Interview with David Morton, author of “Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry”
David Morton is a lecturer in film and history at the University of Central Florida and the author of a new book, Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry (University Press of Florida, 2024). The hard cover was out last summer and the paperback version drops in September. For this interview, we chatted about Florida and the Florida film industry.
I’d assume most people don’t know much about Florida’s film and television history. What is your overview of the topic for someone who knows nothing?
Much of American film history has been a story of two coasts, which mostly translates to a “Tale of Two Cities:” New York and Los Angeles. Where the urban experience is showcased in all its grit and glamor in New York, Los Angeles – and California by extension—has offered much of the space and possibility of the American Dream. What has been lost in the story of American film history is Florida’s place as the “third coast,” where only the most intrepid and creative storytellers dared to come tell their stories.
Do you have any particular anecdotes or stories from Florida film history that stand out to you?
There are too many to write just here! Much of my book is filled with so many interesting characters and films that have put Florida on the map. I’ll share a few of my favorite Florida filmmakers and enthusiasts:
William Paley – A cameraman hired by William Randolph Hearst and Thomas Edison to document the funeral of the victims from the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine who also documented American troop movements during the Spanish-American War. From my research he can considered to be the first war correspondent to use the motion picture to accompany his reports to Hearst and the New York Journal.
Gene Gauntier – Also known as “The Kalem Girl” was a screenwriter and sometimes director who produced some of the first films shot on location in North Florida. Her Girl Spy series was enormously popular with audiences and helped to create the template for “Western” style films in California a decade later. Before the “Western” there was the “Southern,” and it was made in Florida.
Richard Norman – After the film industry left North Florida in the 1910s, Norman purchased an abandoned studio property in Jacksonville’s Arlington neighborhood and created the first -and only – studio designed for the production of race films. His most famous movie, The Flying Ace (1926) was selected in 2021 to be preserved by the Library of Congress for its historical and cultural significance.
Nancy Tribble Benda – A former Weeki Wachee Mermaid turned TV personality who produced Miss Nancy’s Store, an interactive children’s program that became the forerunner of Mr. Rodger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street.
Newton Perry – An Ocala-based swim coach who later served as a location scout and stunt performer for shows, including Tarzan.
Ricou Browning – Better known as “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” or more specifically, the underwater creature. Browning also worked as an underwater stunt double for producer Ivan Tors on shows such as Sea Hunt. He later suggested to Tors an idea for a story about a boy and a dolphin that he pitched as “Lassie on the water.” Together, he and Tors helped to bring the story of Flipper to life. Browning remained an active advocate for Florida filmmakers for the rest of his life.
John Watzke – Owner of the Ocala Drive-In. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ocala Drive-In was briefly the only source of revenue for the entire American box office. In April 2020, the Ocala Drive-In continued to exhibit first-run films while all other movie theaters across the U.S. had shut down due to quarantine and lockdown restrictions.
What has made Florida a hospitable place for the film and television industry?
Despite its perception as palm trees, beaches, and swamps, Florida has tremendous geographic diversity (everything but mountains!) As the third-largest state in population in the United States, it offers an incredible range of demographic and cultural diversity, as well. From a labor standpoint, as a right-to-work state, during times when there were tensions in the New York or California film industry, Florida offered an alluring alternative for producers. At times when there has been enthusiasm and cooperation with the motion picture industry from the state government, a fruitful partnership has flourished.
What brought you to this topic? How did you get the idea for this book?
This book started out as my doctoral dissertation, which I started writing in 2017. At that time, the state legislature had voted to withhold additional support for a tax incentive initiative that had been in place since 1999. As a result, several productions in the state started to look elsewhere, including northward to Georgia. My original project was intended to explore why so many Florida politicians had become outright hostile toward the motion picture industry. I then discovered how a similar pattern took place in Florida during the 1910s when Jacksonville’s self-described “Movie Mayor” J.E.T. Bowden started a campaign to attract New York-based filmmakers to North Florida. This happened at the same time that Hollywood was just beginning to emerge as a movie hub as well. Instead, he lost his bid for reelection, and his successor (who later became the Governor of Florida) began an anti-vice crackdown that targeted movie producers. The parallels between more recent efforts within the Florida government to regulate entertainment content produced in the state in the 2020s are eerily similar to what took place during the 1910s.
You are a lecturer in film and history at the University of Central Florida, what makes film special as a medium for storytelling?
In addition to working as a film lecturer, I am also a lecturer in the history department at UCF. What draws me to teach courses in film and history is that both disciplines teach empathy. Roger Ebert once said that “Cinema is like a machine that makes empathy.” While studying the past can allow you to imagine yourself in the mindset and perspective of someone who lived in a time and place completely alien from your own, film helps to bring this imagination to life. In my film courses, I love the opportunity to open my students up to new ideas and perspectives through the lens of lived experiences outside of their own.
