Movies (Silent)

The Marathon is a 1919 American short comedy film starring Harold Lloyd. A print of the film survives in the film archive at George Eastman House. Plot Bebe is besieged by suitors who want to take her to watch a local marathon. Bebe's father, a former heavyweight boxer, scares off all the suitors but Snub who wins him over by offering him a cigar. Not long afterward, Harold arrives to woo Bebe too. He gets into a scuffle with both Snub and Bebe's father. The police are summoned. Harold flees Bebe's house in a hurry and becomes entangled among the marathon runners who also angrily pursue him. Cast Harold Lloyd Snub Pollard Bebe Daniels Sammy Brooks Lew Harvey Wallace Howe Gus Leonard Gaylord Lloyd Marie Mosquini Fred C. Newmeyer William Petterson Dorothea Wolbert Noah Young

The Last of the Mohicans is a 1920 American silent adventure drama film written by Robert A. Dillon, adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur co-directed the film. (Brown took over the direction of the film after Tourneur injured himself in a fall.) It is a story of two English sisters meeting danger on the frontier of the American colonies, in and around the fort commanded by their father. The adventure film stars Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Lillian Hall, Alan Roscoe and Boris Karloff in one of his earliest silent film roles (playing an Indian brave). Barbara Bedford later married her co-star in the film, Alan Roscoe in real life. The production was shot near Big Bear Lake and in Yosemite Valley. The film was well received at the time of its release. Film historian William K. Everson considers The Last of the Mohicans to be a masterpiece. In 1995, the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Plot Duration: 1 hour, 11 minutes and 7 seconds.1:11:07 The Last of the Mohicans complete film In 1757, in the midst of the French and Indian War, three French divisions and their Huron Indian allies are advancing on Fort William Henry, a British stronghold south of Lake George in the colony of New York. Chingachgook sends his son Uncas, the last living warrior of the Mohican tribe, to warn the fort's commander, Colonel Munro, of the imminent danger. Uncas is admired by Munro's daughter Cora, much to the displeasure of her suitor, Captain Randolph. Cast Wallace Beery as Magua Barbara Bedford as Cora Munro Lillian Hall as Alice Munro Alan Roscoe as Uncas Theodore Lorch as Chingachgook Harry Lorraine as Hawkeye (aka Natty Bumppo) Henry Woodward as Major Heyward James Gordon as Colonel Munro George Hackathorne as Captain Randolph Nelson McDowell as David Gamut Jack McDonald as Tamenund Sydney Deane as General Webb Boris Karloff as an Indian brave (uncredited) Joseph Singleton Chief Tahachee as an Indian brave (uncredited) Critical assessment The Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 historical novel retains its high stature among film historians and "still considered to be the best film adaption of Cooper’s novel.”[5][6] Film historian and biographer Charles Higham offered high praise for the directorial “sophistication” and “daring” in the development of the Cora Munro (Barbara Bedford) character: “The Last of the Mohicans mood is darker, stranger than anything suggested by James Fenimore Cooper’s robust boy’s book. The darkness wells from the character of the older girl, Cora Munro, played by Barbara Bedford. Prim and proper in her demeanor, she is actually seized by virginal longings, consumed with sexual desire for her Indian guide-protector Uncas (Alan Roscoe). At a time when women in movies were supposed to be mere wilting violets, this explicit sexual frankness must have been an astonishment, and was in truth quite revolutionary. Looking into Miss Bedford’s sly animal eyes, looking at the movement of her mouth, we are already aware of the director’s sophisticated understanding of the medium’s potential for sexual expression. In 1920, this understanding, and the equivalent daring of the actress, whose performance is a triumph of subtle technique, were nothing short of miraculous.” Acknowledging the “strengths and weaknesses” evident in every cinematic treatment of the famous novel—adaptations of the novel appeared as early as 1911— including the George B. Seitz version in 1936 and the 1992 production by Michael Mann—film critic David Sterritt reports “that for pure visual storytelling and a memorably filmed climax, the silent movie by Tourneur and Brown has proven hard to beat.”

