Another tape, Starewicz' Fantasies (1911-1915) is the third volume in the "Early Russian Cinema" series from Milestone Film & Video. This includes three early films: The Dragonfly and the Ant (1913), Christmas Eve (1913), and The Lily of Belgium (1915). These are fascinating films, though not as sophisticated as his later work. These titles are mastered from 35mm prints at the Gosfilmofond in Moscow, with music scores by Neil Brand.
A third tape, Three Shorts by Ladislas Starevich, includes The Mascot (1933), Nose to the Wind and Winter Carousel (1958), and is available from Festival Films. None of these Starevich titles are available on laserdisc, where the animation could be examined frame by frame, which would help explain what Starevich accomplished, but still not explain how.
A biographical sketch and filmography by Ephraim Katz is available at http://www.tvguide.com/movies/katz/6118.sml There is a well-designed, comprehensive site devoted to Starevich and his films at http://www.itserve.com/~tfitz/stare1.html The site includes a Starevich biography, pages devoted to each of his films, including Quicktime movies of short sequences that show the detail involved in Starevich's animation style.
Critics' Choice has announced another three titles from the Killiam Collection of silent classics. Down to the Sea in Ships (1923) is a terrific recreation of a New England whaling community, filmed on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was the first film to feature Clara Bow, who makes the most of her role as kid sister to the heroine. The other new releases, Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925) and Son of the Sheik (1926), the final film of Rudolph Valentino, are more familiar, but equally welcome. For a limited time, Critics' Choice is offering these three titles (and 1927's Sunrise) for $14.77 each with a shipping and handling charge of $3.50 (reduced from $5.50).
The Fall Cinesation 97 will be held September 26-28 in Saginaw, Michigan. The highlight of each convention is three days of screenings at the 2100 seat Temple Theater. Built in 1927 as a silent film theatre, the Temple has been upgraded with a 50 foot screen and 16mm, 35mm, 70mm variable speed projectors. Silent film presentations feature accompaniment on the original 3 manual, 12 rank Barton Pipe Organ, or an upright piano. The Cinesation provides one of the too few opportunities to see silent films as they were originally seen: on a big screen with excellent projection, and live musical accompaniment.
The Cinesation is produced in close cooperation with several film archives and often features the premiere of new 35mm restorations from the George Eastman House and Library of Congress. Preservation staff members attending from the archives have included Ed Stratman from George Eastman House and James Cozart from the Library of Congress. Previous years have seen such rarities as the Fox films The Johnstown Flood (1926) and The River Pirate (1928) and Universal programmers The White Tiger (1923) directed by Tod Browning, and His Destiny (1928).
Each year's schedule includes a mix of silent and sound features with shorts, including newsreels, trailers and even a serial chapter. Titles already announced for 1997 include Karl Brown's Stark Love (1927), filmed on location in the mountains of North Carolina, The Devil's Needle (1918) with Norma Talmadge, and two German films: Paul Wegener's The Golem (1921) in a beautiful print from the rarely seen American release version,. and When I Was Dead (1918) with director Ernst Lubitsch in an acting role.
Now in its 8th year, the Cinesation is sponsored by the Great Lakes Cinephile Society, Inc. Detailed information on last year's convention is available at the Silents Majority site at http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/Cinesation/ For information on the upcoming convention, contact the group by email at Cinesation@aol.com, or write Dennis Atkinson, PO Box 352, Frankenmuth, MI 48734.
The Great Lakes Cinephile Society's interest in preservation- and access- is shown by an innovative series of video releases. Each year one of the silent features shown at the convention is offered on video. These provide a memento of each year's convention, while making rare titles available with new music scores for those who were not able to attend. The music scores by Phil Carli at the piano or Bob Vaughn at the Barton Organ are recorded in performance at the Temple Theater during the convention. Later, the 16mm or 35mm prints are transferred to video on a broadcast quality system and mastered on a professional format, Betacam SP. Each title is available for a contribution of $25 or more. The Great Lakes Cinephile Society absorbs all of the expenses, so that all proceeds go to support film preservation. You can choose the archive that will receive your contribution.
