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I watched this film on YouTube. You can view it below.

Next I’m watching A There Was [1917], directed by Victor Sjöström.

I watched on YouTube. I’ve linked the video below in case you’d like to watch, too.

Next I’m watching The Dying Swan [1917], directed by Yevgeny Bauer.

1917 was a turning point for American cinema. In the coming weeks I will talk about 44 films from that year. I’ll also intersperse some written articles about other topics. If you’d like to know why 1917 was a turning point, listen to the podcast! :)

If you know me in real life, you know that for most of my life I’ve been enchanted by anything and everything Tiki, and one of my idols is the legendary creator of the Tiki phenomenon, Donn Beach. His isn’t a household name, but his life story is a fascinating one, and any time I’ve regaled friends or clients with tales about Donn, the response has been enthusiastic, to say the least.

Last year, directors Alex Lamb and Max Well released a wonderful documentary about Donn Beach, titled The Donn of Tiki. I watched it once online, and then had the good fortune to see it again on a big screen, with an audience full of Tiki aficionados no less, courtesy of Alex and Max.

The film is a delight. Most of it is made up with interviews with people who knew, or were affiliated with, Donn, but as Donn is no longer around, the creators made the clever, and fitting, in my mind, choice to have a puppet, reminiscent of the Rankin/Bass puppets of my childhood, to act out the part of Donn, while actual recordings of interviews with Donn Beach are played.

I’m taking today, during the break between the films of 1916 and 1917, to share a conversation I had with Alex and Max. We sat down at Velvet Taco, in Austin, Texas, and spoke for over an hour on topics ranging from our favorite films, our “handshake five” films, our early cinematic experiences, and, of course, Donn Beach.

I hope you enjoy listening to the interview. If you are curious about the film, here’s the trailer.

You can learn more about the film, and possibly see it if it comes to your town, on this web page.

I watched 34 movies from the year 1916. You can see them in a Letterboxd list here.

Next I’m sharing an interview with the directors of a modern film, and after that I’m digging into the films of 1917!

Today I’m talking about the final film from 1916 in my list!

Next I’m recapping the films of 1916.

Next I’m watching The Matrimaniac [1916], directed by Paul Powell.

I watched it on the same Blu-ray set I’ve shared previously, which includes the 12 short films he made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can click the image below if you want to buy a copy of your very own.

Or, you can watch it on YouTube, linked below, as the film is now in the public domain.

Next I’m watching Twisted Trails [1916], directed by Tom Mix.

An advertisement for the series:

You can watch this on YouTube, linked at the bottom of this post, as it is in the public domain. I watched it on the Blu-ray release of The Cossack Whip, where it’s included as an extra feature. You can click the image below if you want to buy a copy for yourself. The main feature is excellent.

Next I’m watching The Rink [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

Here are a couple extras I found while doing research about this film. The first is the original “Music Plot" for the film, which are the songs suggested as musical accompaniment for the film. Not every picture came with one of these, and most that were created have been lost, so it’s nice to know what the filmmakers thought would best accompany each scene in the film.

While I could not find a movie poster for this film, I found a couple versions of the booking sheet that would have been sent to theaters encouraging them to play the film. Here’s the other one I found.

As far as I can tell, this film isn’t online. You can buy it at the link below by clicking on the regrettably low-res image of the Blu-ray. I highly recommend it, and all of Collins’ films.

Next I’m watching Mary and Gretel [1916], directed by Howard S. Moss.

I watched it on the same Blu-ray set I’ve shared previously, which includes the 12 short films he made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can click the image below if you want to buy a copy of your very own.

Or, you can watch it on YouTube, linked below, as the film is now in the public domain.

Next I’m watching The Cossack Whip [1916], directed by John H. Collins.

I own this on Blu-ray, a copy of which you can buy by clicking on the image below.

If you don’t want to buy a copy, the film is in the public domain, and you can watch it on YouTube.

Next I’m watching Behind the Screen [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

Here’s a link to watch the movie on YouTube.

Next I’m watching East is East [1916], directed by Henry Edwards.

I have a Blu-ray of My Darling Clementine, which contains this film as an extra. If you’d like to buy that, I’ve linked it below. I’ve also found the film on YouTube, also linked below, if you’d like to watch it there.

Next I’m watching American Aristocracy [1916], directed by Lloyd Ingraham.

This has been added to my Letterboxd list of The Best Movies Ever.

I have a DVD of this, but the quality isn’t great. I watched it a second time on YouTube, linked below, and honestly, it looks at least as good on YouTube as it does on the janky DVD I have. I wish this, and all of Hart’s films, were restored. Maybe someday.

Next I’m watching The Bandit’s Wager [1916], directed by Francis Ford.

You can watch a 4k restoration from a 35mm nitrate print, which is about as good as it gets, at the link below. The soundtrack by Orlando Perez Rosso is great, too. I wish all the old silents looked this good!

Next I’m watching The Return of Draw Egan [1916], directed by William S. Hart.

I watched it on the same Blu-ray set I’ve shared previously, which includes the 12 short films he made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can click the image below if you want to buy a copy of your very own.

Next I’m watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea [1916], directed by Stuart Paton.

Today I’m joined by film historian Dante Ficeti for a discussion of D.W. Griffith’s epic masterpiece Intolerance. This will also be the first podcast I record without a written accompaniment. Wish me luck!

This is the Blu-ray I own. It features a beautiful restoration of the film, along with the excised films The Mother and the Law and The Fall of Babylon. This is well worth the purchase price, and will be a welcome addition to any collection.

Next I’m watching The Pawn Shop [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

This is the 9th short film featuring Chaplin that I’ve watched thus far in the chronology. I liked him a bit more this time around than I did in some of the previous films, though he’s still a little bit mean-spirited and cavalier for my tastes. Nonetheless, I can see why he was as big a star as he was in his era, and his films always have some fun gags.

This time around Chaplin plays a tailor’s assistant. As you may expect, he’s not a very good assistant, and bumbles about the job. He gets into big trouble when he accidentally burns the trousers of a Count while ironing them. That’s a fireable offense, and he finds himself out of work.

His former boss learns that the Count is supposed to attend a fancy party being thrown by Miss Moneybags, but won’t be able to attend. Hoping to score some of those bags of money, the tailor disguises himself as a count and shows up at the party. Coincidentally, Chaplin also ends up at the party, and begins competing with his ex-boss for the affection of Miss Moneybags. Hilarity ensues, in the form of non-stop sight gags and action sequences featuring a dance floor, a staircase, pastries to the face, and all the expected Chaplin stunts.

The ante is upped when the real Count shows up after all. He summons the police to deal with the imposters. After a spectacular chase scene, Chaplin makes his escape, leaving behind the tailor, who is arrested.

I’m definitely growing accustomed to Chaplin’s style, and finding his films more and more enjoyable each time one pops up in the chronology. My young sons (ages 6 and 8) adore him.

I watched it on the same Blu-ray set I’ve shared previously, which includes the 12 short films he made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can click the image below if you want to buy a copy of your very own.

Next I’m watching Intolerance [1916], directed by D.W. Griffith.

Socially conscious movies were all the rage in the 1910s. I’ve already seen films that have dealt with abortion, child labor, prostitution, blackmail, forced marriage, rape, and more, so it’s high time heroin addiction joined the fray. It does so courtesy of Norma Talmadge, making her 5th appearance in the chronology, and her first since Going Straight.

This time around, Talmadge plays Renee, an assistant to John Minturn, a painter played by Tully Marshall. She’s somewhat lazy, prone to sleeping in and slacking off at work, and we learn that she’s taken to shooting up morphine in order to give herself the occasional pick-me-up.

We’re told in a title card that Renee developed her morphine addiction during her service as a wartime nurse. Interestingly, the U.S. didn’t declare war on Germany until April 6, 1917, nearly a full year after this film was released. I have to wonder if that card was added after the fact, during a re-release of this film, as it would make no sense to audiences in 1916. If anything, it seems like she’s taking it to combat her ADHD, as she’s awfully unfocused on her work, and life in general, and only perks up and gets down to business after she’s shot up, much like Coke Ennyday in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish.

The story begins with Minturn seeking models for a painting he’s working on, and settling on Patricia, the daughter of one his wealthy patrons, played by Marguerite Marsh. I’ve seen her sister Mae in a few films, but this is my first chance to see her, although she doesn’t have a major role in the film. She’s mostly there to propel the action. Sir Gordon Galloway, her fiancé, shows up, angry that she’s stooped to modeling for a painter. Unfortunately for the boyfriend, and Patricia’s father, who is eager to marry her to the wealthy, if foppish, Galloway, Patricia has fallen in love with Minturn, and they begin an affair.

As this is happening, Minturn learns of Renee’s addiction. Rather than deny using it, or promising to quit, she instead extols the drug’s positives, and promises him that he’ll be even more clever and creative if only he’d give it a try. He’s unconvinced, but in a moment of curiosity, he injects himself, and immediately discovers she was right. His painter’s block is gone! He’s Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael all rolled up into one!

He’s also much more open about his love for Patricia, and when she shows up, the two of them elope. Everyone is devastated. Patricia’s father disowns her, Galloway is inconsolable, and even Renee is glum, for she too was in love with Minturn. Worse, when she goes to shoot up to take the edge off of life, she learns that Minturn has exhausted her stash!

From there we see Minturn’s downfall, replete with hallucinations and attempts to get his new wife hooked on heroin, juxtaposed with Renee’s salvation, as she kicks the habit. When Minturn comes to her for a fix, she realizes she’s responsible for his situation, and decides to help him get clean.

A lot more happens, but that’s the gist of it to this point, after which Minturn eventually makes his way to a farm, where he cleans up just in time to return to the city and rescue Patricia from the clutches of a drug dealer.

If I’ve made it sound comical or over the top, I’ve misled you, as this is a very serious, and very well-executed film. It isn’t a medically accurate depiction of how a person injects heroin, and it is guilty of portraying addiction as a case of one hit immediately turning a person into a hardened junkie, but what it lacks in realism there it makes up for in how well it demonstrates what addiction can do to a person. It’s a grim and serious movie, and while it lacks the intensity and realism of something like Requiem for a Dream, it’s as close to that as a film made in 1916 could possibly have been.

I bought the DVD to watch John H. Collins’ Children of Eve, but was of course intrigued by the ostensible main feature of the disc. While it doesn’t live up to the Collins’ film, The Devil’s Needle is still quite powerful. It’s also available on Blu-ray, which I’ve linked below in case you’d like a copy of your own. I highly recommend purchasing a copy, as Children of Eve is an outstanding film, and one I know I’ll find myself revisiting many times, but The Devil’s Needle is quite good, too.

Next I’m watching The Count [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

Sorry in advance for anyone I have catfished with my recent Best Movies of the 21st Century list. I saw a huge increase in subscribers after posting that, and I fear most of my new subscribers aren’t aware of what they are getting themselves into.

If you’ve been here since the early days, or if you've read my “sticky” Coming Soon post, then you know that I’m watching chronologically through a list of 4,000 or so movies, and I started this podcast as a private diary of the films I watch. I’d heard that a great way to remember what you read is to write about it after you read it, read it aloud a few times, record yourself reading it out loud, and then listen to the recording. Since I often forget all the details of movies I watch, I decided to try this method for movies rather than books.

After three years of using this method of remembering, I can say with some level of certainty that it doesn’t really work. I mean, maybe it sort of does, but honestly, I can’t remember the details of the films I’ve watched for this project any better than the details of those I’ve watched outside of it. Some things stick with me, and others vanish like the snows of yesteryear, gone from this earth.

Meanwhile, I’ve felt that my progress through the list of movies I want to watch has been slowed significantly by having to take the time to write and edit an article about each one, rehearse it, and then read it into a microphone. I also feel that reading it turns what could be a more conversational podcast into something a bit stilted. I do better talking off the cuff than I do with a prewritten speech.

So what’s the point? Well, from now on, when I watch a movie I’m going to record and share a podcast without an accompanying article, which in all honesty is how most podcasts are shared anyway. I realized after starting this, as I checked out other podcasts, that I was the only one writing an article and then narrating it.

tl;dr version: from now on All the Movies will be a podcast without a written article.

I’ll still write the occasional article, like the ones I’ve shared during the break between seasons here, but for all of my “here’s what I watched” podcasts, you’re only getting a podcast. I have a couple already written, so if you’re a fan of the written word you still have a couple left, but after that, it’s all talk, all the time!

I hope you didn’t mind my two recent posts that weren’t a part of the film chronology. I did something similar once before, in October, when I rattled off a list of my favorite monster movies, and I may do it again. Who knows? Fear not, however, if you are only here for the films, as nearly every time I post, it will be a podcast about the next film on my list.

Meanwhile, I feel I need to reiterate the reason this podcast exists, as my article about saving cinema attracted a large number of new subscribers. I fear the new listeners may be disappointed when they find out I don’t normally write articles about the world of film, and am instead watching my way chronologically through a list of films, and then sharing my thoughts about each film. Soooo… welcome, new subscribers! I hope you are interested in my thoughts regarding very, very old movies, as at this point, I’m only up to the films of 1916 in my list.

Speaking of that list, it has now grown to 3,845 films. Today I’m covering film number 76 in that list. Even if I were to pick up the pace considerably and cover 200 films per year, and not add any new films to the list, this project will still take me at least another 20 years. I hope I live long enough to finish! And I hope everyone reading this lives long enough to celebrate with me when I finally reach the films of 2025!

If it seems like I’m rambling rather than discussing today’s film, well, perhaps I am. It’s another Charlie Chaplin short. It’s a fine and funny comedy, and as before I’m growing more fond of Chaplin’s work, but there isn’t much to it.