The Penalty is an American psychological thriller crime film starring Lon Chaney and originally released in 1920 by Goldwyn Pictures. The movie was directed by Wallace Worsley, and written by Philip Lonergan and Charles Kenyon, based upon the pulp novel by Gouverneur Morris. The supporting cast includes Charles Clary, Doris Pawn, Jim Mason, and Claire Adams. The copyright for the film was owned by Gouverneur Morris, who wrote the novel on which the film was based. The budget for the film was $88,868.00. Portions of the film were shot in San Francisco. The Penalty was re-released to theaters in 1926 by MGM. This was the first of five films Chaney would make with director Wallace Worsley, the others being Ace of Hearts, Voices of the City, A Blind Bargain and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The film exists in its complete form and is available on DVD. Chaney's leather stumps, crutches and costume from this film were donated to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, along with his famous make-up case. As described in a film magazine, Blizzard (Chaney), a legless cripple whose cunning and criminal mind make him the master of the Barbary Coast underworld, is possessed of two ambitions. One is to get revenge upon Dr. Ferris (Clary), whose blunder during a childhood operation resulted in Blizzard's legs being hastily and unnecessarily amputated; the other is to rally the Reds in his organization and loot the city of San Francisco. To accomplish one Blizzard poses for the bust of Satan which is expected to be the masterpiece of Barbara Ferris (Adams), daughter of the doctor, gaining her sympathy and eventually threatening to force her marriage to him. Cast Billed Charles Clary as Dr. Ferris Doris Pawn as Barbary Nell James Mason as Frisco Pete Lon Chaney as Blizzard Milton Ross as Lichtenstein Ethel Grey Terry as Rose Kenneth Harlan as Dr. Wilmot Claire Adams as Barbara Ferris Unbilled Montgomery Carlyle as A Crook Cesare Gravina as Art Teacher Lee Phelps as Policeman Madlaine Traverse as Woman Edouard Trebaol as Bubbles Clarence Wilson as A Crook Wilson Hummel Production To play the role of the legless cripple, Chaney wore an apparatus to simulate amputated legs, which consisted primarily of two wooden buckets and multiple leather straps, was complex and incredibly painful. Chaney's knees sat in the buckets, while his lower legs were tied back.[4] Studio doctors asked that Chaney not wear the device, but he insisted on doing so, so that his costume would be authentic. To assure audiences that Chaney was not an amputee, the original release of the film reportedly included a short epilogue clip showing Chaney out of character. This clip does not survive in the existing prints but in the movie itself, in the scene where Blizzard (Chaney) imagines his gang of anarchists carrying the loot from the Mint Building, Chaney is seen directing the heist unamputated. Preservation Prints of The Penalty are in the George Eastman House Motion Picture Collection, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Turner Film Library. Reception "Hats off to Lon Chaney! As "Blizzard" ... he gives one of the screen's greatest performances. However, up to almost the very conclusion the gripping melodramatic incidents hold securely and Chaney's work is so unusually fine, it will probably hold the production for all that is necessary."—The Wid's Film Daily "Lon Chaney, whose work in The Miracle Man won so much praise, portrays a role that might have been written for him. He is wicked and cunning, but in the end, he wins sympathy and applause. Chaney makes splendid use of every opportunity."—The Moving Picture World "It is needless to say that the picture is Chaney more than anyone else...The continuity is not always smooth, the action not always sustained. Episodes are often too racy to suit the intelligence of the picture patron. But there is no denying that the feature is interesting."—Variety. "Here is a picture that is about as cheerful as a hanging---and as interesting. You can't, being an average human and normal as to your emotional reactions, really like The Penalty, any more than you could enjoy a hanging. But for all its gruesome detail you are quite certain to be interested in it... It is a remarkably good performance this actor (Chaney) gives."—Photoplay. Legacy The Penalty was one of Chaney's breakout roles, showcasing his taste for the macabre and talent for contortion and disguise. He had previously demonstrated similar qualities in the previous year's The Miracle Man, but The Penalty and Treasure Island, both of 1920, secured Chaney's place as one of America's most famous character actors, before moving on to his more famous roles in 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and 1925's The Phantom of the Opera.[citation needed] In 2009 Empire Magazine named it #17 in a poll of the 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen *Probably.

