Crushes

I belong to an Internet group for lovers of silent film. For the most part, the group is pretty quiet. We get news of screenings worldwide from one member, and occasionally someone posts some news concerning silent film, but not much else, except for the recent flurry of excitement when the missing footage of Metropolis was discovered.

Last year, though, one of the members started a thread that became wildly popular. We were all to list our favorite "hot" silent stars. The key word was SHALLOW.

Responses came thick and fast. The men were listed first, until someone broke the ice and started listing women. Then the names came even faster. One member asked to be removed from the email list, as a result.

After doing a brief tally of the candidates, I discovered the winners among the men:

Richard Barthelmess and Rudolph Valentino. These two received the most mentions. Ronald Colman ran a respectable second, and Wallace Reid was third. Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd outstripped Douglas Fairbanks and fellow comedian Charlie Chaplin.

Among the women, the winner was clear:

Clara Bow. She received far more mentions than Greta Garbo, who, though on the list, lagged behind Corinne Griffith, Jobyna Ralston, and Pola Negri. Clara ranked above them all.

There were a few odd mentions, such as George O'Brien and Conrad Veidt. One member voted for Rin-Tin-Tin. The enthusiasm was something I haven't seen on the list before or since, at least until the Metropolis news, but at least one member didn't share the joy, as shown by this plaintive message:

"Will this thread ever die? It's like the time someone left their autoresponse on and flooded everyone's mailbox."

Marion's Wall

I wish Jack Finney were still alive. He was one of the funniest writers I've ever read, and another staunch fan of silent film.

I highly recommend his novel Marion's Wall - and no, I'm not getting paid to say this. I love it because it's funny, because it's nostalgic, because it speaks of a way of life that is long gone, and was long gone even at the time it was written, which was early in the 1970s. I won't go into a synopsis of the plot; you can find that on Amazon. I'll just say that it's a novel, not a work of non-fiction, but with a great deal of silent film history thrown in.

Another discovery

One of the marvelous things about silent film is that I'm always discovering a performer I'd never heard of before, but who is a joy to watch. Currently, my discovery is Elliott Dexter.

I ran across him when I was watching A Romance of the Redwoods on DVD. It's a vehicle for Mary Pickford (as Jenny), of course - it seems that most, if not all, of her films were - but he walks away with the show as a rough, dirty stagecoach robber who has stolen the identity of Jenny's murdered uncle. He walks with a menacing air; he casually burns his girlfriend's hand with the back of a cigarette when she reaches for his wallet; he coolly takes care of a fellow robber who has tried to cheat him; he threatens Jenny with a whip to intimidate her into maintaining the fiction that he is her late uncle, John Lawrence.

Jenny, of course, "tames" him; less than twenty-four hours later, he is clean, hair combed, and already showing signs of jealousy when she talks to another man. The transformation from hard-living, fast-shooting bandit to yes-dear character who decides to go straight is only believable thanks to Dexter's performance.

He looks to be about thirty in this film, which was released in 1917. This made it all the more surprising to discover - from the scant information I found on the Internet - that he was born in 1870. He must have been doing something right; even in the closeups, and in later films I've seen, he still looked much younger than he really was.

I watched Don't Change Your Husband, in which he played Jim, a loving but clueless, sloppy, scallion-scarfing husband whose wife decides to divorce him for a sweet talker who turns out to be a real jerk. Jim, desolate at his loss, starts working out, shaves off his mustache, and becomes far more presentable to his ex - but the real surprise, for her and for the audience, is the fact that Jim has far more character and determination than he has shown before. In The Whispering Chorus, he is an upstanding district attorney. Every time I see him, he's perfect for the role, but my favorite performance is still the one he gives in A Romance of the Redwoods.

I couldn't find much about him. Like so many other actors, he came to film from the theatre; he was married in 1916 and had a son, but the marriage didn't last; he made his first film in 1915, and his last in 1925; he died in 1941.

One taunting piece of information I did find, is that in 1916, he made a film called Daphne and the Pirate. I think you'll know which character he played. The other character was played by Lillian Gish. Anyone know where I can get a copy of it?

