The Silent Film Quarterly・!1
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The Silent Film Quarterly ——————————————————————————
Volume I, Issue 3 Spring 2016
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Table of Contents Editor’s Message
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Departments: In Their Own Words
“Chaplin Not a Bolshevist, Says Man Who Knows Him Intimately” by Mack Sennett, The Big 10 and Their Yearly Earnings, “A Latter Day Frankenstein” by Eric Von Stroheim, “Broken-Hearted” by Florence Lawrence, “Charlie Chaplin Writes” by Charlie Chaplin, Box Office Ticker
Silents In Review
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The Black Pirate (1926), Around China With A Movie Camera (2015), The Grim Game (1919), L’Inhumaine (1924), Piccadilly (1929)
Celluloid Collectibles
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Aviva Stein
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Carrie Pomeroy
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Kevin John Charbeneau
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1916 Motion Picture Playing Cards
Original Features: The Sounds of Silence: An Interview With Carl Davis
The Tramp Goes to Syria:
How Chaplin United a War-Torn Community
“A Wonder Child Who is Just a Natural Boy”:
The Selling of Child Superstar Jackie Coogan
Coming Attraction Slides : A Guide for Collectors
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The Twisted World of From Morn to Midnight:
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Mary Haberstroh
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Lewis Walker
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Lea Stans
Examining a Forgotten—and Enigmatic— Piece of German Expressionism
Tom Tyler:
Silent Film Hercules
Drug Use in Silent Cinema:
A Look at the Underbelly of Early Hollywood
Birth of a Nation at 100:
Jeremy Burbick
Film’s Most Influential and Problematic Artifact
Preserving An Piece of Pre-Hollywood Cinema:
Darren Németh
The 1907 Chicago Projecting Co.’s Entertainers Supplies Catalog
Classic Feature: Drama Treatment Enters Comedy Photography:
Walter Lundin, A.S.C.
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By Harold Lloyd’s Chief Cinematographer
Interviews: Silent Soaps:
Chris Whittman
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A Unique Homage to the Silent Era
The Forgotten Actress Series:
Laini Giles
A Foray into Silent Film Fiction
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The Silent Film Quarterly・!3
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Editor’s Message
Happy New Year from Silent Film Quarterly! 2016 is already looking like a great year for the magazine, and there are a lot of exciting things coming up that I cannot wait to share with the readers. As proud as I was of the first two issues, I honestly believe that Issue 3 is a new highwater mark for Silent Film Quarterly. The most exciting moment in the short history of the publication came when I received an email inquiring whether I wanted to interview Carl Davis as part of his 80th birthday celebration this year. As a huge fan of Mr. Davis’s work, such an opportunity was nothing short of an honor. I believe that his interview, which kicks off the original content in this issue, is an extremely informative and interesting read, and I hope that other silent film fans enjoy it as much as I enjoyed conducting it. The other articles in this issue are equally exciting: a longtime friend of mine attended a Chaplin screening in Kurdistan and an article on Jackie Coogan coincides with the new Criterion Collection release of The Kid, to name just a couple. There are more feature articles in this issue than either of the first two, and the range of topics is impressive in my mind. Word has spread like wildfire about Silent Film Quarterly, and I there are several people I’d like to thank. Tyler Smith welcomed me on his podcast, Battleship Pretension, to discuss all things silent. The episode has received a lot of positive feedback, and hopefully helped to turn some new people on to silent films. Following that, I also was a guest on Jim Rohner’s I Do Movies Badly podcast, where we had a fantastic chat about the films of Charlie Chaplin. I also want to thank Rena Kiehn and the folks at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, who continue to stock Silent Film Quarterly in the museum’s gift shop. Having the support of the only silent film museum in North America means a lot to the publication. The coming months will be just as busy as the last few have! Already a successful Kickstarter campaign has allowed the reproduction of a 1916 deck of silent film playing cards, and other similar endeavors are currently in the works. It is my hope in the coming months to launch Silent Film Quarterly Press, an arm of the operation dedicated to republishing out-of-print texts from the silent era—autobiographies, histories, you name it. The design of these publications would be consistent with the magazine, and I think they will make a wonderful addition to the bookshelves of silent film buffs. So without further ado, here is Issue 3 of Silent Film Quarterly! I hope you enjoy reading, and as always I hope it does justice to the remarkable men and women of the silent era. Your editor, Charles Epting
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Write for Silent Film Quarterly!
Want to write for Silent Film Quarterly? The magazine is always looking for interesting original content about the silent era, including feature articles and reviews of silent films. Please contact the editor at charleseptingauthor@gmail.com if interested or for more information.
