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

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)

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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.

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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

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Hoodlum (Franklin, 1919)

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Scott Lord Silent Film: Stella Maris (Neilan, 1918)

Mary Picford's director Marshall Neilan was quoted by Peter Milne during 1922 in the volume Motion Picture Directing. "Above all, I consider the director's appreciation of the human side of life his greatest assest. Unless a director is human down to the bery earth and appreciative of the tings in life that are common to the ordinary mortal, he cannot hope to any degree of success." Silent Film Mary Pickford Mary Pickford

Scott Lord Silent Film: M’Liss (Neilan, 1918)

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Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in Rosita (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923)

Silent Film Mary Pickford