The product of Éclair consisted mostly of short films but, as feature productions became more prominent, disappeared from the Universal Studios program. Representative films: Hands Across the Sea (1911, 1st release) Robin Hood(1912) Soul to Soul (1913) The Jester(1914). Éclair officers included Jules Brulatour (1911). On March 17, 1914, fire destroyed negatives and the main studio building. In 1912, the Éclair American Company joined with the new Universal Film Manufacturing Company and its productions became associated with the release patterns of the larger company. It combined glass-covered shooting stages with administrative offices, photographic laboratory, dressing rooms, scenery storage, and workshops, all in one plant. Its studio, designed by the firm which designed its new Paris facilities, was considered the very latest in movie studio design. The French film manufacturing company, Societe Francaise des Films et Cinematographes Éclair, opened an American branch with a studio at Fort Lee in 1911. Champion performers included Gertrude Shipman, Irving Cummings, and Evelyn Frances. Representative films: Abernathy Kids to the Rescue (1910) The Cowboy and the Squaw (1910) Days of the Early West(1911) Camille (1912). The old Champion studio building, still standing on a side street in the Coytesville Section of Fort Lee, is one of the few surviving movie buildings. Champion was one of the companies which joined in the founding of Universal in 1912. The building was designed to look as little as possible like a movie studio so the Motion Picture Patents Company (dubbed “the Trust”, of which Thomas Edison was a key component) detectives would have a hard time finding it. Its studio was built in a remote area in Coytesville, north of Fort Lee.
Champion was one of the independent companies that defied the dominance of the Motion Picture Patents Company. The first permanent film studio built there was the Champion Film Company.
In the early days of the American movie industry, the Fort Lee–Coytesville area became New Jersey’s busiest production center.
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