Spotlight: John Gilbert

John Gilbert is one of Hollywood's saddest stories, in my book. He was an immensely talented man, with incredible charisma and the seemingly effortless ability to get the viewer to watch him, to the exclusion of the other actors in the frame.

I saw Bardelys the Magnificent at the silent film festival this year. John Gilbert plays the title role, Bardelys, a 17th-century French aristocrat with an eye for the ladies. ALL the ladies. He is also very adept at getting out of these messy little entanglements without sorrow or hurt feelings, and he is completely believable at it. It was the first time I'd seen him in a comedy; the other films I've seen (such as The Big Parade) were dramas.

He was perfect. He reminded me of Douglas Fairbanks, but he was better. His classic stance - legs apart, hands on hips - is one that I've seen Fairbanks use, but John Gilbert would have you believe that he invented it. He doesn't appear to be taking himself too seriously, and that may be some of the charm of his performance and the film as a whole.

Watching a film like this is agonizing in the knowledge that John Gilbert would be gone from us approximately a decade later. I've read various stories about his fall from stardom with the advent of sound, and whatever the reason was, we can all see the effect. Rather than continuing as a leading man, he was relegated to minor roles in B films. No Lifetime Achievement Oscar, no awards from his contemporaries. No long, distinguished career.

In The Show, he truly shines as a dyed-in-the-wool jerk, a classic opportunist, who relentlessly schemes and manipulates to get ahead. I remember a scene where the leading lady (the ill-fated Renee Adoree) asks him plaintively if he's going to see a certain young woman (read: victim) that night. Gilbert glares at her and bites out a "Yes" that you can almost hear.

What a talent we lost! And how ironic that Gilbert spoke so eloquently at the funeral for his friend Valentino, little dreaming that he himself would follow in less than ten years' time.

I'll probably come back to this topic, too. It deserves more writing, more attention. Before I sign off, though, I'll just share with you some information I read recently: It seems that Flicker Alley is going to release a Gilbert double-feature DVD with Bardelys the Magnificent and Monte Cristo, sometime next year.

For more biographical info on John Gilbert, follow the link at the bottom of the page.

Dream Couples

We know of certain screen pairings. Gilbert and Garbo. Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky. Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor.

What of actors who never were a screen couple? With no regard to the actors' ability to costar (such as the ages of the parties, one of them having died early in his/her career, etc.), here are some of my dream pairings:

Lillian Gish and Rudolph Valentino. The "Latin lover" and the top film actress of all time. Imagine that!

John Gilbert and Olive Thomas. Olive had a tomboy quality that would have worked very well with Gilbert's strongly masculine presence. The fireworks would probably have caused the set to go up in flames.

Ronald Colman and Greta Garbo. As opposed to the fire-and-ice pairing she had with John Gilbert, I think Ronald would have made a marvelous leading man for her.

Richard Barthelmess and Gloria Swanson. Richard tended to look a bit uptight in some of his roles. I think Gloria might have loosened him up.


I know I'll think of more later. This will be an ongoing theme. One of the ongoing themes, I should say.

The Men of Griffith's Films

I got to thinking about some of the men who starred in Griffith's films in those early days. I've already posted about Walthall, Bobby Harron, and Bobby's brother John.

It's a sobering thing to think about. A fair number of the men who acted in his early films, died young or middle-aged:

Charles Avery (1873 - 1926). One of the original Keystone Kops. Suicide.

Elmer Booth (1882 - 1915). Booth and fellow Griffith actor George Siegmann were in a car driven by not-yet-famous director Tod Browning when Browning ran the car headlong into a moving train. Booth was killed instantly; Browning and Siegmann were seriously injured.

Thomas H. Ince (1882 - 1924). There's an interesting story. The official cause of death was listed as heart failure. However, Ince had been aboard the Oneida, the yacht belonging to William Randolph Hearst, for a birthday party (his own); rumors flew, and persist to this day, that Ince was actually shot by Hearst. The rumor is that Hearst's lover, Marion Davies, had been carrying on with fellow party guest Charlie Chaplin, and that the insanely jealous Hearst drew a gun on Chaplin, intending to kill him, only to miss and shoot Ince in the head. Since Ince's body was cremated, the story could never be disproven.

