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."