Silent Beauties

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.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Each to His Kind - Edward LeSaint - 1917

Down to the Sea in Ships - Elmer Clifton - 1922

Ashes of Vengeance - Frank Lloyd - 1923

Another Man's Boots - William James Craft - 1922

Ace of Clubs (The) - J.P. McGowan - 1926

Saturday, April 19, 2014

It's a Gift (USA, 1923)

This is one of the most creative silent short comedies by Hal Roach studios and one of most famous films by Australian comedian Harry “Snub” Pollard (1889 – 1962).

An eccentric inventor, creatively named Pollard, lives in a house filled with his eccentric inventions. It is interesting to see that this film was made the year after Buster Keaton’s The Electric House (USA,1922), which also depicted a house full of gadgets. Was Keaton’s film an inspiration for this one? This is something that isn’t known.

But this film features something that wasn't in Keaton's film. While The Electric House focused on electricity, this film focuses on oil. A group of oil executives is trying to find a substitute for gasoline that is fireproof and non-explosive. It is very interesting to see that the challenge of finding alternative power sources has gone on longer than most people would imagine. There was an attempt to find a suitable gasoline substitute, but unfortunately the final result was an explosion. After that, the oil executives got to know that inventor Pollard had invented it and contact him without delay in order to schedule a demonstration.

Hal Roach’s short comedies were surely among the ones with funniest intertitles and this one does not disappoint the audience in this regard. After claiming that “Edison works twenty hours -sleeps four. Pollard’s hours are longer –sleeps twenty-four”. Yes, the comparison was made with famous American inventor Thomas Edison, who was still alive at that time.

We see Snub sleeping and his bedroom is full of hanging wires, almost as if his bed was placed in the middle of a spider web. There are all sorts of gadgets in his bedroom, including a machine to clean his feet with a feather and a razor, and a device to make his breakfast. There was even a real chicken laying eggs in a special place, so the eggs would fall directly in the pan and a toy cow that would provide him milk directly on a cup. Pollard even found a way to receive his correspondence directly in bed.

After a round of very creative invention-related gags, Pollard opens a letter where he is informed that the president of Onion Oil Co. would like Pollard to demonstrate his gasoline substitute.

After his blanket becomes a curtain and his bed becomes a fireplace, which are quite interesting gags to be seen, Pollard gets himself cleaned, get his hat among the flowers on the table and an intertitle mentions he has “en invention for every occasion”, which is something we cannot really deny. However, we must be aware to the fact that this same intertitle warns the audience that his inventions do not always work, which is something we will see with our own eyes right afterwards. Then we see something that resembles a car in a the shape of a pencil, but much smaller than the usual size of a car, leaving a garbage can that also serves as a garage. We will soon understand how it works.

Pollard gets a huge magnet from inside the car and sits down. When a car passes by, he uses the magnet. The magnet is attracted to a passing car, pulling Pollard's car behind it in one of the most iconic scenes in this Australian comedian's career. Sometimes the magnet harms the car which is pulling Pollard's car along, which is an obvious drawback to his invention and causes him some problems with the owners of other cars. Some extra objects on the street are also accidentally pulled. This is exactly what happens when a garbage can where a police officer was sitting ends up being unintentionally pulled, which causes a chase that worthy of being shown in a 1910s slapstick comedy by Keystone Studios. But the cop has no chance to get Pollard; after all, he was chasing a car on foot and the chase is disturbed when the garbage can comes loose and the policeman trips over it and falls. The cop gets to stand up and run again but he is finished for good after falling in a culvert hole in the middle of the street after Pollard's magnet had just pulled off the lid.

When Pollard drives by a lake he notices something unusual and approaches people to see what is happening. He realizes a guy is drowning and offers his waterproof shoes to save the guy. Yes, he had waterproof shoes inside of his car. After all, he could need them at any moment. Lol! We can also see that the car is small but it is possible to tuck many things inside of it. Unfortunately Pollard has to run away after realizing his invention was a flop and it wouldn’t really help rescuing the drowning man.

Pollard finally meets the oil executives and he claims his invention will solve their problem, so the invention is tested in some cars. They can move successfully at first, but after several minutes they explode so powerfully that the explosion impacts some nearby buildings. The damage is huge.

Once more our dear inventor has to escape in his peculiar car while being chased by a motorcycle. Will Pollard be able to run away? Of course he will. All he has to do to avoid his pursuer is push a button inside his car and fly away. This time his invention works and the film ends with Pollard flying away towards safety. What a creative film and what a creative end!

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Fatty Joins the Force (USA,1913)

American comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (1887 – 1933) started in films at Keystone studios in 1913. We can see he was already a skilled and mature comedian in his first year in films. Although he sometimes played the role of a grown-up baby who could not control his impulses, his roles and gags would only become more sophisticated and ellaborate as time passed, and the audience always laughed and rooted for his character. His potential was already evident at the very beginning of his screen career, as we can see in this cute little film.

Fatty is in a park with his sweetheart. A cop passes them by and sits besides a woman and his little daugther on a bench. While her mother talks to the policeman, the girl goes to play too close to the park’s lake. She slips and falls in the lake. Fatty and his sweetheat see everything. Fatty’s sweetheat makes him jump in the lake to save the girl, although he is afraid of doing so. In fact, Fatty ends up falling in the lake accidentally. Anyway, it does not matter what made him fall in the lake, as he actually saved the girl from drowning in the long run and, as an intertitle says: “It turns out to be the police commissioner’s child”. The girl is brought back to her family and Fatty is acknowledged as the hero who saved her. Being now a respected and admired man, he is invited to become a policeman and “the whole force does him honor”.

Fatty has his own uniform and it is time to go to the streets and perform his duty. However, he soon finds out things will not be as easy as he thought they would be. He is talking to his sweetheart when he sees some boys figthing. He tries to stop it, but one of the boys ended up accidentaly punching him and runs away immediately afterwards, leaving a virtually unconscious Fatty behind. Fatty is helped by his sweetheart and they both sit on a bench. Then, a group of boys start teasing Fatty by throwing stuff on him. He runs after the boys, but falls on the ground, and consequently falling behind and getting dirty. His sweetheart comes back home and Fatty decides to have a bath in the lake, leaving his cop uniform on the ground while he swims. But the worst is about to happen: The boys see him in the lake, find his clothes and decide to leave them somewhere else. After a while, his uniform is found by another guy, who takes it straight to the police station. The police officers recognize the uniform as being Fatty’s and assume he drowned.

Meanwhile, Fatty finds himself half naked and all alone. His situation worsens when two women see him and report to the cops they had seen a “wild man”, which make the cops chase Fatty. While the chase takes place, his sweetheat is leading a search in the lake with the purpose of finding Fatty or at least a clue to his whereabouts. Fatty tries to hide in vain and is caught and arrested by the cops. Fatty’s fellow policemen mourn his death. When the cops arrive in the police station bringing Fatty with them, it becomes obvious that Fatty is immediately recognized, even though he is dressed with rags. The other cops are not happy to see him again and throw Fatty in prison, probably because they thought he staged his own death on purpose.

The film finishes with Fatty crying in his cell. His experience as a policeman did not really leave good memories. We tend to feel sympathetic for Fatty; after all he was working in a job to which he had no previous formal training and ended up being a victim of unfavorable circumstances, rather than being a corrupt schemer. It is impossible not to compare the end of this film with the consequences of Virginia Rappe scandal that would engulf Fatty Arbuckle’s life in 1921. Therefore, this end is probably more disturbing and ironic now than it was for 1910s audiences.