A PICTURE TOWN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 6 January 1913, Page 7

A PICTURE TOWN.

Jf there actually docs exist a town in this wide world, the inhabitants of which are absolutely immune from the seductions of the moving picture theatre, that town must be Coytesvillc (New Jersey). For Coytesville is one of the centres of the picture-making industry, and in the strets of this little town on the Palisades of the Hudson, such stirring events as battles, sieges, murder, highway robberies, and the like, are regarded by the blase inhabitants as the paltriest of everyday events. For, these are occurrences which take place daily in the vicinity of Coytesville, and in the streets of the town itself. Almost everything that has ever happened, no matter in what time or dime, has happened (cinematographically speaking) at Coytesville. When Mr. Roosevelt came out of the African jungle, it was out of the woods of Leonia, a short distance from the town. Quite lately, the New York ‘Press’ remarks, a number of the Revolutionary battles have been fought out to a sanguinary finish in the immediate neighbourhood, while stirring scenes from the history of Ireland have been enacted amid tlie same surroundings, and some of the most exciting episodes of the Boer War have taken place in the meadows of New Jersey. A love story that was supposed to have taken place in the heart of old County Kerry was enacted not long ago at Coytesville, while a charming idyll of German peasant life was faithfully represented in the woods near by. Often a bouse catches fire in one of the streets of Coytesville, but no one gets very alarmed, and no particular excitement is caused when some handsome youth dashes through the blazing doorway and rescues a distressed damsel from the devouring {laities. For .Mexican scenes, a certain house with a particularly attractive stucco front is much in demand, and is hired out by tin twenty minutes or half-hour. With a number of palms distributed about tinfront porch, a thoroughly “Mexican’ atmosphere as created. Coytesville i a rather alarming place for uninitiated visitors, who are often tempted to take the law into their own hand; when they see a villainous-looking person hurling a “hero” over the edgf of a precipice. .Most of the actors and “stage hands” live in New York, and go' over to Coytesvill oevery rami g. The. daily rate of pay for actors is lire dollars a day, while one of the most highly paid actors receives air ut three hundred dollars a week.