Betzwood Motion Picture Studio

Before there was Hollywood there was Betzwood, a motion picture studio located 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia.  This studio was the largest film production facility in the world during the early years of film making.  What is left of this once great studio is just a few buildings, now turned into offices, and a historical maker.  It is the marker that I discovered last summer that led me to discover Betzwood Motion Picture Studio’s once great past.

At the birth of the movie industry there were many small movie studios located in the northeast part of the country and Philadelphia optician Siegmund Lubin became fascinated with movie production. “Pop” Lubin opened his own studio, the Lubin Film Co., in the late 19^th century.  Lubin’s first studio was located in downtown Philadelphia but Lubin soon found he needed to expand from his downtown studio as his success grew.  In 1912 Mr. Lubin purchased a sprawling 350 acre estate at the edge of Valley Forge National Park and the Schuylkill River and named it Betzwood Motion Picture Studio.  On this estate Lubin would build offices, scenery storage buildings, a processing plant, a film vault and a power plant that would produce electricity for the studio.    The studio also included three indoor studios for filming.  Two were dark studios which would use electricity from the power plant.  The third studio was a daylight studio, which was all glass and used to create day shots. The remaining acreage was the perfect setting to create western gun fights and civil war battles.  Lubin would even have entire western towns built and then have it destroyed if the script called for it, and then build them again for the next film. Lubin biographer, Joseph Eckhardt, called Betzwood Motion Picture Studio the “biggest film empire” of the day. 

Unfortunately, a fire in the film fault, the breakout of World War I, and a federal law suit would financially destroy Lubin’s budding film empire.  In 1916 the studio would be turned over to Wolf Brothers, Inc.  who would continue creating movies at the studio until 1923.  In the end over 110 ten movies would be made at Betzwood.

The studio remained abandoned and building’s left vacant for decades.  Fortunately, in 2001 O’Neill Properties Group purchased the Betzwood land and restored five of the original buildings and now uses them for their offices along with some other small businesses.  O’Neill Properties also developed upscale apartments on a portion of the Betzwood property with plans to develop more commercial property on the site. 

Much like the studio itself time has been destructive to the films that were created at Betzwood.  Only a few movies remain.  Only 29 of the original 110 are known to still exist and are located in archives here in the United States and in Europe. 

Works Cited:

"The Betzwood Film Archive and Film Festival".  Montomgery County Community College. 11 Apr. 2011. <http://faculty.mc3.edu/jeckhard/betzwood.htm>.

Eckhardt, Joseph. "The King of the Movies: Film Pioneer Siegmund Lubin".  Montomgery County Community College. 21 Arp. 2011. <http://faculty.mc3.edu/jeckhard/lubin.htm>.

Feighner, Jan. "Early Movie Studio on Pbs".  2009.  The Reporter Online. 20 Apr. 2011. <http://rememberwhenvirtualmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/07/early-movie-studio-on-pbs.html>.

Miller, Kate.  2004.  O'Neill Properties Group. 22 Apr. 2011. <http://oneillproperties.com/company/pr_newsroom.php?prid=25&status=Newsroom&year=2004&PHPSESSID=881d77d.>.

"Season 7, Episode 4".  2009. TV program. History Detectives.  (July 2009):  PBS. <http://video.pbs.org/video/1176774004/>.