Four customers are having a peaceful game of cards in a quiet café. The atmosphere bring heavy, the waiter falls asleep and has a beautiful dream in which two angels come and play to him on violins, with such charm that he is transported to the seventh heaven. The dream changes, and we see him going through many amusing and fantastic scenes. Finally, customers annoyed by his snores, wake him by pouring seltzer over him.

The horse’s name was Sallie Gardner, a Kentucky-bred mare, and Muybridge used multiple cameras to photograph her as she galloped past. The project was financed by Leland Stanford, who owned a farm where he bred, trained, and raced horses. Eadweard Muybridge, 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first name "Eadweard" as the original Anglo-Saxon form of "Edward", and the surname "Muybridge", believing it to be similarly archaic. Born in Kingston upon Thames, England, at the age of 20 he emigrated to the United States as a bookseller, first to New York City, then to San Francisco. In 1860, he planned a return trip to Europe, but suffered serious head injuries en route in a stagecoach crash in Texas. He spent the next few years recuperating in Kingston upon Thames, where he took up professional photography, learned the wet-plate collodion process, and secured at least two British patents for his inventions. He returned to San Francisco in 1867, a man with a markedly changed personality. In 1868, he exhibited large photographs of Yosemite Valley, and began selling popular stereographs of his work. In 1874, Muybridge shot and killed Major Harry Larkyns, his wife's lover, but was acquitted, in a controversial jury trial, on the grounds of justifiable homicide.[4] In 1875, he travelled for more than a year in Central America on a photographic expedition. Today, Muybridge is best known for his pioneering chronophotograph of animal locomotion between 1878 and 1886, which used multiple cameras to capture the different positions in a stride; and for his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting painted motion pictures from glass discs that predated the flexible perforated film strip used in cinematography. From 1883 to 1886, he entered a very productive period at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, producing over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, occasionally capturing what the human eye could not distinguish as separate moments in time. In his later years, Muybridge gave many public lectures and demonstrations of his photography and early motion picture sequences, travelling frequently in England and Europe to publicize his work in cities such as London and Paris.[6] He also edited and published compilations of his work (some of which are still in print today), which greatly influenced visual artists and the developing fields of scientific and industrial photography. He retired to his native England permanently in 1894. In 1904, the year of his death, the Kingston Museum opened in his hometown, and continues to house a substantial collection of his works in a dedicated gallery.

Individual photographs of the running of a buffalo shot in rapid succession. A viewer pointed out this is actually a Bison. :)

Annie Oakley is an 1894 black-and-white silent film from Edison Studios, produced by William K. L. Dickson with William Heise as cinematographer. Synopsis The film shows Oakley performing trick shooting as she was known for in her live shows. The first scene was of Oakley shooting her Marlin 91 .22 caliber rifle 25 times in 27 seconds. There is also a scene of her shooting composition balls in the air. The man assisting her is likely her husband, Frank E. Butler. Both were veterans of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.  Cast Frank E. Butler as Self (uncredited) Annie Oakley as Self (uncredited) Background The film is most notable for being Annie Oakley's first appearance on film. Thomas Edison had wanted to see if his kinetoscope could capture the smoke from a rifle, so he employed Oakley to film some of her shooting.  In 1894, kinetoscopes were installed in 60 locations in major cities around the country.  Viewing the films cost a nickel. It was filmed on a single reel using standard 35 mm gauge at Edison's Black Maria studio in New York, November 1, 1895. The original film had a 90-second runtime. The surviving film is preserved by the Library of Congress.

