FAQs
Here are some general questions and answers about silent films. If you have a specific enquiry about early and silent cinema, particularly if you are researching aspects of silent film history, please use the comment box at the bottom of this page to post your question. I’ll try to answer what I can (or find someone who can), and post answers on the blog where suitable. If you would rather get in touch privately, contact details are on my personal site, www.lukemckernan.com.
Q. How do I found out more information on a silent film?
A. There is no central register of silent films, either those that were made or those that still survive. The nearest to a central register in the Internet Movie Database. However, this does have to be treated with caution. It does not have everything, and for the silent era in particular it has many gaps and inaccuracies. The databases of the many film archives around the world are a good guide, though the filmographic information available is uneven, and naturally they limit their records to what they hold. Contact details and links for archiv es worldwide can be found on the Federation of International Film Archives (FIAF) site. The best sources are the various national filmographies that have been produced. Examples include Denis Gifford’s The British Film Catalogue, Lundquist and Luritzen’s American Film Index 1908-1920, the American Film Institute Catalog, and the Filmographie des longs métrages sonores du cinéma français.
FIAF has produced Treasures from the Film Archives, which started out as a book publication listing extant silent short films around the world, and is gradually expanding in disc form to cover silent features and non-fiction titles. There are a number of excellent online databases which list silent films made as opposed to those which which survive, aside from the IMDb. The American Film Institute makes its catalogue 1893-1930 freely available to all. Do note that for 1911 onwards the catalogue covers features only - for a comprehensive record, cross-refer to Lundquist and Lauritzen’s American Film Index (not available online). The British Film Institute’s database is an exceptional resource, though the information on silents ranges from the amazingly detailed to the frustratingly slight, and it does not distinguish between films on which it has information alone and films held in its archive. Another good source is Germany’s Filmportal.
Q. Where can I find information on silent film personalities?
A. The Silent Era site is a good place to start, with its many star biographies. There are many individual websites for silent film stars - check the People section on the links given on the right-hand side of this page, or the MySpace pages that many of the leading silent film stars enjoy. For more specialised enquiries, Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema is a biographical guide to people and film before 1901. Among the many printed sources, good guides include the Encyclopedia of British Film, the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema and the Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia.
Q. Where are silent films held?
A. Silent films exist in three main places: public film archives, comercial company vaults, and with private collectors, though for most they exist chiefly on the racks of video stores. A list with contact details for most of the public film archives is given on the FIAF website. Such archives will vary in the degree of access they can provide, and whehter there is a charge involved in viewing films. Always make an appointment in advance if you are planning a viewing. Note that just because an archive holds a film does not necesarily mean that you can see it, because they may not have a viewing print available. And remember that most public archives do not own the rights to the films that they preserve, and do not usually allow copies to be made for private users.
There is no central catalogue of extant silent films, though the FIAF Treasures from the Film Archives disc aims eventually to develop into such a resource. There are union catalogues bringing together data on collections from several archives: Moving Image Collections (MIC) and the European filmarchives online. Commercial companies, film and television, will hold silent films, but public access to such archives is nil. One source worth knowing about is WorldCat, an attempt at a universal library catalogue, bringing together the databases of many libraries worldwide, often including their video/DVD collections.
Q. Where can I buy silent films on DVD?
A. If you are in America, or are seeking Region 1 DVDs, the best place to start is the list of DVDs provided by the Silent Era website. Another site, covering Regions 1, 2 and 4, albeit selectively, is Silent Films on DVD. A list of some of the key retailers is given under DVD and Video in the list of links on the right-hand side of this page. These include Eureka, Kino International, and Milestone Films, while more unusual films (which generally means non-fiction) may be found at the British Film Institute or Edition Filmmuseum. General retailers with good silent film lists include MovieMail (in the UK) and DVD Planet (USA).
Q. How many silent films have been lost?
A. Calculations on this vary, but the figures usually quoted are 80% to 90% of all silent film production worldwide. For some countries, such as Japan, the figures is in the high nineties. Thousands of silent films were junked when they became financially worthless, notably with the arrival of sound films. The first national film archives did not become established until the mid-1930s, partly in response to the loss of the silent film heritage, but by then it was too late for many silents. Discoveries continue to be made, both individual titles and entire collections, but the majority of silent films made 1894-1929 are lost for good.
