SILENT FEATURES --Best, Greatest, Favorite-- A Project 300 essay
Jul 15 '04 (Updated Jul 18 '04)
The Bottom Line Here are some Silent Movies you shouldn't miss. Some powerful,warm, touching and some among the funniest films of all.
I rarely get an opportunity to write very much about silent films and its unlikely that there’s all that much interest or a sizable audience for many of these films. Oh there’s many fans of Chaplin and Keaton and Gish and sometimes people have a passion to explore a dozen or so silent film classics and see how things used to be. D.W. Griffith and Passion of Joan of Ark and early Fritz Lang and Greed have many fans.
SPECIAL NOTE:
edit: THE LIST IS CHRONOLOGICALLY ORDERED (BY YEAR OF RELEASE). I mention it in the intro but several have missed this fact. end special note.
The problem for modern audiences is that you have to watch Silent Films in a complete different kind of way than you watch television or even theater. There’s automatically an artifice and a theatricality of style that is unfamiliar to most audiences. At first it will seem ridiculous to you, even campy and hilarious. I don’t mean comic pantomine which depending on your mood you can adjust to fairly easily but some of the gestures and movements in the serious and dramatic films now seem more mannered and forced then they actually played back in their day. Over time, however you'll begin to accept the different style and gain an appreciation for what is being done—even understand that the movement is exaggerated sometimes because there is no heard dialogue.
Silent Films were not actually every silent. The films were shown with live music. In big theaters that meant on incredible pipe organs loaded up with sound effects and all kinds of things. In smaller theaters that meant mini-orchestras or just a single piano player. Sometimes there was sheet music that was intended to be played along with the film. At other times, the musicians improvised.
Remember in many of these films they were creating a film language. The way scenes were composed, screen direction, the two shot, the establishing shot, how it was all edited together. We take all of this for granted now, but back in the silent era, is where it was invented. All of it. Everything since has been a refinement or expansion or what once was. Buster Keaton for instance created incredible special effects within the camera and using his unique acrobatic skills and vaudeville experience. You look at his masterpiece Sherlock Junior and you realize the genesis of what can be done with special effects is all here. The pioneers of silent film were magicians. Everyone who has ever enjoyed a film or television show owes these men and women a great debt of gratitude.
Yet I don’t believe most people will watch most silent films more than once or twice. I’m not sure too many will be enthralled with silent films. They are odd, they are dated, they are in black and white, (except for hand colored and tinted sequences) they are stilted and phony and… And they can be graceful and stylistic and a unique mesmerizing experience.
At their peak, silent films could be played anywhere in the world since only the title cards needed to be translated. Cinema had progressed rapidly in 35 years and remarkable special effects, even color were part of the biggest silent films. Then sound came in and film became a slave to the technical problems that early sound brought to making movies. It also forever segregated movies into English and Foreign films.
Here’s a list of the finest silent films I’ve seen and remembered in the few weeks I’ve been putting this piece together. There are a few I’m forgetting and you might remind me of some in your comments. There are many others that I just left off the list because I only remember bits and pieces of them or they aren’t quite as spectacular as the ones I’ve included. I've also left off films shorter than three reelers (with one exception). In some cases, like Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Larry Seemon, Charley Chase, Harold Lloyd, Fatty Arbuckle and several others they were often more entertaining than the feature films. I've given the best of them their very own list and I hope you'll look at that one as well.
Greatest Silent Shorts – Comedies.
http://www.epinions.com/content_4007698564
This is part of my Project 300 where I will be commenting on more than 300 special films from various eras in chronological order as I approach my 300th epinion. Here are the 30 Silent Films I’ve enjoyed the most and consider the greatest of them all -- arranged by year of release. Enjoy.
1. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
There are several films that led up to this landmark of American motion pictures. D.W. Griffith combined new, borrowed and at the time experimental techniques to tell an epic story of two families during Civil War and Reconstruction. Unfortunately anyone’s admiration of the technical brilliance of the film is squashed by how utterly racist the film is. I mean the Klu Klux Klan in this movie wind up being the heroes and that is disgraceful. It was criticized in its day for being racist (so imagine how over-the-top it must be). It’s an important, extremely controversial film.
