Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club discussion

Ford, Milestone, Fleming, Capra, Hitchcock, Huston, Welles, Wyler, Stevens, Selznick, Disney...and in Europe: Renoir, Pagnol, Rene Clair...

Should we conveniently imagine that these were the earliest classic directors?

Well, they're not. Most of them were fledglings when the following men were making films that were international sensations:

Chaplin, Von Strohreim, Sternberg, Murnau, Glance, Pabst, Feyder, Stiller, Griffith, deMille, Flaherty, Pudovkin, Dovzhenko, Dreyer, Pommer, Browning, Vidor, Seastrom, Eisenstein, Lang, Lubitsch.

Worth your while to keep an eye out for the films of these men, if you have the opportunity. They are still some of the most astounding imagery and storytelling every captured.

More to follow.

If I were to name my 'personal fave' silents I'd maybe start the list like this

Lonesome (1927) (heart-warming tale of romance in Coney Island circa 1920s; fabulous footage of the old Luna Park)
'Sunrise' (Felix W. Murnau's eloquent and lyrical tale of a rural couple fighting to stay united in the big city)
'The Crowd'
'The Big Parade' (gripping WWI anti-war movie)
'The Last Command' - Emil Jannings
'The Unknown' - Tod Browning, Lon Chaney

...more later

I like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd silents. Buster was a genius, and both were so athletic. I am amazed at their stunts . . . before there was computer animation and smoke and mirrors. Like radio programs, I find silents relaxing as there aren't so many distractions like in today's movies. The General is one of my favorites.

How could I forget Metropolis! A few years ago I saw a recently-restored version on the big screen.

Mmmm. Well, I never forget it; but I have never found it an easy film to digest or absorb. Its all over the place with its story...great visuals but incongruous narrative.

True, I couldn't summarize the plot, but enjoy the visuals and historical value.

Somehow I missed this topic and silents are one of my favorite films. We could go on and on about some of the classics that came out of that era Among my favorites is Pandora's Box, a German film directed by the great G.W. Pabst and starring that American beauty, Louise Brooks. Brooks, who was a difficult actress, went to Germany and made her greatest films there. When she came back to the US, she was pretty much washed up and her films were mediocre. She became a recluse and re-surfaced when Eastman House offered her a job as a consultant on film from their archives. It probably saved her life.

Yay for silents! (I've already stated my fave: 'West of Zanzibar').

Another: 'The Unholy Trio' (can't remember if that one is silent or not)

But I admit I don't know much about Louise Brooks. Not sure why this is. Never seen her in anything, I suppose.

If you do decide to watch one of her films, try either Pandora's Box or Diary of a Lost Girl. Both were made in Germany. If you just want to get a short look at her, see The Canary Murder Case, the first Philo Vance film. It was made as a silent but was transferred to sound at the last minute. The director asked Brooks, who by this time was in Germany, to return and dub in her voice. She refused and the voice used is shrill Brooklynite. I have it on DVD.....it is not a very good film but worth the historical aspect of it.

Another of my favorite silent films came right at the transfer to sound (1929) but remained silent. It is Picadilly, made in England, directed by E.A. Dupont, and starring the Chinese-American actress, Anna May Wong. You may remember her from Shanghai Express with Marlena Dietrich. She was simply lovely and was a good actress but prejudices of the day kept her from becoming a great star. She is one of my favorites.

One of my favorite moments in the original Phantom of the Opera is when the Phantom is atop the opera building in a flowing cape and it suddenly turns bright red. I takes one by surprise and I can imagine how the audiences of the time reacted since film was predominately b/w. A beautiful shot.

Hi-tech digital equipment makes things look less magical, less stirring, less real, less powerful. Who in their right mind would say 'The Wizard of Oz' suffers from the lack of computers? Or Jean Cocteau's movies? I can imagine this red-cape effect you mention and I'd be glad to see it. That is hand-crafted movie-making.

That is why I appreciate the pioneers of early film. They came up with things that we now take for granted. Color segments like the one in Phantom...... had to be hand colored, frame by frame, just like the O'Brien/Harryhausen models such as King Kong. I still think it is amazing stuff.

You couldn't just stroll in off the Hollywood Blvd and paint frames of celluloid, either. Nor in the medieval era could any serf just saunter in from a pasture and carve gargoyles on a cathedral.

Only in today's world can you shuffle in the door as an utterly untrained stooge with no developed hand/eye skills whatsoever, and crank out 'art'. What technique is there in moving pixels around? If you make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z and re-do the step.

Another silent worth the watch is The Lodger, early British Hitchcock, starring screen idol and author, Ivor Novello. The Hitchcock touch is present in several of the scenes, especially the glass ceiling effect. It was masterful for the time, as well as the scene when Novello is hanging from the fence and the crowd is closing in.

I have often wondered what the attraction was for Mary Pickford? I don't have a clue what was so wonderful about her and her films which were so saccharine that they prompted diabetic coma. I can understand why Douglas Fairbanks (her husband at the time of silents) was loved by the public.....flashing, dashing, a precursor of Errol Flynn but her appeal escapes me.

I've often wondered that about lots of stars, but she must have been doing something right with International Artists, et al.

I reluctantly agree. There's a few silents / early talkies where the female stars (even mega stars) seem cut-from-calico, almost homely, that I am sure it must be me not seeing things right.

Lillian Gish, makes a wonderful mature actress such as we see in 'Night of the Hunter'. But as a young woman her sex appeal is lost on me. Same goes for Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Helen Hayes, Mabel Normand, Mary Martin, etc etc etc.

They all have that 'Mary Astor' effect from 'Maltese Falcon'. (Why is Bogie infatuated with this female?)

If you go back even earlier, stars like Eleanor Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtry.... head-scratchers, but again I will put it down to me rather than they.

