Scott Lord on the Silent Film of Greta Garbo, Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom as Victor Seastrom, John Brunius, Gustaf Molander - the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film........Lost Films in Found Magazines, among them Victor Seastrom directing John Gilbert and Lon Chaney, the printed word offering clues to deteriorated celluloid, extratextual discourse illustrating how novels were adapted to the screen; the photoplay as a literature;how it was reviewed, audience reception perhaps actor to actor.
Directed by Robert G. Vignola for Cosmopolitan Productions, "Beauty's Worth" (seven reels) showcases Marion Davies starring with actresses June Eldvige and Lydia Yeamans. Marion Davies had also appeared under the direction of Robert G. Vignola during 1922 in the film "Young Diana" (seven reels). The film is presumed to be lost, there being no surviving copies at present. The comedy "Adam and Eva" from 1923, in which Marion Davies again starred for director Robert G Vignola, is also presumed lost with no surviving copies existing.
Author Robert Hamilton Ball explains that due to the world being at war, there were no film adaptations of the plays of Shakespeare filmed during 1915 and that those filmed during 1916 were stricly American. This may or may not be a matter of course, but there having had been being no film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays during 1918 as well, Ball sees The Great War as having inhibited them. Actor Frederick B. Warde had previously starred in the film " "Richard III" (Keane, five reels) during 1913. Actress Lorraine Huling starred with him as Cordelia in the film "King Lear" (five reels).
The Taming of the ShrewSilent Film
Silent Film actor and actress Maurice Costello and Florence Turner star in the 1911 filming of "A Tale of Two Cities" (three reels), directed by Charles Kent. Among several later adaptations was "A Tale of Two Cities directed by Frank Lloyd in 1917.
Silent Film
The caption to the review of "A Girl's Folly" (five reels) in the periodical Wid's Films and Film Folk during March 1917 read "Bad Moral and Tells Secrets, But Will Get Money." It elaborated further with "Very interesting, but tells studio secrets, which is dangerous," if that too can be deciphered by a modern audience sauntering through the cannon of silent films left remaining that have not yet deteriorated over time. The periodical then went so far as to, half-heartedly or not, suggest that "exhibitors", theater owners, should "protest" the film's having divulged what were "backstage secrets". The periodical admittedly was looking for the exploitation of silent films but it takes a historian's glance to decided if there was a sensationalism on which the reviewer may have counted during an extratextural discourse. It continued to question "purely from the viewpoint of whether you can get money with it" and conceded, "The thread of the story is quite slender and has a very questionable moral as presented, but the introduction of scenes showing clearly activity about a film studio is sure to prove exceptionally interisting to any film fan." It offerred the theater owner consolation, "Since the producer has already gone and 'done it', I presume you might as well go ahead and get the money with this, because it would be impossible to eliminate the back-stage scenes and have a picture left."
The photoplay was cowritten with director Maurice Tourneaur by Frances Marion and starred actresses Doris Kenyon, Robert Warwick and June Eldvidge. Frances Marion that year also wrote the photplays to
to the films Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Poor Little Rich Girl both starring Mary Pickford. Actress Doris Kenyon appeared on screen in the films of Alice Guy Blanche, in 1916 in the film "The Queen's Waif" and in 1917 in "The Empress". During 1917 Robert Warwick and Doris Kenyon also starred together in "The Man Who Forgot" (Emile Chautard). The film is presumed to be lost, with no surviving copies existing. Silent FilmSilent Film
John Griffith Wray directed actresses Madge Bellamy and Vola Vale in "Soul of the Beast" (five reels) under the supervision of Thomas H. Ince.Actress Madge Bellamy during 1924 had starred in the film "No More Women" (Lloyd Ingraham, six reels).
Silent FilmSilent Film
While noting that "The Son of the Shiek" (seven reels) was Rudolph Valentino's last film, author William K. Everson opines that it was his best. "It was lush, genuinely erotic and direct in key confrontations- but by 1926 there had been such a change in movie morals that nobody was offended by it, and in any event, its tasteful tongue-in-cheek approach disarmed any serious criticism." It may also be that by now the film is only the material of fanstasy to modern audiences analyzing its diegetic images for keys to female spectatorship and the look. Actress Vilma Banky had appeared with Rudolph Valentino during 1925 in the film "The Eagle" (Clarence Brown).
