Scott Lord Silent Film: Lillian Gish in 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 Lillian 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."

The cinematographer to "An Unseen Enemy" was G.W. Bitzer.
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Lillian and Dorothy Gish Biograph Film Company The Adventures of Dolly: D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Girl and Her Trust (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1912)

During 1912 actress Dorothy Bernard starred in for director D.W. Griffith at Biograph in the one reel "The Girl and Her Trust". The cinematographer to the film was G. W. Bitzer.

In regard to the grammar of film, shot structure prefiguring, that is to say before, considerations of narrative or mise-en-scene, Kemp R. Niver, in his volume D.W. Griffith, the Biograph films in perspective, writes, "In the space of five years, Griffith progressed from directing 'Adventures of Dollie' with 13 scenes and 12 camera positions to 'The Girl and Her Trust' with 130 scenes photographed from 35 camera positions and the suprising thing is the projection time of both films is about the same." This sentiment is reiterated by Robert M. Henderson in his volume D.W. Griffith, the years at Biograph. "This film is a remake of 'The Lonedale Operator' and a comparison quickly shows how far Griffith's editorial and camera techniques have progressed...Additional shots were made from an automobile riding parallel to the handcar and pursuing the train. These last came to be known as 'tracking' shots."

Dorothy Bernard went on to film for the Fox Film Corporation, beginning with the 1915 film "The Song of Hate" (seven reels) directed by J. Gordon Edwards.The film is presumed to be a Lost Silent Filmwith no surviving copies.

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Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in Lena and the geese (D.W. Griffith, Biograph, 1912)

During 1912 Mary Pickford, Kate Bruce and Mae Marsh starred for D.w. Griffith at Biograph in the one-reel "Lena and the Geese". The cinematographer of the film was G.W. Bitzer.

In her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me, actress Lillian Gish gives an account of seeing the film recalls having viewed the film with her sister Dorothy and unexpectedly gaving recognized their friend Mary Pickford, then Gladys Smith. "What a satisfying film it was calculated to move the heart and encourage the tear ducts."

Silent Film D.W. Griffith Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: Blanche Sweet in The Lonedale Operator (D.W. Griffith, 1912)

In her autobiography, Lillian Gish discusses D.W. Griffith's cutting between camera distances in "The Lonedale Operator" (one reel). The photoplay was written by Mack Sennett and photographed by G.W. Bitzer for the Biograph Film Company durin 1912. Linda Arvidson, writing as Mrs. D. W. Griffith, in her autobiography entitled "When the Movies Were Young" recounts the importance of "The Lonedale Operator" to the career of actress Blanche Sweet, "Mr. Griffith, as of yet unwilling to grant that she had any soul or feeling in her work, was using her for 'girl' parts. But he changed his opinion with 'The Lonedale Operator'. That was the picture in which he first recognized ability in Miss Sweet." Arvidson later phrases it as "screen acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct". In another account contained in the volume, Arvidson chronicles D.W. Griffith having met with Blanche Sweet "on the road" with an offer to film two reelers in Calfornia neccesitated by the departure of Mary Pickford to the IMP Studios.

The account Lillian Gish gives of the "Lonedale Operator" in her autobiography The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me includes D.W. Griffith being preemptive of his film's editor, "he refined the devices for building suspense...To increase suspense and build up to the climax, Mr. Griffith again employed crosscutting, switching from the girl to the sweetheart in evershortening intervals."
Arthur Knight, in his volume The Liveliest Art, describes Griffith's use of the insert shot in "The Lonedale Operator" when Blanche Sweet uses a wrench that is thought to be a pistol. "It was the close up that let us in on the secret, when the director was ready to reveal it. Griffith discovered that one basic function of the close up was to emphasize the inanimate, to make tings a dynamic part of the world through which the actors move. But the close up does more than emphasize what is in a scene, it elimantes everything else."