Owen Moore (1886 - 1939). Heart attack. He was Mary Pickford's first husband, and he died the same year, of the same ailment, as her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks.

Jack Pickford (1895 - 1933). Mary Pickford's younger brother. The cause of death was given as multiple neuritis, but Jack was also a heavy drinker and suffered from syphilis. His first wife, popular star Olive Thomas, died in Paris in 1920 at the age of 25, after swallowing mercury bichloride. Rumors of suicide persist, but it seems far more likely to me that she mistook the glass of the bichloride solution for ordinary water.

Wallace Reid (1891 - 1923). Cause of death given as influenza. Reid was a heavy drinker even before he was badly injured working on a film in 1919. A doctor was dispatched to the set to keep him doped up with morphine so he could keep working. Reid soon became hooked on the drug, and went into one sanitarium after another in fruitless attempts to kick the habit. His death (along with the Roscoe Arbuckle trial and the murder of director William Desmond Taylor) was one of the major scandals to rock Hollywood within a period of two years, helping to usher in the stifling Hays Production Code.

The Thousand Faces

Lon Chaney. Now, there was a silent performer for you.

I'm constantly amazed by the way he threw himself into his roles - a legless crime boss, a deformed opera fanatic, a tough Marine drill sergeant, a handicapped criminal. It's so easy, given his gift with makeup, to watch one of his films without realizing that he's even in it. It happened to me just last month: "What... Chaney was in that? What part did he play?"

I've noticed that looking at his eyes and nose help to identify him. Not always, but often.

Nomads of the North is interesting to me for his leading-man casting, the adorable baby animals, and a villain named Bucky. I'm sorry, folks, but a "Bucky" is not a villain. A guy named Bucky would be the butt of every joke in Canada. He would not be a murderous, obsessive fiend. He would avoid bars, avoid the lumber camps, and plant flowers in his mother's garden, while she sat on the front porch with a shotgun, ready and willing to chase away anyone who made fun of her darling boy.

He would not tangle with Chaney.

Chaney's film The Penalty is one of his most startling performances. No unusual facial makeup, but his legs are strapped behind him to simulate a legless character - the realistic nature of it will make your jaw drop, as will his ability to haul himself up a series of pegs in the wall, using only his hands. Douglas Fairbanks must have been envious.

What do I wish? That Chaney had lived much longer, and that we had been able to see him in more talkie roles. The one talking picture that he did make, suffers from the poor sound quality of the day, that made voices so irritating. He'd have been marvelous in a film noir, for example.

But, what we have is very good indeed. I maintain hope that we will, one day, be able to watch all of The Miracle Man and London After Midnight.

Leah Baird

I know virtually nothing about Leah Baird. The IMDb yields scant details; birth and death dates, name of spouse, and a very brief biography.

I, myself, have only seen one of her movies. It's a serial from 1918 titled Wolves of Kultur. (Yes, "kultur", not "culture".) Her character, Alice Grayson, becomes involved in an espionage plot, linked to WWI, in which she must defeat the bad guys and aid the war effort. She is joined by Bob (Charles Hutchison), taking on one after another of the evildoers.

The story isn't much. When one of the "Wolves of Kultur" is defeated, another member of the group takes his place. Alice and Bob are frequently captured, yet always manage to escape. Typical for a chapter serial, each installment ends with a cliffhanger.

It's addictive, though, even with the thin plot; you see the leads (and the supporting players) doing their own stunts. For Baird, this involved dealing with the long skirts and high-heeled boots of the era. Bob is less hampered by his clothing, of course, though his shoes couldn't have been convenient for scaling buildings or rocks, both of which he does here.

People are always being thrown, falling, or jumping into water, usually a river or the ocean. Alice and Bob shoot the rapids in a wooden canoe. Bob jumps on the top of a car, thunders down the road on a horse (with Alice keeping pace on another horse), and even jumps off a lighthouse in one scene.

These people could have been badly hurt, maimed, or killed, but they keep going, much like the characters they play. Watching it now, ninety years later, it doesn't appear that either of them thought of the possibility of injury. There's no hint of a "Wow! Look what I just did!" on anyone's face. There's a grim determination at work here.