What’s the film about? A top-hatted and tuxedoed Chaplin returns home after a night of drinking, and offers up 25 minutes of sight gags involving him climbing up and falling down stairs, dealing with a revolving table, tripping over rugs, lighting a cigarette, pulling out a Murphy bed, and various other impediments standing between him and a good night’s sleep.

See? Now you know why I was stalling for time at the beginning. I’ve got nothing more to say about today’s movie. I promise the next episode will be much more interesting, as the film deals with a very salacious and juicy topic— heroin addiction!

You can watch One A.M., and 11 other Chaplin shorts, on the same Blu-ray that I own. You can click the picture below to purchase a copy. I do not make any money if you buy one, just so you know.

Next I’m watching The Devil’s Needle [1916], directed by Chester Withey.

I know that in my last podcast I promised another Chaplin movie was coming next, but that was before I discovered the film The Half-Breed, which, as luck would have it, comes exactly next in the chronology. Starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Half-Breed was released 20 days after The Vagabond, and 8 days before One A.M. It was almost as if fate decreed that I find the movie just in time to include it in my podcast. Serendipity, am I right?

Not so fortuitous were my discoveries of two other Douglas Fairbanks films, The Good Bad-Man and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish. However, as both were released in 1916, in April and June respectively, I decided to watch all three and talk about them together today, in much the same way that I watched some of Norma Talmadge’s older short films before talking about Going Straight. This is, after all, my first encounter with Fairbanks, who is a bona fide screen legend, so it’s only reasonable that I go back and watch a couple of his prior films to help me better understand who he was.

I’m also turning to a friend who knows far more about silent films than I do. That’s Dante. Today, Dante is joining me on the podcast to talk about Douglas Fairbanks in general, and these three films in particular. If you want to hear Dante’s thoughts, be sure to listen to the audio version of this article!

First off, I’ll share my thoughts on the three films. Douglas Fairbanks is a Hollywood legend. He was considered to be one of the four biggest stars of his age, and of any age, really, along with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and William S. Hart. As such, I’ve been looking forward to seeing what he was all about. Will he be like Pickford and Hart— movie stars that instantly stunned me with their screen presence and talent? Or more like Chaplin, who has taken awhile to grow on me? Let’s find out!

First up, I watched The Good Bad-Man. Fairbanks plays an outlaw who is actually a good man. Honestly, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the film, and if I didn’t know that Fairbanks was destined to become I would not have identified him as a future star. It played like a William S. Hart knockoff, and Fairbanks seems out of place. He’s meant to be a tough gunslinger in the Wild West, but he came across to me as more of a middle-aged dad cosplaying as a cowboy. The film isn’t terrible, and neither is he, by any stretch, but nothing about it is great. Unlike early Chaplin films, where I don’t like Chaplin’s persona, I very much like Fairbanks’ demeanor and screen presence. The only issue is that he seems out of place in a Western, and very much as if her were trying to mimic Hart, who by this point had mastered the role of a good bad-man. I want to rewatch The Bargain again after seeing this, if only to see perhaps the finest cinematic good bad-man of all time.

Next I watched The Mystery of the Leaping Fish and saw Fairbanks play an very different sort of character. No longer a cowboy, Fairbanks is now a drug-addled super-detective named Coke Ennyday. True to his name, he snorts coke, and shoots up heroin, any and every day, while solving crimes for the Secret Service. This short film has him on the tail of some Chinese smugglers, whom he pursues and eventually apprehends using heroin and opium the way Popeye uses spinach. His hopping around while “hopped up” dance is entertaining, as is everything in this short, silly film that feels like the seed from which things like Cheech & Chong no doubt sprung.

Finally, I watched The Half-Breed. This is the winner of the bunch. It’s a fully formed, well-shot movie. The camera lingers on some beautiful long shots, and moves when necessary, something that still hasn’t become common in the films I’ve seen from this period. Many still set up and shoot as if they are filming a stage play, but not Dwan. He’s clearly taken a page from Griffith’s handbook, and knows how to use camera motion to enhance the action on the screen.

I watched all three of these films on YouTube, and have shared the videos below.

This where I’d normally end my podcast, and it’s where the written portion of this entry ends, but if you listen to the recorded version , you’ll hear what Dante has to say. He has some great insights about all three films, as well as the life and career of the great Douglas Fairbanks. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Next I’m watching One A.M. [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

I have to admit, every time a Chaplin film pops up in the chronology, I’m a little nervous. I know I’m supposed to love his work, and praise him as an early genius of film, but so far I’ve been unimpressed by him. It’s as if his distinct look is all that sets him apart from his peers, at least so far. Will this be the film that changes my mind? Spoiler alert— sort of!

This short opens with a sequence in a bar that is the best thing I’ve seen from Chaplin yet. He’s still playing the role of a somewhat mean-spirited instigator, but at least no one gets kicked in the seat of the pants this time around. Instead, we get a 4 1/2 minute scene of Chaplin’s Tramp playing his fiddle at a bar, while a five-piece band plays in front of the same bar. He tries to collect tips for himself, perpetrating that he’s collecting for the band, and chaos, and a chase, ensues.

After the bar incident, the scene shifts to a mansion, where a wealthy woman, played by Charlotte Mineau, a Chaplin regular, bemoans the fact that their daughter has been missing since she was a little girl. Cut to a Gypsy camp, where we learn that daughter, played by Edna Purviance, another Chaplin regular who I just saw as “the Girl” in The Fireman, was abducted by a band of Gypsies and has been living as a servant for one of them, played by Eric Campbell (yet another regular, he played the Fire Chief in The Fireman) ever since. She’s now full-grown, and laments her sad life.

Along comes Chaplin, who enthralls the Girl with his fiddling, before the Gypsy Chief comes along and shoos Chaplin away. He proceeds to whip the Girl, as punishment for talking to the Tramp, but Chaplin returns and clobbers him with a tree branch. While the other Gypsies tend to their fallen Chief, Chaplin and the Girl escape in the Gypsy’s wagon.

The next morning, Chaplin washes and grooms the Girl, who is unkempt after a lifetime in squalor, then prepares breakfast. While he’s cooking, she wanders off and meets a handsome young artist, played by yet another Chaplin regular, and future star director, Lloyd Bacon, who offers to paint her. She falls for him and brings him back to the camp to have breakfast with them, much to the Tramp’s dismay. She’s smitten, and spends the entire meal enthralled by the artist. When he leaves, both she and the Tramp are left broken-hearted.

Next, we’re in an art gallery, where the painting of the Girl has won first prize in a contest. The mother from earlier in the film sees the painting, recognizes her lost daughter’s unique, shamrock-shaped birthmark, and asks the Artist to help her locate the Girl. Fortunately, the Tramp and the Girl are still camped in the same place, and mother and daughter are reunited, as are Girl and Artist. They drive off happily, leaving the Tramp sad and alone.

It seems we’re destined for a bittersweet ending, until moments later, when it dawns on the Girl that it’s the Tramp she loves, and not the Artist, so she demands they turn the car around. They return to the camp, where she tells the Tramp she loves him, and he grabs his fiddle and hat, hops into the car, and off they go, presumably to a happily ever after ending.

The is easily the best thing I’ve seen from Chaplin. I hope this marks a turning point, and I’ll find my way onto the Chaplin bandwagon, but regardless of what comes next, this is definitely a fun, well-made, short film.

I watched this on the same Blu-ray set that I’ve linked previously, and have linked again at the bottom of this post. You can watch a good, clear copy on YouTube, which I’ve linked for you below.

This is the Blu-ray. Click and purchase a copy of your own!

Next I’m watching The Half-Breed [1916], directed by Allan Dwan.

It’s becoming clear that early filmmakers were not shying away from difficult topics. I’ve already watched movies that deal with abortion, sweatshops, organized crime, class warfare, and race. Poverty has been a common topic as well, and that’s the focus of Lois Weber’s Shoes. Movie studios were clearly onboard with the notion of cinema as an agent of societal change.

Lois Weber was one of the big name directors of the 1910s, and this is the third of her films that I’ve watched, and the first where she didn’t share directing duties with her husband. And while this has something of a reputation as a favorite among feminist viewers, I don’t think it’s as well-made as the last one I watched, Where Are My Children. Where that film was full of subtlety and subtext, here everything is hammered home with no attempt at nuance.

For example, at night, the grim hand of poverty reaches down to disturb her sleep. No really. Look!

That’s more than a little no the nose, but not much more than anything else in this movie, which is dripping with Message with a capital M.

The plot concerns Eva, a shop girl who works to support her family. Her father is lazy, and her mother preoccupied with running the house, so the entire burden falls upon her. Each day she walks to work in old shoes, with paper in the soles, that hurt her feet. She sees a new pair in a shop window, but hasn’t the $3.00 to purchase them. Each payday, she brings the money home to her mother, who always promises next week she can buy shoes, but is never able to spare the money.

Enter Cabaret Charlie. He’s a singer at a local night club, and he’s been buying Eva’s co-worker gifts in exchange for sex. He spots Eva and immediately assesses her situaion. He offers to buy her a pair of shoes, but she has to sleep with him to get them. When her old shoes finally break apart in the rain, Eva is left with no choice but to go to the night club and earn herself a pair of shoes, which she does. The film ends with her coming home with her new shoes to find out her father has landed a job, though one that likely won’t last beyond a week, at which time the cycle will begin anew.

The real villain here isn’t Cabaret Charlie, it’s that dad. His lackadaisical approach to job-hunting is the reason his family is in such dire financial straits, and even the job he finds at the end promises to be temporary. That whole side to the story is the best thing about the film, as it’s far more real than the episodes at the cabaret, or Eva’s footwear woes. The family isn’t destitute, and there’s no evil landlord lurking at the door. Instead, they are just another poor family with barely enough to scrape by, but without means to handle any needs beyond the most basic. Eva needs a pair of shoes, not a new house or a cure for a disease. That grounds everything in realism, even as other elements of the film work against that grounding.

This film has been restored, and is available on Blu-ray, and while I wish I owned a copy, I don’t, and instead watched on YouTube. You can, too!

If you want the Blu-ray, you can find it by clicking on the picture of it below. I get nothing if you do, so don’t think I’m trying to make a buck off of you. At best I can live vicariously through your purchase if you buy a copy and tell me in the comments below that you did so.

Next I’m watching The Vagabond [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

We’ll likely never get to see Theda Bara at the apex of her powers. This is one of only three surviving films in which she had a major role, and none are from her days as a major star. This film, and A Fool There Was, are early works, and the third, The Unchastened Woman, was her final full-length film, and a failed comeback attempt after many years of inactivity. Meanwhile, in between she became one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, and portrayed characters such as Cleopatra, Salome, and Juliet, as well as starring in provocatively titled films such as The Vixen and The Tiger Woman. Sadly, those films are lost, and what we have likely doesn’t do her justice. It would be as if audiences in 2124 were trying to understand Paul Newman’s appeal, but only had The Hudsucker Proxy, The Left Handed Gun, and Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! to gauge his ability. They’d likely not get it.

There is always hope that a lost film will resurface. A few seconds of footage from Cleopatra were recently found by someone who bought an old projector on eBay. A piece of film that came with the purchase turned out to be a snippet from that film. What a find! The clip can be seen here. However, until any more turns up, we’ll have to accept that we have nothing of her at the height of her popularity.

As for East Lynne, well, it doesn’t make much of a case for her as the star we know her to have been. She’s one of many characters in a film with a plot so Byzantine that you’ll have no idea what’s going on unless you’ve read the source material, Ellen Wood’s novel of the same name. The book is a 784 page Victorian era soap opera with plots and subplots featuring countless characters navigating never-ending intrigue. When the movie was made, it was more or less assumed that everyone had read the book, because in 1916, most everyone had, so no effort whatsoever was made to explain anything that was happening onscreen.

I have no intention of slogging through the novel, so I read a summary of the story. Much was omitted from the film, but they kept the story of Lady Isabel (Bara) marrying Archibald Carlyle, and being duped by Captain Levison into believing her husband is unfaithful to her. She leaves him. The train she takes derails, and she’s believed to have died in the wreck. She survived, and sneaks back to her home wearing sunglasses and a wig so as not be recognized. She takes a job as nanny to her children— yes another Mrs. Doubtfire moment akin to that I recently saw in Where Is My Treasure?

Even if you watch knowing the plot ahead of time the film is still hard to follow because of how it’s paced. The film is only 75 minutes longs, the first 65 of which introduce characters and situations at a snail’s pace. Then the film shifts into overdrive and crams 2/3 of the novel into 10 minutes. According to the summary I read, about 75% of the novel (almost 600 pages) involves Lady Isabel in the guise of Madame Vine, her governess alter ego. We get about 4 minutes of her in the film. It’s a whirlwind!

Because of the crazy pacing, it’s impossible to understand what sort of chemistry exists between any of the characters. After Isabel disappears, Carlyle marries Barbara, a character about whom we know virtually nothing other than she loves Carlyle but hates his kids. Other characters show up only to vanish, never to be heard from again. At one point Levison and Richard are fighting over a girl, and… that’s it. Who does she end up with? We don’t know. She never shows up in the film again. So many characters do the same. They come, they go. Why were they ever there? Who’s to say? Not me. I’m just watching this thing.

When we do get character development, it’s hammered home with no subtlety whatsoever. Stuart Holmes, who plays the villainous Captain Levison, is poorly handled. When he’s introduced, he kicks a dog to let us know he’s not a good guy. Later, he kills a man, accidentally, but still, and then frames someone else for his crime. Just in case we still think he might be a good guy, we’re later shown a snake slithering through the grass while he seduces Isabel. They may as well have given him a foam finger that reads “Villain” to truly hammer home the notion that he’s a cad.