Magazine advertisements paid for by the Biograph Film Company described "The Londale Operator", reading: "With this Biograph subject is presented without a doubt the most thrilling melodramatic story ever produced." Silent Film

D.W. Griffith

Biograph Film Company

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Invaders (Thomas H. Ince, 1912)

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Having directed "The Indian Massacre" and Across the Plains" the year before, Thomas Ince during 1912 directed the films "The Invaders" (three reels) starring its co-director Francis Ford and Ethel Grandin and "Custer's Last Fight" (three reels) for the New York Motion Picture Company and "Shadows of the Past" for the Vitagraph Company of America.

It is often acknowledged that Thomas Ince was the first director to use a shooting script. These were detailed shooting scripts, known to be meticulous in their planning, where plotline would emerge as having precedence over action and spectacle.

Author Kenneth MacGowan notes that Thomas Ince "strove for theatric effect", but only with scripts that were "direct and tight" and used intertitles to advance character action dramatically relating to events as a technique of exposition. MacGowan writes, "The narrative method dominated in Griffith's pictures, the dramatic in Ince's." MacGowan attributes Ince with the inception of "detailed scenario (now called continuity)". He couldn't let a director 'shoot off the cuff' (developing scenes from a sketchy outline).

As late in the century, the internet century, as 2025, a film presumed to be lost, directed in 1915, was found, restored and copied digitally: a copy Universal's "The Heart of Lincoln" (Francis Ford, three reels) was discovered in a film archive in Long Island and has a 2025 date of availability. Directed by Francis Ford, who himself stars in the film as Abraham Lincoln, the film also stars actress Grace Cunard, to whom the photoplay is attributed. Advertisements placed in magazin es by the studio, thinly masquerading with a newspaper look as The Universal Weekly News announced the release of a "Marvelous and Thrilling Drama for Lincoln's Birthday" with, "Lively Grace Cunard in romantic scenes with a handsome officer, a happy ending after the war, serve to round out this virile yet tender story of the Heart of Lincoln to the supremest satisfaction of all." In regard to Lost Films, Found Magazines, now that the film has been found, perhaps our view of Thomas Ince might be sharper, particularly since we've been given an automatic reminder of how many silent films that do appear in the magazines of the time period are still presumed lost, with no existing copies that survive. Not incidentally, Keene State College holds a copy of the film "When Lincoln Paid" (Francis Ford,1913, two reels) starring Francis Ford as Abraham Lincoln and costarring actresses Ethel Grandin and Grace Cunard- the film was presumed lost with no surviving copies existing untill the year 2006 when it was found in New Hampshire.

Silent Film Civilization directed by Thomas Ince D. W. Griffith

Scott Lord Scandinavian Silent Film: The Gardner (Tradgardsmastanen, Vic...

Banned in Sweden during 1912, "The Gardner", written by Mauritz Stiller and directed by Victor Sjostrom was thought to be lost untill a surviving copy was found sixty eight years later in the Library of Congress. The film stars Victor Sjostrom with Lilli Bech, Muaritz Stiller, Gosta Ekman and John Ekman. It was the directorial debut of Victor Sjostrom, unscreened during his lifetime. Actress Karin Alexandersson who appears in the film that year also appeared in the film "Froken Julie", directed by Anna Hofmann-Uddgren..

Was the film Scandinavian sensationalism made in response to Asta Neilsen starring in the film "The Abyss"? The film did successfully premiere in Denmark and Norway, during 1912 and 1913 respectively. (To modern auiences the film's theme of incest/seduction is depicted before both the Suffragete movement for women's voting rights and before much of Frued's writing on the Electra Complex- there remains an ostensible theme of Seduction, or perhaps an element of exploitation in the film.) Marina Dahlquist, in her article "The Best-Known Woman in the World", chronicles, "Charles Magnusson published the booklet "Nagra om Biografcensuren (A few remarks on film censorship) in the name of Svenska Bio regarding its appeal of the ban against three films, among them "Tradgardsmastaren/Varldensgrymhet" (The Broken Springrose/The Gardner [1912]). Even though the importance of censorship was acknowledged by Magnusson and others, the over zealous ambition to protect even an adult audience met with irony."


