Doper Film Mavens: Must-See Silent Flicks

[Balle_M]

Since getting Netflix I've been trying to watch some of the movies that apparently everyone in the world but me has seen. I've decided to start with the silent era, so some recommendations please. So far I've seen:

1)Metropolis - Thoroughly enjoyed this one, especially the contrast between the elite and the worker drones.

2) Birth of a Nation - Once again I enjoyed the film, despite being expected to root for the Ku Kluxers.

3) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - This was one I really liked but for the life of me can't explain why. I just did.

4) The General - How can you not like Buster Keaton?

So what should I go for next? Two requests:

It should be available from Netflix (not a dealbreaker...)

Please, please no Chaplin. That little bastard makes my flesh crawl.

[CandidGamera]

I'm the first to reply? Wow.

Way Down East is pretty darn good in the drama category; I'd also recommend The Phantom of the Opera, Nosferatu, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in their silent incarnations.

I think Netflix will soon have some Harold Lloyd - since his films are finally coming to DVD - at which time you'll need to see Safety Last.

[Lightnin']

Pretty much anything with Harold Lloyd. Safety Last is a classic. (Literally!)

Harold Lloyd is Da Man.

[Lightnin']

Curse you, CandidGamera! Curse you!

[Captain Amazing]

A few films for you.

Wings-Two pilots in WWI, both in love with the same woman. It won the first Academy Award.

The King of Kings-The Cecil B. DeMille version, not the later one.

Greed-Why you really don't want to win the lottery.

Intolerance-Why?! Why must hatred keep us apart! Plus, there are Babylonians.

Ben Hur-It's probably better than the later one with Charlton Heston.

[Baker]

Broken Blossoms, starring Lillian Gish, directed by D.W.Griffith. When Lillian asked DW why he didn't get a younger girl to play the role(she was 25 at the time) he told her he didn't want to submit a younger actress to the harshness of what her character was going to go through. One of the earliest films about child abuse, Lillian Gish plays a young girl whose father regularly subjects her to savage beatings. A sad film, but with splendid acting, and the epilogue is so poignant.

[Eve]

Don't know anything about Netflix, so excuse me if some of these are not on it:

It, a marvelous comedy with Clara Bow as a shopgirl in love with her boss.

Show People, one of the funniest movies about movies ever.

Nosferatu, scary as all get-out.

The Thief of Bagdad—God, Doug Fairbanks was sexy.

The Wind, maybe Lillian Gish's best silent. Moody and creepy.

Any collection of shorts by Georges Melies and the marvelous French comic Max Linder.

I'm sure I'll think of more later . . .

[RealityChuck]

Chaplin was, as Max Sennett pointed out, just the greatest artist who ever lived, and if you can't appreciate his genius, your life is truly barren.

However, if you want to remain that way, here are a few more:

Sally of the Sawdust. Directed by D. W. Griffith. Starring W. C. Fields. Worth it for that alone. :) (Not really a great film -- Fields needed sound -- but interesting).

Sadie Thompson. The final reel has been lost, but there is a version using stills to recreate the ending. Gloria Swanson is brilliant.

Other essential Keaton: Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr.

The Black Pirate -- fine Douglas Fairbanks spectacle, the even pokes fun at Douglas Fairbanks spectacles.

He Who Gets Slapped -- Lon Chaney in a great role as a clown.

I'll also second The Wind, Greed, and Dr. Caligari

[Eve]

Black Adder on Charlie Chaplin: "I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it."

[scotandrsn]

Black Adder on Charlie Chaplin: "I find his films about as funny as getting an arrow through the neck and discovering there's a gas bill tied to it."

Which is quite funny because about ten years ago Rowan Atkinson did a TV special about physical comedy that featured Chaplin quite prominently

[bup]

If I pitted people, which I don't, my seething words to the Chaplin-haytahs would melt your flesh.

Chaplin-haytin' OP-type - Phantom of the Opera, and The Navigator.

There's also a must-see collection of Fatty Arbuckle shorts (which are very rare because of his being blackballed) out there - forget the name, but it features Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton (who Arbuckle discovered) in nearly every one.

[bup]

Oh, and The Lost World - the copies vary wildly, but the special effects are too charming to miss.