The releases focus on program pictures that were the heart of the silent film experience. These include titles that provide a lot of entertainment, but are little known today. Early performances by Boris Karloff are among the reasons to see the boxing picture Dynamite Dan (1923) and the Chadwick production The Bells (1926). The latter title is transferred from a 35mm tinted nitrate print made available by the Museum of Modern Art, with an organ score by Bob Vaughn. Comedies are represented by the Syd Chaplin vehicle Charley's Aunt (1925) which shows that the silent film was a fine medium for presenting stage plays. For westerns there is The Prairie Pirate (1925) with Harry Carey and No Man's Law (1927), a Hal Roach production starring Rex the Wonder Horse. This film features Roach's stock company in the lead roles, including Oliver Hardy and Jimmy Finlayson. Other titles include Sailor's Holiday (1929) with Sally Eilers, The Drop Kick (1927) with Richard Barthelmess, East Side- West Side (1923) with Kenneth Harlan. The two sound films are The Talk of Hollywood (1929), a satire about the coming of sound, and Windjammer (1937), an adventure starring George O'Brien.
The new releases following the 1996 convention are A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918), a delightful comedy with Constance Talmadge, and What No Man Knows (1923) starring Clara Kimball Young and Lowell Sherman. This title was transferred at 20 frames per second from a 35mm print in the collection of the Library of Congress.
Ordering information is available at the Great Lakes Cinephile Society, Inc. video entry of Silent Film Sources.
Silent films receive unexpected special treatment this month from American Movie Classics. During the month of April, the cable channel is running a different silent film each morning at 6 am (ET) (a complete list is below). There are no minor films here- all of the titles were major films on their original release, and AMC is presenting them in chronological order, starting with 1914's A Fool There Was and continuing through the final silents of 1929. The titles include a number of the starring films of Douglas Fairbanks, Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon, and some rarely seen titles from Cecil B. DeMille, Gloria Swanson and others.
This may be a major breakthrough from AMC, which has never shown the interest in silent films as its competitor Turner Classic Movies. In the past, when AMC showed silent films at all, they were either programmed in the middle of the night, or were buried in the riches of their annual film preservation festival/fund raising marathon. When AMC licensed the Chaplin films several years ago, the only silent included was Modern Times- they passed on The Chaplin Revue, The Kid, A Woman of Paris, the 1942 version of The Gold Rush and even City Lights.
While this may be a turnaround for AMC, it does not represent any change in heart from the major film studios whose surviving silent films remain largely unseen. The only major studio titles are Sunrise from Twentieth Century Fox, prepared for a long-delayed laserdisc release, and The Ten Commandments, prepared for Paramount's 75th anniversary home video series in 1987. With the exception of Oscar Micheaux's Body and Soul, each AMC title is available on home video. For various reasons, the copies on AMC may differ from the home video versions. Sherlock, Jr. has the same transfer, but AMC has a score by Vince Giordano and His Nighthawks. Tramp, Tramp, Tramp on home video has the same score (by Phil Carli), but a different transfer from the version that premiered on AMC a few months ago.
Most of April's titles were independent productions, free of the grasp of the major studios. These titles are available today due to the pioneering efforts of two distributors who were active in acquiring rights and materials on silent films beginning in the late 1940s. Raymond Rohauer was a businessman who represented producers and their heirs. He partnered with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. for his father's films, with Mabel Langdon for the films of Harry Langdon and with Buster Keaton for his films. Rohauer often preserved the films and made them available theatrically. Since his death in 1987, Kino on Video and Image Entertainment have had their pick of Rohauer's extensive library- resulting in a flood of long unavailable films with remarkable image quality.
Paul Killiam acquired silent films and restored them for showing on television. Killiam acquired rights to the Edison and Biograph films and released them to television in the 1950s with music and narration as "Movie Museum." In 1960, Killiam's "Silents Please" was a half hour summer replacement show on ABC. The episodes included documentaries (ex. The Sad Clowns) and condensed version of silent features. The participation of scholar William K. Everson ensured the accuracy of the scripts. For this series Killiam acquired the Art Cinema library, which included Son of the Sheik and The Love of Sunya. He also purchased the estate of D.W. Griffith which included all of Griffith's best known features. Killiam also acquired individual titles including It with Clara Bow, and 35mm material on public domain titles starring Douglas Fairbanks (The Mark of Zorro, etc.), Buster Keaton (The General, Steamboat Bill, Jr. and College) and Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush). There were a total of 41 episodes of "Silents Please", and the series was syndicated as "The History of the Motion Picture."