Also that year Victor Sjostrom directed the film "A Ruined Life" (Ett hemligt giftermal) co-scipted with Charles Magnusson and starring Hilda Bjorgstrom, Einar Froberg, Anna Norrie, and Greta Almroth in the first film in which she was to appear.

Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Swedish Cinema, Ingeborg Holm to Fanny Alexander notes the numerous location shots employed to showcase Victor Sjostrom's future wife, Lilli Beck during the film. Peter Cowie quickly references that Lilli Bech and Victor Sjostrom were formerly married between 1914-1916. The actress starred with Victor Sjostrom onscreen under the direction of Mauritz Stiller the following year, during 1913 with a script written by Stiller and photographed by Julius Jaenzon with "Vampyren", a film presently presumed to be lost, with no existing surviving copies. That year Victor Sjostrom and Lilli Bech were also paired onscreen by Mauritz Stiller in the film "Barnet", with Einar Froberg and Anna Norrie, photographed again by Julius Jaenzon. The film is also presumed lost with no existing surviving copies.



Actor John Eckman, who appeared on screen in a score of films between 1912 and 1950 before his appearing with Victor Sjostrom in the Ingmar Bergman film "Till Joy" (Till gladje,1950), directed only one film, it also being the first film in which he was to appear. Before having appeared during 1912 in the film "Tradgardsmasteren", under the direction of Victor Sjostrom and during 1912 in the film "De Svarta Maskerna" under the direction of Mauritz Stiller, Ekman directed the film "The Shepherd Girl" (Saterjantan,1912), starring actress Greta Almroth, Carlo Weith and Stina Berg in her first onscreen appearance, the film having had been photographed by Hugo Edlund for Svenska Biographteatern. Victor Sjostrom would direct John Ekman, Lilli Bech and himself from his own script during 1914, adding the actress Greta Almroth in the film "Daughter of the High Mountain" (Hogfallets dotter), photographed by Julius Jaenzon. The film is presumed to be lost, presently there being no surviving existing copies.

Apparently the film "Den Svarte Doktorn" filmed for Stora Biografteatern by Frans Lundberg is not only a lost film, with no surviving copies exusting, but was also banned at the time of production by Swedish Censorship. The film starred actress Olivia Norrie, Einar Zangenberg, and Holger-Madsen. "Anfortrodda medel", also made by Frans Lundberg in 1911 is also presumed to be a lost film with no surviving copies existing and was also banned by Swedish censorship. The film starred actresses Phillipa Fredricksen and Agnes Nyrup Christensen.

Interestingly enough, Swedish Silent Film cinematographer camerman Julius Jaenzon brought his equipment aboard the S.S. Lusitania during 1912 to make the film "Tva Svenska Emigranters Afventyr i Amerika", starring actresses Lisa Holm and Lilly Jacobsson under the direction of Eric Malmberg. It might be worth noting before continuing to the dynamic between the four horsemen of Swedish Silent Film, Victor Sjostrom, Mauritz Stiller, Julius Jaenson and Charles Magnusson, that another director was there at Svenska Biografteatern during 1912, director Eric Malmberg. Seemingly overlooked, Malmberg directed six films for Svenska Biografteatern during 1912, including films presumed to be lost with no surving copies photographed by Julius Jaenzon and starring actress Lilly Jacobsson, among them "Det Grona Halsbandet", "Stolen Happiness" (Oceanbreakers, Branniger eller Stulen lycka), "Agaton and Fina", "Kolingens Galoscher", in which Jacobsson starred with Erika Tornberg, and "Samhallets Drom", in which Jacobsson starred with actresses Agda Helin,Tollie Zellman and Lisa Holm in her first on screen appearance in film. It is only conjecture as to whether Malmberg at Svenska Bio would have belonged to the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film as it had not properly begun, even were the lost films to be found. After leaving Svenska Bio, Eric Malmberg went to Hasselblad to apeear on screen as an actor under the direction of Georg af Klercker.

