Miss That East Coast Production? Blame Him.

Long before the Dodgers, let alone yours truly, migrated to the West Coast from points East, the nascent film industry had done the same.  As a frustrated Mets fan staring into the abyss of yet another loooooong off-season sans a championship, that point is driven home aggressively on days like this.

But it wasn’t just the climate that abetted the migration of studios to the Left Coast.  As today’s HOLLYWOOD FACTOID points out:

It was also about as far as you could get from Thomas Edison.

After building the world’s first film production studio in New Jersey in the early 1890s, Edison churned out patented inventions related to making and showing movies. Then, in 1908, he spearheaded the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company, an East Coast association where all the major patent-holders in the film industry pooled their resources. It was essentially a monopoly, and aspiring filmmakers could hardly lift a finger without fearing a lawsuit for patent infringement.

It was harder to enforce patent laws over such a great distance, and West Coast judges were also less amenable to Edison and his cohort. Sure enough, fiilmmakers started migrating to SoCal.

There is an Edison, New Jersey, but these days it’s merely a home to some decent diners and an occasional convention of adult film stars.  That’s usually held in December, by the way, when the weather is much lousier than it is here.

But while you’re nibbling on a Greek omelette one dreary morning in the next couple of months dreading the next Giants or Jets home game, or, worse let, holiday mall traffic, think about what could have been had the town’s namesake been a bit less monopolistic.

Step into the American Late Night Experience from the 60s & 70s- The Way It Happened!  $1.99/mo.