The real question I imagine most will have is how is Bara? My answer is, she’s quite good. She shows restraint during the emotional scenes where many of that era would have gone full ham. At the end, when one of her children is dying, she easily could have overdone it, but she kept the emoting in check, and that moderation in this early role suggests to me that her subsequent stardom was well-deserved. If only more would surface!

I have a DVD of this film, but to be honest the transfer there is so bad I found that it was easier to watch this on YouTube. The DVD is from the Silent Gems Collection which more often than not are pretty terrible. They look to me like they were downloaded off of YouTube, and then burned to DVD. The only time I’d recommend them is for the rare silent film that isn’t available anywhere else.

Here’s the best-looking version I could find. It has no soundtrack at all, so you can either watch in total silence, or run another version simultaneously and listen to the soundtrack of the second while watching the better-looking transfer below. You decide!

I’m more than a little surprised that this film hasn’t been restored, given that it’s one of precious few performances we have left of Theda Bara, but that's the state of silent cinema for you.

Next I’m watching Shoes [1916], directed by Lois Weber.

If you want a drinking game that will get everyone drunk in 20 minutes, agree to take a shot every time someone gets kicked in the butt in a Charlie Chaplin comedy short. Be sure to have a lot of liquor on hand, because there’s a whole lot of ass-kicking going on.

And that’s about it. I know every time a Chaplin movie shows up I seem not to have much good to say about it, but really, his early shorts are very simple, repetitive, formulaic affairs. Sure, he’s good at falling down, but so were other actors of his day. I’m waiting, waiting, waiting to become enthralled by him the way seemingly every other person on the planet was during his heyday.

Plot-wise, this is about what I expected based on the title alone. Chaplin’s an inept fireman who spends most of his day falling down, kicking people in the butt, getting kicked in the butt, and generally disrupting life at the fire station. Naturally, at the end he heroically rescues a woman from a fire that had been deliberately set as an insurance scam. Chaplin climbs down the side of a building in that scene in what is the highlight of the film, and the film ends with Chaplin and the girl he rescued walking off together. He was a good fireman after all!

I watched this on the same Blu-ray set that included The Floorwalker, one of a dozen of the comedy shorts Chaplin made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can purchase a copy by clicking on the photo below.

Next I’m watching East Lynne [1916], directed by Bertram Bracken.

Between 1910 and 1915 Norma Talmadge was featured in over 100 short films for the Vitagraph Company, none of which I’ve had the chance to see. Yet, I recognize her name. Like so many stars of the silent film era, Talmadge endures as little more than a shadowy phantom of a bygone day, her name ringing a distant bell in the minds of film fans. We may have seen her name listed among other stars— Marguerite Clark, Theda Bara, Pearl White— all of whom were massively famous in their day, but relegated to footnotes, if that, today, or perhaps on a classic movie poster we’ve seen somewhere, but there the recognition ends. Despite being mostly forgotten today, between 1917 and 1926 Talmadge was probably the biggest female box office draw outside of Mary Pickford, and possibly Gloria Swanson. She was hugely famous in her day, bigger at her peak than even Garbo at hers, and Going Straight is my first chance to learn why.

In addition to watching Going Straight, I watched three of Talmadge’s Vitagraph shorts, Sawdust and Salome and A Helpful Sisterhood, both from 1914, and A Tale of Two Cities, from 1911. Had I known about them earlier, I’d have watched them when they came up in the chronology, but better late than never, right? In any event, they gave me a little bit more of a sense of who Talmadge was, though not much. Nothing about her jumped out at me and made me think “wow!” I wondered if Going Straight would give me better insight into why she was so famous.

The best moment in the three films came in Sawdust and Salome, when the wealthy son returned home with Talmadge, playing a horse-riding circus performer, as his bride. Upon seeing a picture of her in her circus outfit the parents declared

and immediately dismissed the idea of having her as a daughter-in-law. Imagine what they’d say about today’s standards of dress!

As for the film officially being discussed today, Going Straight is one of Talmadge’s earliest full-length films, made not long after she moved from Vitagraph to Triangle Pictures. Though directed by Chester M. Franklin and Sidney Franklin, the intercuts and parallel scenes smack of D.W. Griffith, who oversaw much what was being produced at Triangle. Some of the closeup shots remind me more than a little bit of Griffith’s work in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, and on a whole, the action sequences flow here in a manner suggesting the expertise of Griffith, so it’s clear he had more than a passing role in the making of this movie.

Were a modern viewer to watch this film without the context of having seen 60+ films made before it, he probably wouldn’t make much of Talmadge’s performance. That’s a testimony to her ability, as that same modern viewer probably would notice many (most?) of the other actresses I’ve seen overreacting and emoting. Talmadge, much like Mary Pickford, Lilian Gish, and some of the other greats of her era, maintains a level of realism on camera that gives her performance an understated and modern appeal.

Talmadge plays Grace, the wife of John Remington, a successful businessman played by Ralph Lewis. They live what seems to be a normal life, but early on we see Grace come across a news clipping that prompts a flashback, during which we learn about the couple’s sordid past. They were once criminals, and belonged to the Higgins Gang.

An exciting action sequence ensues, incredibly well-directed, whether by the Franklin Brothers or D.W. Griffith who’s to say, which includes some intercut closeups that propel the action as builds to a massive fight between cops and robbers. In the end, John and his partner in crime Jimmy Briggs, played by Eugene Pallette looking impossibly young and slender, are captured. Grace escapes.

Back in the present, we learn that John served his time, and has gone straight since leaving jail. Jimmy hasn’t, and when a chance encounter brings him in contact with John, he takes it as an opportunity to extort money from him, lest he turn in Grace. Of course, the money isn’t enough, and soon Jimmy is back to recruit John to pull of “just one last job.” Grace heads to a friend’s house to play cards for the evening, after which she and her children spend the night. Naturally, the house Jimmy has decided to rob is the house where Grace’s friend lives, and calamity ensues. During the robbery, Jimmy heads upstairs to look for jewelry, and finds Grace asleep with one of her children. He attempts to assault her, seriously injuring the child in the process. John shows up in time to protect Grace, and Jimmy flees.

The next day, Jimmy shows up ready to kill John, but John is able to outsmart him, and throws him out a window to his death. Meanwhile, we see that their child, who had been at death’s door, is out of danger and will make a full recovery. John and Grace are once again a happy family.

I feel a lot better versed in the phenomenon that was Norma Talmadge after having watched this film, and the short films from her days at Vitagraph. She has a screen presence that comes through even in the damaged digital print I watched, and avoids the overacting and flailing that so many actresses of her day relied upon to express emotion. Griffith is no doubt in part to thank for that, as he (or the Franklins, if I’m mistaken) gave her closeups for most of her emotional moments, which allowed her to express herself through facial expressions rather than hand gestures and body language.

She shows up several times again on my list of films, as her popularity continued to rise. In 1923, a poll of picture exhibitors named Norma Talmadge the number-one box office star.

I watched this on YouTube, where the print isn’t very good, but the accompanying soundtrack is better than what you usually get with a silent film online.

Next I’m watching The Fireman [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

It’s another Charles Chaplin short. So far I’ve enjoyed his shorts, but not to the extent that I quite get yet how he became the legend he is today.

When the movie started, Chaplin came onscreen and I was immediately shocked by how much better he looked. His hair was better, his acting less herky-jerky, he even seemed taller. He looked like he’d grown up in the six months span between this and the last film I’d seen him in. At last, I thought, I’m going to see what everyone else sees in Chaplin. And then Chaplin came onscreen. Surprise! I’d not been looking at Chaplin at all, but rather Lloyd Bacon, who would go on to have an outstanding career as a director, made up to resemble Chaplin. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen Bacon and Chaplin together— Bacon played a couple roles in The Tramp— but this is the first time I’ve seen him as Chaplin, and he ain’t half bad. He comes off as Chaplin’s older, better-looking brother.

Once the film gets underway, it’s more of the same. Chaplin wanders about in inexplicable fashion, constantly thwarted by mannequins, escalators, drinking fountains, and other mundane objects. He remains detached, and comes off as annoying rather than likable. The best I can say is that to audiences at the time his antics were no doubt fresh, but they play out as dated and uninspired to me. I’m still not writing him off, but his early comedies don’t hold up to a modern viewing the way other films of the era do. I think I mentioned in a previous podcast that comedies don’t seem to have matured as quickly as dramas, and that still seems to be the case here. However, this comedic short is head and shoulders above most of the others of its time.

The plot is quite simple. A department store’s manager and his assistant, a position that was known as a floorwalker in that era, have been embezzling money, and have so far stolen $70,000, which is about $2 million in today’s dollars. They learn that the store’s owners are sending detectives to investigate so they pull the money from the safe and plan to abscond with it. The floorwalker hits the manager over the head and tries to leave with all the money. He learns that the detectives are just outside his door, which is when Chaplin walks in. The two notice immediately how similarly they look, and perform a rudimentary version, and quite possibly the first on film, of the guy looking at an actor he believes is his reflection in a mirror gag. Once that’s done, the Floorwalker pretends to give Chaplin a job so they switch outfits. He sends Chaplin out dressed as him, and sneaks off in tramp garb with the bag of money.

Except, from that point on, nothing goes well for either of them. They fall down escalators, get kicked repeatedly in the butt (a gag that seemingly happens at least a dozen times in every Chaplin short), and keep losing the bag. Eventually, the detectives corral Chaplin in an elevator, just as it descends atop the floorwalker, who bursts through the floor of the elevator and is presumably arrested.

I watched this on a Blu-ray set that includes a dozen of the comedy shorts Chaplin made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can purchase a copy by clicking on the photo below.

Next I’m watching Going Straight [1916], directed by Chester M. Franklin and Sidney Franklin.

This film began its life in 1899 as a play, also called Sherlock Holmes, written by William Gillette with the blessing of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes’ creator. Gillette played Holmes in his play, and by the time Essanay Studios produced a film version, he’d played the role on stage over 1,300 times in the intervening 17 years.

Long considered a lost film, a serialized version of the film from 1920 surfaced in France in 2014. Film curator Céline Ruivo discovered a print at the Cinémathèque française. The film was restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. From their site:

What survives is the duplicate negative sent over to France after the First World War. The original film was a nine-reel feature and, when it came to Europe, it was reissued as a four-part serial, each chapter given its own slightly lurid title. The episode having Holmes lured into the Stepney Gas Chamber is now called, ominously and with appropriate misdirection, “Une Nuit tragique”; and in the best serial tradition every chapter is introduced with a recap of last week’s action. Happily, the only other alterations are in the intertitles. Some have been moved around or deleted, all of them hastily translated. But the picture itself is intact. As best as we can tell, not a frame of the original is missing.

Gillette does appear a bit old for the part, which makes sense as he’d been playing it for 17 years and was 63 when the film was made, but at the same time he’s the quintessential Holmes. Perhaps I think this because this film set the rules for all the Holmes films to follow, but I don’t think so. Gillette really does embody what Holmes should be. He’s tall, lean yet powerful, handsome but not too handsome, and he carries himself with a confidence that borders on imperious yet is never arrogant. Basil Rathbone, arguably the most famous cinematic Holmes of all time, may well have been chosen for his resemblance to Gillette.

As any fan of the great detective knows, Holmes is only half of the equation, for where goes Sherlock Holmes so goes Dr. Watson. Here, Edward Fielding plays the good doctor, and darned if he doesn’t bear more than a passing resemblance to Nigel Bruce— Rathbone’s sidekick in 14 Holmes films.

The plot here is rather circuitous, and at times nonsensical, and the majority of the enjoyment I got from this film came from Gillette’s presence onscreen, and the atmosphere of the film. Based loosely on the Doyle story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Sherlock Holmes is a somewhat plodding film.

The story centers around love letters written by a prince to a woman, now deceased, to whom he isn’t married, that are now the property of her sister Alice. The prince wants the letters back, for fear that the letters may end up in the wrong hands and be either used for blackmail or to soil his reputation, but the sister wants to keep them. Thus begins a circuitous tale of crooks trying to dupe her out of the letters by inviting her to live with them, then locking her up. She’s hidden the letters somewhere in their house, but they can’t find them. Keyholes are peeped through, walls are listened through, doors are open and shut, hands are wrung, brows wiped, it never ends.

Meanwhile, we see Holmes, at home on Baker Street. Who comes to visit? Watson! Apparently, they’ve only just met and aren’t yet roommates. Shortly after Watson’s arrival, Holmes must leave, to visit the home of the Larrabee’s, who are the kidnappers. He suggests Watson read a book, then takes off.

Now at the Larrabees, we see them still trying to locate the hidden letters. Meanwhile, the Larrabee’s maid has let Alice out of her room. Suddenly the doorbell rings. It’s Holmes. He’s left standing on the porch for what seems ages while the criminals deliberate and debate what to do. Finally, they let him in. In what is maybe the best scene of the early portion of the film, the camera moves about the room with Holmes’ gaze as he gets the lay of the land. The Larrabees try to trick Holmes into believing one of them is Alice, but he sees right through their subterfuge. The real Alice is produced. It’s unclear why she doesn’t seem to want to be rescued, but she seems indifferent to both her predicament and to Holmes’ presence.

Holmes tricks her into revealing where the letters are, but even still she opts to stick around the house. Why? Who’s to say? In any event, once he leaves, she finds a new hiding spot and returns to her room. 40 minutes of the film have gone by and we’re basically still where we started.

