Pictures and the Picturegoer (1915), Photoplay (1921) and A Scena Muda (1921)
That post on the appearance online of the George Eastman House journal Image made me think that it would be useful to have a round-up of those silent film journals that are available on the Web. Though few of the leading journals of the period have digitised, given the specialised nature of the subject we’re not doing too badly. Note that the range of years and the number of issues refers to what is available online, not necessarily what was originally published.
- Bollettino di informazioni cinematografiche
Country: Italy
Years: 1924-25
Number: 8 issues
Description: Pittaluga film company journal with information on films available for showing (no illustrations)
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Bollettino edizioni Pittaluga
Country: Italy
Years: 1928-29
Number: 6 issues
Description: Pittaluga film company journal, with full page illustrations
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Bollettino staffetta dell’ufficio stampa della anonima pittaluga
Country: Italy
Years: 1929-31
Description: Bulletin for the Pittaluga film company
Number: 23 issues
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Cinéa
Country: France
Years: 1926
Number: 81 issues
Description: Intellectual magazine discussing film art and culture
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Cinearte
Country: Brazil
Years: 1926-1942
Number: 561
Description: Film fan magazine, with news, reviews, photographs, gossip, advertisements etc.
Available from Biblioteca Digital das Artes do Espetaculo
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Cinéma: annuaire de la projection fixe et animée
Country: France
Years: 1911-1914
Description: Photography and film journal
Number: annual volumes for what was originally a photography journal
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Al cinema: settimanale di cinematografia e varietà
Country: Italy
Years: 1922-30
Number: 439 issues
Description: Weekly film magazine with stories, features, illustrations
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Cine Mondo: rivista quindicinale illustrata de cinema
Country: Italy
Years: 1927-31
Number: 102 issues
Description: Film trade journal
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Ciné-schola. Bulletin de la Ligue pour l’enseignement par la cinématographie
Country: France
Years: 1922
Number: 2 issues
Description: Bulletin covering the use of film in education
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Eco film: periodico quindicinale cinematografico
Country: Italy
Years: 1913
Number: 4 issues
Description: Film trade journal
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - The Era
Country: UK
Years: 1838-1900
Number: Weekly issues to the end of 1900
Description: Theatre trade journal which reported regularly on film exhibition from 1896 onwards
Available from: British Newspapers (subscription service only)
Format: JPEG
More information: Bioscope guide - Figure mute: rivista cinematografica
Country: Italy
Years: 1919
Number: 1 issue
Description: Film trade journal with characteristic advertisements
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Filmnyheter
Country: Sweden
Years: 1923
Number: 8 issues
Description: A.V Svensk Filmindustri film company journal
Available from: Virtual History Film
Format: JPEG
More information: - Films Pittaluga: rivista di notizie cinematografiche: pubblicazione quindicinale
Country: Italy
Years: 1923-25
Number: 20 issues
Description: Pittaluga film company journal
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Hebdo-film. Revue indépendante et impartiale de la production cinématographique
Country: France
Years: 1916, 1917, 1930, 1933, 1934
Number: 149 issues
Description: Film trade journal
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers
Country: USA
Years: 1930-62
Number: 32 annual volumes (plus synopses of papers 1916-1930)
Available from: Internet Archive
Description: Film technicians’ journal with many key papers on motion picture technology
Format: PDF, DjVU and TXT
More information: Bioscope guide - Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly
Country: UK
Years: 1890s (when journal was Optical Magic Lantern Journal), early 1915, 1943-mid-1954, 1955-1971
Number: This is an index to the journal only, and does not include the text of articles
Description: One of the two leading British film trade journals of the silent era
Available from: The British Cinema History Research Project
Format: Filemaker database
More information: BCHRP website - Il Maggese cinematografico: periodico quindicinale
Country: Italy
Years: 1913-15
Number: 46 issues
