Silent Movie History

The Monstrous Movies (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

By 1921 the city of Los Angeles began to seriously grow, and the expansion was not simply due to the arrival of performers and extras and all manner of craftsmen that are required to launch a film production – but the city was also bringing in the sorts necessary to support a wealthy urban environment. Every thriving city needs a support system, and Hollywood imported tailors, milliners, chefs, architects and various other tastemakers who in turn attracted realtors, contractors, merchants and restauranteurs.

The Monstrous Movies (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921) Read More »

Anti-Plagerism Legislation Introduced (Photoplay Magazine, 1916)

Attached is a small column that credited U.S. Representative Charles Hiram Randall (1865 – 1951) of Los Angeles for having proposed legislation before Congress that sought copyright protection for the benefit of scenario writers in Hollywood:

Congressional Randall [Prohibition Party] of California has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives for the protection of scenario authors, by providing for the issuance of a copyright on the scenario upon reciept of two typewritten copies to the proper department in Washington.

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Reviewed: A Fool There Was (Life Magazine, 1922)

A Fool There Was was originally produced in 1915 starring Theda Bara in the vampire roll; but as the view of women changed in society, to say nothing of popular culture, the producers in the early Hollywood dream-factory decided to re-stage the production with a racier woman in the lead -a flapper-vampire, if you will. The reviewer was sympathetic as to the need for a new adaptation but pointed out that the actress who was re-cast in the Theda Bara roll, Estelle Taylor (1894 — 1958), left the audiences wanting. It was also pointed out that the censorship menace hangs heavy over ‘A Fool There Was’.


In 1919 Theda Bara wrote an article for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in which she swore off ever playing a vampire again; click here to read it.

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The Career of Lilian Gish (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)

Attached is a decidedly pro Lilian Gish (1893 – 1993) article concerning the silent film actresses‘ meteoric rise under the direction of D.W. Griffith, her mediocrity when paired with other directors and her much appreciated march on Broadway.

Lilian Gish is the damozel of Arthurian legend, tendered in terms of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her heroines perpetually hover in filtered half-lights, linger in attitudes of romantical despair. They forever drift farther from reality than the dream, and no matter how humble their actual origins, the actress invariably weaves them of the dusk-blues, the dawn-golds of medieval tapestries.

Click here if you would like to read an article in which Lillian Gish recalls her part in Birth of a Nation.

Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.

The Career of Lilian Gish (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942) Read More »

The Career of Lilian Gish (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)

Attached is a decidedly pro Lilian Gish (1893 – 1993) article concerning the silent film actresses‘ meteoric rise under the direction of D.W. Griffith, her mediocrity when paired with other directors and her much appreciated march on Broadway.

Lilian Gish is the damozel of Arthurian legend, tendered in terms of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Her heroines perpetually hover in filtered half-lights, linger in attitudes of romantical despair. They forever drift farther from reality than the dream, and no matter how humble their actual origins, the actress invariably weaves them of the dusk-blues, the dawn-golds of medieval tapestries.

Click here if you would like to read an article in which Lillian Gish recalls her part in Birth of a Nation.

Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.

The Career of Lilian Gish (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942) Read More »

Scenario Writers and Plagiarism (Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

The attached is one from a series of articles that appeared in MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE penned by a Hollywood insider during the high-fashion days of silent film. The reader will be alarmed to read that even as early as 1916, plot-stealing and other forms of Hollywood plagiarism were in full swing.


A few weeks earlier, a California Representative had introduced an anti-plagiarism bill to Congress.


Click here to read about the Hollywood plagiarism game of 1935.

Scenario Writers and Plagiarism (Motion Picture Magazine, 1916) Read More »

Seussue Hayakawa (Photoplay Magazine, 1916)

The attached article is about Sessue Hayakawa (1889 – 1973), the first Asian actor to achieve star status in Hollywood:

No, Sessue Hayakawa, the world’s most noted Japanese photoplay actor, does not dwell in a papier-mache house amid tea-cup scenery. He is working in pictures in Los Angeles, and he lives in a ‘regular’ bungalow, furnished in mission oak, and dresses very modishly according to American standards.

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Etiquette in the Movies (Vanity Fair, 1915)

No doubt, this is one of the funniest pieces you are likely to find on the topic of acting and costuming in silent movies. It was written by Frederick Lewis Allen (1890 – 1954) and Frank Tuttle (1892-1963); both men approached the movies with the low expectations that were probably all too typical of theater lovers at that time. Frederick Lewis Allen is best remembered today as one of the better chroniclers of the Twenties and author of Only Yesterday (1931) while Frank Tuttle would find himself, in a few short years, directing movies in Hollywood. Tuttle was one of the few Directors who successfully made the jump from silent films to sound and continued working; at this writing, he was an Assistant Editor at Vanity Fair.

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The Advantages of Silent Movies Over Theater (Photoplay Magazine, 1920)

Strong arguments were put to verse by the popular song writer Howard Dietz (1896 – 1983) as to why the up-town theater crowd had it all wrong.

The picture theater is always dark
So things you throw won’t hit the mark.


The actor in the movie play
Can’t hear the things you often say.


The spoken drama’s always longer;
The movie hero’s always stronger.


Click here to read more comparisons between film and stage.

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