What about Watson? We rejoin him in Holmes’ study and find that he’s still reading that book. What was the point? Who’s to say? In any event, he finally gives up, and informs Holmes’ butler that he can’t wait any longer, and heads home.

We return to Larrabee manor, and learn that the criminals have decided to enlist the help of Professor Moriarty to thwart Holmes.

Holmes goes home and goes to bed, and dreams about Alice. Back at the house, Alice is daydreaming of Holmes. Romance seems imminent. And… more stuff happens. I normally go through the major plot points, but honestly, this film is a never-ending string of people coming in and out of rooms, wiping their brows, wringing their hands, and listening at keyholes, and it seems to never end.

Eventually, the film does end, and maybe that’s the best thing I can say about it.

I watched this film on YouTube.

Next I’m watching The Floorwalker [1916], directed by Charles Chaplin.

I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed in this film, for though it is lacking punch overall, it does contain a couple subtle nuggets of enjoyment that offer a glimmer of insight into what the director would eventually be capable of creating. That said, it was a step down from his previous effort, Where Is My Treasure?, and not a film I imagine I will rewatch any time soon.

The most disconcerting thing about the film is that Lubitsch, who again is both director and star of his film, is playing Pinkus, a schoolboy. While he was 24 at the time, he looks a lot older to me. Before checking his age I assumed he was close to 40. He certainly looks out of place in the classroom scene, where he’s sitting amongst actual children. It’s kind of creepy, to be honest. The same goes for the scenes of him flirting with the schoolgirls. It was hard to suspend my disbelief and accept he was meant to be another teen, and I kept viewing it as if an old lech was infiltrating a school.

In any event, the film begins with Lubitsch as a schoolboy who is expelled for cheating. He starts looking for a job, and eventually lands one in a shoe store. He’s fired for acting inappropriately towards a female customer— he tickles her feet while helping her try on shoes— but saves his job at the last second by helping a demanding customer while the boss watches. One of the major themes of the film is his behavior towards women. Throughout the film he’s flirting with woman, and generally acting inappropriately, though never getting anywhere with them. He finally has a moment of realization after he flirts with a fellow employee, and walks with her while carrying her bag only to end up bringing her to her husband or boyfriend, with whom she walks off. He feels chagrined that he carried her parcel, and realizes what a sap he’s been.

His life changes when he tricks his boss into delivering used, dirty shoes to the demanding customer he’d helped earlier. It turns out she’s some sort of wealthy heiress. Pinkus had hoped to deliver them as the two of them had flirted a bit with one another, but his boss, something of a flirtatious type himself, decided to do it himself. When he’s humiliated by presenting the dirty shoes, our boy Pinkus shows up with the correct shoes. After chastening his boss by reminding him that he should be thinking about his wife, Pinkus brings the shoes to the customer. She is delighted, and takes a liking to him. She suggests he open his own shoe store. He explains that has no money to do that, and she promptly gives him 30,000 marks, the equivalent of about $150,000 in today’s money. He’s in business, and Pinkus’ Shoe Palace is born.

He hosts a fashion show, and seems to behave himself amongst all the female models, suggesting he really did learn from his earlier mistakes. The local papers write up the shop with glowing reviews, and the money starts rolling in. In the final scene, Pinkus returns to his benefactor to repay the loan, and suggests that rather than repaying her, they could marry, and “keep it in the family.” She agrees, and they presumably live happily ever after.

I watched this on a Blu-ray. It’s an extra feature on the Criterion Blu-Ray of Lubitch’s 1942 Film to Be or Not to Be.

Next I’m watching Sherlock Holmes [1916], directed by Arthur Berthelet.

There isn’t much to this film, but it’s important to keep in mind that I’ve been on a run of some really solid films of late, and all things considered this one isn’t half bad. Compared to the average films of its era it’s probably a little bit better than average, but when stacked up against some of my recent entries, it’s a bit lacking The best thing it has going for it is Lilian Gish, but this is not her at her best.

The story is straight-forward. It begins in Russia, where Marfa (Gish) is living with her aunt and uncle. Their only interest in her is financial, as they intend to sell her as a bride to the highest bidder. She wants no part in their business venture, and wishes she could marry Jan, the handsome young man she met a few months back. He’s recently returned from America. Unfortunately, he’s broke, so instead she’s sold to a rather repugnant fellow. The film’s best scene comes when he approaches Marfa as she sits with her friend. She grabs his bottle of vodka and beats him with it before chasing him off. Her facial expressions during this sequence are as good as any I’ve seen in a silent film to date. You can view the scene below.

When the marriage day arrives, Marfa refuses. Next she ends up betrothed to a military official, but she clobbers him and flees the scene. He survives, but before they can find Marfa, she and her family have fled to a nearby port city and boarded a ship bound for America. Who else is onboard? Jan, of course! Her family still wants to profit by selling her off, so when they arrive in the States, they dupe him, leaving him in San Francisco while they head to Los Angeles. He eventually finds out that’s where they went, and heads to L.A. and starts hunting for her in the Russian part of town.

Meanwhile, Jan has again been sold to a bachelor bidder, but escapes. She finds a policeman, but he doesn’t speak Russian and ends up bringing her back to the family. All seems lost once the ceremony is taking place, but Jan shows up just in time. He’s brought the police, who have been cracking down on Russian brides for sale, and the entire corrupt family ends up in jail, leaving Marfa and Jan free to be together.

Again, though this isn’t a bad film, it’s nothing special. I don’t know that I’ll watch it again anytime soon, though I do have it on a DVD, so perhaps one day I’ll revisit it. It’s the first film from William Christy Cabanne that I’ve watched, and while he directed 167 films during a career that spanned 1912 to 1948, this is the only film of his I have on my list to watch. He does have some co-director credits here and there, so I will encounter his work again here and there, most notably on the 1925 blockbuster epic Ben-Hur. Fred Niblo is credited as the director of that film, but Cabanne is one of four others who co-directed, but weren’t credited at the time.

Perhaps someone reading this can recommend a Cabanne film that I should add to my list? I’m always open to suggestions, and I am certain that I’ve missed many important films while compiling my list of films to watch. The list is available to all paid subscribers, by the way. Or, to anyone who asks nicely.

Next I’m watching Shoe Palace Pinkus [1916], directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

Giovanni Pastrone’s ground-breaking epic Cabiria has been one of the best films I’ve watched so far as a part of this podcast, so I was looking forward to seeing another film that he directed. I had no idea what to expect from this film, as even its title, The Fire, is vague. A film with that title could be about nearly anything. As it turns out, this one is about an incendiary relationship between a poet and a painter.

The original Italian title of the film is Il Fuoco (la Favilla - la Vampa - la Cenere), which translates to The Fire (the Spark, the Blaze, the Ash). That’s a solid title, as the film depicts a relationshp that grows from a spark of mutual interest into a blazing inferno of passion, and ultimately ends up in ashen ruins. In other words, the fire is a metaphor, which makes sense for a film about a poet.

I neither loved nor hated this film. I may have felt somewhat letdown due to my own expectations, as I thought this would be another epic-scale action drama along the lines of Cabiria, but that’s my own fault for pigeonholing Pastrone as a director who only made epics. No director makes only epics. Even D.W. Griffith made small-scale dramas.

The story is fairly simple. The main character, a painter of humble background, heads out to a lake to paint, where he encounters a woman writing poetry. They hit it off, and start spending time together. She’s wealthy and married, but living a wild life, and he abandons his mother to move into her mansion. They have a passionate affair, until one morning he wakes up after a bender to find the mansion abandoned. She’s moved out. He’s inconsolable, and eventually tracks her down at a high society party, only to find her with her husband. She pretends not to know him, and he has a nervous breakdown. The film ends with him in a nuthouse folding paper animals, while she continues to enjoy her wealthy lifestyle.

The Fire would pair well on a double feature with a A Fool There Was, as both deal with the then-popular topic of the female vampire, who seduces and discards men, leaving them broken-down shells of who they once were. I enjoyed A Fool There Was more, partly because Theda Bara made for a far more intriguing lead than Pina Menichelli, who plays the vampire in this one. I did enjoy the fire metaphor and imagery in this film, which made for clever, and at times almost surreal, visual effects.

This film was a little bit tricky to track down. I couldn’t find it on any sort of physical media, and it doesn’t seem to be on YouTube. The only place I was able to find it online is at the Internet Archive, where you can watch it, too.

Next I’m watching: Sold for Marriage [1916], directed by Christy Cabanne.

This is a quick, fun film, and there’s not a lot to it. The story is simple. The film opens with a double wedding, at which two brothers have married. One marries Lillian Gish, in one of her earliest roles, which makes for a fun chance to catch a glimpse of her before she became a huge star. Her sister Dorothy is also in the film briefly, as a guest at the wedding, as is Mary Pickford’s brother Jack. Lionel Barrymore also shows up as a dinner guest, making this film a who’s who of future stars in cameo roles!

After the wedding, the father is a bit sad to have “lost” two sons that day, but his daughter, played by the great Mary Pickford, promises she’ll never leave him. Shortly afterwards, she gets engaged, married, and leaves him! He’s crestfallen, and disowns the couple. A couple years pass, and through a chance meeting in the street he learns that he is a grandparent. Too proud to mend the relationship with his daughter, he instead begins sneaking into the baby’s room to play with his grandson. He’s eventually discovered, and initially mistaken for a burglar. Once his identity is revealed, a reconciliation happens, and the family is at last together and happy.

Though it is a short and simple film, it is full of charm and humor. It’s difficult for me to put my finger on how or why, it’s again clear, as it was with both The Country Doctor and The Lonedale Operator, that D.W. Griffith was several steps ahead of the other directors of his day.

This film is in the public domain, and on YouTube, which is where I watched it. Here it is, if you’d like to watch, too.

Next I’m watching: Suspense [1913], directed by Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber.

I mentioned in the last episode that I would be going back and editing past posts to include the director in each episode’s subtitle. While doing so, I realized that a few episodes were inadvertently marked as viewable only by paid subscribers to my Substack. As I have no paid subscribers, that means they were invisible to one and all.

Before I start putting up new episodes, I’m going to go back and fix those old ones and share them, so you will see some “new” posts that are actually old posts pop up before I resume sharing new episodes.

Hello strangers! (And a few folks I know.) Season 2 of All the Movies is here, which means I am about to start putting up some more podcasts of the movies I’ve been watching. We left off in early 1916, and we’ll pick up there with an Italian film in the next installment, which will be the 59th film I’ve watched thus far.

Before I put up that new episode, I’m going to edit the past posts to include the name of the director of each film. I usually mentioned the director, but it seems like something that I should highlight, so I’m replacing the somewhat pointless, though occasionally pithy, subtitles on past posts with the name the film’s director, and will continue to include that information in all future titles.

As a quick refresher, this podcast exists as a way for me to better remember the details about the films I watch. I also have an account on Letterboxd where I share lists of the films I watch, and some other neat stuff. You can also read this older post if you’d like to know more about why I launched this podcast.

And even though I initially created this Substack for my own personal use, now that people have subscribed, I hope y’all can converse with one another in the comments. Please use it as a place to get to know other fans of cinema. Especially at this early stage in the podcast, when all the films discussed are silent and over 100 years old, the odds of finding another person who shares your interest in esoteric film are probably better here than anywhere else online. In today’s world, where everything is online, opportunities to find likeminded individuals are few and far between, especially for stuff like old movies. Take advantage. Converse among yourselves!

William S. Hart continues to be the best discovery I’ve made so far during this project. I knew virtually nothing about him before I watched The Bargain, and by virtually nothing I mean his name was vaguely familiar to me as belonging to someone who acted in Westerns. I did not expect to enjoy his films, and in fact, didn’t have any on the original list I made the day I came up with the idea for this podcast. It was only after I’d started watching my way through the list that I came upon The Bargain in a book about silent films, and learned that Hart was one of the legends of the silent era that I knew I needed to give him a chance. I’m glad I did!

Hell’s Hinges is the third Hart film I’ve watched to this point, and while The Bargain remains my favorite, Hell’s Hinges is a solid effort. This time around, Hart plays Blaze Tracy, the toughest guy in a lawless town.

When the film opens, we meet Bob Henley, played by Jack Standing, who I last saw as Landry in the delightful Fanchon the Cricket. At his mother’s insistence, he’s become a priest. He’s ill suited for the lifestyle, but his mother is immensely proud of his decision. The higher-ups in the church realize he’s likely to succumb to the temptations of big city life, so they assign him to a church in a tiny western town. He heads west, accompanied by his sister Faith, played by Clara Williams. She was Nell, Hart’s love interest, in The Bargain, and again there are sparks between the two of them. Frank Burke, the sheriff in The Bargain, and who also had a small role in Civilization shows up as Zeb.

Upon arriving in the town of Hell’s Hinges, the Henley siblings are “greeted” by a rowdy mob, led by Blaze. He has been asked by Silk Miller, the owner of the saloon, to run them out of town, and has promised to scare the reverend to death. Circumstances immediately change, as it’s love at first sight when Blaze sets his eyes on Faith. While that situation is a cinematic cliché, it’s believable here. We’ve all experienced what Blaze does at least once or twice in our lives, and the initial meeting between Blaze and Faith exudes chemistry and realism in a way that one seldom sees onscreen.

Needless to say, Silk and the rest of the town rowdies don’t see it that way, and are appalled that the meanest, toughest scoundrel in town has suddenly given up drinking and shooting, and is instead attending church. Undeterred, Silk quickly realizes that Bob Henley is not the most virutous of priests, so he invites him to give a private sermon to the dancehall girls. One in particular, Dolly, has been instructed to seduce Henley, and she handles her task with aplomb. The scene of the two of them drinking and canoodling is hilarious. Sure enough, he gets drunk and spends the night with her, and oversleeps. His congregation sets out to find him, and are dismayed when they do.

