Scott Lord Silent Film: The Covered Wagon (James Cruze, 1924)

SILENT FILM The book Pictorial Beauty on the Screen, written by Victor Oscar Freeburg in 1923, was dedicated to James Cruze, director of the silent film 'The Covered Wagon' (ten reels). The introduction to the volume was written by silent film director Rex Ingram. Ingram notes that the silent film "must be composed of certain pictorial qualifications such as form, composition and a proper distribution of light and shade." Film poetry began with the silent film, despite any rennaisance in the nineteen seventies.

John L. Fell, in his volume A History of Film chronicles, "'THe Covered Wagon', directed by James Cruze in 1923, proved even more successful than 'The Iron Horse'. It was epic in conception, weak in plot, and impressively photographed." The cinematographer to the film had been Karl Brown.

Allan Eyles notes that "The Covered Wagon" (Cruze, 1923), made in the United States at a time when film criticism was giving more than a cursoy glance to the work of Swedish silent film director Victor Seastrom who had only just then arrived in America with Mauritz Stiller to bring a close to the Golden Age of Swedish Silent, was remarkable for its depicting the relationships of the characters within narrative to the enviornment in which the story takes place, its plotline built around the interaction of its three primary characters.

After mentioning "The Covered Wagon" as having been a western differing in genre from the comedies directed by James Cruze, author Gary Carey, Museum of Modern Art, in his volume Lost Films, as early as 1970, writes of the comedy "Beggar on Horseback", directed by Cruze during 1925 having been once considered lost before copies of it had resurfaced. Gary Carey includes the comedy 'Merton of the Movies" (eight reels), which featured the cameos of fifty silent film actors and actresses, directed by Cruze during 1923 as having been a Lost Silent Film during 1970 while overlooking a second satire on tinseltown titled "Hollywood" (eight reels), also presently considered lost, starring Viola Dana and directed by James Cruze during 1923. The film "Ruggles of Red Gap" (eight reels), directed by James Cruze in 1923 and starring actress Lois Wilson, is also presently considered a lost silent film.

James Cruze had again used cinematographer Karl Brown to film while directing the films "Hollywood", "Merton of the Movies" and "Ruggles of Red Gap".

Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Carol Dempster in America (D.W. Griffith, 1924)

Directed by D. W. Griffith the photographer of the film "America" (fifteen reels) was Hendrik Sartov. The film stars Carol Dempster and Neil Hamilton. Author Peter Cowie, in his volume Eighty Years of Cinema, deemed "America" to be "the last film of importance" from director D.W. Griffith and noted the film for its "remarkable war scene". Although the storyline of the film, set during the American Revolution and The Old North Church, is presented as needing to be driven by Sam Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere, author Edward Wagenkneckt, in The Films of D.W. Griffith, writes, "'America' has no unbroken line of personal interest, and all the characters stand in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by history. Griffith moves them about from place to place like pieces on a checkerboard as the exingencies of the war or the story seem to require." The story begins by following a minute man, one of the Sons of Liberty at the outbreak of the war at the Battlesof Lexington and Concord. Author Edward Wagerneckt concluded on "the last of Griffith's top rank films", "Photographically America was an unqualified trumph. Scene after scene of breathtaking beauty crossed the screen."

A photocaption placed in Motion Picture Magazine during 1924 read,"THe Battle of Bunker Hill is one of the most thrilling episodes of the picture...excelled only by the inspiring and breathtaking ride of Paul Revere." Photoplay Magazine durng 1924 described the film as "one of the greatest thrill pictures ever made...Mr. Hamilton is pushed into stardom and Miss Dempster does the best work of her carreer."

The periodical Picture Play Magazine during 1924 relflected upon D.W. Griffith's striving for historical accuracy in his images of the American Revolution and his visiting important locations and his searching for "every available historic spot" which may have been preserved, in the article Mr. Griffith's Next Production, "At this writing, Mr Griffith is doing interiors at his Mamoroneck studio...And a little later, when snow has fallen, he will set out to do scenes at Valley Forge".
During 1924, D.W Griffith also directed Carol Dempster and Neil Hamilton in the film “Isn’t Life Wonderful?” (nine reels).

It is not without interest that Tom Gunning, in his volume on D.W. Griffith and Biograph Film Company, chronicles that before his having entered filmmaking, Griffith had written an unproduced play entitled "War" that, staged within the context of the American Revolution, had also centered around the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Silent Film


D.W Griffith-Carol Demoster

D.W. Griffith-Carol Dempster D. W. Griffith

Scott Lord Silent Film: The Night Raiders (John Raymond, 1924)

Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Seastr...

Scholar Bo Florin points out that a famiar image in "He Who Gets Slapped" (seven reels), directed by Victor Sjostrom is referred to in the cutting continuity script as the "Symbolic Clown", the isolated character dressed in white recurrently appearing spinning his ball. Florin looks at the function of this image within the narrative as bookending sequences with a direct adress to the audience. Albeit while blogging David Bordwell notes that the film was a great success, mostly due to the emerging talent of Lon Chaney, he does in fact give the film only a brief mention when looking at Scandinavia's Golden Age of Silent Film Drawing to a Close, which can very much be attributed to Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller both coming to America.