Peter Cowie, in his golume Swedish Cinema, documents that after having moved to Lidingo, near Stockholm, Charles Magnusson produced a total of twenty five films during the year of 1912, only nine of which were directed by either Mauritz Stiller or Victor Sjostrom. Taken into account that George af Klercker directed only four that year, one is hard pressed to complete the filmography without the six directed by Eric Malmberg, author Peter Cowie alluding to six films that seem to be missing, or on the peripheral, with marginal importance. If looking for orphaned film, Julius Jaenson photographed the lost film "Leban Oetterkvist is training fot the Olympics", and Jaenzon or Magnusson might be credited as director, while a lost film directed by Algot Sandberg, "Uncle Johannes Arrival in Stockholm" was also filmed by Julius Jaenson during 1912.

It is clear that the enivitable crash between the theater of August Strindberg and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Frued would manifest itself in a similarity of themes, here specifically the Electra Complex and the repression of the Id soon to be summarized and synthesized in Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, although it is difficult to find a historiography of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film where man's relation to the elements and landscape is reviewed as symbolic of sublimation of the sexual instinct rather than a metaphysical symbolism of ontological location- nevertheless the era brought contemporaries of Selma Lagerlof that, within modernity, were proponents of the suffragete movement in Swedish Literature, notably Elin Wagner, Anna Lenah Maria Elgstrom and Ellen Key. In Stockholm bookstores, during 1910, Elin Wagner published the novel Penswoman (Pennskattet) and during 1913, Maria Sandel published the novel The Vortex (Virveln).

Silent Film Victor Sjostrom Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Mender of Nets (Biograph Film Company, D.W. Griffith, 1912)

During 1912 D.W. Griffith directed Mary Pickford, Mabel Normand and Maugeritte Marsh in "The Mender of Nets", photographed by . "The Mender of Nets" was the first film in which Mary Pickford had appeared at the studios of the Biograph Film Company. "The Mender of Nets" was photographed by G.W. Bitzer.

Although it seems the director of the lost silent film "Honor Thy Father" in which Mary Pickford starred for the Majestic Motion Picture Company during 1912 with Owen Moore, is unknown, Moore starred with Pickford in several of her films of the period that are now lost, with no surviving copies, the name of their directors also presently unknown. Before 1912 she had previously starred under the direction of Thomas Ince at Independent Motion Picture Company, where she appeared in twenty eight films that are now presumed lost, with no surviving copies existing, and at Majestic Studios, where four out if the five films that she appeared in are presumed to be presently lost. Among the one reel lost silent films that Mary Pickford made in 1910 were "Back to the Soil", "The Fishermaid" (Thomas Ince), "For Her Brother's Sake" and "For the Queen's Honor".

Biograph Film Company
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Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Old Actor (D.W.Griffith, Biograph 1912)

"The Old Actor" (two reels) was directed by D.W. Griffith for the Biograph Film Company during 1912and was photographed by G.W.Bitzer with a scenario by George Hennessy. The film stars Mary Pickford with Kate Bruce. Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: One is Buisness, the Other Is Crime (D.W. Griffi...

D.W Griffith directed "One is Buisness, the Other is Crime", photographed by G.W. Bitzer, for the Biograph Film Company during 1912 The film stars actresses Blanche Sweet and Kate Bruce. Authors Edward Wagenkneckt and Anthony Slide, in their volume The Films of D.W. Griffith, put the film's themes of "stockmarket manipulation and political corruption" with those from Griffith's other films on the moral problems of "Gangsterism". It could be that modern audiences eventually view many of Griffith's films as being "lofty sensationalism", perhaps there being no direct link from the muckraking of Thomas Nast and Tammany Hall or from Naturalism. Scholar Mark Sandberg has termed Griffith's dramas as being "uplift cinema".

During 1912 actress Blanche Sweet also appeared onscreen under the direction of D.W. Griffith for Biograph in the film "The Lesser Evil", co-starring with actress Mae Marsh.
The cinematographer to "One is Buisness, the Other Crime" was G.W. Bitzer.