The disgraced reverend has quickly taken to the bottle, to the point where Blaze must ride to the next town to find him a doctor. Meanwhile, Henley proves far more devoted to the drinking life than he ever was to the cloth, and immediately takes up with the saloon crowd. He and his new friends get drunk and decide to burn down the church, leading to a brilliant battle between the mob and the church-goers, during which Henley is killed.

Blaze returns too late to stop the destruction. In the film’s best scene, he creeps up to the saloon, wherein lays an ambush, but he realizes this and kicks in the door with guns blazing and in a scene similar to one that would play out 76 years later in Unforgiven, wins a saloon shootout against overwhelming odds. After killing Silk, Blaze does what Eastwood only threatens to do, and burns the entire town of Hell’s Hinges to embers, after which he and Faith light out to start a life together.

I watched this on a DVD, though the quality wasn’t great. I found a version on Youtube that actually looks a lot better than the DVD copy.

Next I’m watching The Fire [1916], directed by Giovanni Pastrone.

I watched this film entirely because it’s Ernst Lubitsch’s oldest surviving film. I’ve enjoyed a number of his talkies, and was excited to see some of his early work, and while this isn’t on par with his later efforts, it includes some clever moments.

The story is fun, and you may find it familiar. We meet our protagonist, played by director Lubitsch, who lives with his wife and mother-in-law. One night, he leaves dinner early to participate in a game of chess. He’s in a chess club, and he is playing in the final match of the club’s tournament. His opponent is extremely slow, at one point taking hours to make a single move. Eventually, our hero wins the game, but at the cost of his marriage, for his mother-in-law has locked him out. He spends the night asleep on the steps of his own home, and is shooed away for good in the morning; the mother-in-law has convinced her daughter to leave the marriage.

Now living in some sort of residential hotel, the man sees a help wanted ad his mother-in-law has run in the paper. She’s looking for a new butler, a fact which inspires him to concoct a plan. He writes a suicide note, then goes to his barber, where he’s given a wig. Apparently, the wig is disguise enough, and he’s hired by his wife and mother-in-law who fail to recognize him. None of the staff do either, and he seamlessly integrates himself into the household. If you think this sounds a lot like the plot of Mrs. Doubtfire, you aren’t alone. That was my thought, too.

After thwarting the amorous attempts of a suitor towards his presumed-widow, he is asked to escort the mother-in-law on a shopping excursion. On the car ride home, she makes a pass at him. As he’s about to kiss her, he removes the wig. Aghast, she begs him never to tell anyone about their near-tryst, and he promises on the condition that she move out and never come back. She agrees, and he sends her packing. To the delight of the staff of servants, and his wife, he has returned home.

The film was considered lost until an almost complete copy was found in Slovenia in 1994. Happily it can again be watched, though to my knowledge it’s not available on DVD or Blu-ray, so I watched on YouTube.

Next I’m watching Hell’s Hinges [1916], directed by Charles Swickard, William S. Hart and Clifford Smith.

This is a Fatty Arbuckle film I’d not seen before. Granted, I’m very unfamiliar with his work, having seen but a few of his shorts in the past, but nonetheless, this isn’t the sort of role I’m familiar with for him. This is one of his earlier films, so perhaps he hadn’t yet gone the fully comedic route, though this short film is a comedy.

The story is simple, at least at first. A married couple is getting dressed for dinner. They’re a wealthy couple, Arbuckle plays a doctor, so I suppose it makes sense that he is putting on his tuxedo for a dinner at home with his wife, played by Mabel Normand, who is also dressed to the nines. The plan is altered by the arrival of a telegram: the wife’s childhood bestie is coming for dinner. She’s elated, Arbuckle less so, especially once he learns they were sweet on each other as children. Despite it being an innocent thing— they were small children at the time— Arbuckle is jealous, and spends the evening keeping them away from one another.

The trio enjoy a decadent dinner, replete with rich, filling foods, the highlight of which are some massive lobsters. Normand remarks that no one will sleep easily after such a sumptuous feast, and no doubt all three would have spent the evening suffering from indigestion had an adventure not broken out in the meantime, for as dinner winds down, and post-prandial digestifs are being consumed, we learn that a couple crooks are casing the house.

One of the would-be robbers pretends to be injured to get inside, but Arbuckle sees through the ruse before the thief can break into his safe, and tosses him out. Undeterred, the robbers call the doctor and tell him he’s needed for an emergency, causing him to speed off to a nonexistent accident. When he gets there and realize he’s been duped, he immediately believes his wife and her friend sent him off so they can be alone together. Instead, they are beset by the robber, who has broken into the house.

From here the film shifts gears, and devolves into a series of chases and pratfalls along the lines of what one expects from a Keystone Cops short, then promptly shifts gears again, this time into much darker territory. Arbuckle returns home just after the robber has been chased away, so he sees his wife and her friend together and assumes the worst. He throws the friend out of a window, but once he lands two stories below the scene shifts to his bed. It seems the friend has dreamt the entire thing. Or has he? We cut back to Arbuckle and Normand. Still blinded by rage, he strangles her then staggers out of the room. Except she’s not dead! She picks up his discarded pistol, follows him out of the room, and shoots him as he is descending the stairs. Arbuckle falls to his death. Except he doesn’t. He, too, wakes up, having fallen asleep in his office chair. He races upstairs to check on his wife, and encounters the friend, who is doing likewise after the apparently shared nightmare.

Together the reminisce about the lobster dinner— those pesky crustaceans!— and share a laugh and a handshake. Friends at last! A fine end to a fine film!

Arbuckle is masterful with his gestures and facial expressions, and comes off as very versatile. He is quite menacing at times, while at others he exudes a boyish charm. He can take a pratfall as easily as he can strangle his wife. Best of all, he never overdoes it, all the while gliding across the screen in a svelte manner that belies his girth.

I watched this on YouTube, and have linked it below so you can enjoy it, too.

Next I’m watching Where Is My Treasure? [1916], directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

This is the second John H. Collins film I’ve watched, and as before, he did not disappoint. He and William S. Hart are without a doubt the biggest discoveries I’ve made so far in this podcast. I’d never heard of him when I started this podcast, but since watching Children of Eve I’ve been looking forward to the next time one of his pictures came up in the rotation. I wrote more about Collins when I wrote about Children of Eve, but the most notable fact, sadly, is that he died young, at age 28, in the 1918 flu pandemic, and what would almost certainly have been an outstanding body of cinematic work was cut woefully short.

Much smaller scale than Children of Eve, The Innocence of Ruth is nonetheless a fine film. It again stars Viola Davis, wife of the director, this time as a Ruth, a young girl whose father dies shortly after being cleaned out in the stock market by the villainous Mortimer Reynolds. With his dying wish, Ruth’s father beseeches his friend, a millionaire investor named Jimmy Carter, to take on his daughter as his ward.

Wards must have been a big thing in the early 1900s, as they pop up constantly in these early films. Apparently, when young girls lost her parents back then there was always a friendly millionaire nearby to take them in and see that they received a proper upbringing. Despite being something of a party animal— when we first meet Jimmy he’s waking up mid-afternoon after a night of debauching— he brings Ruth home with him, vowing to take good care of her. Ruth has different plans. She immediately wants to pretend she and Jimmy are married, and even steals a kiss from him. He’s mortified, and heads off for a night of drunken debauchery. Yet, whilst out with his friends, and with a proto-flapper sitting in his lap, Jimmy finds his thoughts drifting back home to Ruth.

While this is happening, Reynolds decides that driving Ruth’s father into bankruptcy and early grave wasn’t enough, and that he now wants to steal Ruth’s innocence. He plots with his live-in… what is she? It’s unclear, but Edna, an older woman, lives with Reynolds as a sort of gold-digger. He’s openly funding her lavish lifestyle, but seems to take no romantic, or sexual, interest in her whatsoever, even going so far as to dismiss her advances towards him. Whatever she is to him, together they connive to get Ruth under his influence, and the first step is to drive a wedge between her and Jimmy. They do so through Edna telling Ruth that she’s nothing but a gold-digger like herself, and that she’s leeching of of Jimmy. Ruth gravitates towards Edna and Mortimer for solace, not realizing what they have planned for her.

The story moves on to show that Reynolds, who has ruined so many in the market, has been ruined himself. In a last-ditch effort to regain financial solvency, he forges Jimmy’s signature on some documents, and uses them to secure a $10,000 bank loan. The bank finds out about the fraud, however, and sends policemen out to find Reynolds.

Reynolds is unaware that he’s been discovered, and goes home to find Edna and Ruth together. With a sinister smile, he joins Edna, who has already been encouraging Ruth to drink, and together they get her drunk. Edna starts having second thoughts, so Reynolds send her aware, then traps Ruth in his bedroom. Just when Reynolds is about to rape poor Ruth, Jimmy storms in and rescues her. Reynolds knocks Jimmy out and flees to his office, where he is confronted by the police. He shoots and kills one officer before the other kills him.

Meanwhile, both Ruth and Jimmy have recovered, and in an incredibly sweet final scene, they make up and fall in love. The film ends with Ruth climbing onto a chair and beckoning Jimmy to come closer. She opens her arms to give him a big hug, and then Collins does something I’d not yet seen in a film: he freezes the frame. Our final image is Viola Davis, arms wide, smiling and waiting for Edward Earle to come her way.

I’m a sucker for a great ending, and when a really good movie closes with a perfect scene, I’m sold. I can’t wait for the next time Collins shows up in the queue, which won’t be too long. He released another movie in 1916, The Cossack Whip, so we don’t have too long to wait.

Next I’m watching He Did and He Didn’t [1916], directed by Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle.

I’m more than a little bit awed right now by just how good this movie is. I was expecting a heavy-handed morality lesson couched as melodrama, and instead got an artful, thought-provoking, emotional rollercoaster ride, filled with delightful visual effects.

I must suggest that you leave your politics at the door when you watch this film, which touches on a number of subjects that are as controversial in 2023 as they were in 1916. If you can’t do that, then odds are you will be angered by some aspect of this film, which deals with abortion, eugenics, and birth control in a very unflinching manner.

Abortion is an issue on which the two sides simply cannot agree, and any discussion or depiction of the topic often leads directly to rage. It’s also a subject that, at least in art and media, tends to be only shown from one point of view, so it was incredibly interesting, and refreshing, to me to see the subject analyzed from multiple sides in this film. Again, if you can’t divorce yourself from your own politics, your mileage may vary, but I have no issue doing that. I don’t care at all if a film offers an opinion completely opposite to my own, as long as it does it in an interesting, entertaining, or artful way, so please don’t take my admiration of this film as an endorsement of any of its points of view.

The film concludes with the most haunting final scene to any movie I’ve watched so far for this podcast, and honestly, among the most devastating closing scenes of any film I’ve ever seen. I’ll give a spoiler warning for those listening who want to watch this without knowing what’s coming, but as usual I’m going to narrate a blow-by-blow description of the film. Remember— this podcast exists so I can remember what I watch. I’m glad my readership is along for the ride, but I’m not going to stray from my mission and omit spoilers. Listen at your own risk. Better yet, watch the film on YouTube, which is where I watched it, before you continue reading or listening. The video is linked below, with spoilers to follow.

What did you think? Didn’t that ending tear your heart out? It did mine!

The film starts with a trial, where Richard Walton, a district attorney, played by Tyrone Power Sr., is prosecuting Dr. Homer, who had been spreading literature concerning birth control. Dr. Homer makes his case for legalizing contraception by recounting three events he has witnessed, each shown in a brief flashback: an alcoholic parent abusing his children; a family too poor to provide medical care for their sick children; and a single mother who committed suicide, taking her infant with her.

When we see Richard at home later, we learn that he has no children, a situation that deeply saddens him. His wife, played by Tyrone Powers real life wife, on the other hand, seems content with her pet dogs, and spends her days socializing with other married, but childless, women. They are childless by choice, we find out, as Mrs. Walton knows of a doctor, with the fitting name of Dr. Malfit, who performs clandestine abortions, and sends her friends to them as needed.

Throughout the film, when a woman realizes she is pregnant, we see her sitting as a little cherub appears by her shoulder, interacting with her. It’s a very adorable, effective way to share such information. We also see, a few times throughout the film, these cherubs flying in and out of the gate of heaven, their path and destination varying depending upon their fate. It’s all quite clever and alternately amusing and gripping.

Mrs. Walton’s brother comes to visit, and immediately reveals himself to be a cad. He tries to seduce the maid, but she rebukes him. Not long after, he meets a girl who lives next door. She’s not as worldly as the maid, and falls prey to his seduction. When she becomes pregnant, he casts her aside, leaving her sad and desperate. Mrs. Walton finds out and sends her off to see Dr. Malfit. Complications arise, and she dies after the abortion.

This thrusts Dr. Malfit into the spotlight, and he ends up on trial, prosecuted by Walton. He’s sent to jail, but before he is taken away he gives Walton his appointment book, and tells him he should focus more on his own household and less on other people’s affairs. Sure enough, as he goes through the book he sees not only the names of many of his wife’s friends, but learns that his own wife had three abortions. Devastated, he returns home to confront her.

