Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913)

The outstanding Flicker Alley 5-disc set Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913) is now published, and I have my copy. Naturally, it’s a sensational package. Put together by Eric Lange (Lobster Films) and David Shepard (Blackhawk Films) from the archival holdings from seventeen collections across eight countries, the elegantly-presented DVDs comprises 173 titles (including one unidentified fragment) - almost (though not quite) every extant Georges Méliès film, plus the Georges Franju 1953 film, Le Grand Méliès. The DVDs are region 0, NTSC format.

The set comes with a well-illustrated booklet, which has essays by Norman McLaren (something of a surprise - it’s a transcript of an audio recording he made for a conference he couldn’t attend) and a long piece by John Frazer on Méliès’ life and work, adapted by Shepard from a text first written by Frazer in 1979. The full list of titles is now available on the Flicker Alley site, but here’s The Bioscope’s version, with the titles in the chronological order in which they appear on the DVDs, with Star-Film catalogue number, original French title and English title.

1896
1 - Partie de cartes, une/Playing Cards
26 - Nuit terrible, une/Terrible Night, a
70 - Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin/Vanishing Lady, the
82 - Cauchemar, le/Nightmare, A

1897
96 - Château hanté, le/Haunted Castle, The
106 - Prise de Tournavos, la/Surrender of Tournavos, The
112 - Entre Calais et Douvres/Between Calais and Dover
122-123 - Auberge ensorcelée, l’/Bewitched Inn, the
128 - Après le bal (le tub)/After the Ball

1898
147 - Visite sous-marine du Maine/Divers at Work on the Wreck of the “Maine”
151 - Panorama pris d’un train en marche/Panorama from Top of a Moving Train
153 - Magicien, le/Magician, The
155 - Illusions fantasmagoriques/Famous Box Trick, The
159 - Guillaume Tell et le clown/Adventures of William Tell, The
160-162 - Lune à un mètre, la/Astronomer’s Dream, The
167 - Homme de têtes, un/Four Troublesome Heads, The
169 - Tentation de Saint Antoine/Temptation of St Anthony, the

Entrevue de Dreyfus et de sa femme à Rennes

1899
183 - Impressionniste fin de siècle, l’/Conjurer, The
185-187 - Diable au couvent, le/Devil in a Convent, The
188 - Danse du feu/Pillar of Fire, The
196 - Portrait mystérieux, le/Mysterious Portrait, The
206 - Affaire Dreyfus, la dictée du bordereau/Dreyfus Court Martial - Arrest of Dreyfus
207 - Ile du diable, l’/Dreyfus: Devil’s Island - Within the Palisade
208 - Mise aux fers de Dreyfus/Dreyfus Put in Irons
209 - Suicide du Colonel Henry/Dreyfus: Suicide of Colonel Henry
210 - Débarquement à Quiberon/Landing of Dreyfus at Quiberon
211 - Entrevue de Dreyfus et de sa femme à Rennes/Dreyfus Meets His Wife at Rennes
212 - Attentat contre Me Labori/Dreyfus: The Attempt Against the Life of Maître Labori
213 - Bagarre entre journalistes/Dreyfus: The Fight of Reporters
214-215 - Conseil de guerre en séance à Rennes, le/Dreyfus: The Court Martial at Rennes
219-224 - Cendrillon/Cinderella
226-227 - Chevalier mystère, le/Mysterious Knight, The
234 - Tom Whisky ou l’illusionniste truqué/Addition and Subtraction

L’Homme-orchestre

1900
243 - Vengeance du gâte-sauce, la/Cook’s Revenge, The
244 - Infortunes d’un explorateur, les/Misfortunes of an Explorer, The
262-263 - Homme-orchestre, l’/One-Man Band, The
264-275 - Jeanne d’Arc/Joan of Arc
281-282 - Rêve du Radjah ou la forêt enchantée, le/Rajah’s Dream, The
285-286 - Sorcier, le prince et le bon génie, le/Wizard, the Prince and the Good Fairy, The 289-291 - Livre magique/Magic Book, The
293 - Spiristisme abracadabrant/Up-to-date Spiritualism
294 - Illusioniste double et la tête vivante, l’/Triple Conjurer and the Living Head, The
298-305 - Rêve de Noël/Christmas Dream, The
309-310 - Nouvelles luttes extravagantes/Fat and Lean Wrestling Match
311 - Repas fantastique, le/Fantastical Meal, A
312-313 - Déshabillage impossible, le/Going to Bed under Difficulties
314 - Tonneau des Danaïdes, le/Eight Girls in a Barrel
317 - Savant et le chimpanzé, le/Doctor and the Monkey, The
322 - Réveil d’un homme pressé, le/How He Missed His Train