D. W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Female of the Species (D.W. Griffith, Biogra...

Actress Mary Pickford appears with Dorothy Bernard and Charles West in "The Female of the Species", directed by D.W. Griffith and photographed by G.W. Bitzerfor the Biograph Film Company in 1912.

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Scott Lord on Danish Silent Film: House of Ill-repute (Det Byrygtede Hus, Urban Gad, 1912)

Danish Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Sarah Bernhardt in Les Amours de la reine Élisa...

Directing in 1912, Louis Mercatan had filmed stage actresss Sarah Bernhardt for four reels using only long static shots; there are twenty three scenes in the film and of twenty two intertitles, only three are interpolated. Most summarize the dialogue and its consequence to the action untill the exclamation in scene twenty one, “May God forgive you, I never will.” While discussing the advent of sound film and its acceptance by French filmmakers, the periodical Exhibitor's Daily Review abjured its readers that the would be "reminded that Sarah Bernhardt was the first star of the first movie drama ever produced."
A year later, in 1913, D.W. Griffith, having already adopted the practice of making two-reelers, directing the first American four-reel narrative, “Judith of Bethulia”, starring Blanche Sweet. Louis Mercanton directed Sarah Berhardt again duriing 1913, reverting back to a two reel running length with the film "Adrienne Lecourver, An Actress's Romance", the film presently presumed to be lost,with no surviving copies.
All five or six reels of the 1915 film "Jeanne Dore", starring Sarah Bernhardt and written and directed by Louis Mercantan are presumed to be lost. It mas included among many of the Bluebird Photoplays during the company's brief existence during the first decade of the twentieth century.

Greta Garbo is quoted by Sven Broman as having said, "I know that he courted Sarah Bernhardt and wanted to write plays for her...but Strindberg still managed to get Sarah Bernhardt to do a guest performance in Stockholm in La Dame aux Camelias at the Royal Dramatic Theatre. There are reports of surviving existing copies of the one reel 1909 film "La Tosca" starring Sarah Bernhardt and Eudourdo Max. Sara Bernhardt plays herself, as do Sir Basil Zahrof and Maurice Zahrof in the two reel "Sara Bernhardt a Belle Isle" from 1912. "Mothers of France" (1917) would be the last film to feaure the The Divine Woman, Sarah Bernahrdt.



Anne Boleyn Silent Film

Silent Film playlist

Silent Film playlist

Scott Lord Silent Film: Anne Boleyn (Morlhon, 1913)

The periodical Motography during 1914 gave the date of the settings of the film "Anne Boleyn (1912) as 1532 during the reign of Henry VIII, typifying the film as an early example of the costume drama genre, "its exteriors typical of England", the interiors including the Tower. The periodical Motion Picture World reviewed the Eclipse-Kleine of Anne Boleyn using the word photodrama rather photoplay, "Max Pemberton has wrote the scenario, and he has kept close to the historical narrative in the main facts...so strong in vindication of her innocenece and so adverse to the merciless monarch that a view of these films forces the spectator to take the side of the ill-fated Anne with a feeling of bitter animosity toward her royal mate." The specific instance use of the word "spectator" in the historiography of the extatural discourse of the period's fan magazines was refreshingly from 1914.

An earlier version of the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII was filmed the previous year in the United States during 1912 starring actrees Ckara Kimball Young. Shakespeare's King Henry VIII proclaims that Anne Boleyn will be his queen in the one reel Vitagraph film "Cardinal Wolsey", directed by J.Stuart Blackton.

"Henry VIII" by William Shakespeare was directed by William Barker during 1911 starring the renowned Herbert Beerbohm Tree with acress Violet Vanburgh as Queen Catherine. The film is presumed to be a Lost Silent Film with no surving copies existing but features the same actress as Anne Boleyn as the 1913 French version.