As these events were transpiring, we’d learned that Mrs. Walton had experienced a change of heart. Seeing her husband playing with her sister’s children, as well as various kids in the neighborhood, she realized how important being a father was to him, and had decided to have children after all. She lets him know this, but it’s too late. The repeated abortions have left her unable to have children. The film closes with the haunting scene I alluded to earlier. The Waltons are sitting morosely by the fireplace as the ghostly figures of what would have been their three children play on the floor. Future movie star Tyrone Power Jr. makes his uncredited film debut as the baby in this scene. The scene shifts as the couple are now quite old, still seated by the fire, as what would have been their now-adult children come into view. My own views on abortion aside, those images are intense, and give an already well-made, and emotional, film an incredibly powerful ending.

Next I’m watching The Innocence of Ruth [1916], directed by John H. Collins.

This is my least favorite of any of the films I’ve watched thus far. It’s 52nd out of 52. Which is not to say that I hated it, not by any stretch. There were some moments I enjoyed, but as a whole it is a heavy-handed, predictable platitude of a film.

The film opens in the difficult-to-pronounce, and wholly fictional, kingdom of Wredpryd, which despite its phony name is clearly meant to represent Germany. Wredpryd’s king, a very Kaiser-like fellow, has been talked into declaring war by some of his aides. He’s delighted to learn that Count Ferdinand, a Wredprydian, if that’s the proper term, has invented a fantastic new war machine: the submarine. Off into battle goes the Count, as pilot of his new invention. Meanwhile, back home, the women of Wredpryd band together to form an anti-war coalition, saddened as they are by the loss of their husbands, sons, and fathers to the brutality of the battlefield.

So far, it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And at this point, I was onboard. However, the film takes something of a preachy turn. Count Ferdinand is ordered to launch a torpedo at a passenger boat which he’s told is secretly carrying war supplies. He’s about to give the order to fire when he has a vision of the aftermath of his actions. He sees the ship sinking, and the deaths of the innocent passengers. This scene is effective, and well-shot. It’s an exciting, grim depiction of war. Unwilling to kill innocent people, he refuses the order to fire. His crew turns on him, and he attempts to fight them off, which leads to the destruction of the submarine, and the deaths of many, possibly all, of its crew.

It seems Ferdinand has died to, for we catch up with him in Purgatory, where he meets Jesus. Jesus is pretty sad about the war, and that he did the right thing by not sinking the boat. He let’s him know that together they’re going to solve this whole war thing, and tells him he’s going to return to Earth in the Count’s body. So back to the land of the living goes Ferdinand, with Jesus along for the ride.

Despite having a halo when he is brought before the king, Ferdinand is sentenced to death for his treason. In jail, he’s bathed in the light from a glowing star as are the nuns in a nearby convent, which while a little goofy story-wise is brilliantly executed and makes for a stunning visual onscreen. Soon the whole nation has seen the same light, and as a whole the population marches on the capital with a message of peace.

Eventually the king visits the prisoner, and this time around he is awed by the presence of a higher power. While the king watches in shock, Jesus steps out of the sleeping Count’s body and guides him through a vision of the horrors of war, culminating in a glimpse into Jesus’ big book of sinners, which includes the king’s name. Horrorstruck, the king bows before Jesus and pleads with him for mercy. Jesus backs away and vanishes, and the king finds himself back in the cell with the Count.

Naturally, the king has been humbled, and immediately announces the end of the war. While he does this, Jesus wanders the battlefield blessing those who have fallen. In the streets, the mob of nuns rejoicse, as do the citizens of the nation. Everyone young and old comes rushing out from every nook and dell to crowd the city streets in celebration of peace. We’re given a full 7 minutes of rejoicing before the film closes, and as the blare of the war bugle is replaced by the shepherd’s horn, the screen fades to black.

The finale was the strongest sequence in the entire film. The celebrating citizens of Wredpryd was a lot of fun to watch, especially after the dreary, preachy middle section of the movie.

Like The Birth of a Nation, Civilization is a clear call to avoid the growing war in Europe. However, where The Birth of a Nation did so with a compelling vision of the atrocities of war, and told an entertaining story at the same time, Civilization fails in both regards. It beats its audience over the head with pacifist imagery for an hour and change, while never offering any plot beyond “war is bad.” Director Thomas H. Ince spent a year making the film, and allegedly spent $1 million in doing so, though other reports say that was a Hollywood exaggeration, and it in fact cost only $100,000 to make. Whatever he spent, in my estimation it was wasted, because this film just isn’t very good.

I watched this on YouTube, and you can watch it below if you like. The linked version includes the film’s original score. Despite being labeled as a 1916 film, Civilization premiered on December 31st, 1915. I can think of many better ways to have ushered in 1916 than to have watched this film.

Next I’m watching Where Are My Children? [1916], directed by Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber.

This is the second film directed by Cecil B. DeMille that I’ve watched, and I’m even more impressed this time around. More so than even D.W. Griffith, DeMille demonstrated an almost immediate intuitive grasp of the potential of film. When I first began compiling the list of films I’m working through I saw that DeMille’s second directorial effort was the first film version of Brewster’s Millions, and I was keen to see it. Unfortunately, that film has been lost, so I will only ever be able to wonder how Edward Abeles fared in the role of Montgomery Brewster. I’m going to assume his portrayal isn’t on par with that of either Dennis O'Keefe or Richard Pryor’s, and leave it at that, though if The Golden Chance, DeMille’s follow-up to The Cheat, which I discussed recently, is any indication, I may well be wrong.

The Golden Chance was one of 14 films DeMille directed in 1915. As it hit theaters on December 30th, you might think it was the last one he made that year, but nope— once The Golden Chance was in the can he went to work on Temptation, which was also released on the 30th. I know I bring this up a lot, but I don’t know how some of these directors did it. These are not simple, short films, yet DeMille managed to get a masterpiece like The Cheat into theaters on December 13th, and still have it in him to knock out two more before the year was done. I can’t speak to the quality of Temptation— it’s a lost film— but one assumes it was excellent based on the other two films DeMille made leading up to it.

Cecil’s brother William was also a director, and he wrote about his brother’s ability to direct two pictures simultaneously in his book Hollywood Saga. “C. B. with his usual audacity determined to direct both pictures at once, with two entirely separate production units. This he did by shooting The Cheat by day and The Golden Chance by night, a feat unique in motion-picture history. He finished both pictures on time and both were outstanding hits of that year.”

One wonders when he found time to direct Temptation.

The Golden Chance stars Cleo Ridgely as Mary Denby, the daughter of a judge who married below her station to disastrous results. She’s trapped in a tenement with a husband who splits his time between committing crimes and drinking away all the money he makes from them. Desperate for money to feed the two of them, Mary responds to a help wanted ad and is hired as a seamstress for the wealthy Hillary family. Mrs. Hillary immediately recognizes Mary as a woman of good upbringing, and is shocked when Mary tells her where she lives. Nonetheless, she puts her to work mending her clothes. It’s all for naught, as when she returns home that night, Steve, her no-good husband, takes the money she earns and goes out drinking.

Meanwhile, the Hillary family has a problem. Mr. Hillary is trying to convince the dashing Roger Manning, a young millionaire played by budding star Wallace Reid, who I last saw in a small part in The Birth of a Nation, to go 50/50 on a million-dollar investment. Manning is interested, but can’t invest because he is leaving town the next morning. When Mr. Hillary complains about the situation to his wife, she comes up with an idea, and asks Roger, eligible bachelor that he is, if he’d like to stay for dinner and meet “the most beautiful girl in the world.” Of course he would, but the plan seems foiled when the beautiful girl has to cancel. What to do? A scheme is hatched, and she dresses Mary up in her own clothing and jewels, and passes her off as an unmarried woman. Roger is very interested, and the two spend the evening chatting.

The plan seems to have failed when Roger says he’s still planning to leave come the morning. In a last-ditch Hail Mary, the cunning Mrs. Hillary tells him “too bad, Mary is spending the weekend here and we thought you might, too…” And our millionaire is hooked. But Mary has to explain to Steve, whom she tells she has to go do a three-day long laundry project in Newark. He buys it, and off she goes.

Back at the mansion, the plan works. Manning decides to stick around so he can spend more time with Mary, and invest with Mr. Hillary while he’s at it. Manning even proposes to Mary, who of course says no, though without explanation. While he broods by the fire, in a gorgeous shot— the light of the flame casting flickering shadows on Reid’s face as the smoke from his cigarette swirls about him— Mary goes upstairs and despairs. She’s in love with him, but knows she can’t pursue a relationship because of her marriage.

Meanwhile, in a coincidence one only finds in the silent era, Steve’s partner-in-crime Jimmy the Rat says word around town is there’s a girl wearing expensive jewelry at the Hillary mansion, and they plan to rob the house that night. He climbs in the window and starts pilfering jewels, only to find his wife sleeping in the room! Mortified by the entire situation, she doesn’t stop him, and he heads downstairs with his loot, only to encounter Manning, who calmly confronts him, and easily disarms him when Steve pulls a gun. The struggle awakens the household, and a tense scene ensues where Steve reveals to Manning that Mary is his wife, which she initially denies, though she later tells him the truth. Before this, the family lets Steve stage an escape, worrying that if the police come, Manning will learn of the truth and change his mind about investing with them.

Once Steve is gone, Mary comes clean to Roger. He’s appalled, and a crestfallen Mary changed back into her rags and wanders out into the night. She ends up sleeping on a park bench next to a bum. While this is happening, good old Jimmy the Rat has a new plan for Steve. They’re going to lure Roger Manning to pay a visit to Mary at home, then blackmail him for having visited a married woman. Ah, the old days, when moral turpitude was still a thing! Of course, the plan fails. They have Mary send a note to Manning, but she sneaks “don’t come” onto the back of it, so he shows up prepared. He tells his friend to send for the police if he isn’t out in five minutes. Once inside, after a tense scene made up almost entirely of a a series of rapid-fire close-ups, a very well-choreographed, and filmed, fight breaks out. It’s almost like watching a professional wrestling bout at times, and very effective, and a huge change of pace from the film up to this point. At the end, Manning is more or less winning, though he’s conked on the head just as the police show up, so who’s to say how the fight would have turned out. Steve tries to escape through the window, but is shot by the police and falls to his death. The film ends with a bloodied, but victorious, Manning comforting Mary, in whom he still seems to be interested, but she turns her gaze away, as if unsure what to do. I’d like to think the end up together, but we never know for sure.

Some thoughts on the actors:

Wallace Reid is spectacular. He would soon become one of the biggest stars of the late teens / early twenties, and his appeal is evident here. When he encounters Horace B. Carpenter coming downstairs after the robbery, he is coolness personified. Steve McQueen couldn’t have played that scene any better. Reid died in 1923 from a morphine addiction, a tragic loss of his life, and a devastating blow to cinema.

Cleo Ridgely is good for the role. She isn’t a stunning beauty, but has a cuteness to her that makes her believable as a girl who grew up in wealthy, but has been beaten down by a life of poverty after marrying Steve. Her acting is a bit one-note. She spends a lot of time giving a blank stare into the camera, but somehow, it works.

On one hand, Horace B. Carpenter’s Steve is a little bit too evil. We never get to see a side of him that could have wooed a judge’s daughter away from her life of luxury and into the slums. This may have been intentional, as DeMille needed to give audiences a firm reason to tolerate Mary’s quasi-infidelity, and eventual pairing off with Manning.

Ernest Joy and Edythe Chapman as Mr. and Mrs. Hillary are quite good. They give a good balance of kindness and opportunism to their performances. They aren’t exactly evil, but neither are they nice.

I found this review, from W. Stephen Bush in The Moving Picture World, January 8, 1916: “Never before have the lighting effects been used to such marvelous advantage. The highly critical spectators who saw the first display of the film were betrayed into loud approval by the many and novel effects. If paintings in a Rembrandt gallery or a set of Titians and Tintorettos were mysteriously transferred to the moving picture screen, the effect could not have been more startling.”

A review from January 29, 1916, published in The New York Dramatic Mirror, sings similar praises: “The master hand of Cecil B. DeMille is evident throughout the whole picture. His is the bigness of vision that can see and appreciate the value and importance of little things, and it is the attention to seemingly inconsequential details that makes The Golden Chance a big, gripping, human picture.”

The Golden Chance is available on a DVD, paired with another DeMille film, Don't Change Your Husband, which I’ll watch later in the project. It’s also available on YouTube, and I’ve linked it below.

Next I’m watching Civilization [1915], directed by Reginald Barker, Thomas H. Ince and Raymond B. West.

This is one of the most unusual films I’ve watched to this point in the chronology. It’s a strange mix of dream sequences and fantasies, directed by Yevgeny Bauer. It’s a Russian film, and gave me a glimpse into what was happening cinematically outside the U.S. in 1915. It is definitely different than most of the American films I’ve watched. The only one so far that’s been similar is The Avenging Conscience, D.W. Griffith’s 1914 foray into the nascent horror genre.

I’ve seen dream sequences in previous films, and some fantasy elements, but After Death pushes the boundary on what I’ve seen so far. The entire film is a back and forth between events happening to the characters and dream sequences. The plot is incredibly simple. A studious young man is taken to party where he sees a woman that he finds pretty. Soon thereafter he sees her sing onstage, after which he receives a latter from her asking him to meet her in a park. They meet, and have a very awkward and puzzling exchange. She tells him she has a lot to say to him. He responds that he’s ready to listen, but is surprised by the situation because he lives a scholar’s secluded life. She say she made a mistake and runs away.

Three months later, he finds out she committed suicide. He visits her family, and reads her suicide note, saying she killed herself out of unrequited love. He’s now wracked with guilt, because he also loved her but was too shy to let her know. He spends the rest of the film having numerous spooky dreams and visions of her ghost visiting him. He grows ill and is bedridden, still dreaming. The film ends with him dying in his mother’s arms after one last visit from the girl’s ghost.