<Silent Film
Douglas Fairbanks the following year continued his series of films in which he starred as an adventure protagonist, each film seeming to be a story in a different historical period and a different geographical country. In addition to its being a costume drama, author William K. Everson saw "The Muskateers" (Fred Niblo, 1921, twelve reels) as being indicative of the influence of D.W. Griffith with its cornocopia of intertiles and various intersecting subplots. Starring in the film with Douglas Fairbanks are actresses Barbara Del La Marr and Margueritte Del La Motte.
Mary PickfordMary Pickford is listed as having co-scrpited the film "Daddy Long Legs" (seven reels) with Agnes C. Johnston. It was diected by Marshall Neilsen.
Mary Pickford
Now directing for the Reliance Motion Picture and Majestic Motion Picture Corporation, D.W. Griffith had expanded his running length to six reels by 1914 with the film "Home Sweet Home", starring actresses Lillian Gish, Doroth Gish and Mae Marsh. Silent FilmD.W. Griffith
George L. Melford is credited with having directed Edith Taliaferrer in "Young Romance" (five reels). The photoplay was written by William C. de Mille.
Silent FilmSilent Film
SILENT FILM
The book Pictorial Beauty on the Screen, written by Victor Oscar Freeburg in 1923, was dedicated to James Cruze, director of the silent film 'The Covered Wagon' (ten reels). The introduction to the volume was written by silent film director Rex Ingram. Ingram notes that the silent film "must be composed of certain pictorial qualifications such as form, composition and a proper distribution of light and shade." Film poetry began with the silent film, despite any rennaisance in the nineteen seventies.
Allan Eyles notes that "The Covered Wagon" (Cruze, 1923), made in the United States at a time when film criticism was giving more than a cursoy glance to the work of Swedish silent film director Victor Seastrom who had only just then arrived in America with Mauritz Stiller to bring a close to the Golden Age of SWEDISH Silent, was remarkable for its depicting the relationships of the characters within narrative to the enviornment in which the story takes place, its plotline built around the interaction of its three primary characters.
Silent FilmSilent FILM
Claimed to have been a "sensation" by writers of the period, "Black Oxen" (eight reels) was directed by Frank Lloyd, who co-wrote the script with Mary O'Hara as an adaptation of a then recent, then controversial novel by Gertrude Atherton. Atherton took the title from a phrase from poet William Butler Yeats. The film stars actresses Corinne Griffith and Clara Bow.
Screenland magazine reviewed the film during November of 1923. "The passing years are like black oxen, wrote Gertrude Atherton, plodding on relentlessly. The heroine of 'Black Oxen' is a famous beauty who successfully renews her youth, thereby creating a new world for herself, far from her old loves and dreams."
SILENT FILMSILENT FILMSILENT FILM
Picture Play Magazine in a photo caption wrote that actress Aileen Pringle "abandoned some of her impressive dignity" to portray the "hoydenish" fake travelling mystic in Tod Browning's film, "The Mystic" (seven reels).
Silent FilmLon ChaneySilent Horror Film Movie Posters
Directed by Sidney Franklin for First National Pictures, "Her Sister From Paris" (seven reels) paired Ronald Colman with actress Constance Talmadge.
Silent Film Constance Talmadge
Directed by Sidney Franklin for First National Pictures, "Her Night of Romance" (eight reels) paired Ronald Colman with actress Constance Talmadge.
Silent FilmConstance Talmadge
Author Paul Rotha, in his volume The Film Till Now, seems to have begun a retrospective on the work of film director Dimitri Buchowetski, "Of other European directors who have had their fling in Hollywood, Dimitri Buchowetski has not been successful." He apparently lacks the need to include Buchowetski having been taken of the set of the Greta Garbo film "Love", much like Mauritz Stiller had been taken of the set of the Greta Garbo film "The Temptress", and continues to asses other unsuccesul directors by merely listing them.
The review of "The Swan" (six reels) in the periodical "Film Daily" from 1925 predates Rotha, "Tinselled Production That Glitters With The Best Art Directors Can Give and the Best Buchowtski Direction" It noted the film's direction by Buchowetski as having been "excellant", claiming "his unusual skill is displayed throughout." Buchowetski wrote and directed the film. His cameraman was Alvynn Wycoff.
Silent FilmVictor SjostromThe Grand Duchess and the Waiter
Actress Marion Leonard co-starred with D.W. Griffith and his wife Linda Arvidson during 1908 in the film "At the Crossroads of Life" (one reels) directed by Wallace McCutheon Jr. D.W. Griffith directed her in "Over Silent Paths" (one reel) in 1910. Mack Sennet appears in the film.