L’Homme à la tête en caoutchouc

1901
325-326 - Maison tranquille, la/What is Home Without the Boarder?
332-333 - Chrysalide et le papillon, la/Brahmin and the Butterfly, The
335-336 - Dislocation mystérieuse/Extraordinary Illusions
345-347 - Antre des esprits, le/Magician’s Cavern, The
350-351 - Chez la sorcière/Bachelor’s Paradise, The
357-358 - Excelsior!/Excelsior! - Prince of Magicians
361-370 - Barbe-Bleue/Blue Beard
371-372 - Chapeau à surprises, le/Hat With Many Surprises, The
382-383 - Homme à la tête en caoutchouc, l’/Man With the Rubber Head, The
384-385 - Diable géant ou le miracle de la madone, le/Devil and the Statue, The
386 - Nain et géant/Dwarf and the Giant, The

Voyage dans la lune

1902
391 - Douche du colonel/Colonel’s Shower Bath, The
394-396 - La danseuse microscopique, la/Dancing Midget, The
399-411 - Voyage dans la lune/Trip to the Moon, A
412 - Clownesse fantôme, la/Shadow-Girl, The
413-414 - Trésors de Satan, les/Treasures of Satan, The
415-416 - Homme-mouche, l’/Human Fly, The
419 - Équilibre impossible, l’/Impossible Balancing Feat, An
426-429 - Voyage de Gulliver à Lilliput et chez les géants, le/Gulliver’s Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants
No number - Sacre d’Edouard VII, le/Coronation of Edward VII, The
445-448 - Guirlande merveilleuse, la/Marvellous Wreath, The

1903
451-452 - Malheur n’arrive jamais seul, un/Misfortune Never Comes Alone
453-457 - Cake-walk infernal, le/Infernal Cake-Walk, The
458-459 - Boîte à malice, la/Mysterious Box, The
462-464 - Puits fantastique, le/Enchanted Well, The
465-469 - Auberge du bon repos, l’/Inn Where No Man Rests, The
470-471 - Statue animée, la/Drawing Lesson, The
473-475 - Sorcier, le/Witch’s Revenge, The
476 - Oracle de Delphes, l’/Oracle of Delphi, The
447-478 - Portrait spirite, le/Spiritualistic Photographer
479-480 - Mélomane, le/Melomaniac, The
481-482 - Monstre, le/Monster, The
483-498 - Royaume des fées, le/Kingdom of the Fairies, The
499-500 - Chaudron infernal, le/Infernal Cauldron, The
501-502 - Revenant, le/Apparitions
503-505 - Tonnerre de Jupiter, le/Jupiter’s Thunderbolts
506-507 - Parapluie fantastique, le/Ten Ladies in an Umbrella
508-509 - Tom Tight et Dum Dum/Jack Jaggs and Dum Dum
510-511 - Bob Kick, l’enfant terrible/Bob Kick the Mischievous Kid
512-513 - Illusions funambulesques/Extraordinary Illusions
514-516 - Enchanteur Alcofribas, l’/Alcofribas, the Master Magician
517-519 - Jack et Jim/Comical Conjuring
520-524 - Lanterne magique, la/Magic Lantern, The
525-526 - Rêve du maître de ballet, le/Ballet Master’s Dream, The
527-533 - Faust aux enfers/Damnation of Faust, The
534-535 - Bourreau turc, le/Terrible Turkish Executioner, The
538-539 - Au clair de la lune ou Pierrot malheureux/Moonlight Serenade, A
540-541 - Prêté pour un rendu, un/Tit for Tat

