Film Store, 20th Century: 1903 to 1929.

The Birth of Narrative

The earliest movies were short demonstration pieces of the new technology, seldom more than one or two minutes long, and destined for showing in improvised venues or nickelodeons. Novelty provided the initial impetus; but innovators soon progressed beyond simple demonstration, recognising that compelling stories could be told through the use of extended plot lines, imaginative use of camera and dramatic editing. The vigour of the new medium and its emerging technical skills did not go unnoticed in the corridors of power: the world-changing events of the Great War and its aftermath saw film adopted as a propaganda vehicle, a function that was to be repeated many times in the years to come. And film also provided an instrument for chronicling social activity and social change — the resulting techniques were soon to merge with and add authenticity to mainstream productions.

The Great Train Robbery / Edwin S Porter

1903. BW. Silent. USA. 10 mins. DVD.
At the time one of the longest films ever made. Amongst the first to use a complex story line, it was also the first Western. Porter used innovative techniques such as the pan and the close up.

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The Birth of a Nation / D W Griffith

1915. BW. Silent. USA. 185 mins. DVD.

With an enormous cast and a running time of over three hours, The Birth of a Nation was the most ambitious and most expensive movie to date. The Civil War epic still holds its magnetism in spite of its appalling racism. This last provides an early example of the power of cinema to engage immediately with the audience. On the one hand the film caused anti-racist riots, on the other it was responsible for the revival of a moribund Klu Klux Klan.

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Intolerance / D W Griffith

1916. BW. Silent. USA. 123 mins. DVD.

With literally a cast of thousands, and with production costs of around $2,000,000, Intolerance exceeded even The Birth of a Nation in extravagance. Stung by criticisms of his earlier epic, Griffith produced this study of intolerance and injustice in four interwoven stories from different periods in history. The sets are stunning, as is the handling of the crowd scenes.

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The Battle of the Somme / Imperial War Museum

1916. BW. Silent. UK. 74 mins. DVD.

Originally produced by the British Topical Committee for War Films and recently re-mastered under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum. This recruiting and propaganda piece was filmed within earshot of the front lines while the Somme offensive was still in progress. Essentially a re-enactment of the early stages of the battle, although some authentic live footage is included. Shot in August 1916 and generating some twenty million ticket sales in the UK in the six weeks following its release, it is interesting to consider what might have been it’s reception had it been released later, when the full cost in lives could be set against the overall gain in territory. For historical material on the Great War go to our Bookshop.

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Blood and Sand / Fred Niblo

1922. BW. Silent. USA. 80 mins. DVD.

The vehicle for Rudolph Valentino that established his status as the first superstar. A matador falls for the charms of an aristocratic woman.

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Greed / Erich von Stroheim

1923. BW. Silent. USA. 110 mins. VHS.

The director’s version ran to an egomanic eight hours but was re-edited by June Mathis down to its final, more digestible, length. Some of the flow was lost in consequence, but individual scenes are still powerful. A story of broken friendships and murder caused by avarice.

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The Battleship Potemkin / Sergei Eisenstein

1925. BW. Silent. Rus. 75 min. DVD.
One of several titles featured on this web site that can claim to be amongst the greatest movies ever made. Eisenstein’s portrayal of the Potemkin mutiny during the failed 1905 Revolution continues to generate hommage. The famous Odessa Steps sequence, with its rapid cutting, has been much imitated — as in The Untouchables (1987). The director’s epics were almost all intended as political propaganda, but this does nothing to detract from their quality and power. Potemkin, especially, was regarded as dangerously subversive by Stalin and also, ironically, by governments in the west. The film was banned in several countries, including the United Kingdom, where the ban lasted until 1954.

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Ben Hur / Fred Niblo

1925. BW/Colour. Silent. USA. 170 mins. VHS.

The greatest Hollywood epic of the silent era, especially notable for the sea battle and chariot race sequences. Ramon Novarro stars as Judah Ben Hur. Innovative use of 2-strip Tecnnicolor and with an added orchestral sound track scored by Carl Davis. Remade by William Wyler in 1959 (qv).