2. Intolerance (1916)
Griffith made the most expensive flop in movie history at the time. Part of the movie is a response toward the attacks of how inaccurate and racist Birth of a Nation was. Part of it was an apology for that film too. It remains a remarkable epic that interweaves four stories of prejudice and inhumanity, from the Babylonian era to the modern day. It is overly melodramatic, stylized, and dated but as it builds and becomes more and more exciting as it moves towards it’s powerful climax. From Babylon to modern Paris. Many stars of the day from Lillian Gish to Constance Talmadge as the mountain girl deliver fascinating performances. This was a pre-code film and features nudity and violence. Consider it PG-13.
3. Broken Blossoms (1919)
D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece is about a young Chinese man who lives in London’s poverty stricken Limehouse district and intends to spread the peaceful philosophy of his Eastern religion. He attempts to help a street waif, Lillian Gish (in a superb performance) who has been mistreated by her brutal sadistic father. Tragedy ensues. A classic.
4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) Director John S. Robertson
This oft filmed Robert Louis Stevenson tale of man's inner beast, was given a top notch production and starred the greatest actor of his time, John Barrymore. Barrymore is stunning to watch. He creates two distinct characters and the special effects, lighting, and make-up are far better than you'd expect. Of course it's dated, and it's a silent film, but try to pick up KINO DVD version because you’ll also find a clip of the 1911 version of the film and some other neat stuff. This features a restoration of the original hand color tinting and a fine music score.
5. Nosferatu (1922)
F.W. Murnau's classic first surviving film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula is still atmospheric and creepy. Some may have seen poorly presented version of the film run at the wrong film speed which made parts of it seem like a Keystone Cop Comedy. That's a real pity. See a properly restored copy and marvel at how beautiful the shots are composed, how utterly frightening and rodent like Max Schreck truly is. A masterpiece you may need to see again. (a behind the scenes fictional fantasy story was
concocted as the movie Shadow of the Vampire in 2000 with Willem Dafoe --Oscar nominated as Schreck/Nosferatu --I didn’t care fo SOTV much myself though Dafoe was good).
6. & 7. Dr. Mabuse, Parts 1 and 2 (1922), aka Doktor Mabuse der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler and Dr. Mabuse: King of Crime)
Fritz Lang’s massive two part crime melodrama was an indictment of German society post world war 1. We follow the twisted mad master mind, extortionist evil criminal Dr. Mabuse as he tangles with spies, femmes fatales, rival gangs, cops, other crooks and eventually goes insane!!! It’s an action packed silent roller coaster ride. Lang would later create Testament of Doctor Mabuse and Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and the Dr. Mabuse character would be used by others in several films. Nothing ever came close to this however. You’ll be amazed.
8. & 9. Safety Last (1923) and Why Worry 1923
Harold Lloyd was one of the most popular comedians of the silent era and like Keaton he devised and performed a number of dangerous stunts. His best known sequence is (from Safety Last,) the spectacular building climbing and hanging from the clock sequence (borrowed most recently by Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson in Shanghai Knights). He plays an average man who comes to the big city to seek his fortune which ends up in several mishaps. An even funnier, but far less known film is WHY WORRY which features Lloyd as a spoiled millionaire who gets involved in a third world country’s revolution. You’ll hurt from laughing so hard when you watch it. Both these films are still easy to enjoy and extremely funny. Lloyd isn’t quite as well known as Chaplin and Keaton but he should be. The other films of Lloyd you don’t want to miss are 1925’s The Freshman (which features the famous Football game finale), 1928s Speedy where Harold takes Babe Ruth to the baseball game and then tries to stop the railroad company from running the last of the horse drawn trolleys out of business. New York locations highlight film.
10. The Hunch Back of Notre Dame (1923)
Is the first silent version of this oft told tale of the disfigured bell-ringer of Notre Dame. Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces delivers an incredible performance underneath some impressive improvised make-up that was extremely uncomfortable and painful to wear. The sweet disfigured hunchback is ridiculed by the townsfolk, cares for the gypsy girl Esmeralda so much he is willing to sacrifice everything for her safety and happiness.
11. Greed (1924)
Erich von Stroheim who is known by most as an entertaining and hammy villain in several films from the 1930s to the 1950s (he plays a director in Sunset Boulevard) destroyed his career as a director and filmmaker when he fought with the studios and created an 8 hour film adaptation of Frank Norris' novel McTeague, about a simple man who tries to feed his wife's obsession for money, but it winds up driving him to madness. Even after to being cut by the studio to 140 minutes it’s still a powerful stunning masterpiece that features an unforgettable climax filmed in Death Valley. There is an interesting restored version of the film that combines photographs and explanations of what the film would have been like if the footage survived and it was eight hours long. That version is about 4 hours long.
