Virginia Rappe’s wiki says she had two abortions by the age of 15. The cite it gives is to a book that’s not available online. If true, especially considering her pillar-to-post upbringing (born out of wedlock, orphaned at 11 and working a full time job by 13) it wouldn’t prove sexual abuse but it’s very definitely a possibility, and at the very least the abortions were the result of statuatory rape.
Something that surprises me about some silent movies is how much more mature they were than their post Hays Code successors. Are there any that are considered the raciest? Was European cinema considered racier than American in the silent era as it would become later?
Let me put my two bits in for my favorite type of silent. The Western…Yes it tended to be the poor step child of the studios, but popularity, it definitely had that. From Bronco Billy and “The Great Train Robbery” to William S. Hart.
They were great…They still are great. I still love watching Tom Mix. “The K&A Train Robbery” is simply great fun…For me it is often a toss up between Fairbanks and Mix. I named my first dog Tony after Mix’s wonder horse (I knew I would never have a horse to name after him).
I also enjoy Col. Tim McCoy and Hart. Hart was amazing and amazingly realistic. One of the things that always amazed me was they were doing these films for real cowboys at times who were still punching cattle. I knew a couple of the old timers from the silent studios who returned to Colorado after doing western work and their stories of the bars and places just outside the studios where the western actors, bit players and extras used to hang out were hair raising to hear. There were real western brawls, shoot outs and more than once, apparently, Tom Mix would ride into the bars on horseback and announce his arrival with shots into the ceiling.
A GQ about silent movies: is there a generic name for the cards with dialogue written on them? Or are they just called ‘dialogue cards’?
And another GQ: What was the biggest technological innovation between early and late silent films (other than sound of course)? Is there anything you can look at if you don’t what the film is and say “That was made in the 1920s rather than the 1910s because of the (focus/angle/etc.)”?
They used to be called subtitles or title cards, but are now generally referred to as intertitles.
I’d say camerawork was the biggest innovation: different film stocks that reacted better to subtle lighting, so you could do more artistic effects and not need as much makeup. Directors gradually learned and developed new techniques and tricks (Griffith did not invent *any *of them!), so by the end of the silent era you had many films as breath-taking as Renaissance painting. But even as early as the mid-1910s, Griffith and DeMille were doing some *lovely *artistic work.
Several silent stars didn’t crossover into talkies because of their voices or their age or some combination of those and other factors, but were there any silent directors who couldn’t make the transition? Did Griffith do any significant work in talking pictures for instance?
Hmmm, interesting; I don’t really know. Griffith was kind of washed-up by the late 1920s, but sound certainly did not help. Von Stroheim, too, had ruined his directing career for reasons that had nothing to do with sound. Rex Ingram only directed a handful of talkies,
Most of the successful silent directors–Vidor, Tod Browning, Clarence Brown, Rouben Mamoulien, De Mille, Robert Leonard, Geo. Fitzmaurice–went right on working.
I’d say it was the slow takeover of electric-motor cranked cameras to hand-cranked (that innovation also made sound possible - you can’t synchronize sound to a bunch of pictures taken at variable speed).
Also, subtle lighting differences - after watching a lot of silent movies, you can tell what ‘interior’ shots were in fact shot outdoors with diffuser sheets (it was most of them until the end), and then you can see the switch to an actual interior.
I haven’t seen Phantom of the Opera or Hunchback of Notre Dame in too long. I’ll have to watch them soon.
It was always said that John Gilbert, a huge silent star, couldn’t make the crossover into talkies because his voice was too high and squeaky. There wasn’t any truth at all to it, he had a great speaking voice, as is clear from the few talkies that he did do. What killed his career was alcoholism and the bitter enmity of Louis B. Mayer. His final film was The Captain Hates The Sea, 1934, where he plays an alcoholic (and does it to great comic effect). Again his voice sounds just fine in the movie.
I’ve seen bits of all of Lon Chaney’s roles. The man was obviously gifted, BUT I fear being let down.
When I finally read Frankenstein in school, it (IMO obviously) both sucked and blew.
On the udder hand, when I finally saw the original Nosferatu and Cabinet Of Caligari, they were great! Nosferatu isn’t scary per se, but it has a great underlying creepiness- and I say Shreck’s Orlock is still as scary as anything ever to come out of Hollywood.
I’ve been to a screening of Caligari with live sound effects and music. The band was still looking into issuing a DVD with their music properly synched up.
I have also seen an 80’s film ( a talkie) entitled Dr Caligari. I’d say that it is a worthy successor and is fondly made in the German Expressionist tradition.
I own Who’s Who On The Screen (copyright 1920. No printing info is given. The giver has signed with 8/18/21). Just looked up Lon Chaney. His bio ends with “It is Mr.Chaney’s ambition to be a peer in the art of make-up.”.
As I mentioned in the Barbara Kent thread, I am right now (even as we speak!) writing a bio of John Gilbert–poor Jack was his own worst enemy. You are 100% right; his voice was fine, but he had a talent for mouthing off and making enemies in high places from the very start of his career at Triangle in 1915.