D.W.GriffithD.W. GriffithBiograph Film Company
Actress Francelia Billington starred in numerous shorts, notably during 1913 and 1914 before appearing in "The Sands of Sacrifice" (five reels) directed by Edward Sloman during 1917 for the American Film Company.
Silent FilmSilent Film
Author Mark A. Vieira, in Silent Prototypes, the first chapter of his volume “Hollywood Horror”, almost attributes an entire subgenre of “Gorilla movie”, or “man in a gorilla suit movies” to a 1912 novel written by Gaston Leroux entitled “Balaoo” which was filmed by Fox Studios during 1927, the creature being a “gorilla’s body and half a human head”. The film, which stars the very beautiful Leila Hyams, oddly enough is a lost film, of which the are presumed to be no surviving copies. It is interesting that author William Everson, in his volume Classics of the Horror Film, as early as 1974 wrote that "The Wizard" (six reels), directed by Richard Rossen, was in fact "the most fascinating, elusive and sought after of all 'lost' horror films." Everson includes a still phtotgraph of Edward Lowe being menaced by the ape, almost reminiscient of the many poliferated still photographs of Chaney from "London After Midnight" that seem to makes us feel the film is an apparition rather than the apparition is being filmed. Everson almost chides the studio's projectionist with , "the original film is probably gone beyond recall" and with the film being "sorely missed as a major gap in our knowledge". Gaston Leroux created the fictional detective Joseph Rouletabile, who appeared in one of the earliest locked room mysteries, “The Mystery of the Yellow Room” (1907) and “The Perfume of the Lady in Black” (1908). Novelist Gaston Leroux had published “The Phantom of the Opera” in 1911. Author Robert Gordon Anderson, in his volume Faces, forms, films; the artistry of Lon Chaney, chronicles the shooting of "The Phantom of the Opera" as having started in late 1924. "It had taken about ten weeks to do, although another eight months were spent in re-shooting some scenes, which were deleted in the final version."
During his early carrer at Universal Studios, Lon Chaney had most frequently appeared on screen under the direction of either Allan Dwan or Joseph De Grasse. Rupert Julian had not only directed but had also starred with Lon Chaney in the film "The Kaiser, The Beast of Berlin" (seven reels), made by the Universal Film Manufacturing Company during 1918. Apearing in the film with Julian and Chaney were actresses Betty Carpenter, Ruth Clifford and Gretchen Lederer.
Lon Chaney
Actress Theda Bara appeared with Dale Fuller and Eileen Percy during 1925 in "The Unchastened Woman" (seven reels) directed by James Young. Most of the films of Theda Bara are presumed to be lost, with no surviving copies, there being less than half a dozen films out of the fourty in which she appeared that presently can be screened. Silent FilmSilent FilmSilent FilmSilent Film
"The Love Expert" (six reels) was directed in 1920 by David Kirkland, who appears onscreen in the film with Constance Talmadge and Natalie Talmadge. The photoplay was written by John Emerson and Anita Loos. Silent Film
"Outside the Law" (eight reels), directed by Tod Browning during 1920, was coscripted by Browning with Gardner Bradford and Lucien Hubbard and photographed by William Fildew. The films stars Lon Chaney and actress Priscilla Dean. Advertisements placed in the periodical Motion Picture News annouced Leo McCarey as first executive assistant to Tod Browning, whom it credited with not only being the film's director but its "Author". The Film Daily reviewed its direction as being "uniformly excellent" but its story as lacking stregnth although lifted by its actors Lon Chaney and Pricilla Dean.
The later film, "Outside the Law" was directed by Tod Browning during 1930 but has different characters than the earlier film, his having coscripted the film with Garret Fort. The film was photographed by Roy Overbaugh and starred actress Mary Nolan.
Lon ChaneyLon ChaneySilent Film
Directed by William Desmond Taylor and coscripted by Frances Marion with Rupert Hughs as an adaptation of his story "The Mobilization of Johanna", the film "Johanna Enlists" (five reels) was photographed by Charles Rosher, whose daughter Joan Marsh appears in the film. Silent Film Silent Film
Silent FilmScott Lord
Marshall Neilan during 1917 directed actress Mary Pickford with actresses Kathleen Griffith, Zazu Pitts, and Ann Schraeder in "The Little Princess" (five reels) with a photplay written by Frances Marion. The film was photographed by Charles Rosner and Walter Strandling.
Silent FilmMary Pickford