12. 㪨. Sherlock Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) and The Cameraman (1928)
Keaton made a series of the most inventive comic short films ever made starting in the 1920s.. His first full length comedy feature was 1921’s The Saphead. His most entertaining films are listed above. 1924’s Sherlock Jr is a 45 minute masterpiece and remains one of the most clever and inventive comedies you will ever see. It was technically brilliant (for it's time), and it opened the door in both technique and inspiration for hundreds of filmmakers.. Woody Allen borrowed the idea twice (for Zelig and Purple Rose of Cairo), Zemekis then took it a bit further with Forest Gump (and Who Framed Roger Rabbitt) and it's inspired film-makers and comedians for over 70 years (including Bunnuel and Rivette). The Navigator (1924) and Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) are the full length Keaton films you’ll probably laugh the hardest at. They are full of funny situations and inventive acrobatic comedy sequences. One of the most famous is the cyclone sequence from Steamboat which featured one of the most dangerous stunts ever performed on film. The General is a testament to Keaton’s perfectionism. He plays a confederate solider who single handedly retrieves a steam locomotive train (The General) from a Northern territory. Rich in recreated period detail the film is a masterpiece. The Cameraman (1928) is another film modern audiences will find easy to enjoy and is one of Keaton’s most technically inventive and clever features. To impress a girl he becomes a newsreel photographer and finds himself in the middle of a Tong War gang fight. See these Keaton films first and then don’t miss: 1923’s Our Hospitality and Three Ages, 1925’s Seven Chances (featuring the famous Brides chasing after Keaton sequence), 1927’s College and 1929’s Spite Marriage. Most of his incredible shorts from the 20s have been restored and are gems. Long Review of Steamboat Bill Jr. is here: http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-1459-120B3E64-39B4713C-prod6
17. Hands of Orlac (1924) Directed by Robert Wiene
This is the original Classic silent film version of the Maurice Renards' classic story (re-made several times- Mad Love with Peter Lorre, Hands of Orlac -1960 with Christopher Lee and Mel Ferrer) about a famed concert pianist (Conrad Veidt), whose hands which are mutilated in
an accident. His hands are replaced with those of a murderer and a growing urge to kill overwhelms him. Conradt Veidt and director Robert Wiene are the same actor/director team responsible for the influential horror expressionist classic Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This one is also extremely expressionistic, and better than Cabinet.
18. Body and Soul (1924)
African American, Oscar Micheaux wrote and directed this remarkable film that marks the first screen appearance of Paul Robeson. He plays a dual role as a conniving minister and his good brother. The minister befriends the owner of a gambling clubhouse to get closer to a young girl. He nearly ruins the young woman’s life. Censors objected to the film’s minister character who was originally not going to be redeemed. A worthwhile ground-breaking film.
19. The Gold Rush (1925)
The dance of the rolls, the eating of the shoe, the slapstick fights, mirages, the cabin teetering on the edge of the cliff define silent film comedy. It’s a story of Chaplin’s little tramp trying to win the favor of a dance hall girl. He gets caught up in the Gold Rush and braves the elements of the cold desolate Yukon and fights with a burly bullying prospector. Chaplin added music, sound effects and narration to a 72 minute version of the film in 1942. It’s a timeless, unforgettable classic.
20 Battleship Potemkin (1925 - Russian) aka Potemkin
You might have heard about this film being one of those good-for-you films that folks taking film history classes must sit through. It’s just 65 minutes long and it still has the power to enthrall an audience. Sergei Eisenstein created several masterpieces in Russia, this was his finest. Do you remember that famous scene in Brian DePalma’s Untouchables that occurs on the steps? He stole that sequence outright from this film. It was an homage to the film. He had borrowed from it not quite as directly for the climax of Carlito’s Way as well. Many others have as well. The Odessa steps sequence is one of the most famous, most thrilling in all of movie history. See it in the context it was made to be viewed in. Find a good copy of this film and watch it… soon.