Finally by the late 1960s, Killiam felt that the market was ready for a series of uncut silent feature films. The first season of "The Silent Years" was hosted by Orson Welles, and the second by Lillian Gish. The series was syndicated to PBS stations, and the 16mm prints were made available for rental to schools. Killiam is undoubtably the father of silent films on television, and his presentations introduced many people (including this author) to the silent cinema. Today, Paul Killiam is retired and lives in Connecticut. When I last spoke to him, he was sharp and seemed much younger than his 81 years, and was pleased that the films he helped save and restore were still being shown to appreciative audiences.
A new website devoted to the Biograph Company gives a balanced view of the company's history (most overviews focus only on D.W. Griffith's years with the company). Biograph started out in as a producer of Mutoscopes (flip cards) for viewing machines. Ironically, it was the success of Griffith's films, and his desire to make features, that made Biograph out of step with the times, so that the company folded soon after Griffith's departure. The site can be found at http://www.altinet.net/biograph/
A champion for this nearly forgotten company emerged a few years ago with Edwin Thanhouser, grandson of the founder. He donated funds to archives for preservation of Thanhouser films, and through Thanhouser Film Company Preservation, Inc. has released a set of three videotapes of surviving, historically significant Thanhouser films from 1910-1916. The video programs include what should be the best available video copies of Cry of the Children (1912) produced to oppose child labor, and the James Cruze version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1912). Detailed information on the video programs is available at http://www.teleport.com/~tco/video.htm A short video clip of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is also available at the site.
Several years ago, Edwin Thanhouser commissioned historian Q. David Bowers to write the history of the Thanhouser company, the films, and the players. That work, is scheduled to be published on CD-ROM by the end of 1997. The Thanhouser web site at http://www.teleport.com/~tco/ also includes an exceptionally well designed section on the history of the Thanhouser company, and a preview of Bowers' profiles of Thanhouser players and staff.
It is 1997, and the 70th anniversary of The Jazz Singer, the film that led to the end of the silent film era. It was the irrepressible personality of Al Jolson that gave life to the film, and Jolson coasted for several years on the remarkable commercial success of The Jazz Singer and its follow-up, The Singing Fool. Rhino Records is releasing an extensive series of compact discs of music from the Turner Entertainment archives. Of interest to silent film aficianados is the engagingly titled "Let Me Sing And I'm Happy: Al Jolson At Warner Bros. 1926-1936." The songs and the films they are from can be found at http://www.internexus.co.uk/users/davidhamer/newcd.html
The single CD features 23 tracks from all of Jolson's work at Warners, including two songs from The Plantation Act, the 1926 Vitaphone short that preceded The Jazz Singer. This film was restored in 1995 by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, whose film preservation website is available at http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/. There are many sites devoted to Al Jolson, but one of the best is http://www2.ari.net/ajr/recs/ajmovies.html
The amazingly fast departure of the silent film following The Jazz Singer is well documented in "The Speed of Sound," a new book by Scott Eyman. His biographies of Mary Pickford and Ernst Lubitsch were extremely well received for their excellent prose and painstaking research, and according to Eyman, this book was written as a labor of love. I was the research associate on the Pickford book, and contributed some research material to this volume.
Two previous books have covered this little understood transition period. "The Birth of the Talkies" by Harry Geduld, came out in 1977 and was more focused on patents than people. Geduld included a history of sound recording, and an exhaustive review of the patents behind the competing technologies. Geduld wraps up his story about the time of the premiere of Lights of New York, the first "100% talkie." Alexander Walker's "The Shattered Silence" was published in 1979. Walker's excellent account placed events firmly in a chronology, so that the reader can see the tremendous strides from 1928 to 1930 as filmmakers learned how to make sound films. Perhaps the best comparison is to note that Geduld takes until page 100 to reach Don Juan, the first feature with a Vitaphone score, while Walker covers Don Juan by page 10. Walker relied heavily on Variety for his research.
Eyman's approach is more modern. "The Speed of Sound" covers the story from the perspective of the moguls, the actors and directors who had to make this work, and the audiences who saw their beloved silent films and stars replaced by an entirely different type of film. He went to research sources like the AT&T archives and Warner Bros. collection at USC to access original records, and conducted many interviews. The book benefits greatly from Eyman's many unpublished interviews over the years with those who lived through it, including Edward Bernds, Clarence Brown, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Henry Hathaway, James Wong Howe, and Karl Struss.
The only shortcoming is the lack of footnotes, surprising in such a well researched, comprehensive and otherwise authoritative work.