Baird's character is a far cry from the helpless female so popular in fiction at the time. Yes, she does get kidnapped; yes, she is at risk often. It's a serial, after all. She also keeps going regardless of the threat to her personal safety, even regardless of the threat to Bob's personal safety. When, at the end of the serial, Bob is facing death at the hands of the last of the evil group, it is Alice - wandering through the woods in search of him - who blows away the villain with a rifle.

Here's to Leah Baird, pioneer stuntwoman.

Bettina's Substitute

I loved this film. It's a 1912 comedy about a woman named - naturally - Bettina.

Bettina has an office job, working for a lecherous old coot who is more than twice her age. Bossman takes advantage of his position to hit on Bettina - pinching her cheeks and invading her personal space.

This was 1912, though. The term "sexual harassment" didn't exist, and wouldn't for decades yet. What was a woman of that time to do, when protesting could cost her her job? What if she were not only fired, but unable to find employment due to her former boss' influence? There was no legal recourse, and it would have been her word against his.

Bettina, depressed, tells her mother and her fiance, Billy, what has happened. There are no titles to show what Billy is saying, but the meaning is clear; he shakes his fists angrily, ready to storm off to Bettina's workplace and give the boss what for.

Bettina has a better idea. A much better idea. She calms Billy down, and (again, no title cards) begins to explain to him. Billy's response is enthusiastic, and I knew, watching it, what she was suggesting.

I was right. The next time we see Billy, he's outfitted in a dress. Bettina hands him a wig and a hat, turning him into a solidly-built, unattractive female. With the black eyeliner that was so common in film makeup of those days, of course. She hands him a note explaining that she is sick, and has sent her friend to work for her until she can return to the office.

Billy charges off and presents himself to Mr. Lecher, who takes about five seconds to start up with Billy - using the same tactics he used with Bettina; he's not very original. Billy promptly turns the tables, pinching the boss' cheeks and chasing him around the office until the boss, terrified, flees the building and takes a cab (horse-drawn!) back to his house. Unknown to him, Billy is going along for the ride, clinging to the back of the cab.

Once home, Billy follows the boss inside, to find him talking to his wife. Shock! Horror! Oh, how DARE he put the moves on Billy when he's a married man! And just look at his wife! How on earth did he end up with her? After raising hell, Billy storms out, pausing in the doorway with a "humph!" expression and a stamp of the foot.

After his departure, of course, Mrs. Boss proceeds to beat the hell out of her husband.

AFTERMATH: Bettina returns to work, with Billy - this time dressed in his own clothing. She shows her new ring to her boss, who duly admires it, then introduces him to Billy. After shaking hands, Billy pulls out the wig and puts it on, to the horror of the boss. After having a hearty laugh at his expense, the two depart.

One of the things that really impressed me about this film was Billy's eagerness to help his girlfriend, even including taking her place at the office, in drag. There is no hint of Billy worrying that his family or friends might see him. He doesn't think that anyone might question his sexual orientation. Dress like a woman? Well, why not? He agrees instantly, very gung ho about the whole thing, and he plays his part beautifully.

It's one of those intriguing windows into the past. What of all the women out there who didn't have a Billy on their side? And how many men outside of fiction would really be willing to defend their girlfriends in this manner? None, probably. The film allows us to imagine that such things could happen, but audiences know that they didn't. My hope is that Bettina's Substitute shed light on some of the problems facing working women (O. Henry also wrote about it), and helped to implement some changes in the workplace.

Pordenone Silent Film Festival

For strictly tourist purposes, Pordenone doesn't have much to offer. It's in a convenient location - Venice and Trieste are easily accessible by train - but apart from the city's original center, the place is modern and featureless.

Every October, though, Pordenone is heaven for lovers of silent film. Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (The Silent Film Festival) has been held there every year since the early 1980s. It started small and got big. The festival is attended by historians, film professors, documentarists, archivists, preservationists, businesspeople who deal in silent film, and others who have a real passion for the medium.