Begnt Forslund compares Sjostrom's direction of "He Who Gets Slapped" with the direction of "The Scarlet Letter", the former being 'more personal, and also more cinematically exciting' while the latter can be recognized as a return to the type of film that Sjostrom made in Sweden, to which he returned. Not incidentally, it was the Swedish actor Gosta Ekmann who had portrayed the Lon Chaney character in "Han som far orilarna" on stage during 1926 in Stockholm at the Oscateatern.

As film criticism often inludes audience reception on the part of the journalist-spectator, it may be worth looking at fan magazines from the first-run of the film, not so much for the public sphere of reception, which perhaps includes the art house, but for the public dimension. Picture Play Magazine wrote of Lon Chaney, "As the loveable clown in the Metro-Goldwyn feature 'He Who Gets Slapped' he gives a achara terization of rare qualities and when he dies he pulls your heart strings untill the really break."

Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred in a second film together for the Metro-Goldwyn Picture Corporation during 1924 with Conrad Nagel, "The Snob" (seven reels), directed by Monta Bell. The film is a lost silent film, with no surviving copies existing. Also presumed lost is the six reel film "The Wolf Man" in which Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred together under the direction of Edmund Mortimer for the Fox Film Corporation during 1923. John Gilbert and Lon Chaney had starred together under the direction of Maurice Tourneur in the 1923 six reel film "While Paris Sleeps".The film is presumed lost with no surviving copies existing.

Victor Sjostrom Victor Sjostrom Lon Chaney

Scott Lord Silent Film: Black Oxen (Frank Lloyd, 1923)

Claimed to have been a "sensation" by writers of the period, "Black Oxen" (eight reels) was directed by Frank Lloyd, who co-wrote the script with Mary O'Hara as an adaptation of a then recent, then controversial novel by Gertrude Atherton. Atherton took the title from a phrase from poet William Butler Yeats. The film stars actresses Corinne Griffith and Clara Bow. Screenland magazine reviewed the film during November of 1923. "The passing years are like black oxen, wrote Gertrude Atherton, plodding on relentlessly. The heroine of 'Black Oxen' is a famous beauty who successfully renews her youth, thereby creating a new world for herself, far from her old loves and dreams." SILENT FILM SILENT FILM SILENT FILM

Scott Lord Silent Film: Constance Talmadge in Her Night of Romance (Sidney Franklin, 1924)

Directed by Sidney Franklin for First National Pictures, "Her Night of Romance" (eight reels) paired Ronald Colman with actress Constance Talmadge. Silent Film Constance Talmadge

Scott Lord: The Thief of Bagdad (Walsh, 1924)

At the time Motion Picture Magazine began publishing publicity stills from the film "Thief of Bagdad" during 1923, actress Evelyn Brent was the only player other than Douglas Fairbanks announced as being included in the cast, the studio having purchased ten acres to be used as sets fir the film.

The periodical Exhibitors Herld during 1924 announced that the film "The Thief of Bagdad", produced by Douglas Fairbanks came with a story written by Elton Thomas, the scenario editor Lotta Woods, "'The Thief of Bagdad' is a conglomeration of every impossible situation that could be dug out of every 'Arabian Nights' tale ever written, interspersed with a few that do not cause a stretch of the imagination to be what might have happenned."

Included with the autobiography of Douglas Fairbanks, Laugh and Live, is a biographical sketch that refers to Fairbanks occaisionally being called "Doug"; the pseudonym of Douglas Fairbanks was Elton Thomas.

SILENT FILM

Douglas Fairbanks SILENT FILM

Scott Lord Silent Film: Madge Bellamy in Soul of the Beast (John Griffit...

John Griffith Wray directed actresses Madge Bellamy and Vola Vale in "Soul of the Beast" (five reels) under the supervision of Thomas H. Ince.
Actress Madge Bellamy during 1924 had starred in the film "No More Women" (Lloyd Ingraham, six reels). Silent Film Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: Secrets of the Night (Blanche, 1924)

The Silent mystery "Secrets of the Night" (seven reels) was directed in 1924 by Herbert Blanche. The film stars actresses Madge Bellamy, Zazu Pitts and Rosemary Theby.

Silent Film

Scott Lord SIlent Film: Wax Works (Paul Leni, 1924)

Paul Leni directed the expressionistic film "Wax Works" before coming to America to direct the films "The Cat and the Canary" and "The Last Warning". Leni had worked as an art director with director Leopold Jessner on the film "Backstairs" (Hintertroppe, 1921), an "intimate drama" (Eisner) that moved "at a very slow, heavy pace" (Eisner). Silent Film

Scott Lord Silent Film: West of Hot Dog (1924)

Silent Film