The birth of the movie industry in America took place in and around Leonia, one of the towns that make up the borough of Ridgefield in Bergen County, New Jersey. Ridgefield was known for the Grantwood Movie Studio for filming interiors. Most films used studios and properties resembling houses -- but with no backs -- instead of actual houses. Ridgefield was popular for filming until the end of World War I, when producers went to Hollywood for a warmer climate to produce films year-round.
The 1905 silent feature film "The Summer Boarders" was filmed in an actual large house in Leonia. Producers designed the house as a guest house. The elements of the house present the film's comedy. The house shows activity of children running down the stairs causing mayhem for the maid. The father tries to relax in a hammock in the garden and falls out. Around the dining room, the clumsy maid spills soup on the grandfather's bald head. Producers rarely filmed in an actual house in Leonia.
From 1910 to 1921, pioneer filmmaking companies had their headquarters in Leonia Heights in Fort Lee, neighboring Leonia. Sets were popular and more economical than building or renting a house. In the film "The Rise of Jennie Cushing," you see a scene of a rusty trolley-car traveling around a corner. Producers designed the scene to look like Algiers but, in fact, it was a backyard at Fort Lee in an area where aged little houses were crumbling. In "Nana of Sunshine Alley," the homes were sets resembling homes in the front but with no backs.
The value of Fort Lee's motion picture house sets, properties and the studio in Ridgefield began to decline after 1917. The owners of the Ridgefield studio tried to sustain the income of the studio by producing Italian and Polish films. It lasted only until the end of the Depression era. Leonia became one of the few jurisdictions in New Jersey to declare bankruptcy. The Ridgefield studio with its house sets burned down in the 1960s. Hollywood became the new Leonia.