Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club discussion

Yes, the TCM host mentioned that she had little to do with it in the following years, but didn't say why. I have a question, but I'm not if you'll know the answer. Why, when there are captions, do they so often put light printing against a light background? They even do that now with subtitles, making it difficult to read sometimes.

Well, I did watch 'Piccacdilly'. It is a little slow-going in places, but I must admit my main question is why Mabel and Shosho even wanted that jerk? I didn't like Mabel, but I felt somewhat sorry for her at the end. Shosho seemed to want him just for her career.

I'm sure audiences preferred the identity of the murderer as it was at the end.

I probably oversold Piccadilly but it is one of my favorite silents as you know. I couldn't stand Mabel and the actress was too old for the part. I believe Shosho told her she was too old for the jerk and he was a jerk. Shosho indeed just wanted him for her career. She was probably no different than Mabel as far as career advancement was concerned. Did you notice that Shosho and the jerk weren't shown kissing in the apartment scene....close but not quite. In those days, they would never have shown an inter-racial kiss even though it was obvious that she became his mistress.

Saw 'The Cossacks' with John Gilbert last night. Am not sure what to make of it although there were some good action scenes.

I have seen bits and pieces of that film.....it looked like a mish-mash to me. I have always been undecided about John Gilbert......sometimes he did a pretty good job but other times not so much. I was never sure why he was such a giant in silent film .But I would have been in the minority of his fans of the time! His talking films career was a disaster but we have talked about that before in one of the topics so I won't go into that again.

Here is a film that was not available for viewing until the early 21st century. The Man Who Laughs, a 1928 German film, directed by Paul Leni and based on the Victor Hugo novel. It starred one of my favorite actors, Conrad Veidt, as the horribly disfigured aristocrat, Gwynplaine, who ended up as a circus clown. It could have ended tragically, as did the novel, but did not, thank heavens. Veidt is wonderful, as usual and if you can find it, watch it!!

Jill, have you ever seen the 1912 silent, 'Saved from the Titanic'? Dorothy Gibson, co-wote and starred in the short. She also was an actual survivor of the sinking.

I have not seen it and wonder if it is available for viewing. Since it was made in 1912, it is probably very short but it certainly would be worth seeing if it can be found.

I'm not sure there's an actual copy available. I think there are only still shots. Just wondered if you had heard about it because it was produced about a month after the ship went down.

It appears that this is a "lost film" and only photos remain. It is such a shame that so many films are no longer extant and especially this one since it starred an actual Titanic survivor. I remember reading something about it in one of my silent film books.

It is to bad that many films are lost. I'd love to have seen this one.

I don't think the "powers that be" realized how important film would become and were careless. The use of silver nitrate caused the films to melt into nothingness after a few years. It is interesting to learn that a copy of a film has been in someone's collection for years, under the right conditions, and is rediscovered. The AFI is always searching for these types of situations and it must be a real thrill to find a "lost film", although they often don't live up to the reputations that built around them over the years.

Watched 4 short Silents last night. All featured Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. Basically the first three were pretty much alike with plenty of kicks to the butt, punches, etc. The fourth one was more subtle with suspected infidelity and dream sequences. Evidently, Keystone comedy was very popular in its time, but I can see why it would get repetitive. The host mentioned the scandals that affected their careers. I knew about Arbuckle's but not Normand's.

I knew about Normand and there was another well known actress (at the time) whose career was also ruined in the William Desmond Taylor murder scandal....Mary Miles Minter. I have never seen her in a film so don't know much about her but it appears that she was having an affair with Taylor and was implicated in some way. There was a huge cover-up going on, so who knows?

Mary Miles Minter--say that 3 times real fast! I imagine there were quite a few 'crimes' covered up in those years. Just look at the ones now!

If you're interested, Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood is about the case, which went unsolved for years.

Thanks. I should have known there'd be a book. 😗

I have read that book as well and it is an interesting look not only at the William Desmond Taylor murder but also the loss of stars to drugs and scandal. Matinee idol, Wallace Reid was a morphine addict, as was Olive Thomas, and then there was the trial of Fatty Arbuckle for rape. Gossipy but pretty factual.

There was a Harold Lloyd silent on TCM last night. It's called 'Speedy' after Lloyd's character, who is perpetually out-of-work and a baseball fan. He is involved in many wild enterprises as he tries to help his girl's father. He even gets to meet Babe Ruth while trying to be a taxi driver. Ruth is so appalled by his ride to Yankee Stadium that he informs Speedy if the player ever wants to commit suicide, he will know who to contact. It's a fun film, but has the typical overload of sight gags.

