John, an Irish immigrant, was the first man to use an engine to haul coal out of the local mines. Hart graduated from Wyoming Seminary in 1886 and hustled his way from newsboy to reporter, working as a columnist at the Wilkes-Barre Leader, Times-Leader, and the Scranton Times. Eventually he turned towards drama, becoming a playwright and penning a number of critically-acclaimed plays, the most famous of which was “The Parish Priest,” later adapted into a film in 1920.

Fred W. Hermann was born in Scranton in 1875. He started out as an electrical engineer before becoming involved with Michael E. Comerford, the founder of the Motion Picture Theatre Owners of America. Hermann earned his first managerial role at the Hippodrome Theatre in Scranton before being hired as the manager at the Savoy.

In September, representatives of the United States Motion Picture Corporation meet with the Forty-Fort borough council to receive approval for construction of a studio on Slocum Street near Wyoming Avenue. In response to rumors that the company’s stock is controlled by interests outside the Valley, newly appointed vice president Fred W. Hermann offers a portion of company stock for sale to local residents at the price of $10 per share. In November, the company purchases a plot of land on the shore of Lake Carey from John Kilcoyne for the construction of an additional studio. The contract to construct the studio in Forty-Fort is granted to Lord & Burnham of New York in January 1915, with concrete, brick, and carpentry to be performed by local contractors. The main office building is to be brick and concrete, while the massive hangar-like stage building will be almost entirely steel and glass, the largest of its kind in the area. The basement of the main building will house dressing rooms for the actors and dark rooms to develop film. James Walsh, president of the newly formed company, officially breaks ground on the project in early March. Meanwhile, other cinematic business interests begin bubbling up further north.

In January 1915, Phoenix Films Corporation announces intentions to purchase Rocky Glen Park, an amusement park near Scranton, for use as a motion picture plant. The company had just been incorporated that month in Wilmington, Delaware by “local men” W. M Pyle, G. G. Stiegler, and L. W. E. McCarthy with capital of between $1-1.5 million. The plans are announced in Variety, The Moving Picture World, and a large feature in the January 20 issue of The Scranton Times.

The deal was negotiated “quietly by two California motion picture men,” the Times reports. “The beautiful Crystal Palace, where thousands enjoyed dancing in previous years, will be transformed into a monster studio that will have no equal in this country.”

Thomas K. Peters, the technical director of Phoenix Films, arrives in Scranton the following week to create even more intrigue into the mysterious company.

“Some of the biggest men in the business are at the head of the Phoenix corporation,” he tells the Scranton Times. “but we can not tell who they are just yet.”

Phoenix Films creates further excitement throughout February by filming local civic groups, such as the First Presbyterian Church’s Bible study class and basketball team and a Knights of Columbus parade. Later in the month, Phoenix begins negotiating with postmaster John E. Barrett to adapt his historical novel Red Shadow, set in the Wyoming Valley during the Revolutionary War, into the studio’s first feature. On March 2, the company begins selling shares of 8% preferred stock, advertising it nearly daily in both the Scranton Republican and the Times from March 3 to April 10, when they abruptly stop.

With work underway on their cutting-edge studio complex, the principal players of the United States Motion Picture Corporation got to work preparing for filming. Vice president Hart is inundated with hundreds of applications as actors are recruited from among the local populace. Dr. Frank P. Huston, who is set to sit behind the camera, begins touring the valley for shooting locations. Huston is lucky in this regard, as the natural beauty of the Wyoming Valley was one of the principal reasons it was chosen by the company.

“The most beautiful scenery in the world is right here in this valley,” company president James O. Walsh tells the Pittston Gazette. “The people who have lived here all their life may not notice it so much as a stranger who comes here. The stranger is impressed by the beauty of a sunset on the Susquehanna, of the gorgeous mountains that enclose the valley.”

