Silent Movie History

‘Youth, the Spirit of the Movies”
(Illustrated World, 1921)

Screen director D.W. Griffith declared in this article that youthful, energetic performers and writers are needed in the young and vigorous film industry of the Twenties:

We need youth because the most successful screen stars are not harassed by the technique of the older stage and the requirements of the newer art are very largely different. So a new kind of actor has come to be—the screen actor—just as a new kind of writer is coming to be—the screen-writer. But that isn’t all!… An audience loves a sweet and kindly face on the screen as in life. The surest guide in the world to lead us out of our daily troubles is a little star who is sweet and gentle and kind, like youth with all its yearnings and simplicity.

Tiresome Will Hays
(Film Spectator, 1929)

When the silent film era had run it’s course and the talkies were growing in popularity, Hollywood’s honeymoon with Will Hays was long over. In 1929 Hays’ association with Harry Sinclair of the Consolidated Oil Corporation was called into question by a number of Washington Senators. In 1924, Hays, the man who’s reputation was supposed to be beyond reproach, performed poorly before a Senate committee when asked to explain his 1920 roll as the go-between who collected a $75,000.00 donation from Sinclair in order to fill the coffers of the Republican National Committee. There were allegations of dubious gifts in exchange for this service and the Hollywood community, which has no difficulty generating it’s own scandals and needed no help from Will Hays, thank you very much, began to grumble. Various assorted unkind remarks concerning Will Hays were printed in this short article that appeared in a long forgotten Hollywood trade publication.

Click here if you would like to read about Will Hays and his 1922 arrival in Hollywood.


If you would like to read about the films of the 1930s, click here.

Click here to read a 1939 article about an alumni organization for the pioneers of silent films.

Will Hays Comes to Hollywood
(The American Magazine, 1922)

This short notice is about Will Hays, an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, who was hired to be the conscience of the Dream Factory in 1922; he rode into Hollywood on the heels of a number of well-publicized scandals vowing to sober the place up. Widely believed to be a moral man, the Hays office was located in New York City – far from the ballyhoo of Hollywood. Hays’ salary was paid by the producers and distributors in the movie business and although he promised to shame the film colony into making wholesome productions, he was also the paid apologist of the producers.

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Silent Film Library Established
(Delineator Magazine, 1937)

This article is about the 1935 founding of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library. Established with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation, today the MOMA Film Library is comprised of more than 14,000 films and four million motion picture stills.

Gloria Swanson: Hollywood Diva
(Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

A segment from a slightly longer 1930 profile covering the high-life and Hollywood career of La Belle Swanson. Written by actor and theater producer Harry Lang (1894 – 1953), the article concentrates on her triumphs during her lean years, her assorted marriages and her healthy fashion obsessions.


Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.

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The Founders of the Hollywood Film Colony Gather Together(Film Daily, 1939)

A notice from the pages of a 1939 Hollywood trade publication announced an organization for the silver-haired alumni of Hollywood’s silent film business:

Early this summer there came into existence a new organization known as Picture Pioneers, consisting of veterans who have been in the industry 25 years.


Click here to read about the movie moguls of 1919.

The Founders of the Hollywood Film Colony Gather Together(Film Daily, 1939)

A notice from the pages of a 1939 Hollywood trade publication announced an organization for the silver-haired alumni of Hollywood’s silent film business:

Early this summer there came into existence a new organization known as Picture Pioneers, consisting of veterans who have been in the industry 25 years.


Click here to read about the movie moguls of 1919.

A New Word for the Dictionary
(NY Times, 1914)

In our era it doesn’t seem terribly odd that a fresh, exciting and highly popular industry would begin generating new words to fill our dictionaries, and 1914 was no different. The attached article introduced the readers of THE NEW YORK TIMES to a new verb contributed by the early film industry:

The verb ‘to film’ having gained currency, it must be graciously admitted to the language. It will soon be in the ‘advanced’ dictionaries and it must be recognized. The old idea of protecting the English language from invasion is extinct. To ‘film’ means to make a picture for a ‘movie’ show’.