Voyage à travers l’impossible

1904
547-549 - Coffre enchanté, le/Bewitched Trunk, The
552-553 - Roi du maquillage, le/Untamable Whiskers
554-555 - Rêve de l’horloger, le/Clockmaker’s Revenge, The
556-557 - Transmutations imperceptibles, les/Imperceptible Transmutations, The
558-559 - Miracle sous l’Inquisition, un/Miracle Under the Inquisition, A
562-574 - Damnation du Docteur Faust/Faust and Marguerite
578-580 - Thaumaturge chinois, le/Tchin-Chao, the Chinese Conjurer
581-584 - Merveilleux éventail vivant, le/Wonderful Living Fan, The
585-588 - Sorcellerie culinaire/Cook in Trouble, The
589-590 - Planche du diable, la/Devilish Prank, The
593-595 - Sirène, la/Mermaid, The
641-659 - Voyage à travers l’impossible/Impossible Voyage, The
665-667 - Cascade de feu, la/Firefall, The
678-679 - Cartes vivantes, les/Living Playing Cards, The

1905
683-685 - Diable noir, le/Black Imp, The
686-689 - Phénix ou le coffret de cristal, le/Magic Dice, The
690-692 - Menuet lilliputien, le/Lilliputian Minuet, The
705-726 - Palais des mille et une nuits, le/Palace of the Arabian Nights, The
727-731 - Compositeur toqué, le/Crazy Composer, A
738-739 - Chaise à porteurs enchantée, la/Enchanted Sedan Chair, The
740-749 - Raid Paris - Monte-Carlo en deux heures, le/Adventurous Automobile Trip, An
756-775 - Légende de Rip Van Vinckle, la/Rip’s Dream
784-785 - Tripot clandestin, le/Scheming Gamblers’ Paradise, The
789-790 - Chute de cinq étages, une/Mix-up in the Gallery, A
791-806 - Jack le ramoneur/Chimney Sweep, The
807-809 - Maestro Do-Mi-Sol-Do, le/Luny Musician, The

1906
818-820 - Cardeuse de matelas, la/Tramp and the Mattress Makers, The
821-823 - Affiches en goguette, les/Hilarious Posters, The
824-837 - Incendiaires, les/Desperate Crime, A
838-839 - “Anarchie chez Guignol, l’”/Punch and Judy
843-845 - Hôtel des voyageurs de commerce ou les suites d’une bonne cuite, l’/Roadside Inn, A
846-848 - Bulles de savon animées, les/Soap Bubbles
849-870 - Quatre cents farces du diable, les/Merry Frolics of Satan, The
874-876 - Alchimiste Parafaragaramus ou la cornue infernale, l’/Mysterious Retort, The
877-887 - Fée Carabosse ou le poignard fatal, la/Witch, The

L’Tunnel sous la Manche ou le cauchemar anglo-français

1907
909-911 - Douche d’eau bouillante, la/Rogues’ Tricks
925-928 - Fromages automobiles, les/Skipping Cheeses, The
936-950 - Tunnel sous la Manche ou le cauchemar anglo-français, le/Tunnelling the English Channel
961-968 - Eclipse de soleil en pleine lune/Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and Moon, The
1000-1004 - Pauvre John ou les aventures d’un buveur de whisky/Sightseeing through Whisky
1005-1009 - Colle universelle, la/Good Glue Sticks
1014-1017 - Ali Barbouyou et Ali Bouf à l’huile/Delirium in a Studio
1030-1034 - Tambourin fantastique, le/Knight of Black Art, The
1035-1039 - Cuisine de l’ogre, la/In the Bogie Man’s Cave
1044-1049 - Il y a un dieu pour les ivrognes/Good Luck of a Souse, The
1066-1068 - Torches humaines/Justinian’s Human Toches 548 A.D.