Ben Hur / Lew Wallace

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Flesh and the Devil / Clarence Brown

1926. BW. Silent. USA. 109 mins. VHS.

Greta Garbo and John Gilbert were an unbeatable box office combination, especially given their well known off-screen romance. Pure melodrama, with a vampish temptress toying with three men.

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The Jazz Singer / Alan Crosland

1927. BW. Sound. USA. 89 mins. VHS.

Famous as the first ever film to use synchronised sound — songs and a few snatches of speech. Al Jolson stars in the slightly cloying tale of a Jewish cantor’s son who goes into show business against his family’s wishes.

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October 1917 — Ten Days That Shook The World / Sergei Eisenstein

1928. BW. Silent. Rus. 103 mins. DVD.

Also known simply as October. Sergei Eisenstein’s dynamic and brilliant Bolshevik propaganda piece on the 1917 Russian Revolution. Not quite up to the accomplishment of Potemkin, but even a slightly lesser Eisenstein stays ahead of the general herd. The eyewitness account Ten Days That Shook The World by journalist John Reed is available from the 20th Century page of our Bookshop. Warren Beatty directed and starred in Reds, the epic biopic of John Reed (1981 qv).

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The Comedy Silents

Comedy marched hand in hand with drama and it was, arguably, the comic performers of the silent era that drove forward the star system that began to emerge around 1910. Charlie Chaplin stands high among the greats, both as writer/director/star of his own films and as one of the founders of United Artists, which stood for artistic independence in the face of commercial pressures.

Chaplin Compilation # 1 / Charles Chaplin

Behind the Screen
The Rink

Easy Street
The Cure
The Immigrant

1916 >>. BW. Silent. USA. 102 mins. DVD.

A 2003 compilation of otherwise difficult to obtain early Chaplin shorts that mark the emergence of his ‘Little Tramp’ persona. Easy Street (1916), The Cure (1917) and The Immigrant (1917) are among his early classics, albeit sometimes over-sentimental for modern tastes.

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Chaplin Compilation # 2 / Charles Chaplin

Adventurer

Triple Trouble

The Bond

Shoulder Arms

1917 >>. BW. Silent. USA. 99 mins. DVD.

Another recent compilation, with some lesser known titles.

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Chaplin Compilation # 3 / Charles Chaplin

Sunnyside

A Day’s Pleasure

The Kid

1919 >>. BW. Silent. USA. 119 mins. DVD.

The compilation is worthwhile purely for The Kid (1921), where Chaplin’s tramp raises an abandoned baby only to lose him to his mother. Jackie Coogan is sensational in the title role.

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Chaplin Compilation # 4 / Charles Chaplin

City Lights

The Great Dictator

Modern Times

The Gold Rush

1925 >>. BW. Silent/Sound. USA. 371 mins. DVD.

Four individual DVDs covering the best of Chaplin’s work, beginning with The Gold Rush, made in 1925 and hence included on this page in our Film Store. The compilation is significant in that it shows Chaplin’s development over some 15 years, spanning the transition from silents to talkies and from sentimental social comment to the overtly political. By the late 1930s Chaplin was viewed with more than a little unease by a number of prominent US citizens and was finally to be stigmatised as an un-American communist sympathiser. This led to self-imposed exile in Switzerland.

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The General / Buster Keaton

1926. BW. Silent. USA. 74 mins. DVD.

The General ranks as of one of Buster Keaton’s best silent features. The comedy is set against the American Civil War and revolves around the theft of the eponymous locomotive. This edition has been recently restored frame by frame, and the DVD package includes many extra features and an information booklet. More Keaton restorations are promised.