[scotandrsn]

But I hijack-

Metropolis is available in several versions.

The most recent was a complete restoration released in 2002.

Avoid the Giogio Moroder semi-colorized version from the early 1980s. He screwed around with the plot and the motivations of the characters too much.

I can recommend almost all the silent work of Laurel and Hardy, as well as "Seven Chances" featuring Buster Keaton.

CAN NOT recommend: Birth of a Nation or Battleship Potemkin (the famous Odessa Steps sequence in the middle of the film IS one of the signature moments in the history of cinema, but frankly, it's not worth sitting through the rest of the film for.)

[scotandrsn]

You might also take a look at this chart (http://us.imdb.com/chart/1920s)

[Dusty]

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
The Big Parade
Sparrows
Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Napoléon
Nibelungen: Siegfried's Death
Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge
The Unknown
Orphans of the Storm
The Man With a Movie Camera
Earth
My Best Girl
The Patsy
The Lodger
The Kid (I know you said no Chaplin, but The Kid isn't like most of his movies)
Un Chien Andalou
...that's a rather eclectic collection, but they're all good. They're not in any order, but if you only see one, let it be the first.

I'll second The Wind and Ben Hur, the later is significantly better than the Charlton Heston remake.

Be sure to get a good copy of Nosferatu and Metropolis--there are some truly atrocious versions of those floating around.

I'd suggest trying to see them at a cinema. Of course you can appreciate them at home on TV, but the experience is so greatly enhanced in a dark room with an enormous screen and live accompaniment. There are silent film festivals all over the place, it shouldn't be too hard to find one nearby.

[CandidGamera]

Ooh! I forgot.

I recommend The Man Who Laughs. Netflix has it.

[Eve]

Ben Hur, the later is significantly better than the Charlton Heston remake.

Half-nekkid Ramon Novarro—yum!

[kingpengvin]

For purely historical interest

The Great Train Robbery

Do they have the Silent Our Gang shorts?

The Man who laughs

The Gold Rush.... oops sorry... scratch that.

[Walloon]

I'm limiting my list to titles that are currently available from Netflix:

Man With a Movie Camera
The Last Laugh
In the Land of the War Canoes
Earth
Battleship Potemkin
Animation Legend: Winsor McCay
Grass
October
The Camerman (on the DVD TCM Archives: Buster Keaton Collection)
Napoleon (1927)
Tabu
The Black Pirate
Intolerance
The Last of the Mohicans
The Cheat
Fall of the House of Usher
It (if you have problems searching for that title, search under star Clara Bow)
Nanook of the North
Ben-Hur (1925)
Les Vampires (it's long, but stay with it)
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
The Lost World
The Phantom of the Opera
Greed
Landmarks of Early Film
The Magic of Méliès
The Thief of Bagdad
D.W. Griffith: Years of Discovery 1909-1913
Broken Blossoms
The Jazz Singer (well, it's mostly silent)
Sherlock, Jr.
From the Manger to the Cross
The Wind
Salome (1922)

[Eve]

Do they have the Silent Our Gang shorts?

I hope so. I am the proud ower of Mary, Queen of Tots.

Now that I'm home and can peruse my video collection . . .

The Cheat, an early DeMille bodice-ripper with a real kick.

Some good action adventure serials, like The Perils of Pauline and Les Vampires.

Garbo and Gilbert in Love, the silent version of Anna Karenina, much better than the talkie.

The Joyless Street, another early Garbo--great Weimar-era grittiness.

[Balle_M]

I forgot to add Potemkin to my list of viewed films. Hey, it was only one of the best propaganda movies I've seen, not an unforgettable classic like Cheerleader Ninjas. :D

Now, is there any way to determine if the film I'm watching has the correct musical score?

[Eve]

I forgot to add Potemkin to my list of viewed films. Hey, it was only one of the best propaganda movies I've seen, not an unforgettable classic like Cheerleader Ninjas. :D

Is that the silent Cheerleader Ninjas, starring Noma, Constance and Natalie Talmadge?