Men Boxing is an 1891 American short silent film, produced and directed by William K. L. Dickson and William Heise for the Edison Manufacturing Company, featuring two Edison employees with boxing gloves, pretending to spar in a boxing ring. The 12 feet of film was shot between May and June 1891 at the Edison Laboratory Photographic Building in West Orange, New Jersey, on the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, through a round aperture on 3/4 inch (19mm) wide film with a single edge row of sprocket perforations, as an experimental demonstration and was never publicly shown. A print has been preserved in the US Library of Congress film archive as part of the Gordon Hendricks collection. Directed by William K. L. Dickson, William Heise Produced by William K. L. Dickson, William Heise Cinematography William K. L. Dickson, William Heise Production company: Edison Manufacturing Company Release date : 1891 Running time 5 seconds Country United States Language Silent

Sherlock Holmes Baffled is a very short American silent film created in 1900 with cinematography by Arthur Marvin. It is the earliest known film to feature Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes, albeit in a form unlike that of later screen incarnations. The inclusion of the character also makes it the first recorded detective film. In the film, a thief who can appear and disappear at will steals a sack of items from Sherlock Holmes. At each point, Holmes's attempts to thwart the intruder end in failure. Originally shown in Mutoscope machines in arcades, Sherlock Holmes Baffled has a running time of 30 seconds. Although produced in 1900, it was only registered in 1903, and a copyright notice stating this is seen on some prints. The identities of the actors playing the first screen Holmes and his assailant are not recorded. Assumed to be lost for many years, the film was rediscovered in 1968 as a paper print in the Library of Congress. Plot Sherlock Holmes enters his drawing room to find it being burgled, but on confronting the villain is surprised when the latter disappears. Holmes initially attempts to ignore the event by lighting a cigar, but upon the thief's reappearance, Holmes tries to reclaim the sack of stolen goods, drawing a pistol from his dressing gown pocket and firing it at the intruder, who vanishes. After Holmes recovers his property, the bag vanishes from his hand into that of the thief, who promptly disappears through a window. At this point, the film ends abruptly with Holmes looking "baffled". Production An 1899 advertisement for the mutoscope reading "The Mutoscope and how it makes money" in large, stylized letters with "for pennies, a moving picture machine, popular in all public places" in smaller lettering around a central picture. In the image, a lady wearing a long early 20th century dress and hat peers down the mutoscope viewfinder. An 1899 trade advertisement for the Mutoscope The film was produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and was intended to be shown on the Mutoscope, an early motion picture device, patented by Herman Casler in 1894. The Mutoscope worked on the same principle as a flip book, with individual image frames printed onto flexible cards attached to a circular core which revolved with the turn of a user-operated hand crank. The cards were lit by electric light bulbs inside the machine, a system devised by Arthur Marvin's brother, Henry, one of the founders of the Biograph company. Earlier machines had relied on reflected natural light. To avoid violating Edison's patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 to 1902 used a large-format film measuring 2-23/32 inches (68 mm) wide, with an image area of 2 × 2½ inches, four times that of Edison's 35 mm format. Biograph film was not ready-perforated; the camera itself punched a sprocket hole on each side of the frame as the film was exposed at 30 frames per second. The director and cinematographer of Sherlock Holmes Baffled was Arthur Weed Marvin, a staff cameraman for Biograph. Marvin completed over 418 short films between 1897 and 1911 and was known for filming vaudeville entertainers. He later became known as the cameraman for the early silent films of D. W. Griffith. The identities of the first screen Holmes and his assailant are not recorded. Biograph films before 1903 were mostly actualities (documentary footage of actual persons, places and events), but Sherlock Holmes Baffled is an example of an early Biograph comedy narrative film, produced at the company's rooftop studio on Broadway in New York City. According to Christopher Redmond's Sherlock Holmes Handbook, the film was shot on April 26, 1900. Rediscovery The film was assumed to have been lost for many years until a paper copy was identified in 1968 in the Library of Congress Paper Print archive by Michael Pointer, a historian of Sherlock Holmes films. Because motion pictures were not covered by copyright laws until 1912, paper prints were submitted by studios wishing to register their works. Analysis A frame of the black-and-white film. Sherlock Holmes enters his parlour and taps the shoulder of a burglar who is collecting Holmes' tablewares into a sack. Holmes is wearing a dressing gown and smoking a cigar, the thief is dressed in black. Holmes first encounters the intruder. The plot of Sherlock Holmes Baffled is unrelated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's canonical Sherlock Holmes stories; it is likely that the character's name was used purely for its familiarity with the public. Shot from a single point of view on a stage set, the intention of Sherlock Holmes Baffled was probably to act as a showcase for basic film trickery and film editing effects, particularly the stop trick first developed four years earlier in 1896 by French director Georges Méliès.

