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.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Mud and Sand - 1922
Country: USA
Language: English (intertitles)
Release Date: 13 November 1922 (USA)
Director: Gilbert Pratt
Writer: Tom Miranda (titles)
Stars: Stan Laurel
Rhubarb Vaselino lives in a small village, when he and his friend, Sapo, enter a bullfighting contest, Sapo dies, but Rhubarb kills three bulls and becomes a local hero earning money. Two years later, he is living in Madrid as a national hero , when he becomes involved with Filet de Sol, and his lover finds out, he must fight the most deadliest in Spain, in the last bull fight of the season.
Photographie électrique à distance - 1908
Country: France
Also Known As: Long Distance Wireless Photography
Into a photography studio full of large fantastic machines steps an elderly couple. The bearded proprietor explains the equipment and gives them a demonstration: he starts machines whirring, and projects a painting of three women onto a large screen; suddenly the women begin to move. The customers are impressed. First the women sits in the special seat: she's projected onto the screen, and her good nature comes out in the laughing image. Then it's the man's turn, but the machine discloses a vastly different nature in him. Will his reaction threaten our proprietor's inventions?
Lady Windermere's Fan - 1925
Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 26 December 1925 (USA)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Writers: Oscar Wilde (play), Julien Josephson (adaptation)
Stars: Irene Rich, May McAvoy and Bert Lytell
Mrs Erlynne, the mother of Lady Windermere - her daughter does not know about her - wants to be introduced in society, so that she can marry Lord Augustus Lorton. Lord Windermere, who helped her with a cheque, invites her to his wifes birthday-party, but Lady Windermere thinks, she has reason to be jealous, so she decides to leave her husband and go to Lord Darlington, who is pining for her. Mrs Erlynne finds this out and tries to prevent her of this mistake, but her daughter leaves her fan in Lord Darlingtons residence.
Just Neighbors - 1919
Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 13 July 1919 (USA)
Suburban neighbors (Lloyd and Pollard) join together to build a garden shed, but through carelessness, wind up ruining the garden, as well as the laundry, which is drying in the yard. Further mayhem ensues when chickens are set loose.
Haxan - 1922
Country: Denmark | Sweden
Also Known As: Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages
Filming Locations: Copenhagen, Denmark
Director: Benjamin Christensen
Writer: Benjamin Christensen
Stars: Benjamin Christensen, Elisabeth Christensen and Maren Pedersen
The writer and director Benjamin Christensen discloses a historical view of the witches through the seven parts of this silent movie. First, there is a slide-show alternating inter-titles with drawings and paintings to illustrate the behavior of pagan cultures in the Middle Ages regarding their vision of demons and witches. Then there is a dramatization of the situation of the witches in the Middle Ages, with the witchcraft and the witch-hunts. Finally Benjamin Christensen compares the behavior of hysteria of the modern women of 1921 with the behavior of the witches in the Middle Ages, concluding that they are very similar.
Harakiri - 1919
Country: Germany
Also Known As: Madame Butterfly
Filming Locations: Decla Lot, Hagenbeck's Tierpark, Hamburg, Germany
Director: Fritz Lang
Stars: Paul Biensfeldt, Lil Dagover and Georg John
Harakiri is a silent, black and white film directed by Fritz Lang released in 1919. The inter-titles are in Dutch, however an English subtitle file (srt format) is muxed into the original mkv, and available separately as well. The subtitle source is unknown.
The source appears to be a VHS, the audio source and copyright is unknown. Quality is not the best.
The Buddah priest wants the Daughter of the Daimyo to become a priest at the Forbidden Garden. The Daimyo thinks, if he was in Europe, that his daughter should decide on her own, but he is denuciated and has to comit harakiri. She meets Olaf, a European officer, falls in love and marries him but after a few months he has to return to Europe. She gave birth to a child and is waiting for him, while he marries in Europe. When he comes back to Japan 4 years later, he is accompained by his European wife...
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