[CalMeacham]

My favorites have been listed, but I want to urge you to get good, restored versions. It makes a world of difference. It's a chore watching the cheap versions, made from many-generation-duped prints. The cheap DVD versions are often such poor prints, not the most complete versions, and often don't have apropriate music. Fortunately, a lot of previously unavailable silent films are being released in much more complete versions on DVD now. Metropolis has been released in a restored print, and the difference between it and the earlier ones is so immense that I wouldn't even recommend watching the cheap versions. Likewise, there's a restored version of The Lost World, made by combining six searate prints, that is about 95% complete. It's better than the Eastman House version (previously the best available). There's a two-disc DV of Phantom of the Opera that includes the entire 1925 version, the 1929 version, and as mch as they could scrape together of the added scenes from three other versions (including one with partial sound!) The 1929 version is of extraordinary quality, with the best version of the "Bal Masque" sequence in two-color Technicolor I've seen (other versions look very washed out), and with the Phantom's cape coloed n red for the scenes atop the Opera House -- an effect I've never seen in any other version.

I saw (and taped!) the Rohauer restoration of Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Baghdad, and it really is superb -- the scenes are all tinted, and the new musical score based on Rimsky=Korsakov's music (mostly his "Scheherazade") fits perfectly. I was surprised to hear that this three-hour version still isn'y complete, but I've no seen one more complete, and I haven't seen any on DVD (athough I know that Blackhawk also has a VS version).



Other silent films worth seeing:

The Cartoons of Windsor McCay -- on of the first, and best. profound influence on a other animtors. Thi been out on DVD, and I didn't buy it. Try to find a copy now!

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- tries to present both 20,000 Leagues under the Sea [i]and The Mysterio Island (!) Dazzling underwater photography, especially for a circa 1920 movie (when Disney did its version over 30 years later, they shot in the sam spot - the water was so very clear there). It's also the only version I know that depicts Nemo as an Indian Prince (as in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and as Verne himself made him out to be)

Tarzan of the Apes - Elmo Lincoln plays the Apeman, ages before Weissmuller. And more faithful to the books.

[E. Thorp]

I'm no expert, but I'm lucky enough to live in Seattle, where Dennis James regularly fires up the mighty Wurlitzer house organ (original 1928) at the Paramount Theatre, and shows recently restored prints. My favorites so far:

Safety Last
The Cameraman
The Navigator
The Golem
Woman in the Moon
Sally of the Sawdust
Pandora's Box
The Eagle

And I know that Modern Times doesn't quite count as silent, but I thought it was brilliant.

[SkipMagic]

F.W. Murnau's Faust, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It's a gorgeous film with incredible special effects.

[Cisco]

All the really great ones have been mentioned so far (I think)...The Last Laugh, Metropolis, Man With a Movie Camera, etc.

I just want to say that you should not skip Battleship Potemkin. Everything leading up to and including the Odessa steps is great. After that is a little "eh", but don't cheat yourself out of the movie.

[Achren]

All the great ones...what about Sunrise (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018455/)?

[Achren]

Or City Lights (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021749/)?

[Cisco]

All the great ones...?
Eh, I knew as soon as I hit submit that I shouldn't have worded it like that. Just pretend I said "all my favorites."

[Achren]

Eh, I knew as soon as I hit submit that I shouldn't have worded it like that. Just pretend I said "all my favorites."

No worries!
As those are the only two silents (besides Metropolis) I've seen, I was amazed that I got to be first to list them! But now I have all those others to start looking for. If nothing else, SDMB helps me put my free time to good use.

[Dusty]

I thought of another: The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the real first animated feature film. Fun, too--I love the Fire Mountain Witch.

Other silent Dreyer films besides Jeanne d'Arc you might want to see: Master of the House and The Parson's Widow.

[Balle_M]

Thanks to your suggestions, my Netflix queue now includes:

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc

Sherlock, Jr.

The Phantom of the Opera

The Lost World

Intolerance - I'd prefer autogyros, but Babylonians are a close second.

I noticed in their new releases the had Fritz Lang's

[Balle_M]

That SHOULD be Fritz Lang's The First Woman on the Moon. Any opinion on this one?

[Captain Amazing]

I'm going to bump the thread to recommend "The Freshman", which I actually hadn't seen until this weekend. It's just funny.