Scarecrow Press has announced some new books of interest to fans of silent film. The market for books focused on very narrow topics (like silent film) is very narrow, and it is only thanks to Scarecrow and McFarland & Company that these books get published at all. With "library bindings" (no dust jacket) and stiff list prices, the books are obviously designed for purchase by libraries, not normal people. Still, the publishers have recognized the market of silent film aficianados (and students), and are starting to offer the most accessible titles in paperback. The books are available to determined readers through interlibrary loan and thanks to occasional sales, non-millionaires can own them too.
Scarecrow's recent releases include Anthony Slide's "The Silent Feminists," focusing on female silent film directors, and is a companion to the 1993 documentary of the same title written and produced by Slide and Jeff Goodman. This is a revised edition of Slide's 1977 "Early Women Directors." There were more silent film directors than you might think, and Slide interviewed many of them in the 1970s and writes effectively of their ambitions, accomplishments and impact upon the industry. (paper, $29.50)
"W.S. Van Dyke's Journal" includes the director's diary written during the filming of White Shadows in the South Seas on location in Tahiti. Editor Rudy Behlmer rounds out the story with behind the scenes photos, an unpublished autobiographical manuscript by Van Dyke, and other contemporary material. Considering that the only previously available documentation on Van Dyke was a fawning biography commissioned and privately printed by the director's mother, this is a major find. (hardcover, $34.50)
Newly announced books include "Before, In and After Hollywood," the autobiography of Joseph Henabery. Completed just before his death in 1975, Henabery reflects on his career from extra, to the role of Lincoln in The Birth of a Nation, working as a staff director at Triangle and his brief ascension to the ranks of top directors in the 1920s. (hardcover, $55.00)
Scarecrow Press does not have a website, but can be reached by email at airwin@scarecrowpress.com. The mailing address is 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, MD 20706, 301-459-3366.
On January 1, 1997, after exhausting 75 years of copyright protection, all of the films from 1921 still protected by copyright fell into the public domain in the United States. Some of these films are widely known, as their owners have made them available over the years, including Charlie Chaplin's The Kid and The Idle Class, D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm, The Sheik with Rudolph Valentino, Harold Lloyd's Never Weaken, Now or Never, I Do and A Sailor Made Man, Rex Ingram's The Conquering Power, and Camille, with Nazimova and Valentino. It was only last year that The Nut and The Three Musketeers with Douglas Fairbanks were released on video and laserdisc, and only this year have we seen and (on laserdisc only) Rex Ingram's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the film that made Valentino a star.
For most films from 1921, the expiration of copyright is meaningless, as all known copies deteriorated years ago. Public domain or not, we can never expect to see The Traveling Salesman with "Fatty" Arbuckle, or Sentimental Tommy, based on the James M. Barrie play, or The Queen of Sheba with Betty Blythe, described wistfully in Kevin Brownlow's classic book "The Parade's Gone By."
Other films exist in archives, but their owners have never made them available outside of approving occasional screenings. Only a select few silent film fans have viewed lesser known 1921 films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Affairs of Anatol or Forbidden Fruit, Mary Pickford's Through the Back Door or The Love Light, William DeMille's Miss Lulu Bett, The Night Horseman with Tom Mix, Doubling for Romeo with Will Rogers, or William Desmond Taylor's The Witching Hour.
Home video companies that specialize in public domain titles will be quick to put out some of these films when they can find copies. Still, we can expect few surprises- the titles that will become available from public domain distributors will be most the same titles that the former owners released. When the copyright on The Mark of Zorro expired in the mid-1940s, there were still some old prints lying around that might have been rescued by a public domain distributor. Now, with these films 75 years old, very few nitrate copies survive and the safety copies are either with their owners or archives. Old 16mm rental prints, and surreptitious copies of diverted 35mm prints will be the unwitting source of these new video releases. For example, an amazing number of video distributors are now offering the "color" version of The Black Pirate. These tapes are undoubtedly copied from the recent video release or a waylaid 16mm print from the owner. One video company has announced the release of A Sailor Made Man, which is welcome, since the film is not available in a licensed video release. But they will be offering the abridged 1970s reissue version prepared by Time-Life, since only the Harold Lloyd estate has the full-length version. Em Gee Film library is offering The Kid, from a British release version.