Q. I’m just getting interested in silent films. What should I see and what should I read?
A. What you should see is down to individual taste, but a good starting point would be to investigate the ‘Top 100′ silents voted for by readers of the Silent Era site and try and check out the top ten. It’s hard to disagree with choices like The General, Pandora’s Box, Metropolis, Sunrise and The Passion of Joan of Arc. For the non-fiction film, try Electric Edwardians, or Man with a Movie Camera. As for reading, most would say Kevin Brownlow’s The Parade’s Gone By or Walter Kerr’s The Silent Clowns. There’s a ‘top ten’ reading list suggested on The Bioscope.
Q. Where can I see silent films screened?
A. There is nothing quite like seeing a silent film screened in an audience, with live music. The Bioscope does not attempt to list all screenings of silent films, and limits itself to selected UK programmes and events. The Silent Era maintains a selective listing of upcoming screenings in the USA, while Nitrateville has news of American and British screenings. Silents in the Court lists American screenings of silent and early sound films, divided by state. The best guide to silent film festivals is on stummfilm.info (in English as well as German). Silents are often show as cinematheques and specialist film theatres: in the UK, check out the National Film Theatre and the Barbican in London.
Q. What silent films can I find online?
A. Legally or illegally? There is a huge amount of silent film available one way or another online, but it is sad to see films which have been ripped off DVDs painstakingly put together by companies like Kino and Milestone, often at much trouble and expense. If you just want to find the film and don’t care much about copyright or how it got there, plenty can be found on social networking sites, inevitably, and the Videos with Bibi site provides a guide to silent films on YouTube. Among the wholly legitimate sources, try American Memory (early Edison shorts), British Pathe (for newsreels and more) and Slapstick, or simply follow the Online Videos tag on The Bioscope. Those in UK schools, libraries and colleges can have access to the marvellous range of silent films wtih rich contextualisating information on the BFI’s Screenonline site.
Q. Who else is blogging about silent films?
A. There aren’t enough blogs on silent films, but those that do exist are doing an excellent job. Among my favourites are Edna’s Place (a whole lot more than just information on Edna Purviance), The Crowd Roars (magnificent information on silent and early sound features), Ferdinand von Galitizen (compelling reviews of mostly unfamiliar silents, through the guide of a German ‘count’), Film of the Year (one film described in detail, per week, per year), and (for the multilingual), Stummfilm-blog, Pasión Silente and Recanto Silente.
Q. Where else can I join in discussions on silent films?
A. The best place used to be alt.movies.silent. It’s a list past its glory days, having lost some key correspondents who grew weary of the same old debates and the spammers. Rapidly replacing it in value is the new discussion forum, Nitrateville, which is moderated. Another, well-established forum is Golden Silents. A more fan-oriented list, is the Yahoo Group for silent films.
Q. Aren’t all silent films in the public domain?
A. No. Film copyright is an immensely complicated field, which people want to see simplified for their own advantage, inevitably. Firstly, there is more than one kind of right which can relate to a film - not just in the film itself, but in the literary rights, music rights, the rights in new intertitles etc. Rights also vary from territory to territory, and different countries have different laws, of course. And rights also vary according to whether you are talking about screenings, commercial releases, use of clips in other productions, etc. Moreover, films that were once out of copyright may have come back into copyright, owing to change in term decreed by new laws. For the USA, you can check through the Copyright Office databases, or consult with the Library of Congress. The UK does not have the same concept of public domain as exists in the USA, where copyright has to be renewed. In the UK, film is treated the same as other creative works under the seventy-year-rule. That does not mean seventy years after the film’s production, but seventy years after the death of its principal creators: usually the director and writer. The British Film Institute should be able to advise on specific titles. In general, never assume, always take advice.
Q. Where do I find cinemas from the silent era?
A. There are a number cinemas still operating which were showing films in the silent era, through very few from before the First World War period. The best single source is the worldwide directory of cinema, Cinema Treasures. There are some national guides, such as The London Project, the Utrecht Project, and the huge Dutch database Cinema Context.
Q. How can I find work in film archives?
A. Have a worthwhile skill. Check out the training courses and qualification schems worldwide. A summary of some of these is given on the FIAF website. In the UK, the main source is the MA in Film Studies with archiving option run by the University of East Anglia. There are a site for volunteer work in film archives, Volunteering in Audiovisual Archives.
Q. How do I download and view the digitised publications described in your library?
A. The Bioscope Library provides descriptions and links to documents on silent films from collections around the world, which can be downloaded and retained by the user. Most of these come from the Internet Archive, which makes the documents available in DjVu, PDF or TXT formats. For PDF, you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader, which comes free with most computers, or can be downloaded for free from the Adobe site. Click on the PDF link on the left-hand side of the Internet Archive page, or right-click (if you have a PC and are using Internet Explorer) and Save Target As. DjVU is an alternative document viewer with smaller file sizes than PDF. You will need to download a free DjVu viewer first if you want to save the document to your hard disk. Alternatively, click on the FTP option and download files that way. TXT is a plain text option, most useful for word searching, which you can open with Notepad or Wordpad.