One of the great tragedies of the silent era was the descent into poverty and mental problems of Mae Murray. She was a great star during the silent era and was called "the girl with the bee-stung lips" which were ridiculous looking). She starred with John Gilbert in The Merry Widow and I thought she was ludicrous, both in looks and her over-the-top acting. When talkies came, she sank like a rock as she was an anomaly for the times. Bad decisions didn't help and she was found wandering in the streets in later life. Very sad. I can't seem to post a picture of her but you can find them through Google.

Will look her up. That must have been a bad time for some silent movie stars. Everything was so exaggerated in their performances, and then the spoken word added a new dimension.

I looked her up, but couldn't find a picture that really showed 'bee-stung lips'. Is that like botox lips? Anyway, it is a sad story. They always seem to listen to a spouse or relative who gives them bad advice.

Somewhat like botox lips except that it looks like she is pursing them. Pretty silly looking.

Oh, I thought they were 'swollen'. Will have to look again. Ah now I see what you mean although she didn't do it all the time.

Its tragic that as times changed, many actors couldn't see that they would have to change or lose their popularity. The "vamp", slapstick, certain schtick that the person always used (Harry Langdon, for example), etc. lost their appeal quickly when talkies came on the scene. Or playing parts of young people which was their specialty when they were much too old. Some stars from the silents just disappeared since they could not or would not change their image.

I had the chance to watch 'Wolf Song', or rather the existent bits of it, just over an hour's worth. Apparently there are two reels missing which happen to be the talkie-bits as this is a part-talkie from 1929, directed by Victor Fleming (he who took official credit for both 'Wizard of Oz' and 'Gone with the Wind' in 1939 without being the auteur of either) and starring Lupe Velez, the 'Mexican Spitfire' par excellence, and a very young and lanky Gary Cooper, the latter appearing practially in the nude. He plays a trapper who spends years on end in the wilderness with two elderly, rugged men (cue plenty of drunken bromance for which He-man Fleming was kinda known for. Naturally they stop in the odd Mexican town to get a taste of booze and gals, and before you know it Cooper and Velez are madly in love.
Okay, my expectations were low and I enjoyed this for what it is. Velez and Cooper photograph beautifully and have some spark. In fact, the missing reels might have spoiled the fun for me as the talking is bound to be awkward, the songs rubbish and the time investment would have been 50 % more at 50 % less enjoyment. Something like that.

Have heard about Lupe Velez, but never seen her. So did she come across as a 'spitfire'?

No, well, that is, in real life she was apparently quite rambunctious. In this one she is quite beautiful but mostly concerned with making googly eyes at Cooper. Apparently they hit it off in real life too.
I haven't seen many films with her but read that her personality came through best when she was allowed to play comedy from the mid-30s onwards. And at 36 she committed suicide...

She seemed to slip into lower budget films since got stuck into a stereotype of a "spitfire". Even her suicide turned out badly as she dressed in lacy lingerie, put flowers around her bed, took an overdose of laudanum (or something similar),in order to just "go to sleep". Instead she became nauseous and ran to the toilet to throw up, fell head first into the toilet bowl and drowned!

Wow, really? I didn't know that. What a way to go (and I don't mean to be glib).

Wow, that is terrible.

I just watched Ernst Lubitsch's 'So This is Paris'. It was an absolute delight with some laugh-out loud moments (when Monte Blue is insulting a policeman) and a fantastic Charleston sequence. Oh, and a young Myrna Loy appears in one scene, but if you blink you'll miss her.

I passed on watching that last night but I was not aware that it was a Lubitsch film. I would have watched it if I had realized that. Oh well, I'll try to see it the next time it is on, if it ever is.

Please do by all means. And let us know what you think. Far as I know it's been restored very recently. It looked marvellous too.

Thanks for the tip, Magnus.

I just realized that we have not mentioned one of the greatest films in silent history.....Birth of a Nation. Before you start throwing rocks at me, it is great for the new technologies it brought to silent films but not for the content. Griffith was a Southerner and probably thought he was not being controversial with the subject; besides it was made during a time when racism was worse than it is now (if that is possible). He used white men in black face in parts that called for a black man and many of the scenes are almost a parody.But the scenes and camera work are magnificent and there is why I think it is historic.