Within our review, we try to integrate a sense of place. What difference does it make if a film or show is shot in Florida or somewhere else? How does location shape the final product?
Absolutely. With so many movies and shows that use Florida as a backdrop right now, it takes you out of the moment when the state is not properly depicted. A great recent example is Apple’s Bad Monkey, which was filmed on location in Key West, Miami, and the Bahamas. The series truly incorporated the Florida Keys as a character that helped enhance the show’s quirkiness in a way that could not have been copied in Georgia or California. Other productions that are filmed on location in Louisiana, Georgia, or the Carolinas just do not capture the same feel as if they were made in Florida.
It seems that the film industry concentrates in a few places, what would be different if we had more movies and shows being made in more states?
I would say that today the American film industry is a lot more decentralized than it was in the mid-twentieth century, when it primarily centered in Southern California and New York. Currently, 40/50 states have dedicated film production offices (not including Florida), which has also opened competition for local production incentives. The 2020s have been especially challenging for the film industry due to shake ups in movie viewership following the COVID-19 pandemic, the WGA and Actors Guild Strikes in 2023, increasing corporate consolidation, and the recent wildfires in Los Angeles have upended things even further. As my book shows, it has been during times of disruption in the film industry have been the moments when Florida is ready for its close-up.
Can you think of a story that should be filmed here, but hasn’t been?
Below is just a short list of more recent movies and tv shows that are about Florida and set in Florida that have been filmed in other states. Recently a number of shows that are very Florida-specific in their setting, but are filmed in other more industry-friendly locations:
Cougartown (California)
Road House (Dominican Republic)
Fly Me to the Moon (Georgia)
Live By Night (Georgia)
Pain Hustlers (Georgia)
Killing It (Louisiana)
On Becoming a God in Central Florida (Louisiana)
Poker Face (Season 2 – New York/Nevada/New Mexico)
Florida Man (North Carolina)
Paper Towns (North Carolina)
Suncoast (South Carolina)
What are some of your favorite movies and shows set in Florida and/or filmed in Florida?
Here are my top ten films that I think best showcase Florida and its eclectic nature on film. All are must-watches for any Florida movie buff:
The Flying Ace (1926), dir. Richard Norman
The Yearling (1946) dir. Clarence Leon Brown
Twelve O’clock High (1949) dir. Henry King
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) dir. Jack Arnold
Flipper (1963) dir. James B. Clark
Caddyshack (1980) dir. Harold Ramis
Miami Connection (1987) dirs. Y.K. Kim and Park Woo Sang
Matinee (1993) dir. Joe Dante
Moonlight (2016) dir. Barry Jenkins
The Florida Project (2017) dir. Sean Baker
What do you think makes Florida distinct as a place?
Florida is more than a state: it’s a state of mind. It is a place that brings people from all corners of the country and world together in a place that is more than just an escape. It is a place that evokes not only Disney-esque vacations and fun-in-the-sun destinations, but also the story of modern America in all its diversity, exuberance and variety. It takes nearly 850 miles and over 12 hours (without traffic) to drive from Pensacola to Key West. Along the way you whizz past beaches, cattle ranches, cities, fishing villages, orange groves, swamps, and subdivisions. Having traveled extensively across the state to research my book, I have a great appreciation for how unique it looks and feels depending on where you are.
What is your connection to Florida? How long have you lived here and what makes it a place that you want to stay?
I first came to Florida in 2010 to work on a screenplay with a college friend who had worked at the Burt Reynolds Institute of Film and Theatre in Jupiter. I crashed on his couch for part of the summer and wrote a few half-baked scripts that never materialized into anything. However, I got to join in him on auditions across the state and sat in on some amazing classes taught by Burt Reynolds. It was such a vibrant community of filmmakers and artists. The experience stayed with me and although I decided on a more academic career path, I wanted to stay as close to the industry as possible. A year late in 2011, I enrolled in the Public History program at UCF with the hopes of becoming a film historian and later I joined UCF’s Texts and Technology Ph.D. program to pursue my dissertation on Florida film. Except for a one-year interlude where I complete part of my Ph.D. research as a Fulbright scholar in Belgium, I have lived in Florida ever since. I currently have a home in Winter Springs with my wife and dog. Franz Kafka once said about his home city: “Prague never lets you go…This dear little mother has sharp claws.” The same could be said to explain my feelings about Orlando – and Florida as a whole.
Interview conducted by Elizabeth Stice