Q. How do I receive a news feed from The Bioscope?
A. Like all blogs, The Bioscope comes with an RSS feed which enables you to receive regular feeds if you have a suitable news reader installed. Examples include Awasu, FeedDemon and Newz Crawler. Some broswers, such as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox, can pick up RSS news feeds anyway. Or there’s the easy-to-use Google Reader.
Q. What was the first…?
A. Never ask what the first of anything was for silent films (e.g. first film, first feature, first cinema, first film star etc.). Whatever answer you will get will be wrong. There’s always an alternative answer that could be given, because the definitions are so vague. It’s tempting (I lapse into first-ism myself), but just don’t do it…
Do you have any queries for The Bioscope? Just post your question below:
June 21, 2007 at 11:14 am
Thanks for adding the “questions” rubric. It’s a great addition to the website.
Here’s a quick question, which I think should be easy enough to answer. Was D.W. Griffith’s 1912 Biograph film MAN’S GENESIS a one-reeler, as I believe, or not? I’ve been working with Vachel Lindsay’s THE ART OF THE MOVING PICTURE, in which he discusses the film, so I googled the it and found that it was supposedly a one-reeler. I was satisfied with this info and stopped worrying about it. But then, as I was looking through the appendix to the Modern Library edition from 2000, I found Kent Jones identifying the film as an “ambitious five-reel prehistoric tale” (p. 190). This sent me looking again, and I went first to the AFI catalog, but, unless I’m just not looking right, it seems that there’s a big gap in their coverage of Griffith’s films between 1910 and 1914. Can anyone confirm the length (a rough count of reels will suffice) of the film?
June 21, 2007 at 7:53 pm
MAN’S GENESIS was definitely a one reeler. It was released 11 July 1912, one reel, with the paper print copy in the Library of Congress being 414ft (16mm), or 18 minutes at 16 fps. All this information from the Pordenone silent film festival catalogue for 2002 - the festival’s Griffith Project has been showing the whole of Griffith’s surviving work in chronological order for some years now, while an effective catalogue raisonee is being published in multiple volumes as The Griffith Project, edited by Paolo Cherchi Usai. MAN’S GENESIS (project no. 419) is described in volume 6. Kent Jones’ error may come from a misreading of Robert Henderson’s book D.W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph, which has a 5 next to the title in the filmography, but that means the month in which it was filmed. The film doesn’t appear in the AFI Catalog for the 1910s, because this covers only feature length films - hence much of Griffith’s later Biograph production is not listed there. An alternative source to use is Einar Lauritzen and Gunnar Lundquist’s two volume American Film Index of all films made in America 1908-1920. A good university library with a credible film section ought to have one (also Paul Spehr’s invaluable index to the book by personal and organisational name).
June 22, 2007 at 8:45 am
Thank you so much! You’ve not only answered my question but filled in some fundamental gaps in my knowledge of the basic resources available for researching early and silent film. On a related note, I really hate to make so many requests, as you’ve obviously already invested so much time and effort into making this website an invaluable resource, but perhaps a good replacement for the defunct “publications” section would be something to give people a basic orientation in just such matters: what catalogs are available, what do they cover, how are they best used to complement one another, etc.? I for one am coming from outside of academic film history (my field is American studies), and I suspect many others who come here are lacking the orientation provided in university studies of (early) film. You’ve already done a great service here in pulling together links and resources. Perhaps you could give this type of thing a space of its own, a base of operations where people can gain their bearings and pursue the most relevant direction. This wouldn’t have to be limited to catalogs. It might also be a good place to pull together the databases, film archives, and organizations listed on the right-hand side of the screen, so that people know (which I didn’t) things like the fact that the AFI catalog is limited to feature-length films. Again, this is only an idea that occurred to me now, and I hope I don’t come across as pushy with all my “requests.” I’m just so impressed with the efforts represented here and thinking of what would, from my perspective, make it even better. Please feel free to disregard this, though, and keep doing what you’re doing so well.
