Greta Garbo in The Mysterious Lady (Fred Niblo, 1928)

While editor of Film Comment magazine, Richard Corliss signed the dedication of his biography of Greta Garbo "To My Own Mysterious Lady, who taught me all I know." Apparently, he had met his wife at a Greta Garbo retrospective during 1968. He writes on Garbo in the film, "It's not that Garbo needed roles of majestic tragedy- she certainly got enough of those!- but she should in films as slight as Mysterious Lady (1928) and as substantial as Ninotchka (1939), that she could have fun without sacrificing the sense of fated seriousness that made her roles, and sometimes even her films, something special." The cover for Exibitors Herald and Motion Picture World was literally designed by M.G.M, their having apparently purchSed it as space, as it was still advertising Greta Garbo in War in the Dark against John Gilbert in The Cossacks and Four Walls. Photoplay in its pages from that year added a provocative photo of Greta Garbo seductive, bare shouldered, in a low cut evening dress with the caption, "Who wants movies with incidental sounds? who would be disturbed by the smack of the kiss Conrad Nagel is planting on Greta Garbo's knock in War in the Dark?" Motion Picture magazine may have lacked tact in its review of The Mysterious Lady, "Greta Garbo's latest picture is devoted to disproving those two disagreeable statements of Jim Tully's- that Greta Garbo is anemic and flat-chested. She darts about displaying unwonted vim and vigor and wears a gown that might very appropriately adorned Barbara La Marr. Greta as a beautiful lad spy is too alluring to miss...Conrad Nagel is occupying John Gilbert's usual place besides the couch." The Celluloid Critic from Motion Picture Classic Magazine of 1928 also noted that Gilbert was "conspicuously absent" from the film, leaving us to wonder if there wasn't more interest in his having been replaced, the studio not being able to elicit vamp characters from Greta Garbo and finding other seductresses that would lend themselves to the imagination. "The picture is nothing to rave about. The Scandinavian lady rises far above it in her role as an icy spy of the late war. Her particular assignment is to tempt a susceptible youth to his doom. You see, he has papers...It is an antique yarn dusted off for the occasion but functions fairly well, what with the Garbo woman tempting and tempting and tempting. And it builds a fair line of suspense." Motion Picture News during 1928 wrote, "Whatever Garbo tackles in the line of stories she has the personality and technique to make it interesting...The Mysterious Lady has been done time and again on the screen. it is old of plot that even the merest tyro at picture going can spot it all the way. it is fair enough because the presence of Greta Garbo. Conrad Nagel is opposite her for a change and acts very creditably."
Picture Play Magazine during 1928 included the film in an article entitled "Are the Movies Scorning Love?", written by Edwin Shallert. It wrote, "A love scene that is susceptible of laughter is scarcely an asset to a film, and if Flesh and the Devil did triumph, it was rather because of a strong friendship theme rather than its lush blandishments...the amorous episodes in The Mysterious Lady, which stars Greta Garbo, were visibly shortened following its initial preview. the audience was inclined to titter at certain languorous poses that Greta Garbo and Conrad Nagel assumed. Romantic love interest consequently is subdued in this spy melodrama. Moreso, at least, than in Greta's earlier luxuriating." it is difficult to gather much about the film from the review of it placed in The Film Spectator during 1928, as it seems severe, other than the plot was met with disdain in its treatment, "The main fault with The Mysterious Lady is that it's leading man is made out to be an idiot...It is not customary for Conrad Nagel to play an idiot and he's not convincing at it. of course, Fred Niblo, the director, didn't intend Nagel to be an idiot, but he made him do so many silly things that he became one anyway...Niblo's direction was very good on the whole, the scene where the hero has his commission taken from him being very impressive...Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel have nothing to be desired in the acting line." The absence of John Gilbert from the film had been predicted from the moment Greta Garbo was included in the film. Exhibitor's Herlad reported, "Niblo signs Greta Garbo for War in the Dark. Fred Niblo announced yesterday by arrangement with Louis B. Mayer that Greta Garbo will head the cast of his forthcoming Metro Goldwyn Mayer Special 'War in the Dark' by Ludwig Wolff. he was director of The Temprest in which Garbo appeared some time ago. Bess Meredith is preparing the scenario. John Gilbert will not be in the cast as rumored in Hollywood."
The Motion Picture News Booking Guide during 1929 provided a brief synopsis of The Mysterious Lady, directed by Fred Niblo, "Theme: Romantic drama in which beautiful Russina spy falls in love with young Austrian officer. When he discovers her identity, he casts her off, and to get even girl steals valuable army plans. OFficer trails her to Russia and regains plans. Spy gets into trouble when she aides lover, but pair escape across border and back to Austria."