1908
1069-1072 - Génie du feu, le/Genii of the Fire, The
1073-1080 - Why that actor was late
1081-1085 - Rêve d’un fumeur d’opium, le/Dream of an Opium Fiend, The
1091-1095 - Photographie électrique à distance, la/Long Distance Wireless Photography
1096-1101 - Prophétesse de Thèbes, la/Prophetess of Thebes, The
1102-1103 - Salon de coiffure/In the Barber Shop
1132-1145 - Nouveau seigneur du village, le/New Lord of the Village, The
1146-1158 - Avare, l’/Miser, The
1159-1165 - Conseil du Pipelet ou un tour à la foire, le/Side Show Wrestlers
1176-1185 - Lully ou le violon brisé/Broken Violin, The
1227-1232 - The Woes of Roller Skates
1246-1249 - Amour et mélasse/His First Job
1250-1252 - Mésaventures d’un photographe, les/The Mischances of a Photographer
1253-1257 - Fakir de Singapour, le/Indian Sorcerer, An
1266-1268 - Tricky painter’s fate, a
1288-1293 - French interpreter policeman/French Cops Learning English
1301-1309 - Anaïc ou le balafré/Not Guilty
1310-1313 - Pour l’étoile S.V.P./Buncoed Stage Johnnie
1314-1325 - Conte de la grand-mère et rêve de l’enfant/Grandmother’s Story, A
1416-1428 - Hallucinations pharmaceutiques ou le truc du potard/Pharmaceutical Hallucinations
1429-1441 - Bonne bergère et la mauvaise princesse, la/Good Shepherdess and the Evil Princess
No number - unidentified film

1909
1495-1501 - Locataire diabolique, le/Diabolic Tenant, The
1508-1512 - Illusions fantaisistes, les/Whimsical Illusions

1911
1536-1547 - Hallucinations du Baron de Münchausen, les /Baron Munchausen’s Dream

1912
Pathé - A la conquète du pôle/Conquest of the Pole, The
Pathé - Cendrillon ou la pantoufle merveilleuse/Cinderella
Pathé - Chevalier des neiges, le/Knight of the Snow, The

1913
Pathé - Voyage de la famille Bourrichon, le/Voyage of the Bourichon Family, The

Almost needless to say, the quality of the digital transfers is excellent, sometimes startlingly so. There are fifteen examples of beautiful hand-colouring. Many musicians have provided scores, making the DVD a fascinating demonstration in itself of different approaches to the task of accompanying Georges Méliès (even if, for myself I find the American taste for organ accompaniment baffling). They are Eric Beheim, Brian Benison, Frederick Hodges, Robert Israel, Neal Kurz, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Alexander Rannie, Joseph Rinaudo, Rodney Sauer and Donald Sosin. Some of the films come with Georges Méliès’ original English narrations, designed to be spoken alongside the films, and here are spoken by Serge Bromberg and Fabrice Zagury (with some rather quaint mangling of the English language in places).

Georges Méliès is confirmed here as among the pre-eminent artists of the cinema, perhaps the most exuberant of all filmmakers. The films display imagination, wit, ingenuity, grace, style, fun, invention, mischief, intelligence, anarchy, innocence, vision, satire, panache, beauty and longing, the poetry of the absurd. Starting out as extensions of the tricks that made up Méliès’ magic shows, to view them in chronological order as they are here is to see the cinema itself bursting out of its stage origins into a theatre of the mind, where anything becomes possible - a true voyage à travers l’impossible, to take the title of one of his best-known films. The best of them have not really dated at all, in that they have become timeless, and presumably (hopefully) always will be so. Méliès in his lifetime suffered the agony of seeing his style of filmming turn archaic as narrative style in the Griffith manner became dominant, but we can see now that is his work that has truly lasted. The films will always stand out as showing how motion pictures, when they first did appeared, in a profound sense captured the imagination. And there is that consistency of vision that confirms Méliès as a true artist with a body of work that belongs in a gallery - or in this case a boxed set of DVDs - for everyone to appreciate.

What a great publication this is. Every good home should have one.

Women silent filmmakers in Britain

I’ve just uploaded a revised version of my filmography, Women Silent Filmmakers in Britain, onto my personal site. The story behind this was first reported in the Women behind the camera post. Essentially it’s a filmography of women directors, producers, editors, scriptwriters and camera operators active in Britain in the silent. It’s still very much a work in progress, and any comments or corrections are most welcome.