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The Lure of the Macabre

There is a long and honourable literary tradition that draws on the supernatural and the bizarre. The potential for eccentric set design and visual effects made film an ideal alternative vehicle for the macabre. In the years following The Great War new creative movements emerged and Freudian ideas were absorbed into the creative vocabulary. All of this was to be melded with cinematic art, not least in the depiction of the grotesque, and not least in the Germany of the Weimar Republic.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / Robert Wiene

1919. BW. Silent. Ger. 69 mins. DVD.

Postwar angst meets German Expressionism meets art cinema. Angular sets, distorted perspectives, twisted architecture and painted shadows reflect the psychopathology of the mad doctor. His hypnotised and somnambulistic minion terrorises a village and in the process creates a melange of cinematic archetypes that was massively influential.

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The Golem / Paul Wegener

1920. BW. Silent. Ger. 75 mins. DVD.

Arguably the first great monster movie, recreating the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem. A 16th century rabbi creates a clay giant to protect the Prague ghetto. Predictably, the animated monster runs amok, until his wild career is ended by a little girl. One of the Gothic classics to emerge from German Expressionism.

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Nosferatu / F W Murnau

1921. BW. Silent. Ger. 72 mins. DVD.

An unofficial version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula featuring Max Schreck as the most terrifying vampire ever to hit the screen. Modern special effects and make-up artists cannot come close to the sense of pure evil that is evoked by Schreck’s portrayal. The silent flickering black and white photography adds layer upon layer to the menace. This two-disc set has lots of additional information, including a trailer of The Shadow of the Vampire (2000 qv), which assumes that Schreck was a real vampire, employed by Murnau in his obsessive quest for authenticity!

Dracula / Bram Stoker

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Dr Mabuse — The Gambler / Fritz Lang

1922. BW. Silent. Ger. 101 mins. DVD.

A criminal mastermind seeks world domination using blackmail and hypnotism. When finally cornered he proves to be a raving lunatic. More on the Caligari theme, from a director who appears on these pages for the first time — but not the last! This is a two disc edition with a number of extra features.

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Metropolis / Fritz Lang

1926. BW. Silent. Ger. 120 mins. DVD.

Highly influential fantasy, restored in 2001. Workers in a modernistic city are forced to live underground. Unrest is quelled by the saint-like Maria; but a mad inventor creates an evil version of Maria to incite rebellion. The artificial Maria looks back to The Golem, and forward to Frankenstein and many cinematic clichés. The futuristic townscapes set the tone for many sci-fi films to come.

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The Phantom of the Opera / Robert Julian

1926. BW. Silent. USA. 94 mins. DVD.

A disfigured masked man abducts the star of the Paris Opera to his hideout in the sewers. Lon Chaney stars in this much repeated classic tale.

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Film as Social Document

From earliest days film had been used to record everyday events in the lives of ordinary (and extraordinary) people. The step from these short glimpses of daily life to more ambitious narrative-based documentaries was not a large one. Documentary technique was to be used in many ways: in the development of social archives; to propagandise; and to add authentic atmosphere to fictional pieces.

Nanook of the North / Robert Flaherty

1921. BW. Silent. USA. 57 mins. DVD.

Anthropologist Robert Flaherty trekked alone across the Arctic tundra and made this record of his year-long stay amongst the Eskimos. Nanook of the North was a trail-blazing, if crude, exploration of the potential of film as a documentary medium. At the same time it posed questions, still unresolved, over the ethical dilemmas facing documentary film-makers: many of the sequences were staged, raising questions of ‘authenticity’. Nanook died of hunger on the ice shortly after the release of the film.

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Drifters, Caller Herrin’ / John Grierson / Alan Harper

1929/1947. BW. UK. 80 mins. DVD.

Two documentaries, shot almost twenty years apart, that follow British herring fleets. The first was filmed off the coast of Yarmouth and Lowestoft, whilst the second followed herring fishermen off the coast of Scotland. John Grierson was an early and influential British documentary-maker.

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