[E. Thorp]

That SHOULD be Fritz Lang's The First Woman on the Moon. Any opinion on this one?
Also known as Woman in the Moon; the original German title is Frau im Mond (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019901/). The performance I saw had live organ, live English reading of the German intertitles, and live electronica, and it was brilliant. Even the electronics seemed authentic: synthesized crowd noise and such, very tastefully done. The acting is even more, uh, sincere than usual, but a lot of the visuals are beautiful and the story is surprisingly melancholy.

[Apos]

1) The Phantom Menace. It wasn't originally a silent film, but it's so much better that way!

[Scumpup]

Just about anything with Fatty Arbuckle in it. He was a gifted and engaging comedian; it is too bad his career ended in such grubby scandal.

The silent version of Ben Hur, but only if it had the musical score written by Cousin Pearl from The Beverly Hillbillies. (Drive them horses, Ben, Ben, drive them horses Ben...)

[mrunlucky]

Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks. Melodramatic and tragic.

Vampyr by Carl Theodor Dreyer, for it's experimental techniques.

Nosferatu, obviously.

Judex, a serial by Louis Feuillade, if you like his serial Les Vampires.

The Lumiere Brothers' First Films. Historical edutainment.

The Magic of Méliès. Fantasy!

[commasense]

Fairbanks is magnificent in The Mark of Zorro.

[HPL]

Phantom of the Opera


I can't believe I didn't think of that until I saw this, considering it's the best film version I've seen so far(the 1940's version was just Bleh).

Though it might not be the best film by the time 2005 rolls around............

[Meurglys]

I'll second Sunrise - A Tale of Two Humans.
I saw it for the first time almost by chance a couple of weeks ago on a big screen with a live soundtrack and was absolutely bowled over. The whole audience loved it and barely made a noise throughout the screening...
It's very melodramatic at times, but also has some great humorous touches.

[Eve]

Just about anything with Fatty Arbuckle in it. He was a gifted and engaging comedian; it is too bad his career ended in such grubby scandal.

Actually, his career didn't end; he worked continuously as a director and, eventually, an actor, again right up till his death.

Virginia Rappe's career ended; she was a promising actress who died because the party-goers were too concerned about their reputations and their party to get her proper medical care, and let her linger in agony for days before getting her to a hospital (I also blame the St. Francis Hotel doctor). Classic "blame the victim" scenario: after her death, she was painted as a cheap whore who got what she deserved, to make Arbuckle seem less guilty.

(Of course, he wasn't guilty of anything except neglect, same as everyone else at the party)

[bup]

Actually, his career didn't end; he worked continuously as a director and, eventually, an actor, again right up till his death.The stuff he directed was under a different name, right? And for much smaller movies. And when he finally re-appeared as an actor (11 years?) later, it was a small part.

That's ending a career.

Moreover, all his Fatty Arbuckle films were taken out of circulation in the U.S., and mostly lost. The collections that are out there now are taken largely from European prints, with the "title cards" removed and replaced with English translations.

That's more than ending a career - it damn near expunged it from the record.

[LonesomePolecat]

Moreover, all his Fatty Arbuckle films were taken out of circulation in the U.S., and mostly lost. The collections that are out there now are taken largely from European prints, with the "title cards" removed and replaced with English translations.

I recall reading that about 90% of all the silent films ever made have been either partially or completely lost. :( In those days films were considered commercial product, not art, and efforts to archive and preserve them were, shall we say, not top notch. I think the source for this was Lost Films: Important Movies that Disappeared by Frank T. Thompson.

I've read that this was the reason Alaska was such a fertile hunting ground for old film collectors for quite some time. Alaska was generally the end of the road when a film was distributed and exhibited, and the studios often told the exhibitors just to send them their share of the receipts without bothering to return the film. Also, the generally colder climate tended to preserve the films better. Take it with a grain of salt. I can't remember where I read it.

I can't help wondering how much great work by great actors and directors has been lost to us.

[Walloon]

I saw it for the first time almost by chance a couple of weeks ago on a big screen with a live soundtrackA live recording? :confused:

[Governor Quinn]

The stuff he directed was under a different name, right? And for much smaller movies. And when he finally re-appeared as an actor (11 years?) later, it was a small part.