As a realistic depiction of human behavior the film falls flat, but for the visuals it presents it is a stunning success. The dreams and ghostly visits are quite innovative and unsettling, and it’s there that the film earns its admission price.

As this is the 50th film I’ve watched as a part of this podcast so far, and I haven’t much more to say about it, I thought it might be fun to look at what I’ve watched so far. You know, metrics. The internet loves metrics!

First, let’s break it down by year.

1899 - 1 film1900 - 1 film1901 - 1 film1902 - 2 films1903 - 3 films1904 - 1 film1905 - 1 film1906 - 3 films1907 - no films from this year1908- 2 films1909- 4 films1910- 1 film1911- 1 film1912- 6 films1913- 2 films1914- 8 films1915- 15 films (13 covered so far)

What happened in 1907? How did I not find anything to watch from that year?

I should mention that what I’m doing, or at least the way I’m doing it, is not an exact science. I’m learning a lot as go along, so I may well have missed some must-sees from past years. I’d love to hear from those of you with more knowledge on this topic than me about what I may have missed, or what I should be sure to watch in the future.

Next, let’s examine how am I watching these movies. The answer in general is projected onto a big screen in a room in my house dedicated to watching films, but as for the source, it breaks down like this:

20 on YouTube16 on Blu-ray13 on DVD1 on Prime

Finally, let’s look by director. Here’s whose films I’ve so far seen:

14 films by Georges Méliès9 films by D.W. Griffith3 films by James Kirkwood2 films by Edwin S. Porter2 films by Henry Lehrman

and 1 film each from the following directors or teams of directors:

Gilbert M. AndersonReginald BarkerReginald Barker and Thomas H. InceYevgeny BauerFrancesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, and Giuseppe de LiguoroAugust BlomRomeo BosettiCharles ChaplinWilliam H. Clifford and William S. HartJohn H. CollinsCecil B. DeMilleEdwin MiddletonMabel NormandGiovanni PastroneFrank PowellMack SennettPhillips Smalley and Lois WeberWladyslaw StarewiczRaoul WalshW.W. Young

So there you go. 50 movies down, about 2500 to go.

Next I’m watching The Golden Chance [1915], directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

The Cheat is the 23rd film Cecil B. DeMille directed. That seems like a long career, but those films were released over a span of 22 months, meaning he had less than two years as a director under his belt when he made this movie. Despite being so new to the art, his talent is apparent. This is a beautifully shot film, and includes the most effective usage of lighting and shadow that I’ve seen thus far.

The story opens with Richard, played by Jack Dean, sinking his entire fortune into an investment. He informs his wife, Edith, played by Dean’s real-life wife Fannie Ward, that she must temporarily curb her spending. She’s been spending a small fortune on clothing, and for a fund raiser for Belgian war orphans she’s helping organize. She’s the treasurer of the Red Cross chapter that’s putting on the fundraiser, and is entrusted with the $10,000 they’ve raised. She promptly gives it to a friend who promises he can double it overnight with an investment he insists is better than the risky one her husband has made. Naturally, he shows up the next day to tell her that the investment didn’t pan out, and the money is gone. Now she’s in a pickle! She has less than a day to come up with $10,000 to give the Red Cross.

She turns to her best friend, Haka, a Burmese ivory merchant with whom she spends most of her free time. He offers her the money, in exchange for a night together in bed. She reluctantly agrees, knowing the alternative is jail for embezzling the funds. When she returns home, her husband tells her his investment has panned out and they are rich beyond their wildest dreams. She asks him for $10,000 to cover a loss in a game of bridge, so he writes her a check. When she delivers it to Haka that evening, he refuses, telling her she needs to stick to their original deal. She tries to flee, he locks her in the room. There’s a struggle, and at one point Haka grabs her, and brands her shoulder with the red-hot brand he uses on his ivory. Desperate, she finds Haka’s gun and shoots him.

As this is happening, Richard shows up. He was suspicious about the alleged bridge debt, and has come to find his wife. Assessing the situation, he sends his wife away and when the police come, he tells them he shot Haka. Haka doesn’t dispute this, likely seeing a way to get his romantic rival, and Edith’s protector and source of income, out of the picture. In the subsequent trial, he maintains his guilt, but won’t offer a reason for shooting Haka. When he’s convicted, Edith finally bursts forth and tells the truth. When she shows the brand on her shoulder as proof, the judge dismisses the case, and Richard and Edith leave together.

When it was first released, the villain was a Japanese ivory merchant, which lead to protests by Japanese-Americans, so upon its rerelease in 1918, DeMille changed him from Japanese to Burmese. Nationality aside, the character was played with extraordinary aplomb by the Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa, for whom the role became his breakthrough to stardom. He became Hollywood’s first Asian matinee idol, and the first non-white international movie star. Stephen Gong, the executive director of San Francisco's Center for Asian-American Media, writes “It [the film] caused a sensation. The idea of the rape fantasy, forbidden fruit, all those taboos of race and sex – it made him a movie star. And his most rabid fan base was White women.”

Up for debate is whether the film is racist or not. Some will of course say it is, as the villain is played by an Asian actor, but I’d counter that his race is never a focal point of the film. It’s more that he happens to be a Burmese merchant. He could have been Turkish or Belgian, or even American. Moreover, he is clearly an accepted member of the upper class in the film. No one objects to his presence, or treats him any differently due to his nationality. So at least to me, it seems as nothing more than a villain being played by a Japanese actor.

More noticeable to me than anyone’s race is deMille’s pioneering use of what’s known as Rembrandt lighting. In numerous scenes, an actor’s face would be partly lit, partly in shadow. Hayakawa is the prime beneficiary of this technique, but there are many such scenes in the film. It works extremely well, and many lengthy shots from an immobile camera are augmented by this kind of lighting.

I watched this on a DVD, which includes a second Cecil B. DeMille film, Manslaughter, which I’ll watch later in the chronology. You can purchase your own copy by clicking on the picture below. On the advice of several people, I have created an Amazon Associates account, so if you do buy something from Amazon using my link, I may receive a few pennies.

The Cheat is also available on Amazon Prime, where it is available free to Prime members. I took a peek, and the quality of the film is solid, if not great, and the brilliance of DeMille, and cinematographer Alvin Wyckoff, is clearly visible. I still recommend you buy the DVD.

Next I’m watching After Death [1915], directed by Yevgeny Bauer.

Try though I may, I’m still not seeing what others seem to see in Charles Chaplin. Granted, this, like the previous films I’ve seen from him, is an early effort, and I have hope that his later work will be better, but this feels like another forgettable film that is only worth watching because Chaplin starred in and directed it.

The plot, so far as there is one, is that an obnoxious man goes to the theater for a night of Vaudeville acts, and acts disruptive. Why he isn’t thrown out we’ll never know, but despite stealing seats from other patrons, punching the conductor, members of the orchestra, ushers, and other theater-goers, going on stage and assaulting performers and the stage manager, and doing various other things, he’s left to roam the theater at will, and sit where he wants. He throws pies, gets in fights, and is generally disruptive. A subplot— I guess you can call it that— features Chaplin as a tramp, sitting in the nosebleeds with the other poors, pouring beer on the patrons below, and eventually turning a firehose onto the performers and audience. The film ends with the obnoxious Chaplin being sprayed with water from the hose.

Chaplin acts very aloof, almost to the point of seeming dazed. Nothing he does quite makes sense, and it all feels very random. The film is full of pratfalls, pies to the face, and other shenanigans and sight gags that no doubt delighted audiences in 1915, but I was left feeling like I wanted more. On the other hand, I haven’t yet seen any comedies that felt fully formed, and I feel like comedy was lagging well behind drama and action at this point in cinematic history. Directors and screenwriters had yet to find their footing when it came to bringing laughs to the big screen; or, modern tastes are so different that the directors of the era were knocking it out of the park in terms of what their audiences wanted, and it’s only my modern sensibility that is making me think they were missing the mark.

I watched this on YouTube.

My indifference towards this film reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to mention almost since the my first podcast, and something I assume would show up in a comment were anyone to comment on my podcast. As an aside, do feel free to comment. I realize podcasts don’t generate much in the way of audience interaction due to how they are consumed, but I’d love to see some discussions below the written transcripts of the podcasts.

Back to my point— if there were comments, at some point someone would ask me why I don’t have a rating system in place for films. My answer: I don’t know how to rate films. I can tell you I liked a film, or even loved it, but I find it very difficult to compare films, which is what ratings inherently do. If I rate films on a scale of 1 to 5, the implication is that two movies rated 5 are about equal, which is seldom the case. I’d give all sorts of films a 5, meaning Citizen Kane and The Jerk would appear to be equal. I love both those films, but one is a much better Film with a capital F than the other; you can decide which. Wherever you stand on the Charles Foster Kane vs. Navin R. Johnson debate, the fact doesn’t change that 5 stars means something different depending on the movie, and it’s impossible to communicate what it means within a traditional film rating system. I’d love to hear what you think is the perfect system for rating movies. Maybe I’ll agree, and implement it.

Another problem is how to rate films that aren’t great films, but are great for what they are. A film can be great, but made on a small budget, or belong to a niche genre, and can’t compete with an Important Film from a Big Studio, which means it was doomed to never earn a 5 from the get-go. Or, do I rate films based on how great they are within their realm. Something like a Godzilla film comes to mind. Shouldn’t the very best kaiju film be rated 5? It’s the best it can be. Or, should it be capped at around a 3, since even the best Godzilla film can’t hold a candle to Fellini’s best work? Something seems wrong with a system where a movie can’t receive a top mark simply because of the type of movie it is.

So there you have it, the reason why I’m not rating these films.

Next I’m watching The Cheat [1915], directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

It’s easy to dismiss most of the directors not named D.W. Griffith who were making films in 1915, and for the most part it can be understandable if one does so, but there were a handful of directors doing more than churning out what today would be called “content” at that point in the history of film. Cecil B. DeMille is another big name who was finding his footing in 1915, along with Maurice Tourneur, Raoul Walsh, and Raymond West. Those are the Big Names whose films I came into this project excited to watch, and from whom I expect to see great work. A name I was wholly unfamiliar with is John H. Collins, but after watching Children of Eve I’m ready to add him to that short list of early greats. I’ll see a few more of his films as I make my way through my list, and I’m very curious to see if they are as enjoyable as this one.

Collins directed 15 short films in 1914 and 1915 before switching to feature-length films. Children of Eve was the sixth, and final, feature-length film he directed in 1915, and from what I can tell, it was positively received by critics of the time. His work generally seems to have been praised, and had he gone on to have a longer career, I don’t doubt he’d be better known today. Sadly, he died in the influenza outbreak of 1919, leaving only a small body of surviving work behind. I am entirely convinced that had he survived, his name would be held in the same regard as the aforementioned stars of the silent era.

Collins worked for the Edison Company, which probably hasn’t helped his legacy. Everything I’ve read suggests that Edison was known for churning out average films at a quick pace to feed a growing market for film, and was a company wholly focused on the bottom line. From what I’ve seen of the Edison films, this is true. Based on what I’ve watched, Edison’s 1915 one-reelers are practically indifferentiable from what they were releasing in 1910, which makes Collins’ work all the more noteworthy to me.

Children of Eve is an exception to the Edison formula. It stars Viola Dana, to whom director Collins had been married in 1915, as Fifty-Fifty Mamie, so-named because she always splits the money she makes in dance contests 50/50 with her partner. Before we meet her, we meet her mother, Flossy, a prostitute from New York's East Side. She befriends Henry, a young clerk who lives in a neighboring apartment, who encourages her to reform her life. She does, and they fall in love, but she leaves him because she feels she’ll only be a negative influence on his life. She doesn’t tell him she’s pregnant, and ends up having the baby and dying shortly thereafter, leaving young Mamie with nothing besides a picture by which she can remember her mother.

The basic plot is very similar to what I saw in Rags, but with an extra layer provided by the film’s message about labor reform. Like Rags, and many other films I’ve seen, Children of Eve relies on some very unlikely coincidences to push the plot forward. Apparently audiences at the time were more forgiving of such plot contrivances, although even as I typed that I realized that a great number of modern films also rely on coincidence as a primary plot device, albeit better disguised than it was in the early days of film.

We pick up the story 17 years after Flossy’s death. Mamie is now a party girl, going out dancing with her main squeeze, Bennie the Typ, who besides being a great dancer is a low level criminal. We catch up with Henry, who never recovered from Flossy’s departure, and has turned from being a kind-hearted man to a greedy industrialist. In one of the coincidences I mentioned as being typical for the era, Mamie encounters Henry’s nephew Bert, who prevents her being arrested for shoplifting. He takes a liking to her, and convinces her to give up her wanton lifestyle and find religion.

Mamie starts hanging out at the settlement house where Bert volunteers, and he gradually introduces her to a new, more fulfilling lifestyle. At one point, he grows ill, and Mamie tries to visit him at home. Henry intercepts her, and sends her away, telling her to forget about Bert, explaining that her low societal position will make her nothing but a burden on him— very much the same thing Flossy had told him years ago, only by now he’s become hardened by the world and considers it good advice this time around.

Some of Bert’s activist friends recruit Mamie her to help in their crusade for social justice, and ask her to go undercover as a factory worker to help expose the terrible working conditions therein. Mamie goes to work in Henry’s canning factory, where he is employing children in a workplace that has no fire escape and only one staircase. Naturally, during her day there, the cannery catches fire, many children die and Mamie is fatally injured. The fire was based on a real-life event of the era, the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911, and Collins pulls no punches in depicting it. We see many dead children lined up in the aftermath. In addition to its stark realism, it is it a well-filmed, and brilliantly edited, sequence, that showcases Collins as a true directing talent.