Walsh was speaking from first hand experience. Originally from Massachusetts, he first came to the area by way of Atlantic City to design and manage the San Souci amusement park (formerly Hanover Park) around 1905. This was how he first became connected to Hart, who had an interest in the Park. Over the next decade, Walsh would construct and manage several amusement parks across the northeast United States. He returned to Wilkes-Barre in 1915 to serve as president of the newly-formed motion picture company, leasing a home on South Washington street in August of that year. Around this time he also established the Heimbach-Walsh Moving Picture Distributing Company with his friend and business partner W. Howard Heimbach, assisting local theaters in procuring motion pictures for exhibition.

By August, the studio is complete and filming is ready to begin. Arrangements have already been made for national distribution of the company’s releases. “The Making of An Actor” is reported to be the first motion picture to be filmed at the studio, though it’s possible the name was changed since no other record of such a film exists. During this time, Anita Stewart, one of the motion picture industry’s earliest starlets, is a guest of the studio during a weekend retreat in the Valley. Federal Feature Film, a recently organized corporation from New York, purchases the Rocky Glen property in October. The initial deal with Phoenix had fallen through after the sudden disappearance of its manager, Thomas K. Peters.

“Peters left Scranton several months ago for New York and nothing has been heard from him since,” the Times Leader reports on August 16, 1915.

It’s unclear what exactly became of Peters and the Phoenix Films Corporation, but in January 1919 the company’s charter was repealed for unpaid taxes. Federal Feature Film doesn’t fare much better, seemingly disappearing completely after November 1915.

As motion picture-mania overtook the Valley, Wilkes-Barre played host to a pioneering figure in the field and one of the city’s proudest native sons: Lyman H. Howe. Howe started giving traveling exhibitions of his phonograph in the 1880s, “performing” full-length “concerts” with the then-cutting edge device. In 1896, he invented the animotiscope, an early film projector, after unsuccessful attempts to acquire similar devices, such as Edison’s kinetoscope. He exhibited his first motion picture in Wilkes-Barre in December 1896, using a phonograph for sound effects, the first to do so. Howe dubbed his films “High-Class Moving Pictures,” favoring travelogues and newsreels that set him apart from the more superficial fare of other exhibitors, such as the Warner Bros. By the dawn of the 20th century, Howe had built a mini-empire of traveling film companies, all headquartered in Wilkes-Barre.

Despite his far ranging business interests, Howe remained deeply involved in the city, serving as president of the Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce and chairman of the River Improvements Committee.

On March 1, 1916, the United States Motion Picture Corporation holds the world premiere of its first film at a private screening at the Savoy Theater. Written and directed by Daniel L. Hart, The Wish Bone is “a one-reel comedy of rapid-fire action, well enacted and splendidly developed.” The film includes a number of scenes filmed on location in Wilkes-Barre, including a home on River Street, the city’s Public Square, and the Sterling Hotel. The following month, the film is shown as a double feature with Deep Sea Doings, a tale of two submariners adrift at sea, scenes for which were filmed on the Susquehanna River and Harvey’s Lake. Both films carry the company’s special trademark: Black Diamond Comedy.

By the summer of 1916, the company is producing two motion pictures a month, with an eye towards ramping production up to one per week. 21 people make up the full time staff of the company, with freelancers and part-timers hired as necessary. Among its stars at this time are Ruth Elder, who would go on to be an early pioneer of aviation, Julian Reed, younger brother of well-known local stage actor Roland Reed, and Carl Dally, a 300-pound man from Ashley who draws comparisons to comedic fat-man-du-jour John Bunny. Joseph Richmond, a former employee of the Edison Motion Picture Co., serves as director with Horace Plimpton, a well known cinematographer, working the camera.

The people of the United States Motion Picture Corporation have much to celebrate on August 16, 1916. On that day, company director Joseph Richmond marries Kathleen Bergstadt, a fellow former employee of the Edison company, at St. Mary’s parish house. Reverend Shields officiates, Daniel L. Hart serves as groomsman, and the actors and actresses of the studio throw a reception for the pair. That same day, another union takes place in the form of a distribution deal between the USMPC and Paramount. The contract is a huge win for the fledgling company, who will receive hundreds of thousand dollars a year from Paramount and have their films screened alongside those of such stars as Mary Pickford and Fatty Arbuckle.

