Scott Lord Silent Film: Linda Arvidson in The Adventures of Dollie (D.W....

Actress Linda Arvidson, writing in the periodcial Film Fun during 1916, includes the "now historic" film "The Advntures of Dollie" (one reel) directed by D.W Griffith for the Biograph Film Companyin 1908. Arvidson wrote under the name Mrs. D.W. Griffith. In one installment she reminisces about travelling to film exterior scenes, claiming they hadn't automobiles yet and visited locations by train or by boat. In a later installment she dicusses her salary for the film, "How much money I made! Twenty eight dollars in two weeks, enough for a whole spring outfit." What is more enjoyable is the autobiography of Mrs. D.W. Griffith, When Movies Were Young, published in 1925. Much of the material from the Film Fun periodical is repeated, worded similarly, as she gives an account of D.W. Griffith the actor being offered a provisional chance to direct his first film, "The Adventures of Dollie", given that he could return to acting if necessary. Mrs. D.W. Griffith exlains Griffith having been accepted as a director for Biograph, "For one year now, those movies so covered with slime and so degraded would have to come first to come first in his thoughts and affections....agonizing days when he would have given his life to be able to chuck the job." She includes not only the studio on East Fourteenth Street but the theaters on Third and Ninth Avenues as places into which one would not be seen going.

Author Edward Wagenkneckt, in his volume The Films of D.W. Griffith, chronicles that 'The Adventures of Dollie", filmed in July of 1908, was the first of 450 films directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company before leaving in September of 1913 all but eleven having been one reelers. Author Roger Manvell, in his sixty page introduction to the anthology "Experiment in the Film" credits "The Adventures of Dollie" as the first film in which D.W. Griffith had used the flashback.

Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, notes that it was in 1908, in the film "For Love of Gold", that D.W. Griffith had first used the close up shot in film.

In regard to my webpage series "Lost Films, Found Magazines", begun at a time when film preservation was unearthing many unseen masterpieces from the silent era, author Tom Gunning, in his volume D.W. Griffith and the origins of American Narrative Film, lends a caution that supports the premise of needing a film history detective while dismissing the perfect accuracy of historiography and the endeavor. "The accounts of Griffith's biograph films given by Lewis Jacobs, George Sandoul and Jean Mitry are filled with descriptions that do not correspond with the actual films. Based primarily on written descriptions rather than on the films themselves, these eroors are recycled in textbooks on film history." Gunning cites in particular the autobiography of the wife of D.W. Griffith, Linda Arvidson. According to Gunning, the point of departure used by Lewis Jacobs was primarily the editing that Griffith employed; while looking at Terry Ramsaye and his analysis of shot structure, Gunning adds the phrases "screen grammar" and "pictorial rhetoric" to the familiar "syntax of film narration". "For Sandoul, Griffith's stylistic innovation shattered the theatrical unity of space by introducing the ubiquity of the camera and a unity of action." Gunning also advances the semilogical analysis of Christian Metz as a review of Griffith at Biograph having brought a "liberation of film from theatrical tradition" with the creation of a "film language.", the cinema of attractions bringing new "codified constuctions" to accomadate the cinema of narrative integration, "syntagmas in which individual shots depend on their relation to other shots in the chain for their meaning." Tom Gunning writes, "Dollie's story forms a perfect match with Todorov's "minimal complete plot" although Griffith structures the story through a "spatial as well as narrative circuit". Gunning is referring to the writing of Tzvetan Todorov on narrative equilibrium, progress and resolution who places plot among the elements of narrative, which also include characters, point of view, setting, theme, comflict and style.

Arthur Knight, in his volume The Livliest Art gives one summary of the importance of D.W. Griffith, "He created the art of the film, its language, its syntax. It has often been said that Griffith 'invented' the close-up, that he 'invented' cutting, the camera angle, or the last minute rescuse...He refined these elements already present in motion pictures."

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Scott Lord Silent Film: The Deluge (Vitagraph, 1911)

Exhibitor's Trade Review lured projectionists to screen a Bible series during 1922 by promising the distribution of "direct propaganda" to ministerial bodies and schools. Perhaps a modern account would prefer the term "hype".