Mamie is home, dying and Henry visits her, still unaware of who she really is. As far as he knows, she’s just another guttersnipe who was unfortunate enough to die in one of his factories. He’s initially reluctant to have his doctor help Mamie, but when he sees the picture of Flossy on her desk, everything becomes clear to him, and he understands Mamie is his daughter. He implores the doctor to help her, but is rebuffed, being told that money can’t change her situation. Mamie asks for Bert, who arrives in time to see her die. Crushed by all that has happened, Henry’s eyes at last open to what he has become, and he resolves to change his ways, and fight for the welfare of workers and work to put an end to child slavery.

If it sounds grim and a bit heavy-handed, at times it is, but it’s still a powerful piece of filmmaking by a director long forgotten by most. I have three more films directed by John H. Collins on my list, and am looking forward to seeing more from this director whose career ended far too soon.

I’ve seen a few DVDs of this for sale online, and am considering adding it to my collection, though it’s sometimes hit or miss with such DVDs. Some are homemade DVDs made from what look like videos copied from YouTube, and others are legit, restored versions made by professional companies. It’s hard to know what I’ll get, but if I do buy one, I’ll report about it. In the meantime, I watched this on YouTube, linked below. It’s an unusual version, with a restored and unrestored version playing side by side. I doubled the image size, and scrolled right to get the full-screen view of the restored version.

I eventually did buy this on DVD. It’s one of three features on the Kino DVD shown below. The Devil’s Needle is on my list of films to watch, so it made sense to pick up a copy knowing I’d also be getting Children of Eve, as well as a third film that won’t be a part of the podcast, but I’ll certainly watch as well. You can click the image if you’d like to buy a copy of your own. Kino always does a great job with their releases, and is one of a handful of brands you can reliably trust to deliver the goods

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Next I’m watching: A Night in the Show [1915], directed by Charles Chaplin.

The film opens with the outbreak of the Civil War, with young men rushing to enlist while their girlfriends watch with pride. Only our protagonist, Frank Winslow, played by Charles Ray, seems uncertain, but with some encouragement from his sweetheart he heads into an enlistment center. He doesn’t sign up, however, as he gets cold feet and flees home instead. His girlfriend is heartbroken and humiliated, and has to watch other couples celebrate the dubious honor of their men rushing off to war.

At home, Frank is confronted by his father, the esteemed Col. Jefferson Beverly Winslow. He’s aghast at his son’s cowardice, and does what any proud father would do— he loads his gun and points it at his son and tells him to either enlist or be shot. There’s some tough love for you. It works, as Frank enlists, under his father’s watchful, and well-armed, eye, and heads off to war. He doesn’t last long, as he deserts on his first night there, and races home, where the family servants hide him. The colonel discovers him however, and after chewing out his son, does the only thing he can think to do. He dusts off his uniform, likely from the Mexican War, and heads into battle, saying “the name of Private Winslow is on the rolls: someone must answer when that name is called.”

Meanwhile, as cowardly Frank is hiding in the attic of his home, his town is overrun by enemy forces, who commandeer his home. While his mother reluctantly feeds and cares to the soldiers, Frank eavesdrops. He overhears them discussing a map that shows their army’s weak point, one that could be easily exploited were the other side to learn of it. Summoning his heretofore absent courage, Frank sneaks down, holds the group of soldiers at gunpoint, and, dressed in the enemy’s uniform, steals the plans and rides away. He makes it to safely to where his troop is camped, where he is promptly shot by none other than his own father— he finally got his chance!— due to him wearing the uniform of the opposite army.

Frank survives the gunshot and delivers the map to the commanding officers, who successfully defeat the other army. Meanwhile, his father doesn’t realize it was his son he shot until he is summoned to visit the mysterious hospitalized hero. Imagine his surprise when he learns his cowardly son is a coward no more!

My favorite part of this film is Charles Ray. His acting is far more natural than that of many silent era stars. At times, he almost seems to be a modern day actor who has somehow been cast back into time to appear in a silent film, but never in a jarring way. I appreciate the way he conveys his fear, both of going to war and of being a coward, in a believable yet subtle manner.

I watched this on YouTube, and you can, too.

Next I’m watching: Children of Eve [1915], directed by John H. Collins.

This is most noteworthy as W.C. Fields’ first film. Though only 35 at the time, Fields had already enjoyed a long and successful career in Vaudeville before turning to film. He eventually went on to become one of Hollywood’s hugest stars, and one of only a handful of silent film stars who is still widely remembered today, and this is where that film career began.

The story is simple, and really nothing more than an excuse for some gags. Fields and Bud Ross are at a picnic, competing for the attention of a girl. After a number of gags involving the picnic setting, they are convinced to settle their differences at a pool table. Once at a pool hall, the two take turns hitting impossible pool shots, accomplished via primitive but fun stop-motion photography. After besting his rival, Fields ends up in a brawl, which he escapes through a basement door. He leaves his rival dunked in a barrel of water, and heads off to unknown new adventures.

It’s short and to the point, and a fun distraction. Nothing is groundbreaking here, but the short is worth watching as Fields’ entry point into cinema. I am a big fan of W.C. Fields, and can remember many happy nights a young man watching his films alongside my mom, who was also a fan of his. We often quoted scenes from his films to one another, so I’m always down to watch anything he’s in.

It’s interesting that this film directly follows The Regeneration in the chronology, as I ended that podcast talking about how ground-breaking it was, and about the advances in filmmaking that were evident by 1915, and then along comes this movie that would not have been at all out of place in 1910. Pool Sharks is definitely a holdover from an older era of cinema. That is not a knock on this film by any stretch, as audiences in 1915 were certainly not all expecting, or ready for, more cutting edge fare. Keep in mind that plenty of films, especially comedic shorts like this one, that had been made in 1910, or prior, were likely still playing at smaller theaters all over the world, and that theater-going was a far different experience in 1915 than it is today. At this point in history, studios were still making films and selling, rather than loaning, prints to theaters, where they were sometimes run for years. Many were shown until the print wore out, so a short film like Pool Sharks, rather than seeming dated, may well have felt fresh when shown at smaller or more remote theaters, to audiences who had been seeing the same older shorts on repeat for years.

I watched this on a DVD featuring six W.C. Fields short films, linked to the picture below.

Next I’m watching: The Coward [1915], directed by Reginald Barker and Thomas H. Ince.

directed by Raoul Walsh

I only know Raoul Walsh from a few gangster pictures he made in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, so I was curious to see some of his earlier work. Quite a few films he’s directed are on my list— 17 I believe— and The Regeneration is the first one to show up in the chronology. Despite being made in 1915, it stands up to his later work, and honestly, is as good as any modern film. Sure, it’s dated in some ways, but that’s the nature of all art, right? Any work of art is a product of its time, but it is the timeless qualities of the piece that allow it to stand out, and The Regeneration is timeless in the ways that matter.

Having extolled its timelessness, I’m going to start by praising this film for one of the ways it is most dated. The Regeneration was filmed almost entirely on location in New York’s Bowery. It’s really only through films like this that we can get a real glimpse into how that neighborhood looked back then. Sure, we can read all about it in myriad books, but nothing beats seeing the real tenements, streets, cars, and people on film. Just seeing the spider’s web of clotheslines strung between the buildings is a powerful reminder of what our cities once were, so even without a for its time spectacular stunt of a man climbing between buildings on one of those lines, the scene was fantastic to behold.

Part gangster movie, part morality play, The Regeneration traces the life of Owen, played as an adult by Rockliffe Fellows. We meet him first as a child, an orphan, taken in by abusive parents who use him as a servant. We see through his eyes as his parents drink and fight. We also see what apparently was a normal thing in 1915: Owen is sent by his stepfather to a nearby saloon with a coin and a bucket. He slips both under the swinging doors to the bartender, who moments later slides the bucket, now full of beer, back out, which Owen brings to his father, but only after sneaking a sip for himself. Later in the film we witness a den of gangsters passing around a similar (the same prop?) bucket of beer around. I take it to mean that going to a bar to fill a pail with beer wasn’t unusual back then.

Anyway, we rejoin Owen in his teens. He’s now living in the streets, running with a gang. He isn’t all bad, however. When he witnesses some bullies pushing around a crippled teen, he intervenes, and beats up the bullies. He’s still a good guy at heart, this Owen. Another time jump brings us to the present day, and we learn that Owen, now 25, is the boss of the toughest gang in the Bowery. Meanwhile, across town, we see the wealthy district attorney, played by Carl Harbaugh, dining with some of his rich friends. The conversation turns to gangsters, and one guest, Marie, Anna Q. Nilsson, exclaims that she’d love to see a gangster in the flesh. Ames tells her he knows just the place, and he leads a few of them to a saloon in the Bowery.

Apparently, the poors don’t take kindly to being gawked at by rich folk, and a scuffle breaks out. Owen is observing this when Marie catches his eye, and in a great bit of silent acting, implores him to intervene, which he does. He saves Ames, and escorts the party out to their car. As they part ways, we can see that Owen and Marie have taken an interest in one another.

Marie’s interest runs deeper than just her curiosity about Owen, as she was struck by a speech from a reform advocate she overheard as she was leaving the slums. She decides to devote her heretofore empty life to helping the unfortunate denizens of the Bowery, and takes up volunteering at a Settlement House therein. Owen notices her, and, though hesitant at first, keeps an eye on her from afar before finally being won over when he’s recruited to help rescue a baby from an abusive father. Flashing back to his own unhappy childhood, Owen realizes that Marie’s cause is worthwhile, and, to the shock of his gang, leaves his role as head gangster and starts learning to read and write at the Settlement.

The story takes a darker turn when Skinny, a much more brutal gangster, and Owen’s replacement as leader, stabs a policeman. He begs Owen to hide him at the Settlement, and though Owen at first refuses, he acquiesces when reminded of a time when Skinny had lied to the police to save Owen. The subterfuge works when the police come, but Marie, and a visiting Ames, find out that Skinny is hiding, and admonish Owen. Ames taunts him, telling him that Marie, who has fled to her room in disappointment, will never love him after his error. Surprisingly, she comes out with a redoubled devotion to Owen, determined to help him stay straight. Owen, ashamed, flees, and the audience can’t help but wonder if he’s out to get Skinny.

He’s not. He sends a note to Skinny saying that they’re even now, and to never bother him again, and heads to a church. There, he consults a priest, who also tells him that he’s a good guy, and he can’t stray from his righteous path simply because of one lapse in judgment.

Marie, meanwhile, does think Owen is after Skinny, or perhaps has rejoined his gang, for she heads to the gang’s clubhouse to find him. There, she’s duped by Skinny into following him into an empty bedroom, where he attempts to assault her. She barricades herself in a closet. While this is happening, Marie’s assistant, the crippled youth Owen had helped years ago, runs to let Owen know about Marie’s predicament. Owen arrives in time to chase Skinny away, who shoots at Owen as he escapes. The shot misses Owen, but mortally wounds Marie. On her deathbed, she implores Owen not to avenge her, shown in a striking and clever manner. Rather than a title card, she points towards a scroll that is superimposed onto the screen, and contains the verse from the Book of Romans, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” That would be out of place, and perhaps even comical, in a modern film, but in the context of the scene, and in an era where all films were silent, it’s clever and meaningful.

Skinny does received his comeuppances, though at the hands of the crippled youth, played by an unnamed actor who I wish I knew more about. He is a standout as the hunchbacked character in this film, and, to Walsh’s credit, is never singled out as a freak or anything special. He sees Skinny trying to avoid the police by climbing from one building to another on a clothesline (the stunt I alluded to earlier), and shoots at him. It isn’t clear if he hits him, or if it’s simply the surprise of the shot, but Skinny falls to his death.

Besides keeping Owen on the right path, his choice not to avenge Marie’s death adds an extra level of emotional weight to her murder. Had he been on the fence, and only decided to remain moral due to her death, it would feel like more of a plot contrivance, but it’s clear that he was already determined to do right before she was killed. Her death is simply a tragedy, and not a necessity of plot.

I really enjoyed this film. Intellectually, it’s certainly on par with what Griffith was doing at the time, though of course it is visually less innovative. This could well be in large part due to the budget Griffith had, as well as the scope of the stories he was telling. On the topic of Griffith, here’s an interesting side note: while this is the first film I’ve watched for this project that was directed by Raoul Walsh, it isn’t the first time I’ve seen him. He had a small role in The Birth of a Nation, in which he played John Wilkes Booth. He was also an assistant director, and part of the editing team on that film, and he clearly learned a lot from Griffith.

I’ve reached a point in cinematic history where there is a lot more structure to the filmmaking process. In many ways, 1915 seems to be the beginning of the modern era of film. It isn’t as if The Birth of a Nation instantly revolutionized film, and everything that came after was different, but it’s clear that moviemaking was moving away from the independent, and often haphazard, methods of its early days, and become far more organized, and supervised. The studio system wasn’t fully in place, but I’m beginning to see its roots, and films, at least the better ones, are now being made by coherent teams of people as opposed to one guy with a camera. From here on out, I think it’s going to be important for me to pay attention to more than just the director and actors in a film. Writers, cinematographers, assistant directors, producers, and other people are starting to play key roles in film by 1915, and it’s becoming interesting to track their progress.

I watched this on a DVD from the Flicker Alley collection, and I highly recommend you buy and watch it. It also contains a film I watched previously for this podcast, Young Romance. And I should add— I don’t make anything if you buy these blu-rays and DVDs. I link these to help you find he films. You can click the picture below if you want to buy this great film.

Next I’m watching: Pool Sharks [1915], directed by Edwin Middleton.