Description: Film journal with information on new releases
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - Mon Ciné
Country: France
Years: 1922-25
Number: 43 issues
Description: French film fan magazine
Available from: Virtual History Film
Format: JPEG
More information: Movingmags.com - Motion Picture Classic
Country: USA
Years: 1920
Number: 1 volume covering monthly editions
Description: Film fan magazine
Available from: Internet Archive. See also the note at the end of this post
Format: PDF, DjVU, TXT
More information: Bioscope report - Moving Picture World
Country: USA
Years: 1913
Number: Volume covering weekly editions April-June 1913
Description: The leading American film trade journal of the early cinema period
Available from: Internet Archive. See also the note at the end of this post
Format: PDF, DjVU, TXT
More information: Bioscope report - Photoplay
Country: USA
Years: 1925-30
Number: 8 volumes, each covering six months of the weekly journal
Description: The great American film fan magazine of the silent era
Available from: Internet Archive. See also the note at the end of this post
Format: PDF, DjVU, TXT
More information: Wikipedia, Bioscope report - Picturegoer
Country: UK
Years: 1910s-1960s
Number: Front cover images only
Description: British film fan magazine
Available from: Picturegoer Online which links to sales of original copies. Searchable only by name of actor
Format: PDF, DjVU, TXT
More information: Wikipedia - Popular Film
Country: Spain
Years: 1926-1934
Number: 137
Description: Spanish film fan magazine
Available from: Biblioteca Nacional de España
Format: PDF
More information: San Francisco Silent Film Festival blog - Rassegna delle programmazioni
Country: Italy
Years: 1925-26
Number: 4 issues
Description: Pittaluga film company bulletin
Available from: Teca Digitale piemontese
Format: Java-based viewer
More information: Bioscope guide - The Reel Journal
Country: USA
Years: 1924-26
Number: 3 annual volumes of weekly journal
Description: American film exhibitors’ journal, precursor of Boxoffice
Available from: Internet Archive
Format: PDF, DjVU, TXT
More information: Boxoffice - Revue scientifique et technique de l’industrie cinématographique et des industries qui s’y rattachent
Country: France
Years: 1913-1914
Number: 1 issue
Description: Journal for the use of film in science and industry
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - A Scena Muda
Country: Brazil
Years: 1921-1955
Number: 1136
Description: Film fan magazine, with news, reviews, photographs, gossip, advertisements, including striking coloured cover photos
Available from: Biblioteca Digital das Artes do Espetaculo
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - La Scène
Country: France
Years: 1921
Number: 7 issues
Description: Magazine covering the social scene, including theatre, film, music, the Arts and sport
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Les Spectacles: Paraît tous les vendredis
Country: France
Years: 1921-1933
Number: 366 issues
Description: Entertainments journal
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - The Stage
Country: UK
Years: 1880-2007
Number: over 6,500 issues
Description: Theatre trade journal with substantial film coverage, particularly for the silent era
Available from: The Stage (subscription service only, but note that annual volumes are available for free for 1908-1919 from the Internet Archive)
Format: ActivePaper
More information: Bioscope guide - Theater und Film Kino
Country: Austria
Years: 1919
Number: 3 issues
Description: Austrian theatre and film magazine
Available from: Virtual History Film
Format: JPEG
More information: - Le Travail manuel, les sciences expérimentales et le cinéma à l’école
Country: France
Years: 1922
Number: 3 issues
Description: Film in science and education
Available from: Gallica
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide - Variety
Country: USA
Years: 1914-present day
Number: Reviews only, selection from each year
Description: Venerable American entertainment trade magazine
Available from: Variety
Format: PDF
More information: Bioscope guide
This list only covers those journals which were active during the silent era, so it leaves out journals from later eras such as Image or Film Studies which are now available online, purely online journals like Bright Lights Film Journal or Screening the Past, and modern journals available from academic subscription sites such as Project Muse or JSTOR. It also leaves out digitised newspapers, an updated round-up of which will be the subject of another post.
If anyone knows of a silent era journal available on the Web (free or subscription) that isn’t listed above, please let me know so I can make the guide comprehensive.