The range is breathtaking. Every year, the festival manages to come up with something new, something once thought lost. Every year, people from around the world flock to Pordenone, filling the hotels and the screening rooms, to get a sight of the latest offerings. The festival receives some funding from the Italian government, and has several contractual partners, so the cost is low. 30 euros buys you entrance to all the films except the two special screenings, for which you have to buy a ticket. You receive a folder full of information, a catalog of all the films being shown at the festival (complete with articles and synopses of the films), a program, free Internet access (both Wi-Fi and via computers provided by the Giornate), advice, help with lodging, and a hell of a good time.

The movies are shown all day, for eight days straight. Not surprisingly, this leads to extreme sleepiness fairly early in the game, and the films are often punctuated by the sound of a loud snore somewhere in the audience, followed by a ripple of laughter. I'm still waiting to hear a really good, loud, chainsaw-style snore.

Most of the films can't be seen anywhere else. The Giornate deals with the Library of Congress, various film archives, and private collectors to get the films for its program. Some classics are shown, often with a live orchestra (these are the "special screenings" mentioned above). Most, though, are films thought to have been lost, or films of whose existence no one knew, until they were brought to light.

Live music accompanies all the movies; piano, violin, full orchestra, and this year, a harp. The musicians are incredible. They make it up as they go along, never having seen the films before. They do this every day at the festival, and some of them do it year-round. The scores always fit, too. Someone remarked after one screening this year, that he wished the live score had been taped for the film; he couldn't imagine any other score being put on it.

We get together and talk. We talk about the movies we've seen, the ones we're going to see, and the ones we missed because we had to make the difficult decision between two movies that were being shown at the same time, in two different locations. We grab bites in between screenings, stay up late, get up early, and repeat the process throughout the festival. Sometimes, as I mentioned above, we fall asleep. Actually, we always fall asleep. Everyone I know has at least one movie nap during the Giornate.

I've met many a fascinating person there, and when I go back, I can see all my festfriends again. For most of them, this is the only chance we have to see each other. There's nothing like getting together with a group of people who have a shared interest; in this case, the interest being somewhat less than common, it means all the more to me, and I think it does to them, too.

Bobby Harron, Early Hollywood Tragedy

Robert ("Bobby") Harron's life was almost literally a rags-to-riches story. He started working for Biograph Studios as a teenager, doing janitorial work and acting as messenger boy. Eventually, the up-and-coming D.W. Griffith decided to put Bobby - still in his teens - in front of the camera, often plastering a mustache on him to make him look older (before the age of twenty, he would play the part of a married man with a baby in The Battle of Elderbrush Gulch). He had an unusual face, with a high, somewhat bulging forehead; he grew into his looks and became a very effective leading man.

Bobby was close friends with the Gish family, and Lillian claimed that he and her sister Dorothy were a couple starting from the time he was fifteen and she was thirteen. The Biograph actors were like a family, and Bobby - one of the youngest members - was a favorite. He came from a large biological family, and helped to support them; his sister Tessie and brother John also became actors, both of them appearing in Hearts of the World (1919), in which Bobby played the lead opposite his by-then frequent leading lady, Lillian Gish.

Bobby's death in 1920 was sudden and mysterious. He was in New York for the premiere of Way Down East - starring Griffith's new "discovery", Richard Barthelmess - when he called the reception desk of his hotel and gasped out that he had shot himself. During a period of consciousness in the hospital, Bobby claimed that he had purchased a gun from a man who needed money, then put it in his jacket pocket and forgot about it. When he was taking the jacket out of the closet, the gun fell to the floor and discharged, the bullet penetrating Bobby's lung. In those days of no antibiotics, the wound was a death sentence.

It has been suggested that the wound was self-inflicted; evidently, Bobby had been keen to play the lead in Way Down East, and was depressed at being passed over for Griffith's latest star. However, when asked by his priest if he had shot himself deliberately, he denied it.

Griffith's cameraman, Billy Bitzer, stated that everything changed after Bobby's death. He had been so young, so enthusiastic when he started to work for Griffith, and suddenly, he was gone. An era had ended for Griffith, his actors, and the history of motion picture. Dorothy Gish, deeply in love with Bobby, was desolate.

The year before Bobby's death, his sister Tessie contracted the dreaded Spanish flu and died; Lillian Gish also fell gravely ill, but survived. John Harron would die of a sudden heart attack in 1939.