Electric Salome

Princeton University Press

Electric Salome is the title of a recent book by Rhonda K. Garelick, which is her term to describe Loïe Fuller (1862-1928), one of the key performance artists of the late-19th/early 20th centuries. Fuller was a pioneer of modern dance, who made use of modern stage technologies of lighting and colour to create startling visual effects, particularly through her Serpentine Dance, where her swirling dresses combined with changing colour lighting to create haunting, phantasmagorical effects. She was beloved by artists and poets - Mallarmé, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin - and became the subject of early filmmakers.

Loïe Fuller, a 1902 portrait by Frederick Glasier, from www.shorpy.com

Garelick’s book is strong on Fuller’s position as a figure of modernism and as a key figure in modern dance. It is, however, disappointingly weak on her early film appearances, reducing mention of these to a misleading footnote. There is much confusion over Fuller’s early film work, as she had many imitators - on stage and on film - and early films of skirt dancers are often mistakenly identified as her (see, for example, the site www.edisonfilm.com, which erroneously claims to show Fuller in a Edison film, though she never made a film for Edison).

For the record, these are the known films that were made of (or by) ‘La Loïe’:

Danse Serpentine (Lumière cat. no. 765, 1896) [extant]
La Loïe Fuller (Pathé, 1901) [extant]
Loïe Fuller (Pathé, 1905, coloured) [extant]
Le Lys de la vie (The Lily of Life) (1920) [extant]
Vision des rêves (1924)
Les Incertitudes de Coppelius (1927)

Le Lys de la vie (1921), from Bibliothèque nationale de France

Garelick has a little more to say about the later titles (only Le Lys de la vie survives among them). They were made by Fuller and her lover Gabrielle Bloch. The feature-length Le Lys de la vie sounds to be an extraordinary work - based on a story by Queen Marie of Romania, a combination of fairy tale and dance themes telling the story of two princesses competing for the love of a prince, played by René Clair, no less. Fuller herself directed but did not appear in the film, which seems to have been characterised by innovative cinematographic effects (such as incorporating negatives for some ghostly effects) mixed with conventional fairy tale elements.

Garelick tells us less about the other two, lost films. Apparently they were not completed, and were presumably semi-professional productions. It is likely that Fuller did not appear in them either (certainly not as a dancer - she was in her mid-60s, and died in 1928).

Loïe (not Loie as Garelick’s book has it throughout) Fuller was an iconic figure who continues to attract much scholarly interest. There’s a useful set of links about her on the Great Dance Weblog. As indicated above, films exists of her many imitators. She refused to be filmed by Edison, but the Edison studios did make films of other dancers in the 1890s, such as Ruth St Denis, Amy Muller and especially Annabelle, whose several Kinetoscope skirt dance films were clearly in imitation of Fuller and were often mistakenly (deliberately or otherwise) promoted as being films of Fuller herself.

Loie Fuller is a gorgeous-looking site which accompanies the book Traces of Light: Absence and Presence in the Work of Loïe Fuller, by modern Fuller imitator/acolyte Ann Cooper Albright.

Garelick’s book is a fine, insightful study with a strong theoretical basis, but as ever the facts about films are not just scanty but are not recognised as having any importance. The confusion that Fuller’s supposed film appearances created at the time persists, and she exists in those skirt films that survive more often as a guiding spirit than the woman herself.

More from the Marchioness

I’ve found more information on Gwladys, Marchioness of Townshend, who wrote some scenarios for the Clarendon Film Company, and an interview with whom was given in an earlier post.

The new source of information is her autobiography, It Was - and It Wasn’t, written in 1937. This tells us a little more about the agreement she made in 1912 with Clarendon to produce scenarios for them, and gives us more film titles than I had listed.

She seems to had always had an interest in films, which included considering investing in cinema buildings, and she had written articles on aspects of film before she made a deal with Clarendon:

I had been keenly interested in the Cinema Theatre and its possibilities at Maidenhead, and in 1912 I entered into an arrangement with the Clarendon Film Company of Charing Cross Road, to produce a series of picture plays; the first play, A Strong Man’s Love, being well received by the public and the Press. The House of Mystery followed. These were the first cinematograph dramas to give the author’s name, and I was the first peeress to write for the Cinema.

