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This site is dedicated to the preservation of memory of silent films. Although they were quite important in the evolution of cinema, they remain virtually forgotten nowadays. Since the best way to understand the present is taking an attentive look at the past, here you have some movies, pictures, interviews, etc. on silent cinema. Some occasional material on sound films will also be presented. I hope you enjoy getting to know a bit more about the beauty and sheer fun of these golden oldies.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Battle in the Clouds -1909
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Walter R. Booth
Writer: Walter R. Booth (screenplay)
Release Date: 29 December 1909 (USA)
Genres: Short | Fantasy | Sci-Fi
Also Known as: Der Luftkrieg der Zukunft Germany; The Aerial Torpedo UK (reissue title); The Battle in the Clouds USA; The Battle of the Clouds UK (alternative title)
Production Co: Urban Trading Company
Sound Mix: Silent
Color: Black and White
An inventor uses a wireless controlled flying torpedo to destroy enemy airships. This is a cracking little film from the pioneering days of cinema (just over a decade after the Lumiéres). It's not exactly science fiction, more a vision of what-might-be given the technology of the day. So we have fleets of airships bombing civilian targets, and an armoured car/tank firing ground-to-air missiles in an effort to destroy them.
Our hero has developed what we would now call a drone: a pilot-less aircraft capable of locking on to a target. He has proposed to the love of his life but her father turns him away. The girl's home is destroyed in the air-raid. Our hero rescues her and her father from the wreckage then returns to destroy the raiders with his new technology. He gets the girl, of course, but I'm not sure whether father was dead and out of the way or just willing to have a brilliant inventor for a son-in-law.
Of course the special effects are primitive but the shot of a burning church is still a distant ancestor of the destruction of the Empire State Building by Roland Emmerich. You can see the film at www.freemoviescinema.com. Have a look. It's worth a few minutes of your time.
Continuity: The burning fuse of one of the explosions near the armored car can be seen on the ground, before we see the streak that is supposed to be the aerial bomb hitting the ground.
An Interrupted Elopement - 1912
Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 15 August 1912 (USA)
Filming Locations: New York, USA
Production Co: Biograph Company
Director: Mack Sennett
Writer: S. Walter Bunting
Stars: Edward Dillon, Mabel Normand and William J. Butler
Genres: Short | Comedy
Runtime: 8 min (16 fps)
Sound Mix: Silent
Color: Black and White
Aspect Ratio: 1.33 : 1
Course à la saucisse - 1907
Country: France
Director: Alice Guy
Genres: Short
Also known as: The Race for the Sausage
Production Co: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont
The film consists of some sort of poodle or poodle-mix stealing a long, long coil of sausages from the butcher shop (though it looks more like a rope). Suddenly, everyone in town is chasing the dog--almost like the people in "The Gingerbread Man" story from our youth. This makes the film unusual for an early Gaumont film, as the scenes change a lot during the course of the film. Not surprisingly for the era, the camera is totally stationary and inter-cutting is used extensively--not a roving camera lens.
It's all very slapstick and frantic. All in all, it's a bit overacted but quite fun--sort of like a French version of a Keystone comedy.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A Trip To Mars - 1910
Country: USA
Language: English
Director: Ashley Miller
Release Date: 18 February 1910 (USA)
Production Co: Edison Manufacturing Company
By mixing two powders, a scientist invents a product which has the power to free from the law of gravity. First, the container in which the powder was thrown takes of. He then renews the experience with a chair: same result. Finally the scientist tries his invention on himself. He then escapes gravity and goes sailing up into the clouds...
Les Résultats du Féminisme -1906
Country: France
Release Date: 1906 (France)
Director: Alice Guy
Also known as: The Consequences of Feminism
Production Co: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont
Plot Keywords:
Futurism | Cross Dressing | Effeminacy | Flirting | Hatbox | Gender Roles | Seduction | Mason
This film is a tongue-in-cheek look at what COULD happen if women begin assuming male roles. Throughout the film, the men are very effeminate--wearing flowers in their hair, behaving as if they were gay and doing the housework. It's an interesting juxtaposition. What's also interesting is how the ladies respond. In a scene in a bar, the ladies make sexist advances at men who enter and they sit around drinking, smoking and carousing!
La Possession de l'enfant - 1909
Country: France
Release Date: 26 July 1909 (France)
Also known as: Custody of the Child
Production Co: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont
Director: Louis Feuillade
Stars: Renée Carl, Christiane Mandelys and Maurice Vinot
This Louis Feuillade film begins with a man gaining custody of his son. Why the mother loses custody is unknown, but the father is shown as rather cold and unforgiving. The child, though raised in luxury, is miserable and lonely. Later, the father takes the child to his mother's house and seems to forget the kid there! Soon, the mother takes the child home to raise herself. The father has a change of mind and looks for the kid. When he and the police find him with the mother, all is forgiven and the family becomes one once again.
Overall, the story is very, very simplistic and not especially believable. However, for 1909, this is exactly the sort of morality play that was typical and this film is a decent one from this period despite its shortcomings.
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