Fred Niblo seemed to have caused what would have been viewed carefully as a wince from fans of Greta Garbo in Screenland Magazine during 1928. He is quoted by the magazine along with others from Hollywood in response to the question of what a vamp at that time was. "A vamp is a girl like Greta Garbo. her mysterious allure is her appeal. her eyes have the look of concealing some emotion. You have the sensation that she is withholding something all the while and that she can never be understood." During the same issue, Fred Niblo acquired a byline for his article Crashing the Gates of Hollywood, which begins with his explaining the difficulty of keeping silent actors on the screen with the coming of sound. It carried a photocaption to an octagonal portrait of Greta Garbo , "Accoring to Fred Niblo, Greta Garbo is 'a blonde personality with a brunette voice.' She has a voice pitched lower than any other woman in pictures."  Greta Garbo Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo in Love

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in Oliver Twist (Frank Lloyd, 1922)

Frank Lloyd directed and co-scripted with Harry Weil the film "Oliver Twist" for First National during 1922. Lon Chaney stars in the film with child actor Jackie Coogan. Robert G. Anderson, in his volume Faces, Forms, Films, the artistry of Lon Chaney gives an account of Chaney having frightened the child star as The Man of a Thousand Faces. Anderson places a description of Lon Chaney's portrayal of Fagin in a section concerned with with Age and Make Up. "The make up must indicate age as well as the physical characteristics...The actor must determine how he can reveal the personality and background of the character." Anderson explains the use of combinations of aluminum powder for grey or white hair, a lining pencil to delineate wrinkles, grease paint and putty.

Motion Picture News during 1922 provided biographical information about the director of the film, Frank Lloyd, "Having been raised in London, Mr. Lloyd early became a Dickens entusiast...He has, many and many a time, walked in spirit with the immortal Dickens through the London that Dickens decsribed and glimpsed suggestions of the evils which the great author did much to reduce and destroy through the vigor of his marvelous and living prose."
"Oliver Twist" was photographed by cameramen Glenn McWilliams and Rober Martin.
In addition to starring in the film “Oliver Twist” (eight reels), during 1922 Lon Chaney appeared in two films that are now lost, “Blind Bargain” (Wallace Worsley) in which he starred with Jacqueline Logan and “Quincy Adams Sawyer” (Clarence G. Badger, eight reels), in which he starred with Blanche Sweet and Barbara LaMar. That year Lon Chaney also starred in "Shadows" (Tom Forman) with actress Margueritte De Le Motte and "A Light in the Dark" (Clarence Brown) with actress Hope Hampton.

Lon Chaney


Lon Chaney

Scott Lord Silent Film: Silent Film Studio Tours, Life In Hollywood (Del...

Silent Film Studio Tours

Silent FIlm Studio Tours silent film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Silent Film Studio Tours, Life In Hollywood (Del...

The extratextural discourse of Hollywood in behind the scenes footage of a studio tour featuring John Barrymore, Mae Marsh, Marie Prevost, Tom Mix snd Frank Lloyd.

Silent Film Studio Tours silent film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Silent Film Studio Tours, Life In Holllywood (De...

The extratextural discourse of Hollywood in a behind the scenes footage of a studio tour including a brief shot of the on the set shooting of a presumed lost film, the serial "Mystery Pilot" of which there are no surviving copies.

Silent Film Studio Tours, Reel Four

Silent Film

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Synd (Gustaf Molander, 1928)

Swedish Silent Film director Gustaf Molander had in fact been at the Intima Theatern from 1911 to 1913.
In regard to the film “Synd”, Forsyth Hardy writes, “The Merzback influence had helped to scale down the Strindberg drama into a thriller.” In his volume Scandinavian Film, Forsyth Hardy, while outlining that there had been a turn to a more theatrical style in cinema just prior to the advent of the sound film and, for economic reasons, an attempt to make films that could be exported, mentions that there had been a departure from the tradition of the Golden Age of Swedish silent film that conversely gained little recognition outside of Sweden. Paul Merzbach had become head of the script writing department and produced films directed by Gustaf MOlander that were, according to Hardy, “superficial rootless products”.
Starring in the film “Synd” (Sin, 1928) were Lars Hansonand Elissa Landi. The cinematographer of the film was Julius Jaenzon with Ake Dahlquist as assistant camerman.


Gustaf Molander

Gustaf Molander

Scandinavian Silent Film

Lars Hanson

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Karin Ingmarsdotter (Victor Sjöström, ...

While writing about the film "Wild Strawberries", Jorn Donner notes that Ingmar Bergman's film is in part a tribute to Victor Sjostrom the director. "Many scenes have a tie-in with Victor Sjostrom's work. A smashed watch plays a part in 'Karin Ingmarsdotter'." Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Scandinavian Cinema, points out the danger involved in the hazardous stunts, notably plunging into an icy river, that Victor Sjostrom employed while shooting the film.

Author Forsyth Hardy again defines the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film by describing the several adaptations of the novel "Jerusalem", written by Selma Lagerlof, "These stories of peasant life had the qualities which had come to be expected in the Swedish films: a stern and exacting moral code, an expressive use of landscape, and a consciousness of the power of the elements...Her novels had their roots deep in the counntry's culture and in this, and in the breadth and sweep of their treatment they gave the directors what they needed."

With a photoplay scripted by director Victor Sjostrom, the six reel film was photographed by Julius Jaenzon.

Actress Tora Teje costars in the film as the title character with director Victor Sjostrom. Harriet Bosse, who was married to playwright August Strindberg between 1901-1904 and then actor Gunnar Wingard between 1908-1911, appears in a breif appearance during the film. She had previously appeared in the film "Ingmarssonerna", written and directed by Victor Sjostrom and photographed by Julius Jaenzon during 1919.
Victor Sjostrom Silent Film

Scott Lord Shakespeare in Silent Film:King Lear (Ernest Warde, 1916)

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).

Silent Film director Ernest C. Warde during 1917 directed an adaptation of Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. The Taming of the Shrew Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Mystery of Dr. Fu Man Chu, The Sacred Order, Man with the Limp (Stoll, 1923)

Silent Film