Photo of the Day: Barrymore Film Center, Fort Lee NJ

Late this afternoon, filled with curiosity while in Fort Lee, NJ, I walked over to the Barrymore Film Center, which opened late this past October after a two-year delay caused by COVID. Longtime readers of this blog might be surprised to know that it took this movie aficionado so long to make my way over there.

I wasn’t really expecting much when I heard about this space, a combination of a repertory film theater and museum. But, at $16 million, it’s a handsome structure.

Increased development in the borough over the past decade or so has made traffic and parking more difficult to negotiate.

But I expect that, come what may, I will find a way to return soon—and, with luck, often—to this site that celebrates not only Fort Lee as the birthplace of the motion-picture industry in the silent era, but also its greatest acting family—a dynasty whose most illustrious siblings (Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore) grew up in a rambling summer house in the Coytesville section of town.

Within a few weeks, I hope to post on an exhibition running into March on the Barrymores—and, perhaps, on the 267-seat theater. (Among the classics scheduled for the next week: The Lost Weekend, The Apartment, The Birds, North by Northwest, and Vertigo.)