Were these the first films to credit the scenarist (as opposed to a playwright)? I don’t know. It might be Anita Loos, whose first film for D.W. Griffith was The New York Hat (1912), or Harriet Quimby, wrote wrote five scenarios for Griffith in 1911, but was either credited on screen? But I think Gwladys is on solid ground when she says she was the first peeress who wrote for the screen. Fascinatingly, she names two others who wrote scenarios after her - the Countess of Warwick and the Countess of Roden. I know nothing of either.

Next she gives interesting information on how much she was paid:

The late Sir George Alexander and I believed in the artistic future of the Cinema. At that time I considered its moral and ethical possibilities limitless, and it is interesting to compare the views of the Gaumont Company in 1913 as to the prices paid for scenarios, with the money of 1935. In 1913 a representative of the Gaumont Company told an interviewer that, “on the whole, the scale of payment is not high, and the picture dramatist does not expect – at any rate, he does not receive – anything like the renumeration of his brother, the real dramatist. The royalty system exists, but it is not general, the plot usually being bought outright. The average price is that of a short magazine story, but many ideas are disposed of for half a guinea apiece.” At that time I was paid £300 for writing six film plays, but, fortunately for authors, prices have increased considerably since then.

After an aside on the importance of the cinema as a force for education, she describes how she used a model theatre in her garden - together with cardboard cut-out nuns for her film The Convent Gate - to work out how scenes should appear. Then, after comments on the need for appropriate music for silent films, she concludes thus:

After my first film play was produced by the Clarendon Film company, the same company produced another – When East meets West. This completed a series of seven film dramas commissioned by the same company during a period of two years – A Strong Man’s Love, At the Convent Gate, The House of Mystery, Wreck and Ruin, The Love of an Actress and The Family Solicitor. All these sound most melodramatic now, but had their little success in those days.

I hadn’t come across some of these titles, but all were produced, so here’s a complete filmography for her, with slightly mocking descriptions taken from Denis Gifford’s British Film Catalogue:

A STRONG MAN’S LOVE (2,095ft)
Released January 1913
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … Elizabeth
Crime. Vicar’s daughter elopes with actor who kills manager and is acquitted by barrister who loves her.

THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY (2,090ft)
Released April 1913
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … The Girl
Crime. Fake ghost, gas chamber, and raid on den of 50 coiners by 100 policemen.

THE CONVENT GATE (2,175ft)
Released September 1913
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … Marie St Clair
Drama. Jilted bride recovers sanity after being saved from fire.

THE LOVE OF AN ACTRESS (3,000ft)
Released August 1914
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … Actress
Evan Thomas … Peer
Drama. Film actress feigns drunkenness to repel peer but saves him from suicide after he takes to drink.

WRECK AND RUIN (2,755ft)
Released August 1914
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew
Drama. Foreman saves mill owner from flood caused by striking workmen.

THE FAMILY SOLICITOR (2,772ft)
Released September 1914
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … The Girl
Crime. Lawyer forges earl’s will so that his indebted son may inherit.

WHEN EAST MEETS MEET (3,000ft)
Released February 1915
p.c: Clarendon
dir: Wilfred Noy
story: Marchioness of Townshend
cast: Dorothy Bellew … The Girl
Crime. Indian fakir hypnotises officer’s daughter and explodes gas bulbs from afar with electric rays.

None of these films is known to survive today.

Women behind the camera

I have been adding texts of my talks, essays, filmographies and other work on to my personal website, www.lukemckernan.com, where I am free to do so. Do take a look at the Publications, Talks, Shows and Research sections for assorted interests of mine in the worlds of early and silent cinema, which I hope may be of use to others.

The latest text to go up is Women Silent Filmmakers in Britain. This is a filmography of films directed, shot, produced, scripted or edited by women in Britain in the silent era - a full filmography in each case, not just the handful of films that survive. It’s something that I first put together some time in the late 1990s, and it’s still very much a work in progress, so any comments, corrections or additions (especially new names) will be most welcome. Among the names listed are scriptwriters Muriel Alleyne, Lydia Hayward, Alma Reville and Blanche McIntosh; directors Ethyle Batley, Frances E. Grant, Dinah Shurey, and Jakidawdra Melford; camera operators Jessica Borthwick and Mrs Aubrey Le Blond; scientific filmmaker Mrs D.H. Scott, editor Adeline Culley, executive Ada Aline Urban, and many more.