There's something very touching about Bobby; his youth, his eagerness, his acting ability. The knowledge that this man, who almost grew up in front of the camera, would die so young (he was only 27), makes his remaining work all the more poignant to me. Hearts of the World was a perfect showcase for him - well, for all the actors, really - and I wonder: What would he have done if he had lived? Would he have made the transition to talkies? What sort of future would he have had?

All unanswerable.

Profile: Lillian Gish

Where do you start with Lillian Gish? She was the leading lady of silent film, with a range and believability that are still unmatched.

Lillian and her younger sister, Dorothy (who was more famous for her comedic roles) went on the stage as children, to support the family after their father deserted them. While Mrs. Gish stayed at home and worked, Lillian traveled with an actress in the troupe who cared for her and watched over her, as did Dorothy. Her early exposure to the theatre would lay the foundations for her incredible film career.

Lillian and film grew up together, in a way; as she was traveling from city to city for her stage shows, the early films were being viewed avidly - the subject of the films didn't matter; they were moving pictures, and the public was fascinated by them. Growing to adulthood, Lillian and Dorothy absorbed the stage snobbery toward film, and neither of them could believe it when they saw another stage actress, their friend Gladys Smith, appearing in a short film. They rushed to tell their mother, who also knew the Smith family well; their mother remarked that times must be very bad indeed if Gladys now had to appear in films.

When the Gish sisters saw Gladys again, they questioned her about her career choice. Gladys urged both of them to audition for a film, overcoming no small resistance from all the members of the family. The promise of high wages helped to break them down, and Lillian and Dorothy agreed to meet D.W. Griffith, who had directed Gladys - now renamed Mary Pickford - in her early film appearances.

Griffith later told Lillian what a pretty picture she and Dorothy made on that day in 1912 when he first saw them; they were sitting together, and at first, he couldn't tell them apart. They made their first film appearance together - playing sisters, appropriately enough - and Lillian's film career, which would span an astounding 75 years, had begun.

In her autobiography, The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me, Lillian spent page after page extolling the virtues of D.W. Griffith. It is almost as much his biography as her autobiography, and I had the feeling, when reading it, that Lillian thought Griffith could do anything short of walking on water. His film innovations were detailed precisely; his accomplishments, his looks, his voice, his generosity, all were given their due.

Griffith was a real star-maker; he had a knack for bringing out the best in the people who worked for him. His talent was, of course, not infallible, but he did have a remarkable success rate. Lillian told of his demands on his cast. They took dancing lessons; rode horses; exercised regularly; took voice lessons; anything that might help them in their performances, they did - and, in Lillian's case, anyway, did gladly. These truly were golden days for film, when new techniques were being tried all the time, when the caste system had yet to establish itself, when actors thought nothing of having a leading part in one film, yet only appearing as an extra in the next film. Lillian's autobiography dwells upon the excitement of those early days, in a long-gone clean and sparsely populated Southern California, when the actors worked long, brutal days to get the maximum of sunlight.

As Griffith's films became more popular, so too did his actors. Mary Pickford left him early, having demanded and found higher pay elsewhere; Walter Miller made his last Griffith film in 1913; Henry B. Walthall left the fold after Birth of a Nation; Blanche Sweet was offered a lucrative deal by another studio, and Griffith himself told her she should take it. Lillian and Dorothy stayed on, as did Robert Harron, growing increasingly famous.

Lillian became the leading lady of Birth of a Nation, True Heart Susie, A Romance of Happy Valley, Broken Blossoms, and Way Down East, among others. Her talent shines through in every performance, regardless of the story. As the abused young girl, Lucy, in Broken Blossoms, the expressions crossing her face upon being given a doll by her Chinese admirer are mesmerizing; her eyes widen slightly when she realizes that the doll's arms and legs move, she gives an approving nod, then remarks "Yep," before cuddling the already-beloved gift. Later in the film, the harrowing scene where Lucy has locked herself in the closet in a vain attempt to escape her murderous father, is almost too painful to watch; Griffith was in tears at the end of it.