Best,
Shane Denson
June 22, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I will try and do some, if not all of those things. Time is the problem, inevitably (I do have a day job) and it takes time to do these things well. Some sites such as Silent Era provide excellent general information on silent film, and there’s no way I’m going to try and emulate those, but general guidance on research resources I’d be happy to provide. Eventually I’d like to see The Bioscope expand beyond a blog to become a general invformation site, but that’s a little way off yet. Anyway, I’ll do what I can.
June 26, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Thanks for all the great work ! I followed your suggestion on the British Pathé dowloads and am overwhelmed by what’s available ! I was wondering if you knew of another resource that would also offer newsreel items (preferably US) from the 1920s, free for the taking ?
Keep up the good work !
June 26, 2007 at 8:03 pm
The only American newsreel collection that I know of that’s freely available for downloading in any form is Universal News, chunks of which are public domain in the USA so they turn up in several places - including the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) and YouTube. But it’s all later than the 1920s. Digitisation plans are underway that I hear of - I think UCLA is tackling its collection of Hearst Metrotone newsreels (sound, so post-1920s), and one day we’ll see something eye-catching from the Library of Congress. If you go to the British Universities Newsreel Database (something I manage as part of my day job), you’ll find a list of newsreel collections around the world with can be viewed - mostly streaming - for free. There are significant collections available for Italy, France and Germany (no silents for the latter, I think):
http://www.bufvc.ac.uk/databases/newsreels/learnmore/links.html (all those listed with a TV symbol have online moving image content)
Check my earlier post on British Movietone, which makes the whole of its collection freely available online (streaming only). The newsreel is post-1929, but there is earlier material there from the Henderson Collection of early actualities.
I’ll do a proper post on silent newsreels online from around the world some time soon.
July 13, 2007 at 1:09 am
Over the past several years I have written several articles about silent film artists that were born in the State of Utah. I was amazed not only how many people I have found, but the important films that they have been part of. For example, Salt Lake City born Margaret Livingston had the third lead in F.W. Murnau’s SUNRISE; Mack Swain is Chaplin’s co-star in THE GOLD RUSH; director and actor James Cruze was responsible for THE COVERED WAGON; actor turned director Frank Borzage received the very first directing Oscar for his SEVENTH HEAVEN; John Gilbert became the highest paid contract actor in the business and won lasting fame for his work in THE BIG PARADE and opposite Greta Garbo in FLESH AND THE DEVIL; Marion Mack happend into lasting fame by appearing opposite Buster Keaton in his masterpiece THE GENERAL. actress Betty Compson was the star of Josf von Sternberg’s THE DOCKS OF NEW YORK, and Salt Lake born Loretta Young who co-stared with Lon Chaney in LAUGH, CLOWN,L etc.
Another Utah born star was HAZEL DAWN. She found fame in England and Broadway in major musical and comedy plays, including THE PINK LADY. Dawn’s charm, voice and musical abilities with the violin made THE PINK LADY the most popular musical of 1911. The operetta ran 312 performances and shattered the existing attendance record for the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York, which was followed by a triumphant run in London.
In 1911, the young movie industry was struggling to win respectability, gradually evolving from one- and two-reel films to features running 60 or more minutes. Producer Adolph Zukor had formed The Famous Players Company, and he became the first to present Broadway stage stars and plays in motion pictures in a regular way.
Zukor brought from the stage such memorable movies stars as Mary Pickford, John Barrymore, Geraldine Farrar, Mae Murray and HAZEL DAWN. Dawn made her film debut in a drama called ONE OF OUR GIRLS (1914). From 1915-16 she appeared in a staggering nine films for Famous Players, filming one after another during an 15-month period. These included such titles as: THE MASQUERADERS; ONE OF OUR GIRLS; NIOBE; GAMBIER’S ADVOCATE; THE HEART OF JENNIFER; THE FATAL CARD; MY LADY ICON; THE SALES LADY.
Dawn returned to the stage in THE CENTURY GIRL (1916) and with the exception of a crime film, THE LONE WOLF (1917) for Selznick Pictures, and a society melodrama, DEVOTION (1921) there would be no more film appearances.
Unfortunately, most of the Famous Players negatives were lost in a lab fire. My question is: Do you know of any film titles that Hazel Dawn appears in that survive?
I would love to find some moving images of her and/or an early recording of her singing voice.
July 13, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Thanks for all the information on Utah. Unfortunately I’ve not found any evidence of one of her silent films surviving. There’s no single register of extant silent feature films in film archives worldwide, so you can never say any film is utterly lost. But finding any such film is very tough. You could ask someone on the alt.movies.silent discussion list
(http://groups.google.com/group/alt.movies.silent)
- there’s some very knowledgeable people there. Of course she can be seen in the sound film MARGIE (1946).