It’s an area ripe for more research. British silent cinema itself is still an undervalued and neglected field, and the significant role of women in film production at that time is scarcely known. A pioneering piece of writing is Katherine Newey’s essay ‘Women and Early British Film’ in Linda Fitzsimmons and Sarah Street (eds.), Moving Performance (Trowbridge: Flicks Books, 2000). However, there is much new activity in the field, including an ongoing ‘Women in Silent Britain’ project which was discussed at the recent British Silent Cinema Festival. More news on this work as and when we get it. I’ll also be posting pieces on individual women filmmakers (and not just British) in the future.

(By the way, the image at the top of this post comes from a 1911 booklet, The Golden Book of Motion Photography, advertising the use of home movie cameras. It comes from Barry Anthony’s The Kinora: Motion Pictures for the Home 1896-1914).

The silent films of Alfred Hitchcock

I’m still experimenting with what The Bioscope should be doing, and I’ve decided to ditch the Lists section. Other more suitable Pages will be introduced in due course. Meanwhile, I’ve moved the one filmography that was under Lists to here. And so…

Here is a complete listing of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent film work, including his apprentice work at the Famous Players-Lasky British studio where he only designed titles, up to Blackmail, his last silent and first sound film. Noted are his credits for each film, and whether or not it is known to survive. All are feature-length except Number Thirteen and Always Tell Your Wife, which were both two-reelers.

1920 The Great Day (titles) [lost]

1920 The Call of Youth (titles) [lost]

1921 The Princess of New York (titles) [lost]

1921 Appearances (titles) [lost]

1921 Dangerous Lies (titles) [lost]

1921 The Mystery Road (titles) [lost]

1921 Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (titles) [lost]

1922 Three Live Ghosts (titles) [lost]

1922 Perpetua (titles) [lost]

1922 The Man from Home (titles) [lost]

1922 Spanish Jade (titles) [lost]

1922 Tell Your Children (titles) [lost]

1922 Number Thirteen (director/film unfinished) [lost]

1923 Always Tell Your Wife (co-replacement director) [one reel of two survives]

1923 Woman to Woman (co-script, assistant director, art director) [lost]

1923 The Prude’s Fall (script, assistant director, art director) [survives incomplete]

1924 The Passionate Adventure (co-script, assistant director, art director) [survives]

1924 The Blackguard (script, assistant director, art director) [survives]

1924 The White Shadow (art director) [lost]

1925 The Pleasure Garden (director) [survives]

1926 The Mountain Eagle (director) [lost]

1926 The Lodger (director, actor) [survives]

1927 Downhill (director) [survives]

1927 Easy Virtue (director) [survives]

1927 The Ring (director, screenplay) [survives]

1927 The Farmer’s Wife (director) [survives]

1928 Champagne (director, adaptation) [survives]

1929 The Manxman (director) [survives]

1929 Blackmail (director, adaptation, actor) [silent and sound versions were made, both survive]

None of the films that Hitchcock did the titles for are known to survive. It is unclear whether the one reel that survives of Always Tell Your Wife features Hitchcock’s work or not. Around 2,000ft of The Prude’s Fall survives. The Passionate Adventure survives in a German titled version. There are at least two different prints of The Pleasure Garden in existence, a print which was shown a few years ago on Danish television being different in a number of respects to that in the BFI National Archive. Easy Virtue seems to exist only in 16mm. The Mountain Eagle is the only silent feature film directed by Hitchcock which remains lost. There are some striking stills from the production reproduced in Dan Aulier’s Hitchcock’s Secret Notebooks. All of Hitchcock’s extant silent work is available on videotape or DVD, with the exception of Always Tell Your Wife.

For more information, see Charles Barr’s English Hitchcock, Marc Raymond Strauss’ Alfred Hitchcock’s Silent Films, or the catalogue for the 1999 Giornate del Cinema Muto, which featured a retrospective of all Hitchcock’s extant silent films.