Ernst Lubitsch directed "Anna Boleyn" during 1920 with actress Henny Porten and actress Aud Egede-Nissen as Jane Seymour. Pictures and Pictures and Picturegoer Magazine related that the narrative of the film centered around the "beautiful and impressive" Henny Porten by disclosing that "the end is foreshadowed in the opening shots". Film historian Arthur Knight explains an interest in transnationalism during the silent era, "There would seem to be three main types of German productions during this period, all more or less concurrent. First and probably most popular were great costume spectacles like "Passion" (1919), "Ann Boleyn" (1920) and "Danton" (1921). At the outset, these dealt with less than savory incidents from the history of Germany's recent enemies, but they did so withgreat flair."

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Scott Lord Silent Film: The Copper Beeches (Calliard, 1912)

"THe Copper Beeches" in which actor Georges Trevilles starred as the detective Sherlock Holmes, was directed by Adrian Calliard during 1912.

At the time when David Stuart Davies published his volume Holmes of the movies, the screen career of Sherlock Holmes, "The Copper Beeches" was the earliest Sherlock Holmes adaptation of which there was a surviving copy, the series itself being the first authentic representation of the Holmes character. Davies gathered that the plots were faithful adaptations of Baker Street cannon owing to their titles and the fact that "alledgedly Conan Doyle was personally involved in their production". His filmography of lost silent films includes "The Speckled Band", "The Beryl Coronet' and "Silver Blaze" from 1912 and "The Mystery of Boscome Vale", "The Stolen Papers" and finally, The Musgrave Ritual of which there is an existing copy. Silent Film Silent Film Sherlock Holmes

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: Musgrave Ritual (George Treville, 1912)

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Scott Lord Scandinavian Silent Film: Den Flyvende Circus (The Flying Circus, Alfred Lind, ...

Lilly Beck starred in over ten films made by Mauritz Stiller during the first four years of Svenska Biografteatern and almost ten films directed then by Victor Sjsotrom. Before that, Charles Magnusson had directed her in the 1911 film "The Talsiman" (Amuletten). By 1912 she was married to Erik Magnusson and starred in the film "The Fying Circus" as Lilli Beck Magnusson. Actress Stella Lind, who died in 1919 at the age of 26, also appears in the film. During 1912 Beck also appeared in the sequel to the film, entitled "The Bear Tamer from the Flying Cicus", her having been billed as Lilli Beck , as well as having that year costarred with Rasmus Ottesen in the film "The Strong Power". She was married to Victor Sjostrom, whom she also divorcd, from 1914-1916. Alfred Lind had begun as a photogtapher on the film "The Little Hornblower" for director Eduard Schnedler-Sornensen in 1019. He is listed as having been cinematographer to the film "The Flying Circus" as well as having coscripted the photoplay with Carl Dumreicher. Silent Film Swedish Silent Film

Scott Lord Scandinavian Silent Film: Bjrnetaemmern (Bear Tamer of the Fl...

During 1912, Lilli Beck appeared in the sequel to the film "The Flying Circus" (Lind, 1912), again appearing on the screen as a snake charmer under the direction of Alfred Lind in "The Bear Tamer of the Flying Circus".

Alfred Lind is notable for having directed the seven reel film "The Masque of Life/The Jockey of Death" during 1916 if only for its having been an example of an early attempt to create a new genre of "Thrill" movies in it continuance of circus themes and motifs, the publicity for the film similar to that of serials, or "cliffhangers", a later short film directed by Lind survives from 1923 entitiked "Filmens vovehals" (Daredevil of the Movies", starring Emilie Sannom.

During 1913, Motography Magazine in the United States introduced The Great Northern Film Company to its readers by defining the "circus thrill" film as an emerging genre, "The natural scenery in the suburbs of Copenhagen and in the country surrounding this old city afford all that could be desired for the taking of motion pictures and the atmospheric conditions have been pronounced as ideal by experts in the art of motography. The companyy boasts of a perfectly equipped circus arena in which many of its talked of feature productions are made." Lilli Beck Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Adam and Eve (Vitagraph, 1912)

silent film Scott Lord