September 27, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Just for your information:
I recently blogged in http://blog.stummfilm.info/2007/09/27/lost-filmseu/ (sorry German) some news about a project for “Lost films”.
Details in Englisch can be found at http://lost-films.eu/
September 27, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Many thanks. I’ll definitely post something on this myself. Apart from the practical nature of the exercise, the whole cult of the lost film is something worth contemplating.
December 27, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Dear Sir , I am researching my uncle who was a member of the Eight Lancashire Lads Clog dancing troupe. The same time as Charlie Chaplin It has been stated that a film , bioscope of Chaplin performing with the Eight Lancashire lads exists. I know this is a long shot but could you advise me on who may hold this film .
Regards Jeffrey Daniels
December 27, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Hi there,
No film exists of the Eight Lancashire Lads, with or without Chaplin. Rumours have abounded various films supposedly made of Chaplin before he left for America, but all seem based more on wish-fulfillment than hard reality, and certainly none exists. Sorry. What was your uncle’s name, and at what period was he a member of the troupe? Chaplin was with the troupe 1899-1900.
January 3, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Could you please either let me have an email address for Jeffrey Daniels who made an enquiry regarding the Eight lancashire Lads
Regards
Mike Johnstone
February 2, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Hi there, please could someone let me know the names of the eight Lancashire lads….my Mum has spoken about her Dad James Reid , being part of the group when there was only three, he left to become married. Anyone with any info would be greatly appreciated.. thank-you julie
February 3, 2008 at 10:58 am
The Eight Lancashire Lads troupe seems to have lasted from the 1890s to the 1930s at least, and maybe beyond, so there were many changes of personnel. I don’t know of any list of names, but the best person to ask would be Max Tyler, who is historian of the British Music Hall Society - his email address is maxt [at] hist.freeserve.co.uk. There is also a brief clip of the troupe in 1931 on the British Pathe website, at http://www.britishpathe.com.
There is a good overall guide to locating information on British music hall and variety artists from the Hiss & Boo site, at
http://www.hissboo.co.uk/musichall_artistes.shtml.
February 11, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Hi there,
On this site you have the name mentioned of Solomon Gabriel Newman, who and where do I find more out about him, as he is part of my family, would love to know more about him and his life.
Linda
February 11, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Hi Linda,
All I know about Solomon Gabriel Newman is that he joined the British film industry’s masonic lodge (the Anima lodge) in 1918. I got this information from a list of members of the lodge that I have. I’ve not come across his name before, and can’t find him in any reference book. He was clearly a member of the film industry in some form. The only likely place to find out about him would be in a trade year book, such as the Kinematograph Year Book, for 1918. I have access to these at work and will see if I can find him - unfortunately, there isn’t a name index!
May 2, 2008 at 9:58 am
I’m a regular reader of this blog, hoping that I can get some sort of guidance in collecting bibliography for a paper. I’ve been looking everywhere for a comprehensive overview on the usage, history, style, narrative role, etc. of the intertitles in the silent era. I’ve found only passages or short chapters on the topic, as Andre Gaudreault’s essay in the Early Cinema. Space. Frame. Narrative book, or some vague chapters in film histories.
Could you recommend me something else on the subject?
Thanks in advance,
Melinda
May 2, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Interesting question. I can’t think of any one good source that covers the subject thoroughly. There is a useful chapter in Eileen Bowser’s The Transformation of Cinema: 1907-1915, in the History of the American Cinema series. Rachael Low has a good discussion of titles in British films in History of the British Film 1918-1929. Barry Salt talks about intertitles (mostly along the lines of when they first appeared) in his Film Style and Technology. Martin Sopocy’s James Williamson is very specialised, but does have quite a bit of discussion on intertitle styles. And for examples of intertitle style, do check out Intertitle-o-Rama (http://www.geocities.com/emruf5/) - check also some of the links at the bottom of the page there. There was a conference on the silent film intertitle about five or six years ago - or was the special issue of a journal? I vaguely remember the call for papers, but I’ve not been able to find any record of it.
May 2, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Unfortunately I don’t have access to all of the titles you’re recommending, but thank you for your help.
I’ve made a new search on the internet, and I’ve found two titles that contain chapters on intertitles: Kamilla Elliott: Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate (2003) and according to a blog: Kevin Brownlow’s book, The Parade’s Gone By.
And there is an interesting online analysis of the intertitles in Guy Maddin’s Heart of the World: http://joeclark.org/design/typecasting/