The Silent Film Quarterly・!4
In Their Own Words Primary sources from the silent era ・・・
Chaplin Not a Bolshevist, Says Man Who Knows Him Intimately By Mack Sennett From Detroit Free Press, October 23, 1921
I have often been asked the question: “Is Charlie Chaplin a bolshevik?” So, by the way, has Chaplin himself been pestered with the identical query. I believe the notion had its foundation in a subscription of $5,000 made by the little man to a socialistic fund organized by Max Eastman, a speaker of a very fiery order, whom the authorities of Los Angeles looked upon with a cold eye. Since the political opinions of a man who is an artist first, last and all the time seem to be of much interest, it may be as well to say that Chaplin’s answer to the direct question was made in my hearing. “A bolshevik is a man who wants to take away what people have got, isn’t he?” Chaplin asked. And, being answered in the affirmative, went on: “Well, I’ve worked like a dog for what I’ve got, and I don’t want anybody to take it away from me. I want to keep it; and if there’s any giving to be done, I prefer to do it myself.” As I say, Chaplin is as artist all the time, and, like all artists, he has the habit of expressing his varying moods in extreme speech. He had a very hard time as a boy and a young man, and there are occasions when the memory of his former hardships moves strongly within him, and impels him to bitter speech. His sympathies are with the poor and downtrodden; and he has the same hatred of official and legal oppression of the poor which characterized Dickens. Charlie Chaplin’s important associates and friends in filmland, as everybody knows, are Douglas Fairbanks and Mary
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Pickford. The three are fast friends, and Mary Pickford and her husband have learned to know Chaplin in his eeriest moods, and to fathom all that lies under his spells of strange eccentricity and moody silence. With intimates such an these, Chaplin’s mood turns suddenly from grave to gay; and it is no unusual thing for him and Douglas Fairbanks suddenly to give themselves up to boyish pranks of the most absurd description. Throughout the period of his unfortunate disagreement with his wife, Chaplin practically lived with Douglas Fairbanks, occupying such apartments of the pleasant house Fairbanks had built for himself as happened to take his fancy at the moment. None of his whims were crossed for one moment, the good friend making a jest of all the vagaries of the little man whom he esteems the greatest genius the film world has yet produced. There can be no doubt that the unhappiness this episode of Chaplin’s career caused him was reflected in his work for the time being. His two most ambitious films, and his two most successful, from the monetary point of view, at any rate, have been “Shoulder Arms” and “The Kid.” Sandwiched in between them were three which were only moderate winners, from the point of view of a Chaplin film. They were “Sunny-side,” “A Dog’s Life,” and “A Day Out.” It was commonly supposed that Chaplin, the most severe critic of his own work the world holds, felt more keenly than anybody the doubt whether he was not beginning to mark time, or even to drop back a little in the quality of his work. The five films occupied him three years in the making, and he was satisfied with only the first and last of them. During the greater part of the time, he seemed to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown; and tried a good many expedients to avoid going over the edge. One or his ideas was a quiet trip to New
The Silent Film Quarterly・!5 York for a month, where he was made much of, and might have been feted a great deal more than he was, if he had not dodged the bouquets, to employ his term. He came back to the west considerably better, and with a good many dry and caustic stories of his New York experiences. The newspaper men there seemed to expect to find in the man who had risen to fame and wealth in so short a time a CoalOil Johnny, who would fling his money about right and left in vulgar extravagance. “One of them said to me when I was loafing,” Chaplin related. “‘How much have you spent on Broadway, Charlie?’” “I said, ‘Four weeks, all but a day, and I’m tired of it.’” “‘But how much money?’” “‘I haven’t count; but not any that I am missing.’” “Next day the paper came out with a story that beside me Harry Lauder was a spendthrift. Now I know Harry Lander, and like and respect him beyond most men in his profession. I take it a compliment to be compared to him in any way, and especially for wisdom in the management of my money.” The suggestion that Chaplin is fond of money is, of course, an stupid as it in unjustified. He has always had a supreme contempt for those people who broke into the film business, and presently found themselves earning more money in a week than they had ever heard of. The usual effect has been to make them as extravagant and improvident as could well be imagined. ・・・
The Big Ten and Their Yearly Earnings From Motion Picture Classic, June, 1926
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Harold Lloyd…$2,000,000 Charlie Chaplin…$1,500,000 Doug Fairbanks…$1,200,000 Gloria Swanson…$1,000,000 Mary Pickford…$1,000,000
6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
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Norma Talmadge…$1,000,000 Tom Mix…$780,000 Thomas Meighan…$675,000 Lillian Gish…$500,000 John Barrymore…$400,000 ・・・
A Latter Day Frankenstein By Eric Von Stroheim From Nashville Tennessean, May 21, 1922
I am “The Beast!” Sometimes I wonder whether to laugh or cry. The more people hate me, the more money I make—but I often question whether the money’s worth it. I think I earn my money harder than any other man; I capitalize public abhorrence. When I came up the elevator to my suit of hotel rooms a woman recognized me and shrank away. She’s only one—it happens every day, a dozen times. That’s what I am getting paid for. They call me “the man you love to hate.” I’m just a simple, inoffensive fellow who tries conscientiously to do his best in acting unpleasant parts. Perhaps it’s because I try to do it with subtlety, and don’t do it in an artificial manner, that they confuse the part I play with the man I am; however that may be, they do it. I don’t mind being hated on the screen, but it’s mighty tough to be hated off it: after hours, when one longs for human companionship and gets, instead, unadulterated, Simon-pure hate from practically all with whom one comes in contact. Here are a few incidents—a few out of so many I can’t remember them, but only I feel the sting of their accumulated venom. One night during a trip to New York I dined at the “L’Aiglon,” a popular French restaurant, with my wife and several friends. At the next table sat two couples, and presently one of the girls recognized me. They whispered together for a minute, then one of them demanded, loudly