The "Mary Astor effect" is a great term for that. I will say, however, that Louise Brooks was quite lovely but that's about it. Lillian Gish was a good actress but sure didn't have any sex appeal although most of her parts didn't call for it. But you have made a good point....most of the actresses of that time were not particularly attractive at all.

ha. Yes, let it be thus dubbed from thenceforward.

Of course its a little hard to tell a true beauty when we're essentially examining faded, poorly-lit tintypes and stereographs and daguerrotypes. I don't want to say an entire generation of red-blooded British and Yankee males were 'wrong'. Maybe these ladies had ridiculously attractive ...ankles? Something like that?

Besides, what is described as "beauty" has morphed over the years. And is beauty as important as good acting? Meryl Streep is not beautiful but a wonderful actress while Theda Bara was freakish in both categories. (but it is probably not a good example to use Bara since she was an "exotic" and her popularity waned quickly.) But you get the idea.

Truly spoken. It reminds me that in the 1940s, classical musicians were called 'long hairs' by working men; and that there was a 'bohemian' movement (1889-1920) which preceded 1960s hippes by a half-century.

Another fun fact to bear in mind when looking at early photographs: why did so many young men sprout full, bushy, beards? You can see this especially in US Civil War photos. The answer is that thick beards were associated with ancient Greece and Rome, which educated and adult menfolk studied in universities. If you were smooth-cheeked, you were basically identifying yourself as still a lad, a whelp, a callow youth. It was 'in' to appear mature. This was before the advent of 'youth movements' and pop-culture promoting ideas of 'generation-gap'.

I never though much about the beards but what you say makes sense. Then we got the slicked back hair with lots of grease...the Brylcreme effect. Some actors could pull it off (think Ricardo Cortez) but many could not and they just looked like crooks.

Both Chester Morris and Warren William wore slicked back hair well. I believe the Boston haircut was named after Chester's hairstyle in the Boston Blackie movies. Of course, one has to have a certain amount of hair to pull it off.

This reminds me of a fave: Robert Taylor as 'Johnny Eager'. What a fab crime flick

Robert Taylor always delivered an outstanding performance. He, too, wore slick backed hair well.

And we must not forget George Raft....the king of slick hair.

"Still using that greasy kid stuff?"

While researching some info for another group, I came across a photo of Clara Bow in the early 30s. She was stunning with her hair left long and curling. She retired not long after she married. I stayed at a place she once owned out in the desert. They had her picture up on the wall, but she had that short haircut you most often see.

Wasn't she married to Rex Bell the Governor or Lt. Governor of Nevada? I think he also had a career in film but nothing special.

That's right. I was just astonished at how lovely she was in that picture.

I always though she was a real cutie and her films (b/w) couldn't capture that red hair. Didn't she have some psychological problems?

Yes, at the end of her life, she was a sick woman. Tragic.

kinda like a Frances Farmer eh? Jessica Lange did a good job in that role

If you want to see the ultimate in "camp", take a look at the 1915 Les Vampires. It is a serial, directed by Louis Feuillade and is really over the top. The main character, played by Musidora has one of the great names of all villains......Irma Vep, a play on the word "vampire".(A friend of mine named his black cat after the character). Part of it is actually available on YouTube and it is fascinating, at least for the silent film buff.

I thought I already recommended this to y'all?

Must have been on a different thread. But it is worth mentioning twice. :>)

I love the story of Thomas H. Ince, 'father of the western'!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...

Watched 5 short Mack Sennett comedies last night. Ben Turpin was in a couple. Just watching all the antics made me wonder how they did all those stunts without someone getting killed.

Here's a pair who transferred beautifully from silents to talkies....Laurel and Hardy. They still make me laugh.

Another great silent film The Wind starred the wonderful Lillian Gish. As we said earlier in this thread, she was not beautiful but was a great actress And what a career she had.

Another of her greatest silent films was Broken Blossoms with Donald Crisp and Richard Barthelmess (as a Chinese man!!). The scene in which her father locks her in a closet was the real things as Gish was claustrophobic and her reactions were not acting but real. Fantastic scene

I'm not sure if we mentioned this film on another topic but it is worth repeating. Napoleon (1927) directed by Abel Gance and starring Albert Dieudonné was almost a lost film but luckily was was found and restored in its original form. It was done as a triptych which takes some getting used to but once it was rediscovered, Gance has now gone down in film history with the likes of Renoir, Lang, et al. Try finding it.

For sure

I'm fed up with Napoleon though, after reading --and re-reading-- Kubrick's script for the same epic figure

geez. Feel like saying yo, just get over it already, you guise

Am not sure what you are referring to, Feliks, unless it's the fact that Napoleon lost.

referring to 'obsession' with the Man of Destiny. The famous 'cult of the personality' phenomenon.

George Bernard Shaw jumped in it as well; Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Adventure of the Six Napoleons', etc etc etc. Just gets too much after a while.

I've always wondered what Napoleon really looked like. Some of the paintings portray him as good looking but I have a feeling he was a short, pudgy fellow with a dark complexion.

I agree iwith you, Jill. When younger, I'm sure he was less pudgy, but I expect he was one of those individuals who had a charismatic effect on his followers.

I would have liked to have seen him played by David Hemmings as Kubrick intended for his project. I think that would have been decent casting.

Worst casting: both Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando.

'Desiree' was a travesty, especially trying to make Bernadotte into some kind of hero. At least, Brando had a resemblance to Napoleon.

Steiger wasn't the best choice, but I thought Plummer was a good choice for Wellington.

David Hemmings might have been a good choice but they picked the right actor for Wellington. But you have to see Albert Dieudonné in the Gance film to appreciate good casting, at least in my opinion.