It will be interesting to see how this will affect the availability of films from 1921. The impending public domain status of The Three Musketeers and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was unrelated to their video/laserdisc release. The former was just one title in an twelve film Douglas Fairbanks package, while The Four Horsemen was restored several years ago for British television. These will stand up against their public domain competitors because they were produced from the best surviving 35mm materials and feature new music scores.
Will cautious distributors be satisfied to win against their competition on the battlefield of quality, and accept the likelihood that they are providing nice-quality masters for their competition? Or will the owners continue to sit on their films, fearful either of too small an audience for a profit, or of 'appropriation' by their competitors?
The AFIOnline experiment with silent movies over the Internet continues this month with Buster Keaton's The Boat (1921). This is the same version that was included in the Kino on Video and Image Entertainment editions. On April 20 the AFI will present the third title, Harold Lloyd's High and Dizzy (1920). Future titles will reportedly include The Great Train Robbery (1903). More information on the project is provided below.
Remember to visit The Silent Bookshelf, the companion site of Silent Film Sources (also available from this site's main menu). This month's additions are three articles on the progress of musical accompaniment to motion pictures- from the teens, maestro Hugo Riesenfeld, and the working methods of David Mendoza and William Axt, who wrote most of the MGM Movietone scores, including Our Dancing Daughters. Also this month is another chapter from the autobiography of early woman screenwriter/actress Gene Gauntier.
Screenwriter Anita Loos began her career with D.W. Griffith. He directed her first scenario, The New York Hat, and Griffith's last film, The Struggle, was her first talkie. As an unexpected side benefit of Kino on Video's release of The Struggle, Kino has unearthed a 1930 memoir by Loos that was part of the original press kit for the film at http://www.kino.com/loos.html Loos recalls her first meeting with Griffith, working with John Emerson on the Douglas Fairbanks comedy-satires, writing the inter-titles for Griffith's Intolerance and her work on The Struggle. The article provides a fascinating account of Griffith's working methods with actors. Another perspective on Griffith's direction is available in a 1915 Photoplay article describing Griffith's direction of a scene from The Birth of a Nation. This article is included in this month's The Silent Bookshelf.
The Motion Picture Guide and Ephraim Katz's "The Film Encyclopedia" are now available on-line as part of the new "TV Guide" website at http://www.tvguide.com/movies/database/index.htm. Set up as a search database, the site provides cast, credits and critiques for more than 30,000 American movies, plus filmographies and biographical information on thousands of actors, directors and other filmmakers. Like "TV Guide," Cinebooks (the publisher of "The Motion Picture Guide") and Harper and Collins (publisher of Katz) are owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
While the printed edition of "The Motion Picture Guide" has a volume for silent movies (reportedly mostly cribbed from the AFI 1920s Catalog), silent films are not included in the CD-ROM or on-line versions of the guide. The Katz database includes both silent and sound personalities, including filmmakers whose career took place entirely within the silent era. A query on "Talmadge" produces Constance, Norma, and Richard. Fatty Arbuckle, John Bunny and Buster Keaton are included, as is William S. Hart.
You can search by "Film Title" to reach "The Motion Picture Guide" or by "Person's Name" to reach Katz. Names that appear in the cast and credits for "The Motion Picture Guide" are hyperlinked to generate filmographies on the fly, but the lists are limited to only those films in the database.The Katz entries include full filmographies, and are not hyperlinked to the Motion Picture Guide.
MGM/UA Home Video has lowered the list price of some of their silent video releases. To modem audiences, the finest and most memorable silent films were those produced by MGM. They had the directors: Clarence Brown, Tod Browning, Erich von Stroheim, King Vidor, and the stars: Lon Chaney, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lillian Gish, and even Buster Keaton. Thanks to an active preservation program in the 1960s, over half of MGM's silent films survive.
Fortunately for fans, MGM/UA Home Video was an enthusiastic early supporter of silent films on video and laserdisc. Many of the titles were produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill for British television by Thames Television. These feature the best possible image quality and thundering scores composed by Carl Davis. Other MGM titles from the late silent era have the original Movietone orchestral scores by William Axt and David Mendoza, and there were even a few Warner Bros. late silents with Vitaphone scores, including Don Juan (1926).
Unfortunately, sales of these films on video and laserdisc were disappointing. A laserdisc release of UCLA's restoration of Noah's Ark (1929) was announced for October 1993, then cancelled. The videos were originally released when average video prices were much higher than they are now, and video stores were more open to buying marginal product. Since that time, the $29.95 list prices have kept buyers away. Fortunately, the list price for many of the titles has been reduced to a more reasonable $19.95. Now available at that price from Critic's Choice are some of the best MGM/UA releases, including Ben-Hur (1926), Don Juan, Our Dancing Daughters (1928), and A Woman of Affairs (1928).
