Silent Cinema Book

[Maurice Leakey]

Just bought a great book called "Silent Cinema", described as a Guide to Study, Research and Curatorship. Rather a lengthy expression, but it's a highly interesting book.

I usually collect hardback copies of my books, but at £81, as opposed to £20.87 for a softback, I bought the softback.

Click below to learn full details. The cover of the book shows a piece of 35mm silent film with what appears to be a coloured pattern. Actually it is a decomposed fragment of a 35mm nitrate positive copy of "King Lear", Vitagraph 1909.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/silent...9781911239130/



Maurice

[Douglas Meltzer]

Maurice,

I just ordered this book (softback). Thank you for the recommendation.

[Joe Caruso]

Thanks Maurice, Will splurge for the hardback - Cheers, Shorty

[Maurice Leakey]

Doug & Shorty
Whilst it's called Silent Cinema, it's more a history of the earlier days of professional cinema, and as an ex cinema projectionist, the book is of great interest to me.
Hope you enjoy it.


Maurice

[Melvin England]

Ironically, Maurice, the day you posted this, I had just started reading another book about silent cinema. It is a book that has been around since 1979 so many of you may have already read it as it was a tie in to a TV documentary I believe.

It is called "Hollywood: The Pioneers" by Kevin Brownlow.

I look forward to a wading through this one.....

[Dominique De Bast]

I love this book, Melvin (I have it in French ; the excellent tv serie has been broadcasted on French tv). Pictures are beautiful. I ordered dvds of the serie from the US (they are home made since I understand a new release cannot be made due to copyrights problems).

[Maurice Leakey]

Melvin and Dominique
I have a 16mm copy of "Hollywood Goes To War". one of the hourly parts of Kevin Brownlow's TV series for Thames Television. Very interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollyw...ish_TV_series)


Maurice

[Dominique De Bast]

You're lucky, Maurice ! I would never have thought that would be available on 16 mm !

The Wikipedia page says : "The series has seldom been released on home video formats, apparently due to the complexity of obtaining home video rights to all of the film clips used". I understood that the clips taken from the films were copyrights free (due to the age of the films) but that the studios are asking money for the interviews of the actors. If anyone knows more about that and about a possible future re-release of the serie... The same Wikipedia page says there is another serie called Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood that sounds more than interesting https://www.amazon.com/Cinema-Europe.../dp/6305837171

[Chris Bird]

Hollywood is a great series, directed by David Gill as well as Kevin Brownlow. After David died, I was lucky enough to work for Kevin for several years as his film editor and co-director. Any plans to release the series on DVD have always stalled due to the phenomenal cost of clearing all the film clips again (many are still in copyright). The interviews belong to Fremantle, who took over from Thames TV, and survive uncut in the National Film and TV Archive - we accessed them for the documentary Cecil B De Mille: American Epic, made for Turner, but shown on More 4 here.

Like Maurice, I also have a 16mm print of one of the Hollywood episodes, Hazards of the Game. I screened it just the other night, and am shortly going to list it for sale on the forum if anyone is interested.

[Gary Sayers]

'Hollywood - The Pioneers' is a superb documentary series. I know it came out on VHS in the USA some years ago (not sure about the UK) and can command quite a price when any come up for sale on ebay. It's been a few years now since Amazon put up a listing for a four DVD set that still hasn't been released (the listing is still there, so maybe there's hope it will one day be released).

For now though, last time I looked, the whole series is on youtube. If you've not seen it, you are missing a treat!

[Michael O’Regan]

This sounds like an interesting book. My favourite volume on the silent era is William Everson’s American Silent Film. Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By is always worth reading but I wasn’t as taken with it as many have been.

[Dominique De Bast]

[Melvin England]

Re my post of 17th October on this thread...

I am happy to say that I have just finished reading the "Hollywood:The Pioneers" book and could recommend it as "essential reading" for all lovers of the celluloid medium.

Brilliantly written throughout, I found that the most profound comment was kept for the very last page (p266) referring to the end of the silent era with sound potentially on the horizon, and made by film critic Cedric Belfrage which I quote below....

"After seeing "The Jazz Singer" I went home feeling sad, really. And I made my contribution by predicting that the talkies wouldn't last very long. The thing that made me so sad was that the international language was over. This was really a thing which nobody seemed to notice very much, but after all, the human species had lived on the face of the globe for thousands of years and there had never before been a language in which they could all speak to each other. It had been one of the great causes of all the wars and all the division that had taken place - and here we finally come to a language which could be shown everywhere, and which everyone could understand, and we were just blowing it up. And I still feel sad about it."


I'd like to take this opportunity of recommending two further books that I have read recently....

Silent Comedy by Paul Merton.

Yes, he of "Have I Got News For You" fame for our UK TV viewers. This is a wander through the early days of comedy focusing on the storylines of the comedies, together with studies of the main protagonists of the era, namely Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Semon, Langdon and others.

Buster Keaton, Cut To The Chase - A Biography by Marion Meade. Extremely interesting and in depth.


Here endeth the sermon !

[Ken Finch]

I have the book "Hollywood, the pioneers" and many others about the silent films. It was really Pathescope that sparked my interest in silent cinema plus the amateur film enthusiasts "Bible", "Amateur cine World". This led me to join "The Vintage Film Circle" run at the time by Ted Walker, and also "Group 9.5" shortly after they were both formed. I also have on VHS tapes recordings of Hollywood Europe and Hollywood France, Sweden and Germany which I recorded from the TV when they were broadcast. Fortunately I can still view these and many other old films I recorded over the years via the video projector and a VHS recorder. I wonder how many other members still use VHS tapes? Ken Finch