Greta Garbo Magazine Cover

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Last Performance (Paul Frejos, 1929)

The stockmarket had apparently already crashed by the time "The Last Performance", starring Conrad Veidt and Mary Philbin, was screened first run at the Park Theatre in Boston. Universal Weekly, primarily an advertising journal, after having remarked the film was "conspicuous for its camera effects and discriminating direction" tied in the New England premiere to its reception by excerpting three "leading newspapers", The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald and the Daily Record. The Daily Record mentioned the film as having been one of the two "first rate pictures" then on the marquee of the Park Theatre, the other also produced by Universal. It may be important to the history of film appreciation that the paper had written, "The Philbin-Veidt is part talkie. But in some cases, the less talk, the better the picture. This is one of those cases, for Veidt is a high rating character actor and needs no dialogue to score his points."
An earlier issue of Universal Weekly, while noting that Conrad Veidt and Mary Philbin had previously costarred together in the film "The Man Who Laughs", showed the trick photography in the film "The Last Performance" by providing a still from the film where the magician Veidt is holding Philbin in his hand. The Universal Weekly, owned by Universal Pictures Corporation, clarified itself with its captioned subtitle, "A Magazine for Motion Picture Exhibitors" and listed its editor as Paul Gulick. Letters to the editor to be published were addressed to Carl Laemmle, President. Interestingly, Author Anthony Slide gives an account of Mary Philbin having declined interviews after retirement, "Thanks to her reclusivity, she became a minor Garbo in the eyes of fans of silent film."
Silent Film Lon Chaney Bela Lugosi

Scott Lord SIlent Film: Wax Works (Paul Leni, 1924)

Paul Leni directed the expressionistic film "Wax Works" before coming to America to direct the films "The Cat and the Canary" and "The Last Warning". Leni had worked as an art director with director Leopold Jessner on the film "Backstairs" (Hintertroppe, 1921), an "intimate drama" (Eisner) that moved "at a very slow, heavy pace" (Eisner). Silent Film

The Photoplay: Silent Film Movie Posters; Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino Silent Film

Lost Films, Found Magazines: The Lobby Cards of Lost SIlent Films

Words and images that tell us what the film was about. Lost Films and Found Magazines

The article on Dartmouth professor Mark Williams was relevant, pertinent and succinct enought to require giving the name of the reporter, Kathy McCormack rather than just mentioning the Associated Press. Not being involved in film preservation itself but devoted to he study of the Photoplay, I have for years been gleaning through extratextural discourse, that which is not part of the codex of the film, to find what might have been contained in film that, for whatever reason, are now lost. When the article on lobby cards went to print, I had already had a blog entry with reproductions of lobby cards belonging to films mostly that were not lost, and being in public domain, were available through copies on my webpages, each copy of an existing film having an appended encouragement for the reader/viewer to become a film detective and find material concerning lost films-Lost Films, Found Magazines. In regard to the movie theater having similar exingencies as a museum, the lobby cards were displayed on easels and meant to be viewed by standing directly in front of them at a short distance, there being an audience reception to extratextural discourse, just as there is a "viewing" of paintings that has been changing during this century. A librarian paraphrsed by McCormack has posted that the purpose of the lobby cards were publicity and exploitation, the theater owner being an "exhibitor", but that, being aimed at the spectator, they disclosed the movie's plot, the technology soon improving to where the mood and atmosphere of the film could be surmised from the photographic images. The librarian quoted by McCormack claims that in additon to data regarding the film-and titles were often changed during production to differ from an earlier advertised title- lobby cards could often include a line of dialouge, if only one precious line of dialouge that would be a key to an entire lost film- lobby cards that were not "title cards" have been referred as "scene cards", Dartmouth College in fact had a collection of television commercials it had lent the Moving Image Rearch Center while McCormack was writing her article. The Moving Image Research Center houses material on Lois Weber and Alice-Guy Blanche. Mark Williams is presently part of he Media Ecology Project at Dartmouth College, which is digitalizing thousands of lobby cards to assist Film Preservation. Keep in mind that there have been a small number of rediscovered films, once presumed to be lost, one example being my writing on the John Barrymore version of Sherlock Holmes, which needed to be updated after the film had been found.

Rudolph Valentino Silent Film Lobby Cards

Mary Pickford Silent Film Lobby Cards

Douglas Fairbanks Silent Film Lobby Cards

D.W. Griffith Silent Film Lobby Cards

Lon Chaney Silent Film Lobby Cards

Benjamin Christensen and Danish Silent Film

The Photoplay: Silent Film Lobby Cards

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino Silent Film Rudolph Valentino

Scott Lord Silent Film: Le Voyage sur Jupiter (Segundo de Chomn, 1909)

Silent Film Silent Film

Swedish Silent Film Stars on the Theater Stage

Actress Harriet Bosse was married to both playwright August Strindberg and Swedish film director and actor Edvin Adolphson (Long ago, I found a copy of her correspondence to Strindberg at UniLu, Harvard University while I was talking to Bishop Stendhal about his almost having married Ingmar Bergman's sister). Harriet Bosse appeared in the film "Sons of Ingmar" directed by Victor Sjostrom. Victor Sjostrom not incidentally, had returned to the stage in 1914 and 1915 under the direction of Gustaf Collijn for August Strindberg's play "To Damascus".