Critic's Choice is also offering in VHS the 13 part series Hollywood- The Pioneers, produced by David Gill and Kevin Brownlow for Thames Television in 1980. Due to dismal distribution by the original American television distributor, Time-Life, the series played in the middle of the night in many markets, with two and one half minutes shaved from its running time to make room for commercials. These versions were also used for the broadcasts on public television stations, so it was only when the series was released to laserdisc and home video, that the original versions of 52 minutes and 30 seconds were finally available.
The series is an excellent introduction to silent films, managing to communicate the producers' enthusiasm for the medium, while providing a sound historical basis, and just enough gee whiz for the non-buff. With its mix of interviews of silent film actors, directors and technicians, and excellent quality clips from their films, the series still has the power to amaze. The result has a power that no other documentary, with the possible exception of The Unknown Chaplin, has been able to capture. The Critic's Choice sale price of $149.77 is good through at least April 1, 1997. This series is the perfect introduction to the American silent film.
Critic's Choice is also offering a few new titles on their own label, including the short version of The White Sister (1923) with Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman (both versions exist), the dinosaur picture The Lost World (1925) with Wallace Beery, The Golem (1920) from Germany, Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen saga: Siegfried (1924) and Kriemhild's Revenge (1924), three Alfred Hitchcock silents: The Ring (1927), The Manxman (1929) and The Lodger (1925), and what should be fine versions of The Cheat (1915) and Civilization (1916). These releases give Critic's Choice one of the better silent film libraries.
Hidden behind the apparent sudden availability of so many excellent silent films on video, is the fact that a single person has been the driving force behind most of the major releases. Through Film Preservation Associates, The Blackhawk Films collection and on his own, David Shepard has produced the laserdisc editions of the Chaplin films and the upcoming special edition of Sunrise, along with the video/laser releases of the films of Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith, Chaplin's films for Mutual, and the upcoming Harry Langdon and Cecil B. DeMille series released by Kino on Video and Image Entertainment.
The producer is resposible for selecting the best available film elements, cleaning the materials in preparation for video transfer, supervising the film-to-tape transfer, conducting electronic clean-up of the image when necessary, commissioning a new music score and supplementary materials. The Shepard projects are distinguished by an attention to detail with ever-so-slightly windowboxed images, a variety of scores (very important when 12 Douglas Fairbanks features are released at the same time), and selective use of modern technology to remove cue marks, splices and dust.
There are two on-line interviews which give some insight into Shepard's working methods. There is an article on the production of the Keaton films for video at http://www.kino.com/shepard.html which discusses the challenges of restoring early films for video and returning films to their original state. Several Shepard releases have featured scores composed and conducted by Timothy Brock, and there is a joint interview with them at http://www.tuad.ac.jp/net-expo/ff/ff95/daily95/en/daily6-3.html about their collaboration on Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) and the restored intertitles for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). (thanks to Glen Pringle for finding this link).
Several composers of music for silent films have an on-line presence.
Comedian Harry Langdon has always been an acquired taste, and viewed in solitude, his films offer little. But viewed with an audience, they, like Langdon, spring to life. After an apprenticeship starring in shorts for Mack Sennett, Langdon made six features for his own company of steadily declining quality. His first three features will be available on laserdisc in a box set as Harry Langdon: The Forgotten Clown for $100 in late March. The set includes the features The Strong Man, Long Pants and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp and three of the best Sennett shorts: All Night Long, Saturday Afternoon and His Marriage Wow. These titles will be available on VHS from Kino on Video.
The parade of D.W. Griffith features on laserdisc continues with Sally of the Sawdust (1925), available in late March from Image for $40. Griffith's career had stalled by the time of this comedy, and it proved to be his last independent production. Sally stars Griffith's protoge Carol Dempster and, from the New York's Ziegfeld Follies, stage comedian W.C. Fields. The laserdisc is the same edition released on VHS by Kino on Video.