I like Tarantino's parody best (in 'Django Unchained'). Yes, 'Birth' was groundbreaking at the time but Griffith didn't dare (or couldn't get) Black actors to play the parts where they rape white women so he used white actors in blackface. For longer shots and mass scenes he did use African-Americans.
The impact of the film was such that it almost singelhandedly brought back the KKK. Another direct consequence of the film is that it became unacceptable to portray Black people as criminals on screen. So for the next half century or so they were cinematically castrated (i.e. delegated to playing fat or stupid maids and/or old, cross-eyed or stupid and/or fat men). It's all pretty horrific.
I was watched it all the way through in a cinema with a live-piano playing a score that was mostly Wagner.
Yes, it was groundbreaking cinematically at the time but I think it's still toxic and pretty unwatchable nowadays.

Sorry, Jill, I know you're not defending the racist content of the film. I appreciate what you're saying but I for one am not a defender of it. I much prefer Griffith's next one, 'Intolerance'.

Everything you say is spot-on, Magnus but I stick by my thoughts about the filming technology breakthroughs. Other than that, toxic is an excellent word for the content of the film. President Woodrow Wilson (who I dislike) said it was "history written in lightening". He had to retract that statement when it caused controversy.

Here is one that is hard to find.....Nanook of the North (1922), Directed by Robert Flaherty it is one of the first feature-length documentaries or maybe I should say semi-documentaries, since several of the scenes are obviously staged. Flaherty’s obvious love of the “noble savage” is a bit phony and demeaning.. Flaherty might have been taking his own agenda and pre-conceived notions with him to the Canadian Arctic, he also brought a camera, and the footage he captured is pretty much all the videographic record of Inuit life and culture from that time that we have. It has been rumored that Flaherty or someone went back to the Arctic later and discovered that Nanook and his family had died of starvation. I hope that is not true.

Saw an interesting Silent from 1928 last night. It was called, 'West Point', and was about a new class at West Point. The main character was portrayed by William Haines. He was a real joker, smart aleck, who kept getting into trouble. His girlfriend was Joan Crawford. His best friend, another cadet, kind of hung in his shadow. The big moment came when the team was playing Navy, and he came in to save the day.

After the movie, the host discussed Haines, who was openly gay. He did very well in Hollywood until the Code came in. Ultimately, he quit the movies in 1934.

I saw that it was on but didn't watch it. I have seen Haines in other silents and rather like him. He became a very popular and well respected interior decorator once he left the movies and his artistic talents were utilized by many in Hollywood. So at least he was successful after stardom and didn't end up broke and in the gutter like some of the silent stars.

Several years ago I saw a short (12 minute) animated film that delighted me. But I couldn't remember the name and have searched forever to try to find it. It was about Mr. and Mrs Beetle, so I looked for anything that would refer to that.......no luck. No wonder I couldn't find it....it is called The Cameraman's Revenge (go figure) by Ladislas Starewisz(?). It is just as delightful as it was when I first saw it...trust me, it is worth seeing and is available on Youtube. It is very well done for a 1912 film and uses actual bugs surrounded by animation to create a story. There are still questions as to how the director did it so realistically back in those long-ago days of film.

Saw Monte Blue in 'So This Is Paris,' last night. It was okay, but nothing great. The incident about the ticket was the funniest part.

Not much of a film, IMO. But I wasn't crazy about Monte Blue..........and what happened to him? You seldom hear (or see) his name when people talk about silent film.

I may have already mentioned this somewhere, but I watched Nosferatu recently. My first Murnau. Was really all it's cracked up to be. Amazing creepy atmosphere.

Have only seen a photo from Nosferatu. That was creepy enough!

It is quite a film and Max Schreck, who played Nosferatu, was one scary looking individual. Nothing like Bela Lugosi or Sir Christopher Lee. Klaus Kinski, in the remake, used the same make-up and it was still effective. Makes you wonder what vampires really look like,

Murnau was one of the most talented directors of his time and you can always count on his films to be enjoyable and iconic.

Here is another German silent that you might want to try....it is available for home viewing. Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler(gambler) starring that odd looking German star, Rudolf Klein-Rogge .You might remember Klein-Roggge as the mad scientist in Metropolis. It is directed by the great Fritz Lang which makes it worth finding.

Is that the one that's quite long, and is in parts?

Yes. It was released in two parts when first shown but I believe (and I may be wrong) that it was edited down later into one film. In the original format, it was four hours long! There were also some sequels made as well, all starring Klein-Rogge.