Silent Film

The Photoplay: Silent Film Movie Posters

Silent Film

Edison Film Company

Edison Film Company

Villiage Blacksmith

W.S. Hart

The Covered Wagon

Madge Bellamy

Madge Bellamy Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: (Hårda viljor (Brunius, 1923)

Directed by John Brunius in 1923 with a screenplay coscripted Sam Ask, "Harda Viljor" starred actresses Lilla Bye and Linnea Hillberg. The film was photographed by Hugo Edlund. Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Åh, i morron kväll (John Brunius, 1919)

Directed in 1919 by John W. Brunius with a screenplay cowritten by Brunius and Sam Ask "Ah, i morron kvall" featured actresses Mary Graber, Jean Grafstrom and Gucken Cederborg.
John Bruinis

Scandinavian Silent Film

Silent Film

Scott Lord Scandinavian Silent Film :Dodsspring til het fra circuskuplen...

The film "The Death Jump/Fatal Decision" was directed in 1912 by Eduard Schnedler-Sorensen and starred actress Jenny Roelsgaard. The photoplay was scripted by Alfred Kjerulf. Jenny Roelsgaard had starred in the 1910 film "The Face Thief" (Gunnar Helsengren,1910) for the Fotorama studiowith actresses Martha Helsengren and Marie Niedermann. Eduard Schnedler-Sorensen during 1912 also directed the film "Ablaze at Sea" (Et drama pa Havet) in which Valdemar Psilander starredwith Ellen Ageeholm and Otto Langoni. Sorensen also that year directed a comedy, "The Bewitched Rubber Shoes" (De Forhexede Galoscher), starring Maja Bjerre-Lind. Silent Film Silent Film Silent Circus Movie Danish Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Return of Draw Egan (William S. Hart, 1916)

In his volume The Western, From Silents to Cinerama, the author George N. Fenin highlights the theme of "the reformed outlaw" in the film "The Return of Draw Egan". The reformation is brought about not by remorse from a former lifestyle or the need for virtue, but rather from the love of a virtuous woman. "Hart had no qualms about making himself a completely ruthless, although never despicable, outlaw." The author intertwines this theme with that of "The Hero versus the Badman" in early configurations of the Western genre and the development of its protagonist. The periodical Motion Picture World, having just emerged from the theater during 1916, anticipated the writing of George N. Fenin, it having explained, "The outlaw's sense of duty is not established by the responsibilities of his new position in life, but through the sentimental side of his character. He falls in love with the daughter of his benefactor." Actresses Louise Glaum and Margery Wilson star in the five reel film. C. Gardner Sullivan had adapted his own screen story for the photoplay of the film. Photoplay Magazine provided a shortstory novelization of the film on its first run, evidently on penned by C. Garnder Sullivan, Photoplay having used its own writers to adapt other scripts written by Sullivan. Although Photoplay was one of the first film tabloids in the United States that ran reviews of currently shown movies, before the end of the first world war was still a magazine of fiction, adapting the onscreen literature of movies into magazine articles for the reader of the short story.

Silent Film Silent Film

The Photoplay: Silent Film Movie Posters

Silent Film

Von Stroheim

The Photoplay: Silent Film Movie Posters

Silent Film

John Barrymore

John Barrymore

John Barrymore Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford as Pollyanna (Powell, 1920)

In addition to one of the most beautiful films made by Mary Pickford, “Pollyanna” (Paul Powell, six reels), during 1920 Pickford also made the film “Suds” (five reels) under the direction of Francis Dillon. The former also stars William Courtleigh, the latter William Austin

Silent Film Mary Pickford Mary Pickford

Writing the Photoplay

One automatically wonders what was entailed in the writing of photoplays when coming across the term "spot continuity". It was described during 1923 as a script writing technique of making a brief outline listing only the "big situations" or "highspots" in the storyline of a silent film. That year "continuity" was described as the indispensible "director's guide", a transcription of the story with division of scene indicated and specific shots, inserts, perhaps dissolves, being noted, as in a "continuity script". A continuity writer would be assigned to construct it from the scenario, which would be amended by a "scene plot", an itemized list of scenes designating their respective sets and locations.
A manual for the photoplaywright, written a year earlier during 1922, giving the scenario as being "a play in scenes" and the "continuity writer" as a dramaturgist, described "scenarist" as a generic synonym for playwright of screen dramatist. A "synoptist" was responsible for a detailed synopsis, the legnth of which was that of a short story, and it detailed the dramatic story without dialougue. Continuity and synopsis were the same, differing only in dramatic description, the former being scenario, the latter synoptic narrative.
The manual advised the photoplawright that complications should be limited when constructing underplots or cross plots in order to achieve a plot unity and a unity of structure.
Scenario credits, although more often than not having been given to a screenwriter, frequently were shared with the film's director or given solely to the director. Magazine advertisements in 1922 for the film "Notoriety" promoted the film by giving Clara Beranger credit for having written the story especially for director William De Mille. D. W. Griffith
Silent Film Movie Posters