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…
In this article, a 1920s critic forthrightly states that the primitive state of movie cameras renders them unfit as capable tools with which art can be created. He expands on his remarks by pointing out that 1920s film technology generally will never be able to render thought-provoking plots or articulate narratives until some necessary advancements are made in the field.
Another anti-silent film article can be read here…
-an additional article from the 1920s defaming silent film can be read here…
An interview with the famous silent film comedian, Fatty Arbuckle, as it appeared in a forgotten Hollywood trade magazine. Accompanying the interview are eight lines of biographical information pertaining to his Hollywood career as it stood in the year 1916. This short profile first appeared in The Studio Directory of The Motion Picture News and will serve to answer some of the questions readers might have concerning his career, before it took it’s tragic turn.
If you would like to read about the films of the Thirties, click here.
Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
An interview with the famous silent film comedian, Fatty Arbuckle, as it appeared in a forgotten Hollywood trade magazine. Accompanying the interview are eight lines of biographical information pertaining to his Hollywood career as it stood in the year 1916. This short profile first appeared in The Studio Directory of The Motion Picture News and will serve to answer some of the questions readers might have concerning his career, before it took it’s tragic turn.
If you would like to read about the films of the Thirties, click here.
Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
A really quick, informative read that will let you know a whole bunch about the earliest days of Hollywood silent film production:
• Silent film production companies averaged three movies per week.
• A good salary for an early Hollywood silent film executive was $50.00 per week
• Silent film extras were paid 1.50 per day.
• There were no stunt doubles.
• The average silent film director was paid $150.00 per week.
• A big-budget production was one that cost $500.00.
• Silent film directors would talk continuously during shooting.
– and much more.
Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.
Here is an article by one of the foot soldiers of legendary silent movie producer Adolf Zukor, in which she recalled a time in 1923 when the future president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, mailed an unsolicited photoplay (ie. script) to their offices in hopes of securing some measure of Hollywood immortality.
Knowing that FDR had tremendous power in both New York and Washington, Zukor instructed her to let him down gently; twenty years later Roosevelt would chuckle about his ambitions with her at a White House party.
A much admired theatrical set designer was the author of this column – he was devoted to his craft and believed deeply that movies could only lead society to the lowest place:
The Drama in the Cinema is held to be made ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’ It is really made by the new school of the same old tyrants, to enslave the mind of the people.
An informative and well-illustrated column that makes reference to various copy cat crimes that were first seen on movie screens as early as 1908 and duplicated in the real world. The reader will come away with a clear understanding as to just how popular the medium was in the United States and throughout the globe.
By the time this piece first appeared in THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS (prior to being picked up by the fast crowd at FLAPPER MAGAZINE) Colleen Moore was all of twenty-one years of age with fourteen Hollywood films to her credit. This interview was conducted over lunch by the polished Hollywood reporter Gladys Hall, who no doubt, picked up the check; on that day Miss Moore wanted to talk about flappers.
The wise elders of Hollywood were perfectly fine about casting flappers to play in various movies, but they didn’t always produce films that were sympathetic to their causes; for example, the editors of FLAPPER MAGAZINE hated this movie.
We recommend this book: The Silent Feminists
