This was going to be a post about my latest writing projects, but after watching a seriously silly movie last night I decided to write instead about silent movies. I’ve loved old movies since I discovered the Late Show on the two TV channels we had in the 1970s, so I’ve always been a fan of the obvious stars – Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton et al – but recently I’ve been doing research for a new book (more on that in another post to come) and have been digging deeper for lesser known gems. I compiled a list of silents that I wanted to watch (yes, I created a spreadsheet for this. I love lists) and was happily proceeding in chronological order.
The very early shorts (1895-1905) are dominated by the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès, then the Americans respond with some energetic though rather crude efforts like The Great Train Robbery. I spent many months watching the Biograph shorts directed by D.W. Griffith between 1909 and 1914, which are at the heart of the new book I’m writing, so I will definitely have more to say about them in future posts. During this period Griffith was churning out lively little potboilers at a rate of 2-3 per week, so even though many seem to be lost, there is still a lot to see!
After that I became interested in early films from other countries, beyond the obvious ones like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Battleship Potemkin. Thanks to the almighty internet, I have found some really fascinating Danish, German, Swedish, Italian, French, British, Russian and Japanese films.
And then, yesterday, I happened to come across this Silent Era List of the 100 Top Silent Films. Not only the top 100, mind you: this site also lists the next 200 films that didn’t make the top 100! Oy! So much for my progress; I now have over 400 titles on my list!
The Oyster Princess (1919), dir. Ernst Lubitsch
Last night I picked out one I’d never heard of: The Oyster Princess (1919), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. This is one of Lubitsch’s early films, made in Germany before he went Hollywood. What a weird little delight this is. It’s kind of a fairy tale, kind of a parody of capitalism, but mostly just wacky. Apart from the creepy tendency of the heroine’s father to peek through keyholes, this one even ages relatively well.
It’s one hour in length and quite fun. I will continue to share my early movie finds here, if there’s enough interest!
Postscript
Interested? Want to see some of these for yourself? As most silent movies were made between 1900 and the late 1920s, they are in the public domain and most are readily available online to stream for free. There are a lot of titles available on Youtube, as well as the two sites I go to most frequently, Internet Archive* and OpenCulture.
Want a list to guide you? This Top 10 Guardian list is a great starting point, listing the most critically acclaimed films. You can pick out a director you like and then hunt down their titles. Or you can go right to the mega list I mentioned earlier, at Silent Era.
*I really love this site, but I am saddened to hear that there is a copyright brouhaha brewing between them and authors over printed material they post on their site for free. I need to find out more before I decide whether to continue using this resource – if you know more about this please let me know.