During the past twenty years, Hollywood provided us with a whole slew of terms, such as dramedy (a combination between a comedy and a drama) and “romcom” (romantic comedy), sitcom (situation comedy) to name only a few.


Click here to read another article about the impact of film on the English language.

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Farina
(Hollywood Vagabond, 1927)

Attached is a glowing review that praises the dramatic talents of a seven-year-old boy: Allen Clayton Hoskins (aka, Farina) – one of the few African-Americans to have been chosen to perform in the ensemble cast that made up the Our Gang comedies.

One of the most gifted thespians in the silent drama is Farina, the negro child actor whose facile expression has created no end of comment… Placed in the midst of a group of children, all of whom have been tutored over a period of several years in the intricacies of and politics of photoplay acting, Farina has created a high standard of achievement… this troupin’ Nubian has given the others of the gang plenty to aim at in the form of a thespic target.

The Frenzy for Rudolph Valentino
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

Even as late as 1951, those eccentric little movie theaters that ran only thirty year-old flicks filled their seats with middle-aged women who still nursed a flame for Rudolph Valentino (1895 – 1926); their beau ideal from the mad Twenties who so many imagined to have been the perfect lover.

Robert Sherwood in the Dream Factory
(Life Magazine, 1922)

In 1922 former Vanity Fair editor (1919 – 1920) and future Algonquin wit, Robert E. Sherwood (1896 – 1955), taking his job seriously as the film critic for LIFE MAGAZINE, journeyed West to visit the growing movie kingdom of Hollywood. The doors magically opened up for him and he was able to rub elbows with many of the crowned heads of the realm. He filed these eight paragraphs recounting his experiences and observations; you might be amused to read his thoughts concerning the unfinished Hollywood sign.

The article is adorned with cartoons by John Held Jr.. In the world of American 1920s satirical art, he was the gold standard.

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1914 Hollywood
(American Legion Monthly, 1934)

This is excerpt from a longer article about the goings-on in 1914 presented an interesting (if incomplete) list of Hollywood’s offerings for 1914:


• The most popular screen performers were Mary Pickford, John Bunny, Ethel Barrymore and May Irwin.

• The most popular films were The Peril’s of Pauline and an Italian film titled Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastrone, aka: Piero Fosco).

This reminiscence pays tribute to a stand-up comedian named Jack Gardner and his skit, Curse You Jack Dalton, in which he interacted with the performers on a movie screen, ordering them about, cracking wise and even having the audience believe that he had shot one of them.

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Harold Lloyd: The Man, The Cornball
(The American Magazine, 1922)

An in-depth interview with the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd (1893 – 1971) accompanied by a seldom seen picture of the man WITHOUT his glasses (he didn’t really need them).

One blogger read the attached article and wrote the following:

I’ve never read this before – it’s great. It’s always good to hear Harold’s own thoughts on his films; I enjoyed his description of the stunt he did in on top of the locomotive at the mouth of an approaching tunnel in the film Now or Never. It’s a spectacularly funny gag, but we sometimes forget the effort that went into these scenes; Harold was one comedy star who was prepared to suffer for his art!

Silent Movie Caricatures
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

When the Five O’Clock Whistle Blows in Hollywood is attached;
it appeared in VANITY FAIR eight years after Hollywood was declared the film capital of the world.


This single page cartoon was created by one of the great American caricaturists of the Twenties: Ralph Barton, and all the kingpins of the young empire are depicted (among others): Douglas Fairbanks, Marry Pickford, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Bill Hart, Wallace Reed, Gloria Swanson, Nazimova, Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Fatty Arbuckle and the writer Rupert Hughes.
Lording above them all, and represented simply by jodhpurs and riding boots, stands the founder of the feast – Cecil B. DeMille (and his brother).

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