Lillian, with her fragile beauty and tiny frame, looked far too delicate to endure more than a gentle breeze blowing upon her. In reality, she was one of the toughest, and likely the most dedicated, performer in film. Way Down East contains the famous scene where Lillian's character, Anna, faints and is carried down a river on an ice floe, headed for the waterfall. Lillian was lying on the ice wearing a thin dress and a cape, with much of her hair and one hand immersed in the water. For the rest of her life, she had problems with her right hand. In La Boheme, to make her character's death scene more realistic, she went without food for three days; her gasping, wide-eyed performance is almost unbearably true.

This was the reality of women in film; onscreen, they were portrayed as weak, frail creatures who fainted at the drop of a hat. Women in silent films were easy to kidnap; the villain simply threw a sheet or a coat over them, and they were out for a week or so. Lillian was living proof of what a woman could endure. She wasn't the only one - Leah Baird, Pearl White, and Miriam Cooper were all strong, athletic, daring women - but she is remembered by more people today.

It was Griffith who made the break with Lillian, after Orphans of the Storm, and she, devastated, began to work with other directors, including King Vidor and Victor Sjostrom (who went by the name of "Seastrom" when he worked in Hollywood). Vidor directed La Boheme, and Lillian claimed that her leading man, John Gilbert, proposed to her after the film's premiere; her secretary claimed that Vidor fell in love with her, too.

She spent most of her time in plays after the advent of talkies, only making the occasional film. One triumphant role was that of Miss Rachel in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, in which tiny, waiflike Lillian faces down and defeats the psychotic - and twice as big - Robert Mitchum with a rifle. She is clearly a force to be reckoned with, and my feeling is that this character came closest to the person she really was.

Lillian, then in her nineties, made her last film in 1987, The Whales of August. Her costar was another screen legend, Bette Davis, who actually looked older than Lillian, despite being young enough to be her daughter (they played sisters in the film). The supporting cast included Vincent Price, Ann Sothern, and Harry Carey, Jr. Price's wife heard that the working title of the film was Alive; she said that, considering the cast, the title should have been Still Alive?

It was Lillian's last shot at an Oscar, but she wasn't even nominated. When Ann Sothern expressed her sympathy, Lillian responded, "It could have been worse. Suppose I'd been nominated and lost to Cher?"

Henry B. Walthall - Much More than the "Little Colonel"

The image at the left shows Walthall before he performed in Birth of a Nation, the most (in)famous film he made with director D.W. Griffith.

Walthall started on the stage; when the "flickers" gained popularity, he had the then-typical stage actor's disdain for this low, cheap form of entertainment.

Eventually - like so many other stage performers - he was enticed to try his luck in film, joining Griffith's stable of actors and making his film debut in the short feature A Corner in Wheat, in 1909. He found role after role with Griffith; sometimes as a leading man, sometimes in a supporting role, sometimes as an extra. This was standard practice with all the actors in the Griffith stable, as a matter of fact.

Walthall, one of the first film stars, had an amazing ability NOT to overact for the camera, a common failing amongst the largely stage-trained actors of the day. Very few people realized the sensitivity of the camera lens, and they tried to play to the back row - using exaggerated gestures and facial expressions, which were laughable on screen. Griffith was adept in getting from his actors the sort of low-key mannerisms that this new medium demanded, and as with so many other actors who worked with him, he struck gold with Walthall.

From 1909, when he made his film debut, to 1915, when he left Griffith, Walthall made a startling number of films. Audiences demanded ever more of this new form of entertainment, and the cameras ground constantly to turn out picture after picture. Walthall's costars were a stupendously talented group: Lionel Barrymore, Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, Mary Pickford, Walter Miller, Bobby Harron, and the best female star Griffith ever had, Lillian Gish. Walthall was adept in any role he was given, from honorable gentleman to fallen idealist to bereaved father to weakling brother to murdering nephew. Some of his best work was showcased in such films as The Avenging Conscience, Death's Marathon, and The Burglar's Dilemma.

It was Birth of a Nation, of course, that would leave a lasting impression on moviegoers then and now, and despite the often repellent subject matter, Walthall's performance as Ben Cameron, the "Little Colonel" is hard to beat. The scene in the hospital, where Cameron is looking intensely at love interest Elsie Stoneman, has lost none of its heat in more than 90 years.