You're right about him directing under a pseudonym (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000779/), but his return to acting was as the headliner of a series of short subjects, and he had (according to every source I've seen, at any rate) signed a feature-film contract just before his sudden death.

[Walloon]

I recall reading that about 90% of all the silent films ever made have been either partially or completely lost.That may be factually true, but it needs qualification. That percentage includes thousands of early "actualities" films of the 1890s and 1900s that were only a minute or two long: trains going through mountain passes, Niagara Falls falling, the Prussian army on maneuvers, traffic on Broadway, people at the beach, fire departments to the rescue. While it's a shame that any of those are lost, they can't be equated with the loss of a feature from the 1920s.

The good news is that, for the most part, the better silent features have survived. For example, of the New York Times' twenty picks of the top ten movies for 1924 and 1925, sixteen exist today.

[LonesomePolecat]

That may be factually true, but it needs qualification. That percentage includes thousands of early "actualities" films of the 1890s and 1900s that were only a minute or two long: trains going through mountain passes, Niagara Falls falling, the Prussian army on maneuvers, traffic on Broadway, people at the beach, fire departments to the rescue. While it's a shame that any of those are lost, they can't be equated with the loss of a feature from the 1920s.

The good news is that, for the most part, the better silent features have survived. For example, of the New York Times' twenty picks of the top ten movies for 1924 and 1925, sixteen exist today.
I stand corrected.

[Eve]

There's a heartbreaking short from the '30s called Ghost Town: The Fort Lee Story (oddly enough, I can't find it on IMDB, even though I have a copy on video!). It's very amatuerish, but it tours the ruins of the silent studios 15 years after they'd closed up and moved West: falling-down sound stages, piles of film reels left out to disintegrate in the open. At one point one of the filmmakers picks up a reel of film left laying on the ground and unspools it.

Theda Bara made most of her films in Fort Lee, it might have been her Cleopatra, or Salome . . .

[bup]

Not silent, but the first Charlie Chan movie is lost. That's like 1935 or thereabouts - probably not a great work of art, but a feature film nonetheless. Amazing how long it took before people really cared about preserving film.

[Governor Quinn]

Not silent, but the first Charlie Chan movie is lost.

As a matter of fact, four of the first five Warren Oland Charlie Chans are missing.

[Scumpup]

The Great Circus Mystery (1925) starring Joe "The Dumbest Man in Hollywood" Bonomo is likewise thought lost to posterity. I do remember reading in his autobiography that he had the last remaining print of it in his personal collection. He died in 1978, I wonder if any of his family members retain that print?

[Walloon]

A vault fire at Fox circa 1940 destroyed several of the Charlie Chan movies starring Warner Oland. Some pre-Oland Charlie Chan movies exist, e.g., Behind That Curtain (1929).

Because of that fire, many Fox pictures of the early 1930s look grainy compared to those of other studios of that era: the camera negatives are gone, and so today's prints are made from second-generation materials.

[bup]

Oh, another one - The Bat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016629/) (1926).

A fun movie, and I believe Bob Kane admitted that a lot of the inspiration for Batman came from this movie (although the title character is a bad guy).

[Governor Quinn]

A vault fire at Fox circa 1940 destroyed several of the Charlie Chan movies starring Warner Oland. Some pre-Oland Charlie Chan movies exist, e.g., Behind That Curtain (1929).


I can swear that that fire occured in 1937, in Little Ferrry.

Eve would know- almost all of Theda Bara's films were destroyed in that fire.

Walloon, was it Warner Brothers or MGM that took the best care of their films? Sources I've read seem to differ.

[Governor Quinn]

Walloon, was it Warner Brothers or MGM that took the best care of their films? Sources I've read seem to differ.

Well, it appears that I've found the answer to my question here (http://www.vitaphone.org/sfeatures.html) (Warning: Plays music), and, as far as late silents go, the winner was United Artists, which kept 80% of its' late silent output (only 7 of 35 films lost). Second was (as I guessed) MGM, which has about a 70% survival rate (by my count, 53 of 176 films lost).

[Walloon]

Governor Quinn, thanks for pinpointing the year of the fire in Little Ferry, NJ, that destroyed Fox's film storage vault. That fire on July 9, 1937, took almost all of Fox's pre-1935 negatives and protection masters. How sad.