The American Film Institute has promoted "classic Hollywood movies over the Internet" at http://www.afionline.org/cinema as "continuing its leadership role." It is perhaps significant that the films they plan to offer were not saved or preserved by the AFI, but by private parties. The initial offering, Charlie Chapin's The Rink (1916), comes from the Kino on Video/Image laserdisc release produced by David Shepard, with a lively score by Michael Mortilla. The running time of this transfer is 23 1/2 minutes. To put the film in historical context, there is a very nice page on The Rink at http://www.afionline.org/cinema/rink.html by Sam Gill, Archivist Emeritus of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences library, including numerous frame blowups, and an apparently comprehensive list of links to Chaplin sites on the web.
This is part of a six-month technology demonstration to stream video over the Internet. Previous video technologies required the user to download a massive file before viewing. The VDO technology only requires a headstart to fill a buffer and then begins. The VDOnet technology is impressive, though the quality of the result is dependent on the bandwidth available between the viewer's computer and the AFI's server.
The free VDO player takes about 45 minutes to download to a 28.8 modem. Once you work your way through the AFI's introductory screens, the film takes about 25 seconds to begin. On my system, the image size was 2 1/4 by 2 3/4 inches, with the picture changing from one to perhaps five frames per second. The overall look is that of a murky paper print.
While video on demand might seem to present some possibilities for instruction, no copy of the film is saved to the viewer's system, making copying difficult or impossible. Entirely digital, this may serve as an indication of the overhyped DVD, with outstanding sound quality and image quality that depends on the quality of the compression and leaves a lot of room for improvement. Still, the point of this technology demonstration is to prove it can be done and it is not fair to carp at the limitations. This is instead comparable to the first Lumiere demonstration that, while not completely satisfying in itself, pointed the way to the future.
Remember to visit The Silent Bookshelf, a new feature of Silent Film Sources (also available from this site's main menu). This month features three on-the-set reports from 1915 with director D.W. Griffith filming The Birth of a Nation, Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios, and the Lubinville studio in Philadelphia. Also this month is another chapter from the autobiography of early woman screenwriter Gene Gauntier.
Bright Lights' Gary Morris posted a rather lurid article on actor Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning titled "Lon Chaney, Sr.--Supermasochist!" at http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/15/chaney.html For a more scholarly view of the two, other sites may be more useful. Chaney scholar Jon Mirsalis has posted some of his research into Chaney's films at http://members.aol.com/chaneyfan/index.htm The Silents Majority has Chaney information available at http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/FeaturedStar/star8.htm Chaney's summer cabin is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the National Park Service has posted a description and photograph at http://www.r5.pswfs.gov/heritage/025.HTM The first chapter of the excellent biography of Tod Browning by David Skal and Elias Savada is posted at the publisher's web site at http://www.bdd.com/newrl/bddnewrl.cgi/10-01-95/dark2_exrt
MagicImage Filmbooks produced three worthwhile books on the silent film, each edited by Phillip Riley. The first two reconstructed lost Lon Chaney silent films using stills and the original script. The films, London After Midnight and A Blind Bargain, have great stills, and if the concept doesn't really work, it is a worthwhile approach. The third book, again with a Lon Chaney focus, is a melange of materials with the common theme of Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This volume includes "My Hollywood," the autobiography of Hunchback Patsy Ruth Miller, and an elaborate reconstruction of the (not lost) Hunchback.
MagicImage Filmbooks has a website at http://www.magicimage.com/ and has periodic sales on these titles. "A Blind Bargain" and "My Hollywood/The Hunchback of Notre Dame" were on sale in December at $8.95 and $14.95 respectively. Keep checking and they may reappear on sale.
Steven Spielberg's sequel to Jurrasic Park, titled The Lost World, will be released this summer. The new film is based on Michael Crichton's sequel to his original book, but the title is obviously a nod to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name, and the 1925 film version with groundbreaking stop motion animation by Willis O'Brien. Jurrasic Park included several homages to the 1925 film (and a sequence lifted from the 1927 exploration picture Chang).
The original film was released on laserdisc by Lumivision and on homevideo by Milestone in a deluxe package that included the longest surviving version of the film, trailers and several short films. Video distributor Milestone has reduced the price of The Lost World on VHS to $24.95 in time for the release of the Spielberg film. The video version contains all of the added materials from the deluxe laserdisc edition.
The Oz films produced in the mid-1910s by author Frank Baum are among the silent films that are more interesting to read about than to watch. When they were rediscovered by the American Film Institute in the late 1960s, the films turned out to be only of academic interest, and have none of the charm and whimsy of the 1939 Judy Garland version which is the benchmark for all adaptations of Baum's works. The 1925 version produced by and starring Larry Semon had no involvement by Baum and was never a good film.
