Scott Lord Silent Film: The Heart of a Hero (Chataurd, 1916)

Actress Gail Adams played the lead in the six reel film The Heart of a Hero about a Man Without a Country directed in 1916 by Emile Chautard and scripted by Frances Marion. Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: A Fool There Was (Powell, 1915)

Silent Film




Directed by Frank Powell for the Fox Film Corporation, "A Fool There Was" (six reels) introduced actress Theda Bara to the audiences of 1915. The film also stars actresses Mabel Frenyoen and May Allison.

It is one of the only surviving films in which Theda Bara appeared, of the almost fourty films in which the actress appeared between 1916 and 1919, including "Camille" and "Madame Du Barry", only three minutes of footage survivive, nearly every single film in which she appeared on screen now presumed lost, with no existing copies.

Theda Bara wrote "How to Become a Vampire" for the June 1919 issue of Forum magazine and was interviewed by Olga Petrova for Shadowland magazine in 1922 and for Motion Picture Magazine in 1922, both instances of one actor interviewing another. Theda Bara married film director Charles Brabin in 1921, who that year was directing actress Estelle Taylor in the film "Footfalls" (eight reels).

"A Fool There Was" was remade during 1922 by director Emmett J Flynn and starred acress Estelle Taylor.

Silent Film
Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: William Shakespeare

Silent Film silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee

silent film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Walt Whitman and Free Verse

Although Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson may, as writers of Free Verse, be considered the forerunners of Modernism, The Silent Film Era would become known for it exciting new school of poetry Imagism and its margins with poets Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, T.S. Eliot, Carl Sandburg and Ezra Pound, silent films that may have not propagated Dadaism, but did aquaint themselves with Art Deco. Silent Film Silent Film

The Haunted House (Buster Keaton, Edward Cline, 1921)

Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline began the decade by directing two reel comedies, including The High Sign", "The Boat", "The Playhouse" and "Hard Luck" during 1921. silent film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lili Dagover in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Rob...

Arthur Knight, in his volume The Liveliest Art, views "The Cabinet of Dr. Calgari" as one of the most famous silent films ever made. Knight explains, "Two things distinguished 'Caligari' as a film: the daring of the story-within-a-story and the startling originality of its decor." Knight implies the thematic elements are articulated in the mise-en-scene of the film, remarking upon its "obviously 'artistic' settings (related nith to the stage work of the expressionists and to the experiments of the cubist painters". Leo Braudy, in his volume The World in a Frame, gives The Cabinet of Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene during 1921, as an example of a "closed film", where the director creates his own space, a unique and specific diegetic backdrop, as opposed to an "open film" where the story finds it own enviornment in which events are to take place. Not only is characterization what allows narrativity, but where the stage us set allows theme and mood to carry the storyline. Silent Horror Film Silent Horror Film Silent Horror Film Movie Posters

Scott Lord Silent Film: Tale of Two Cities (Frank Lloyd, 1917)

Already a remake of a 1911 Tale of Two Cities directed by Charles Kent, the seven reel 1917 film adaptation directed by Frank Llyod for the Fox Film Corporation starred William Farnum in a dual role.

Scott Lord

Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in Amarilly of Clothes Line Alley (Neilan, 1918)

During 1918, Mary Pickford starred in the five reel film "Amarilly of Clothesline Alley", directed by Marshall Neilan with a photoplay scripted by Frances Marion and Bellek Maniates. Actress Margaret Landis also appears in the film. Photoplay Magazine likened the the acting of Mary Pickford in the film to her work in Stella Maris in its being a "remarkable" character study. "All this is done in Mary Pickford's blithest vein, reminding us once more that she is the greatest of all screen actresses." The competition, Picture Play Magazine, afforded the view of a different angle. "This is Mary Pickford's latest, and it contrasts strongly with that highly dramatic subject, "Stella Maris". It is almost entirely in a humorous vein, though there are times when one catches a glimpse of pathos in the character of Amarilly. But there are more laughs than tears."

In a later photocaption, Photoplay Magazine again revealed that this was for Mary Pickford, recognizable commodity, the portrayal of a new character. (Mary Pickford is shown looking at the rushes with director Marshall Neilan, who evidently would have been joining the War to end all wars in Europe had an armistice not occurred.) Silent Film Mary Pickford

Swedish Silent Film Stars on the Theater Stage

Maurtiz Stiller

During 1911, Mauritz Stiller acted on stage at the Lilla Teaten.

Mauritz Stiller Mauritz Stiller Swedish Silent Film Stars