Little is known as to whether the films based on the Holy Bible exhibited during the 1920's are entirely lost films, with no surviving copies or not. It is often noted that the cinematic depiction of Jesus Christ was not entirely allowed during the silent film era. Not incidently, Vitagraph during 1910,not long after the cinema of attractions and Nickelodeon , questioned the venue available to the flanneur for theatrical release of film, remotely querying as to audience reception in spectatorship, by asking while advertising in the periodical The Film Index, "Have you written to your exchange to engage the series for extra exhibitions in churches and halls?" The advertisement also offerred a printed lecture and "elaborate beautiful posters" for the "greatest drawing card for an entire entertainment, the greatest since the Passion Play", Vitagraph's five reel biblical drama series,"Life of Moses". The studio advertised that all five reels were to be released in early Lent.

Previously, Vitagraph studios, during 1909 had produced versions of "Jeptha's Daughter", and "Solomon's Judgement", the advertising for which highlighted its costumes and scenery. Both films were directed by J. Stuart Blackton, the former having starred actress Annette Kellerman, the latter actress Florence Lawrence. Universal followed with a three reel version of "Jeptha's Daughter" in 1912 directed by J.Farrell MacDonald and starring actress Constance Crawley.



"The Deluge", "Vitagraph Portrayal of the Great Flood" was reviewed with a synopsis and publicity stills by the periodical The Film Index in February of 1911 and appears in advertisements placed in French periodicals. "This indescribably beautiful release is not a mere phantasy; it is a matter of careful research and Biblical record. Its costumes are designed from Tissot."

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Noah's Ark (Vitagraph, 1911)

Adam and Eve (Vitagraph, 1912)

Scott Lord Silent Film Biblical Drama: Flight into Egypt

"The Flight into Egypt" appears in The New Testament in the scriptural passage Matthew 2:13-23.

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Noah's Arc

Shadow of Nazareth

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Shadow of Nazareth (1913)

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Flight to Egypt
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Scott Lord Silent Film: Biblical Drama, Sign of the Cross (Frederick A T...

Silent Film The Bible Biblical Drama

Scott Lord Silent Film: Biblical Drama; Christus (Guilio Antamoro, 1916)

When first read the analytic interpretation of the biblical drama "Christus" (Guilio Antomoro, 1916) by Chandra Han, Pelita Harpan University in the paper Jesus in Film: Representation, Misrepresentation and Denial of Jesus' Agony in Gospels, is fascinating when pointing out the nature of Jesus is depicted as divine in the film in that the dove over him in the portrayal is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, Jesus as "fully God"; this is used to distinguish the divine and human natures of Christ in both the Canonical Gospels and the Apochryphal Gospels and the contrasting agaony of the Savior in both (the human form of Christ having suffered or experienced sorrow for the love of mankind, the divine nature implied to always have existed). silent film silent film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Biblical Drama; Jesus of Nazereth (From The Manger to the Cross,...

It has been noted that "From The Manger to the Cross", directed by Sidney Olcott for the Kalem Company and shot on location in Egypt and Palenstine in 1912 and scripted by actress Gene Gauthier who played The Virgin Mary in the film, owes a debt visually to a Bible illustrated by Joseph Jacques Tissot. Accordingly, the expository intertitles preceding each scene from the Holy Bible introduce the passage with quotations from scripture cited by their respective chapter and verse.

Author W. Barnes Tatum, in his volume Jesus at the movies, a guide to the first hundred years, differentiates between Jesus story films and Christ figure films, Sidney Olcott's biblical drama "From the Manger to the Cross" belonging to the former, the cinematic Jeusus, a visual form dating back to the passion play. Tatum expands his analysis by conveniently differentiating between the Synoptic portrayal of Christ and the Johannine portrayal. He names the film to be a "silent pageant".

Linda Arvidson, wife of D.W. Griffith, remembers Gene Gauthier in her autobiography "When Movies Were Young". She explains that Gauthier had been a "location woman" for D.W. Griffith who "dug up locations and wrote scenarios." Arvidson writes,"Miss Gauthier's aptitude along the location line did not satisfy her soaring ambition, so she left Biograph for Kalem."

