From the Archives: Fort Lee as France in Les Misérables

This past Academy Awards program in February saw many musical numbers feted including that of an Oscar nominated film released in 2012 - Les Misérables. This musical drama film was distributed by Universal Pictures and was based on the musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the 1862 French novel by Victor Hugo.

The film tells the story of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who becomes mayor of a town in France. Once this is found out, Valjean agrees to take care of Cosette, the illegitimate daughter of the dying Fantine. This all plays out as Valjean attempts to avoid being captured again by police inspector Javert. This storyline spans almost two decades and involves political unrest, which culminates in the June Rebellion of France.

Now how are we about to tie in Fort Lee history to this grand tale? Simply put, look for the fox in the hen house and you will get your answer – of course this being Fort Lee the fox in our hen house was none other than the founder of Fox Studio here in Fort Lee, William Fox. Mr. Fox opened his first studio on the corner of Main Street and Linwood Avenue in Fort Lee in 1914. Through 1919 Fox Studio, with the help of their first star screen vamp Theda Bara, became one of the top studios in the world and by 1935 would morph into 20th Century Fox which survives and flourishes today. Well, by 1917 William Fox was looking for an epic to film on a grand scale. Moviegoer’s tastes were becoming a bit more discrimnate and they required a product a wee bit more elaborate than the short comedies and Victorian dramas first lensed in Fort Lee as far back as 1907. 

Fox’s biggest male star on the Fort Lee lot in 1917 was William Farnum. Farnum was cast as Jean Valjean with an actress with the very snappy name of Kittens Reichert as the young Cosette and Jewel Carmen as Cosette at age 18. Richard Koszarski’s 2004 book, Fort Lee: The Film Town, uses primary source material and in the discussion of this film the material is courtesy of the St. Louis Times as reported during the filming in October of 1917:

Over in Jersey, at one of the Fox studios – Fort Lee is full of them – William Farnum is doing the biggest work of his screen career.  For the past six weeks he has lived Jean Valjean, in the new Fox production of Les Miserables…”I hope, and believe, this will prove to be my best work”, said Farnum.  “No part has ever so completely absorbed me as does Jean Valjean, and surely the production is far ahead of anything in which I have appeared.  Detail and historical accuracy mean much to those who know, and we have gone deeply into the matter, sparring neither time nor trouble – nor Fox’s bank account.”

Truer words were never spoken. Though the production made much use of the interiors of the Fox studio and its back lot on Main Street, the lot was insufficient for the creation of the large scale sets that surpassed any previous production mounted in Fort Lee in prior years including Theda Bara’s epic super productions.  Large sets were built in the area of the Palisade section of Fort Lee (southern section of the borough atop the cliffs). Long before the splendid mansions were erected in what would become one of Fort Lee’s most affluent neighborhoods, the area was turned into Paris and for a brief time during this production it became one of the largest movie sets in the world.

This archive piece this week came to be due to an email I received last night from our former Borough Judge and local historian Robert Tessaro. Robert and his son happened to be inside Wendy’s on Route 46 in Fort Lee last night. Thanks to the owner of that very Wendy’s, Lee Magnes, the restuarant is decorated with enlarged photos from the Fort Lee Film Commission archive. Lee asked if he could decorate the walls of his restaurant with copies of our archival film images when he opened this restaurant. Those images include the barricade scene from this 1917 Fox film. 

Robert recalls that when he was a kid the old-timers in Fort Lee still spoke about being extras in this Fox production. Thus this week’s archive piece was born.

So where is our 1917 Fort Lee produced Les Misérables today? According to Rutgers University professor of film and noted film historian Richard Koszarski, the only surviving print of this film is in an archive in Warsaw, Poland. The Fort Lee Film Commission hopes to eventually reach an agreement with that archive so we can bring this film home, back to the town of Fort Lee which for a short period of weeks in the fall of 1917 became 19th century France.