FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Before Hollywood, California, became America’s undisputed film capital, silent-film studios flocked to two equally sunny locales to strike it big: Palm Beach and Jacksonville.
These winter movie meccas rich in warmth and inexpensive labor drew some 30 New York- and Chicago-based studios to the thriving Florida cities during the 1910s. Here, studios made over 300 mostly short films and marketed them to a movie-obsessed public. By decade’s end, the studios were gone or bankrupt and its silent films lost to time and neglect — though it wouldn’t be the last time the Sunshine State lured Hollywood back.
The legacy of films using Florida as both a character and a glamorous backdrop will be unspooled in the new memorabilia exhibit “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,” opening Friday, Nov. 14, at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida.
A century-spanning chronology of movies filmed in Florida with a Palm Beach emphasis, the show comes from the Historical Society of Palm Beach County and features 25 artifacts, iconic props and movie costumes, from a 1910s Thomas Edison kinetoscope to Tony Montana’s tropical shirt in “Scarface.” Many items are on loan from NBCUniversal and the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers.
“We’ve got the earliest images of Palm Beach ever captured on film, the golden age of movie palaces, the age of the drive-in up to COVID-19’s effects on the local movie industry,” says Erica Grant, the historical society’s director of curatorial affairs. “It’s a lot. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to put on a sequel to this show, so we wanted to pack in as much information as we could.”
Grant couldn’t think of a better place to start than 1910s Jacksonville, home to Metro Pictures (later Hollywood titan Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and an upstart named Norman Studios, where Richard Norman produced groundbreaking “race films” casting Black actors in positive roles in the segregated South. Clips from the 1926 aviation romance,“The Flying Ace,” one of Norman’s last surviving films, will be shown in the museum’s 2,000-square-foot gallery.
“It features an all-African American cast and went on to inspire entire generations to dare to be a pilot, an aviator,” Grant says. “It’s the power of film to move generations.”
Florida East Coast Railway expansion drew more tourism to the Palm Beaches, and by 1917 filmmakers had already made “Island of Happiness” and “Isle of Tomorrow,” two pictures capturing glamorous life in Palm Beach and the bluebloods who lived there, Grant adds. Even silent-movie stars like Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentino and Billie Burke (later Glinda in the original “Wizard of Oz”) swooped in for winter visits, she says.
“Lillian Gish, Bebe Daniels — they all made a habit of coming to Palm Beach to film. They set the tone for class expectations and beauty norms for audiences to follow,” she says.
Other sections of the exhibit feature 1890s clips from Thomas Edison — including one of Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley firing a rifle — alongside century-old Palm Beach photos from the Historical Society’s collection. One section on golden-age movie houses spotlights the old Bijou Theatre in West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Playhouse as lavish gathering spaces for premieres.
By the 1940s, Palm Beach enjoyed a second filmmaking boom, and another section on display confronts Hollywood’s “harmful, not-so-great” history of racial stereotyping from that period, Grant says. For example, the 1953 Rock Hudson Western, “Seminole,” also screening in the gallery, depicts characters in war paint attacking white men against a score of thudding drums.
“So we break that scene apart to encourage visitors to confront how stereotypical images on film try to replace reality,” she says.
Among the big attention-grabbers are the memorabilia, including Tom Hanks’ NASA suit from “Apollo 13,” Vin Diesel’s tank top from “2 Fast 2 Furious,” and the sheriff uniform worn by Roy Scheider’s character, Chief Martin Brody, in “Jaws 2.”
A section is devoted to late actor and Jupiter resident Burt Reynolds, featuring scripts and movie costumes donated to the museum by Reynold’s niece, Nancy Hess.
Visitors also will find interactive touchscreens where they can create movie posters or build a movie scene from scratch.
“We are thrilled to bring this dynamic exhibition to life,” says Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. “‘Sunshine Cinema’ celebrates not just the movies filmed here, but the people, places and legacy behind them.”
If you go
What: “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,” presented by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County
When: Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Nov. 13; exhibit runs Nov. 14-May 30
Where: Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, 300 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach
Cost: After Nov. 13, admission is $12 for adults and free for guests age 18 and younger
Information: 561-832-4164; PBCHistory.org
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