Author Leslie Wood, in her volume The Miraacle of the Movies, claims that Sidney Olcott had decided to direct an account of the life of Christ after the copyright to hia film "Ben Hur" had been contested by the author of the novel. "Ben Hur" had been a one reel film of sixteen scenes and the indignant Olcott, in need of a cooyright free story, saw the New Testament produce a more epic drama and travelled to Jerusalem, where he built a temporary studio, to shoot on an authetic location.

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Scott Lord Silent Film: The Water Nymph (Sennett, Keystone, 1912)

The 1912 directorial debut of Mack Sennett for the Keystone Film Company, "The Water Nymph" starred actress Mabel Normand. Film historian Arthur Knight, in his volume The Liveliest Art, "At first Sennett was Keystone's director, star, idea man, and sometimes he even helped out on the camera. Stories were improvised on the spot...The key scenes, the scenes involving incident, would be caught almost on the fly...Before long Sennett, like Ince, was forced to withdraw from direct participation in his comedies and become producer." Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith, Biograph 1912)

The year 1912 was to mark the first film with Lillian and Dorothy Gish, “An Unseen Enemy” (one reel), directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company. Lillian and Dorothy Gish appeared in a dozen two reel films together during 1912 and several more during 1913. In The Man Who Invented Hollywood, the autobiography of D.W. Griffith, published in 1972, Griffith outlines his arriving at the Biograph Film Company and adding actors, including Mary Pickford,to his ensemble. Griffith recalls, "One day in the early summer of 1909, I was going through the dingy, old hall of the Biograph studio when suddenly the gloom seemed to disappear. The change was caused by the prescence of two young girls sitting side by side and on a hall bench...They were Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. Of the two, Lillian shone with an extremely fragile, ethereal beauty...As for Dorothy, she was lovely too, but in another manner- pert, saucy, the old mischief popping out of her." Actress Lilian Gish, in her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me writes,"Mr. Griffith had rehearsed 'The Unseen Enemy' with other actresses, but after meeting us, he decided we would be suitable for the leads and changed the plot just enough to fit us."
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Lillian and Dorothy Gish Biograph Film Company The Adventures of Dolly: D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company

Under the Red Robe (Victor Sjostrom, 1937)

Advertisements placed in the Motion Picture Herald during 1937 noted the film "Under The Red Robe, directed by Victor Sjostrom as having been adapted from the "unforgettable novel" written by Stanley T. Whyman and the play by Edward Rose. The Review of Reviews section of World Film News during 1937 quoted the Birmingham Mail. "The period film, we are continually being told (by people in the industry, not the public) is dead. And the period film, hardier than the prophets, continues for the delight of the romantically inclined in an unromantic age...This is a film to enjoy if you have a heart for swashbuckling."

From the letters to his wife during the summer of and autumn of 1936 we can very well follow the work of the script, the planning and the shooting of "Under The Red Robe". Bengt Forslund chronicles the film's direction by Victor Sjostrom.
The novel "Under the Red Robe", written by Stanley J. Weyman in 1894, had been filmed on two previous occaisions, once in Great Britain in 1915, directed by Wilfred Noy and again in the United States in 1923, directed by Alan Crosland. The work had already appeared on stage as dramatized by Edward Ross.

Scholar Bo Florin mentions that although while directing in Sweden, Victor Sjostrom spearheaded the Golden Age of Silent and brought international recognition to a Scandinavian cinema that situated its narrative in the literature and landscapes or rural Sweden, in regard to characters and plots, the dramas depicted by Sjostrom would have fit into any international context, perhaps this evolving from Sjostrom's beginnings on the Swedish stage and in the theater.

"Under the Red Robe" was the last film directed by Victor Sjostrom, who returned to appearing on screen as an actor during 1939 in the films "Mot ny Tider" (Towards New Time, Sigurd Wallen) and "Gubben Kommer".

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Victor Sjostrom playlist
Victor Sjostrom