Lillian Gish, in her autobiography, only mentions Walthall a few times. She remembered that during the shooting of Home, Sweet Home, when she and Walthall were suspended by wires and suffering severe discomfort while Griffith and the cameraman argued over how to shoot the scene, Walthall didn't raise his voice or complain - "he simply fainted and hung there limply." She also states that Walthall had a drinking problem, and that while they were shooting Birth of a Nation, a bodyguard had to be hired to keep him sober and on the set on time. Could this be the reason why he left Griffith after this film?

Walthall remained a performer in constant demand in his post-Griffith period; one costar who achieved cinematic immortality was Lon Chaney. Year after year, the work came in, and Walthall took it. During this time, he and his first wife divorced, and he remarried. He and his second wife had a daughter, Patricia, Walthall's only child.

In 1926, he found himself working once again with his most famous leading lady, Lillian Gish, in The Scarlet Letter. Walthall played her brooding, intense husband, a role he would recreate in the 1934 talkie version, this time starring Colleen Moore.

By the time the talkies came out, Walthall was no longer a leading man. His fine, resonant, stage-trained voice allowed him to make the transition to sound film easily. He continued his film work in supporting parts, but he never stopped working. One of his last film roles showcased him with another silent film star, Ronald Colman, in A Tale of Two Cities (1935). Walthall played Dr. Manette, the unbalanced father of the heroine of the piece.

The following year, when shooting China Clipper (an early Humphrey Bogart film), Walthall collapsed on the set, dying a few days later. The cause of death was given as "influenza and a nervous condition". I have to wonder if his constant work was also a factor. He was 58 years old.

As a sad footnote, one of Walthall's costars from his Griffith days, Walter Miller, became a bit player in films as the 1930s wore on. Miller had a small role in China Clipper as well. Four years later, Miller himself would collapse on the set of another film - of a heart attack - and die later.

To see some of Walthall's talent, take a look at this video on YouTube.

Landscapes

One of the fascinating things about silent film is the look of the land. Films could be, and were, shot outside with no worries about sound (and much less traffic than now), and they provide a look into the cities and countryside of the past.

It's hard to imagine, now, Los Angeles with streetcars, or New York City, for that matter, but there it was. The streets look miles wide; dusty, unpaved, with those now-antique cars moving along them at a pace that would barely be tolerated today. Horse-drawn carts still have a place amidst the motorized traffic. Everything looks so much bigger than the cityscapes of today.

The Los Angeles of, say, 1910 looks nothing like the sprawling monster city that it would become. The coastline is largely empty; the buildings are only around ten stories high, if that; people can ride horses down the street and hitch them up when they go indoors. The early films of D.W. Griffith show areas that have long since been swallowed by urban sprawl. Some of them, no doubt, have turned into high-crime districts.

But not in 1910. Not yet; not before two world wars had blasted the innocence from the faces shown on the screen. Southern California was still a place for people to visit - and move - due to the climate, the almost-constant sunshine that still reflects from the objects in the flickers that survive. There were many places to have a private ranch, with no one within miles of you. It was a town/city of neat little houses, covered with flowers, and the front porches that hardly anyone builds these days. Vandalism is rarely seen, and spray paint hasn't made its ugly mark.

One of the joys of watching a pre-WWI movie made in Europe, is to discover just how the cities looked at the time. Buildings that have long since been destroyed are still intact and in use, with no steel-and-glass monstrosities towering uncomfortably over the older neighboring buildings. Paris, Berlin, London - they are all as they had been for centuries.

Greetings, one and all! Welcome to my brand-new blog about silent film.

I'll be posting whatever I feel like posting on this topic, so I hope you'll bear with me if I ramble or if I suddenly go off on a tangent, as I am wont to do.

I'm not involved with any archives, restoration companies, or universities; I'm just someone who has a passion for silent film. Though, I hasten to add, I can be involved with any of the aforementioned groups, not to forget documentarists, authors, and the like. Yes, if you have work for me, I'm willing to do it!

Stay tuned for further updates.