Here is a N.Y. Times review of a volume concerning the origins and future of silent film. It was said that the author was quite good at recalling the genesis of the medium – and he was all wet about its future (silent films would dry up six years after this review appeared).
Although the attached column is a book review covering the 1923 novel by Rupert Hughes (1872 – 1952), Within These Walls, we have posted it in this category due to the fact that in our age, more people see his movies than read his books. In fact, the bulk of the review refers to his Hollywood efforts (he had over 65 credits before retiring) rather than his novels (thirty titles):
“Few authors have been successful at the business of creating motion pictures…Rupert Hughes, however, has proved to be exceedingly able in the Hollywood studios. He not only writes his own scenarios, but he directs his pictures.”
This writer, Banjamin B. Hampton (1875 – 1932), having heard so much hokum about Hollywood, decided to write an article about all he knew about the place – he was a film director and a producer, so he knew plenty. He was especially irked by the number of young women who arrived at the dream factory each month only to be bamboozled and find themselves on the street before too long.
Ten million people a day go to the movies in the United States, but how many of them know who made the first movie? The Noes have it. The man who made the first motion-picture, as we know it today, is C. Francis Jenkins (1867 – 1934). Many [actresses] who have not been ‘in pictures’ a month are better known.
C. Francis Jenkins was also one of the brainiacs who contributed his talent to the invention of television.
An article covering the early career of twenty five year-old Irving Thalberg (1899 – 1936): legendary Hollywood executive and movie producer, whose natural abilities in the Dream Factory catapulted his meteoric rise to greater power, leaving a long string of hits and well-admired film productions in his wake before pneumonia got the better of him twelve years after this article went to press.
Marie Dressler (b. Leila Marie Koerber: 1868 – 1934) left her mark on stage and screen (both varieties) and by the time she died of cancer in 1934 shed had acquired a sizable fan-base and two Academy Awards.
During the summer of 1920, Photoplay Magazine ran this glossary of movie terms with cartoons by Ralph Barton and doggerel verses by Howard Dietz.
With new technology came new terms that seemed odd to the ear (it should be remembered that this new technology did not involve the use of one’s ear at all); words to be added to the nation’s vocabulary were fade-out, shooting, box-office and location.
To shoot a scene is nothing new-
Directors should be shot at, too
A reporter from Photoplay Magazine let all her eager readers in on the excitement from the glamorous set of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company (Illinois) where the comedy, Actor Finney’s Finnish (1914) was being shot.
The silent short was directed and performed by those who would be participating steadily during Hollywood’s next thirty year spree: E. Mason Hopper (1885 – 1967), Director; Wallace Beery (1885 – 1949), leading man; Eddie Redway (1869 – 1919), co-star; Leo White (1882 – 1948), co-star; Bobbie Bolder (1859-1937) co-star, Ruth Hennesy (no dates), actress.
As delighted as this Photoplay Magazine journalist was to make the acquaintance of 1920s film star Norma Talmadge (1894 – 1957), she could not help but compare her to the reigning film diva of the period, Mary Pickford:
Mary awakens your love.
Norma awakens your admiration.
Mary makes you long to be of service to her.
Norma makes you long to have her friendship.
Mary Pickford is a sort of divine child, who always seems far away from you, glowing in a soft light…
Norma Talmadge is an intelligent, brilliant woman of the world, with every faculty keyed to the highest pitch…
The interview was conducted by the versatile Adela Rogers St. Johns (1894 – 1988): a veteran journalist from Hollywood’s earliest days, she also made her mark writing screenplays, novels and toiled in the precincts as one of the first woman police reporters.
In three short pages this article outlines the growth of the film industry beginning in 1909 to the time of this printing, in 1919.
In 1930 Adolf Zukor was listed as one of the most powerful men in Washington…