“The value of this proposition to Wilkes-Barre from an advertising standpoint can hardly be computed in dollars and cents,” president James O. Walsh tells the Wilkes-Barre Record. “Lots of people who have never been in Wilkes-Barre have an idea that all we have here is a little mining town, but when they see in our pictures the beautiful scenic surroundings, residences and business centre I am sure that their opinion will change.”

The next month, Walsh is appointed to the committee of the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry.

As the winter weather sets in, making exterior filming in the Wyoming Valley untenable, the cast of the United States Motion Picture Corporation make their way down to Florida in January 1917. They work out of Kalem studio in Jacksonville, which the company would soon take control of, serving as their winter base of operations. During this retreat, the studio in Forty Fort is occupied by the Educational Industrial and Scientific Motion Picture Corporation, who produce Trooper 44, a five reel feature about Pennsylvania State police. USMPC makes several motion pictures in Jacksonville over the winter months before returning to the Valley in March.

Among those returning with the company is Miss Leatrice Joy, the company’s newest leading lady. Joy was an actress from New Orleans who had previously appeared in several Mary Pickford films. Originally intending to be a nun, she got into acting after her father fell ill with tuberculosis, leaving the family in need of money. True to her name, Joy quickly became a beloved figure in the local community, even hosting a lawn party for the neighborhood children at the studio in Forty Fort. Joy would play the lead role in a number of Black Diamond Comedies, most notably the Susie series and Her Fractured Voice (1917), one of only three of the company’s films still known to exist. In the film, Joy plays a young woman who is as enamored with her own singing voice as others are repelled by it.

The United States Motion Picture Corporation would continue to release Black Diamond Comedies with assembly line-like productivity throughout 1917. Near the end of the year, the company loses their distribution deal with Paramount, and with it the Black Diamond Comedy trademark.

The entry of the United States of America into the World War I, along with the scourge of the influenza epidemic, causes the United States (Motion Picture Corporation) to halt production for much of 1918. In September of that year, they strike a deal with General Film Company for distribution of their new brand: “Rainbow Comedies.” Rainbow Comedies, featuring more light-hearted scenarios often concerning the social lives of high society, are marketed as a “high-class” alternative to the more proletarian humor displayed in other comedies of the time.

A want ad for scripts, published in Camera! magazine, makes the divide clear: “In the market for high-class, clean, society comedies, and farces, of one reel. ‘Slapstick’ is not wanted.” In December, the company strikes a further deal with Arrow Film Company for distribution of 32 “Unique Comedies,” mostly composed of re-released Black Diamond Comedies.

Despite the success of Rainbow Comedies, by the end of 1919, the United States Motion Picture Corporation had ceased production. The public’s taste in film was changing, and the one- and two-reel comedies that the company specialized in were falling out of popularity in favor of longer feature films and serials.

Serico Motion Pictures Corporation takes over the studio, with some key players, such as Hart, remaining involved. Serico begins filming the serial drama “A Woman in Grey” starring Arline Pretty in late 1919. During filming of the dram, an unintended bit of comedy occurs when a horse escapes set on River Street in Wilkes-Barre, dragging with it a prop dummy. The horse runs all the way to Dorranceton before being caught, shocking and exciting bystanders, who take the dummy to be a real body, along the way. “A Women in Grey” would be the only motion picture Serico would produce, and the company folds in 1920.

On October 26, 1920, the board of directors of the United States Motion Picture Corporation vote unanimously to accept a merger with Entente Film Corporation of Philadelphia. Daniel L. Hart, founding father of the studio, became mayor of Wilkes-Barre earlier in the year. J.D. Knecht, manager of the Forty-Fort studio, promises a new lease on life for the lot. No such renaissance was to be.

On September 27, 1922, the Times Leader prints an announcement of sheriff’s sale for a property on Slocum Street “all improved with a large brick, steel and glass building used as a motion picture studio.”

The studio of the United States Motion Picture Corporation, once a cutting edge temple of art and industry, serves as the drying room for a local laundry before being demolished in 1934.

Charles Robert Jones is a Kingston native who publishes Younger Than the Mountains, an online newsletter about the history of Northeast Pennsylvania. Visit youngerthanthemountains.substack.com .