Update 1: This post has been revised to incorporate some corrections and additions, and to add short descriptions (please will readers of French, Italian and Portuguese correct me for any errors of interpretation). Additionally, I have been informed about those silent film journals which are available through Google Book Search in the USA only: there are five volumes of Photoplay (1915, 1916, 1917 (1), 1917 (2), 1920), plus Motion Picture News (Vols. 20-24, 1919) and Moving Picture World (Vol. 3, 1908; Vol 4, 1909; Vol. 17, issues 1-6, 1913; Vol. 18, issues 1-7; Vol. 18, issues 8-13, 1913; Vol. 19, issues 1-7, 1914; Vol. 20, issues 4-6, 1915; Vol. 25, issues 4-6, 1915; Vol. 25, issues 7-9, 1915).
Update 2 (18 March 2010): It can now be reported that the issues of Motion Picture Classic, The Moving Picture World and Photoplay on the Internet Archive are part of the Media History Digital Library project, organised by David Pierce. Read more about this major media journal digitisation project on the Bioscope, here.
Update 3 (25 March 2010): Acknowledgments to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival blog, which is doing its own survey of digitised silent film journals, for the discovery of Popular Film available among the extensive range of digitised Spanish and Spanish-language digitised journals on the Biblioteca Nacional de España site.
Update 4 (5 April 2010): And the numbers just keep on growing – a further eighty-three (!) silent film journals from the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Italy have been made available online. See this Bioscope post for details, and visit the new Journals section of the Bioscope Library for the complete list of all journals.
The Bioscope 
Thanks a lot for your great update.
Theater und Film Kino is not from France, but from Austria, I supppose.
Oops, it’s Austrian as you say. Correction made.
It’s disappointing that so many volumes of the Moving Picture World and Photoplay have indeed been digitized, but are simply “snippet” view or no view at all. I cannot understand why any library or archive would wish to limit access in this way, especially with pre-1923 volumes that are surely free of any copyright issues. If we could only lobby the libraries somehow, we could save all the trouble of having to re-digitize all these same periodicals just to gain access for researchers!
I though those Google Book Search offerings were fully available in the USA? I’m in the UK so I can’t tell. But do note the work of the Media History Digital Library in this post, https://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/photoplay-and-more/, which is not only digitising Photoplay and others but is looking at the issue of getting libraries to work collaboratively so that duplication of effort (i.e. re-digitisation) can be avoided.
Does anyone know if the old microfilm collection “Film Daily & Film Daily Yearbook The Complete Collection, 1915-1970” has been or will be digitized? Or is there any other way to access a full run of this publication? Online searches have been difficult, due to its changing titles, and I haven’t even been able to find whether any library in my (New England) area has the film.
Update: More online collections from Museo Nazionale del Cinema:
http://www.museocinema.it/collezioni/ricerche.aspx?l=en
Documents (films, actors, screenwriters, crews, production companies, distributors and movie theatres) and journals (15,000 magazine pages)
Thank you Teresa once again. The silent film journals from the Museo that are available online seem to be all those Italian titles listed above, but the other documentation is a treasure house all by itself and I’ll be writing a separate post on it very soon.
More added to the Bioscope’s new Journals section, courtesy of Bruce Long’s Taylorology site:
* Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, 1921: Nov., Dec.
* Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang, 1922: Jan., Feb., March, April, May, June, July, Aug.
* Film Fun: May 1922
* Filmplay: June 1922
* Movie Pictorial: Dec. 1915
* Movie Weekly, 1922: March 4, March 18, March 25, April 1, April 8, April 15
* Pantomime, 1922: Jan. 21, Feb. 18, March 11, March 18, March 25
* Screenland: April 1922
And there’s more – The Canadian French-language fan magazine Le Panorama, 22 issues 1919-1921, available from the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. With thanks to Louis Pelletier at Nitrateville for alerting me to this.
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Does anyone know if the old microfilm collection “Film Daily & Film Daily Yearbook The Complete Collection,
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