21. The Big Parade (1925) Directed by King Vidor
Some of the most realistic battle scenes every put on film (for the time) are found in this exciting World War 1 film. It features John Gilbert as the hero and Renee Adoree as the memorable heroine. They are lovers torn apart by World War 1. It’s an intense and still powerful film.
22. Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Rupert Julian directed the Man of a Thousand Faces Lon Chaney whose famous un-masking caused hundreds to faint and millions to scream all around the slightly more naive (though not less innocent) world of the 1920's. The film is still effective particularly if you are lucky enough to view it on the big screen. Make sure you see the 88 minute version which includes the fully restored two strip technicolor Bal Masque sequence. It seems every fifteen years or less another version of this has been made
and the story is timeless enough I suspect they will keep trying. A truly inventive re-working of the tale was done by Brian DePalma in 1974 (Phantom of the Paradise). There have been versions with Claude Rains, Herbert Lom, Maximillian Schell, Robert Englund, Charles Dance and Burt Lancaster, and Italian horror meister Dario Argento has re-worked this material twice. Once in the very loose adaptation released in 1988 called Terror at the Opera or Opera and the other a pretty bad loose/remake in which the Phantom is a strange guy who's been raised by rats and isn't physically disfigured called Phantom of the Opera or Dario Argento's POTO released around 1998. And I understand there’s a famous play based on this too.
23. Metropolis (1927 - German)
Fritz Lang’s 120 minute Classic silent-film meditation on technology set in a futuristic city with an advanced mechanized society is considered one of the most innovative and still hip science fiction films of all time. It’s plot revolves around a young man of high society who abandons his luxurious life to join the oppressed worked in a revolt. It’s dated and the pacing at times will not completely enthrall modern viewers but its set design and special effects are still appealing. It was restored to its most complete version in 2002. Avoid shorter prints and especially the 87 minute 1984 color tinted version produced by Giorgio Moroder that featured songs by Bonnie Tyler, Queen and Pat Benatar. It doesn’t do the film justice.
24. SUNRISE (1927)Directed by F.W. Murnau
When anyone wants to see what film poetry is, have them watch this exquisite silent film that remains just as moving and powerful today as it was in 1927. It’s a simple story of a country lad who is convinced by a city women to murder his wife. The direction, camerawork, cinematography and performances will take your breath away. I’m not exaggerating how hauntingly beautiful this film truly is. The film won Oscars, is considered a masterpiece and features an incredible performance by Janet Gaynor. Full onscreen title is: Sunrise - A Song of Two Humans. Don’t miss F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece.
25. The Crowd 1928
Another King Vidor classic. It’s one of the finest silent film dramas every made. It’s about the happy and difficult times of a couple (in a large city). Their day to day struggles make for a compelling, fascinating film. It all holds up beautiful and once you see it, you will never forget it.
26. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, France)
Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s masterpiece. Masterpiece is so mis-used these days perhaps a new word should be coined to be used on those handful of films which are truly masterpieces. I wish there was a word to truly emphasize this film is among the finest you will ever experience in your life. It's a silent film. A stark, stylistic, unique film; as timeless as the finest opera or ballet performance anyone has ever seen. It still feels innovative, daring and impassioned today.
No student or lover of film should miss this one.
The images of the faces from this film are ones you will never forget. Whether you have seen the previously available murky video taken from a damaged print of the film or the beautiful and meticulously restored version recently released on a Criterion Series DVD.
There is one face, above all others, however, that will be remembered alongside any of the faces imprisoned on the screen within your head and that is the face of Renee Maria Falconetti. Of Falconetti's performance Pauline Kael wrote: "It may be the finest performance ever recorded on film.''
Indeed it is.
Here’s a review I wrote of the film more than 4 years ago:
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-5A8C-25CC2E3-39ABBC8B-prod1
27. Das Tagebuch einer Verlorenen [Diary of a Lost Girl] (1929- German)
G.W. Pabst’s second film starring former U.S. flapper Louise Brooks (Pandora’s Box) is this dark, tragic tale of a frail young girl who follows a path into degradation and ruin. She is raped, has an unwanted child in a half-way house, becomes a prostitute, inherits money, and….there’s more. Controversial, and daring for its day. It was based on the popular book by Margarete Boehme.
28. MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (1929)
Since 1922 Russian documentary film-maker Dziga Vertov declared the new language of the cinema as practices by D.W. Griffith and other fiction film makers was false and numbing intellectual growth. In 1929 he created a masterpiece of camera and editing innovations and tricks to comment on on the tone, styles and methods of film-making and it's role and uses in society. It's partially a political film, but it's also a work of art—though never stuffy. When you sit and watch it you are watching a 68 minute collection of images which will probably remind you of the more recent docu-message films : Koyaanisquatsi or Powaqquatsi. They took the best of Buster Keaton and took it to the next level. Man with a Camera is a masterpiece, but one that deals with form and content and the juxtapositions of images and how edits can create messages, comparisons, ironies, or ideas. The film does not have a plot or actors, or sets, or even inter-titles. Vertok believed the most important contribution filmmakers could make was to show life as it really was and catch people unaware -- as in unaware of the camera. On it's surface the film looks at a typical day from dawn to dusk in a large Russian city. Director Vertov believed in the power of the ‘kino-glaz' or cinema eye. And he wanted to compare city life to human life. The Camera--- like windows in a building. Static--- like the mannequins in storefronts, but more useful--- like a machine created to help with work tasks. The people wash themselves, the city streets are washed, and the people walk or perform tasks, and so on and so forth. Comparisons are made throughout the film. One of my favorites is between sewing machines and operators in a busy factory and Vertov's wife editing a film. One need only remember that the earliest movie cameras were made with parts from sewing machines to realize what an apt parallel Vertov and Kaufman have found. And indeed, combining pieces of cloth to make a finished piece of clothing, is not unlike splicing together bits of film stock to make a complete movie.
Let me direct you to a longer review of the film:
http://www.epinions.com/content_6686412420
29. L'Age d'Or/Un Chien Andalou (1930-French/Spanish), aka The Age of Gold or The Golden Age, France, directed by Luis Bunuel co-scripted by Dali
Luis Bunuel's L’Age d’Or is about an hour in length. It’s the tale of a man who is separated from his true love and kept apart from her by society, and the church. It is a powerful surrealistic. controversial subversive film that was banned for years.
Un Chien Andalous is incredible surrealistic short film featuring ants crawling out the palm of a hand and the infamous eyeball/razorblade scene.
30. City Lights (1931)
Chaplin's silent masterpiece released after sound revolutionized film is the story of the Tramp’s love for a blind flower girl and his roller coaster friendship with a drunken millionaire. Funny, sad, moving and brilliant. A great film.
PLEASE Also SEE MY EPINION ON THE 7 BEST SILENT HORROR FILMS here:
http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-2D29-1F7C33D7-397B8ABC-prod5
MORE GREAT SILENT FILMS WORTH WATCHING:
Pre-1920
Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon (1902- France)Directed by George Melies
Best known of several innovative experimental films.
Les Vampires (1915-16, France) Several films about a gang of criminals not supernatural vampires.
The Circus (1919)
1920
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Germany)
The Golem (1920, Germany)
The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
The Mark of Zorro (1920)
1921
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
The Kid (1921)
1922
Foolish Wives (1922)
Müde Tod, Der aka Destiny (1921)
Nanook of the North (1922)
Robin Hood (1922)
1923
The Ten Commandments (1923)
A Woman of Paris (1923)
1924
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
The Last Laugh (1924, Germany)
Nibelungen: Siegfried, Die (1924)
Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache, Die (1924)
The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
1925
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
Go West (1925)
The Lost World (1925)
The Unholy Three (1925)
1926
Beau Geste (1926)
The Black Pirate (1926)
Don Juan (1926)
Faust (1926, Germany)
The Lodger (1926, England)
Scarlet Street (1926
The Son of the Sheik (1926)
Sparrows (1926)
The Student of Prague (1926, Germany)
What Price Glory? (1926)
1927
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
Flesh and the Devil (1927)
It (1927)
The King of Kings (1927)
Napoleon (1927, France)
Underworld (1927)
Wings (1927)
1928
The Docks of New York (1928)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
October (1928, USSR)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
The Wind (1928)
1930
Earth (1930, USSR)
All of the above films are among the finest silent films ever made. Enjoy some silent movies soon.
NOTE: CHAPLIN’S MODERN TIMES released in 1936 featured some synchronous sound, bits of dialogue, sound effects and the song ‘Smile’.
CopyrightŠ Christopher J. Jarmick 2004
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Member: Chris Jarmick
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