Blue Beard (French: Barbe-Bleue) is a 1901 French silent film by Georges Méliès, based on Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Bluebeard". Plot A sinister aristocrat, Blue Beard, is looking for a beautiful woman to become his wife. Lured by his great riches, many noble families bring their most eligible daughters to meet him. None of the young women want to marry him, both due to his ghastly appearance and because he has already had seven previous wives – all of whom have mysteriously vanished without a trace. Bluebeard's great wealth, however, persuades one father to give his daughter's hand to him. She has no choice but to marry him, and after a lavish wedding feast, she begins her new life in his castle. One day as Blue Beard is going away on a journey, he entrusts the keys to his castle to her and warns his wife never to go into a particular room. Caught between the fear of her husband's wrath and her own curiosity, she is unsure of what to do regarding the forbidden chamber. Her curiosity manifests itself as an imp who taunts and mocks her with potential promises that the room might contain. In contrast, her better judgment comes in the form of a guardian angel, who attempts to dissuade her from entering the locked door. When her curiosity finally gets the best of her, she realizes that she has placed herself in great danger. She enters the dimly lit room, making out strange bag shapes. The room is a torture chamber, and these bags are dead bodies: the seven past wives of the murderous Blue Beard hanging on hooks, dripping stale blood onto the floor. The new wife drops the key in her horror and is stained with dead wives' blood which the wife relentlessly tries to wash off. Later that night, she dreams of seven giant keys haunting her. On Blue Beard's return, he discovers his wife's untamable curiosity and violently shakes her. She runs to the top of the tower and calls to her sister and brothers. Her relatives save her from death and pin Blue Beard with a sword to the castle walls. The angel appears to restore the murdered wives to life, and they are married to seven great lords. Production Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Bluebeard" had previously been adapted for film in 1897, in a short version for the Lumière Brothers' studio. Méliès may have known and remembered this film in preparing his elaborate ten-scene version, which adds several elements characteristic of his films, including the appearances of a good Fairy and the Devil. The film features Jehanne d'Alcy in the leading role of Blue Beard's wife, identified as Fatima in the French and American catalogues. Bleuette Bernon plays the fairy. Méliès himself appears in three roles: Blue Beard, one of the kitchen assistants, and the Devil. Méliès's production design for the film is eclectic, mixing Renaissance, Medieval, and Moorish elements as well as a giant modern-day bottle of Champagne Mercier. The final shot is an apotheosis in theatrical style, as would be used at the conclusion of a stage spectacular at Paris venues like the Théâtre du Châtelet.[1] The special effects are created with substitution splices, dissolves, stage machinery, and pyrotechnics. The exaggerated size of some props, particularly the Mercier bottle and the key to Bluebeard's chamber, point to Méliès's wish to emphasize certain details in the complex, sprawling wide shots of the film. In later cinema, when a grammar of narrative film editing became prevalent, such emphasis would often be given using closeups. Similarly, to clarify the film's plot within its spacious format, Méliès drew freely on 19th-century theatrical techniques, including exaggerated mime-based acting, carefully layered groupings of actors, and scenery painted with sharp, high-contrast detail. According to Méliès's recollections (as reported by his granddaughter, Madeleine Malthête-Méliès), the filming process was marked by an accident: during production of the penultimate scene, in which one of Bluebeard's brothers-in-law prepares to stab him, Méliès was knocked over, fell on the guard of his sword, and broke his femur. He finished the film but had to get an orthopedic cast on his leg that night. He was still wearing the cast at the grand re-opening of his stage venue, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, on 22 September 1901. Release Blue Beard was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 361–370 in its catalogues.[3] A surviving print of the film, restored by the film preservationist David Shepard, was released on home video in 2008.