American Home Entertainment's recent release of His Majesty the Scarecrow of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, The Magic Cloak of Oz (all about 1914), and the 1925 The Wizard of Oz point out the difficulty of releasing silent films on video. If these films have any appeal at all it would be to children, but kids expect films to have more action than these early features can offer and certainly won't want to read intertitles. While the tapes have narration, the intertitles are left intact as the titles are read aloud, and the effect is similar to listening to a simultaneous translation of a foreign film.
The image quality appears to reflect good video transfers from poor quality prints. The surviving material on the teens films is poor, but given the economics of silent films on video, it is unlikely that these films will ever look better on video. The Library of Congress has 35mm material on the teens films, and UCLA restored the 1925 Oz in 35mm, but these transfers are obviously from 16mm, and in the case of the 1925 film, from a very inferior 16mm print. The digital music score is boring, repetitive and is not in timed relation to the action on the screen. On the good side, the packaging is excellent, and makes one want to see the films, though a few minutes of viewing the tapes may satisfy any further desire to do so.
For another perspective on the Oz tapes, see Frank Thompson's review at the Moviematch site at http://www.moviematch.com/remote/archives/co/co12_16.htm
Upon publication in 1971, the American Film Institute "Catalog of Feature Films" released between 1921-1930 was hailed for its detailed listing of 6600 feature films from that important decade, and a useful index volume. The books have been out of print for at least 15 years, and used copies sell at a premium. The AFI will be reprinting the 1921-1930 (and the 1961-1970) edition at $300 per set for delivery in January 1997. One sales agent is book distributor Hollywood Film Archive, which can be reached at 8391 Beverly Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90069 or by phone at 213-933-3345. There is a discount for orders placed before January 15, 1997. (This same distributor also offers the 1893-1910 and 1911-1920 Catalogs).
However, the 1997 edition will be an exact reprint of the original, without any corrections. This is great for owners of the original publication, but not as good for film scholarship.
This just in: Aladdin Books, PO Box 152, Fullerton, CA 92632, phone: 714-738-6115, fax: 714-738-6288, is offering the AFI Catalog for 1911-1920 at a discount price of $79.99 through February 28, or while supplies last. The catalog for 1931-1940 is available under the same terms at $99.00.
The Library of Congress has recently restored With Williamson Beneath the Sea, a 1932 autobiographical documentary on the work of pioneer underwater cinematographer J. Ernest Williamson. His most available work is the 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. An account of Williamson's career and the restoration of the film was included in the "Library of Congress Information Bulletin," with many, many illustrations. The normally Internet-savvy Library has posted this in text-only format at gopher://marvel.loc.gov:70/00/loc/pubs/lcib/1996/vol55.no15/4
Buster Keaton's The General has been released many, many times on video, and one of the best, if not the best version was produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill with a full orchestral score by Carl Davis. Released in the U.S. by HBO Video, it has been out of print for years.
The International Buster Keaton Society, The Damfino's, is offering brand new, sealed copies of Keaton's 1926 classic for $25 (post-paid), a handsome discount from the original list price of $39.95. They proudly note that the tapes are in HiFi Stereo (not mono as the video jacket incorrectly states.) Tapes of The General can be ordered by sending a check or money order made out to The Damfinos to: The Damfinos, 161 West 75th Street #14F, New York, NY 10023.
The Son of Tarzan, a long thought lost serial from 1921 has surfaced, and is newly available on video from Video Specialists International. This 31 reel, 15 episode serial is presented with the "original 1920 musical introduction" and is nearly five hours long. The two-tape set is $29.00 including shipping.
VSI had previously compiled a restored version of The Adventures Of Tarzan, originally produced as a 15 chapter serial, but only surviving in various shortened feature forms. VSI has pulled together all of the available footage to create a 140 minute feature version. VSI also has other rare Edgar Rice Burroughs silent and sound films.
Remember to visit The Silent Bookshelf, a monthly feature of Silent Film Sources (also available from this site's main menu). This month's selection is an overview of the operations of the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, NY, which was one of the largest, best equipped theatres in the country for the presentation of silent films. Also this month is the first installment of "Blazing the Trail," the autobiography of early woman screenwriter Gene Gauntier.
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© 1996, 1997 David Pierce