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: Lon Chaney in The Ace of Hearts (Worsley, 1921)

During 1921 Wallace Worsley directed Lon Chaney with actress Leatrice Joy. "The Ace of Hearts" was photographed by cameraman Don Short.

Lon Chaney

Lon Chaney Lon Chaney Movie Posters

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

Motion Picture News during 1921 readily boasted that more than seven different types of "exploitations" were used to advertise the film "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" starring Rudolph Valentino. Motion Picture Directing, published in 1922, showed a director Rex Ingram using a white, square canvass reflector to exploit sunlight during the filming of exterior scenes.

Author Benjamin B Hampton, in his volume A History of Movies, discusses the rise of screenwriter June Mathis to producer with the film "The Fourhorseman of the Apocalypse" and her effort to "plan the details of camerawork before photography began. This process of planning had been shared by Tucker and a few other directors who called it 'shooting the story on paper before shooting it on film'. 'Shooting on paper'...requires highly trained technical knowledge, clear thinking, a power of visualization and a rounded conception of the picture before camerawork begins. Its advantages are low cost production."

The film was based on the novel writtenby Vincente Ibanez.

Silent film Rudolph Valentino

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: The Wild Bird (En Vindfagel, Brunius, 1...

Swedish silent film director John W. Brunius during 1921 directed acresses Pauline Brunius, Renee Bjorling and Jenny Tschernichin-Larsson in the film "The Wild Bird" ("En Vindfagel"). Photographed by Hugo Edlund, the film was co-scripted by Brunius with screenwriter Sam Ask. The film was shown in the United States as "Give Me My Son". During its first run the periodical Moving Picture World subtitled its review with "Feature That Will Please Whenever Naturalness Is Appreciated". It provided the "exploitation angle" of "Get interest in it chiefly because it is foreign." The periodical The Film Daily wrote, "Its gets away from the conventional happy ending. It is not tragic, but unexpected, and not what you think it will be. The denoument is particularly well handled." Under the "story" section, it wrote, "Involved, but maintains the quality of coherence and stands out as unusual" and under the "direction" section it wrote, "handles more dramatic moments effectively but otherwise is average." Scandinavian Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Mary Pickford in The Love Light (Frances Marion, 1921)

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DUring 1921 actress Mary Pickford also filmed "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (Grenn/Oickford) and "Through The Backdoor" (Green/Pickford). Silent Film Mary Pickford

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

Scottt Lord Silent Film: Dream Street (D. W. Griffith, 1921)

"There is nothing of interest I can tell you about myself." A year later, Photoplay Magazine caught up with Carol Dempster and she purportedly used the exact same words, "There is nothing of interest I can tell you about myself.". Photoplay Magazine deigned her to be The Mystery Girl of the Movies. Photoplay journalist Dorothy Herzog quotes D.W. Griffith as having said that Dempster was cast in he film "Dream Street" (ten reels) for her dancing ability, "Anyone with the poise and grace to necome such a potentiality as a dancer undoubtedly had the ability to rise to similiar heights in an allied art if properly developed."

"Dream Street" was photographed by cameraman Henrik Sartov for D.W. Griffith, Inc and United Artists in 1921.

D. W. Griffith

D.W. Griffith

In his volume The Films of D.W. Griffith, author Edward Wagenkneckt discounts the lofty intentions of D.W. Griffith in an attempt to lower the director from his crepuscular inaccessible Pantheon, "His "higher" thoughts were often inseperable from the popular ladies' journals of the time. When he made homey philosophical observations, greta charm and loveliness often resulted; but but when he decided to tackle big subjects like like the principles of Good and Evil, he seemed sophmoric. Of course, Griffith's ideas were more sophisticated than the script for Dream Street suggests (his play The Treadmill shows that), but when he tried to reduce his already cliche themes to the audience's level, he somehow lost the poetry and naivete and kept only the didacticism."

Edward Wagerknect adresses Griffith's filmmaking technique in "Dream Street" by noting that Billy Bitzer would often light a set flatly whereas there were "pools of light and deep shadows" in "Dream Street", to which Wagerknect attributes it having been shot entirely in the studio.

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Scott Lord Silent Film: fragment The Centaurs (Cartoonist Winsor McCay, ...

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Scott Lord Silent Film:The Conquering Power (Ingram, 1921)

Actress Alice Terry starred with Rudolph Valentino in the 1921 film "The Conquering Power" (five-seven reels) directed by Rex Ingram for Metro Pictures Corporation. Silent Film

Silent Film Rudolph Valentino

Scottt Lord Silent Film:The Three Musketeers (Niblo, 1921)

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.

Douglas Fairbanks Douglas Fairbanks

Scott Lord Silent Film: Sands of Sacrifice (Bartlett, 1921)

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 Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: LIllian GIsh in Orphans Of The Storm (D.W. Griffith, 1921)

The photographer of the film was Hendrik Sartov. When seen by Norwegian director Tancred Ibsen, "Orphans of the Storm" was one of the films included in is decision to go to Hollywood, albeit none of the scripts he wrote while there were realized.


William Everson, in his volume American Silent Film, perhaps sees the significance of "Orphans of the Storm" lying perhaps in tits improtance to us more than as a steppingstone for D.W. Griffith. He writes, "While it did well, Orphans of the Storm was not the box-office blockbuster that Griffith expected and needed badly. Because it was neither a financial landmark nor an aesthetic advance over his previous films, it is usually dismissed by historians (even the few responsible one's) as representing 'Griffith in Decline'." Everson reports that after the premiere, which he spoke at and which was attended by Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Griffith cut "the more harrowing scenes" from the film, including close-ups of vermin crawling over Dorothy Gish and shots from the execution scene. And yet, Everson is certainly correct that the film showcases the directorial skills of D.W. Griffith. Everson continues, "The detail shots in battle scenes (troops moving into formation, close ups of pistols being loaded and and fixed) gave them a documentary quality which mde them explicable as well as ezciting."

D.W. Griffith

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Intolerance

Scott Lord Silent Film: Camille (Smallwood,1921) with Rudolph Valentino

Please include the films beneath as though in a festival or matinee.

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo Rudolph Valentino