Silent Film Era Hall of Fame

Topsy sorry I didn't reply to your post, I think it's totally cool that you watched one of the silent films...Glad you liked it too. This is a small Hof, but it has some wonderful films. I think if you stick around, and I hope you do!...I think you will love the other nominations.

Cricket, Very cool to see you enjoying these classics! I have never seen Louise Brooks but Diary of a Lost Girl has been on my radar from some time. Now you'll have to check out her other big silent film, Pandora's Box.

Pabst is a master. He also entered the world of sound cinema very skillfully creating some of the best early European sound pictures.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Here's a link to a very informative and interesting 14 minute video about the restoration of Wings from the production team that restored the film. It does not go into the movie's story, so doesn't spoil anything.

Wings (1927)

I watched Wings a few days ago and what surprised me was how different the film looked from the last time I watched it, years ago...This time I watched the official, restored DVD of Wings.

The first thing I see is that the tint is a light yellow and I'm thinking what is going on? On my last viewing the film was black and white. I knew that some old silent films were monochrome tinted. But I didn't think Wings was one of them. Then I watched the DVD extras and learned Wings had premiered as a Road show release. Road show releases were special limited viewing engagements, where the movie was shown at only a handful of premier theaters in large cities. These Road show pictures often came with little extras and in the case of Wings the extras were single color tinting and hand drawn in animated flames and machine gun fire, along with an intermission during the movie.

I believe that photo of the old movie theater is from a Road show of Wings as the theater is decked out for the occasion. If you watch Wings on the restored DVD you'll have two choices for soundtrack:

Watch with the orchestral score!

My favorite sequence is the Paris bistro scene, that's the one with the 'bubbles' and the infamous and topless scene with Clara Bow, blink and you'll miss it.


I love this gif of the opening tracking shot of the Paris bistro 'bubbles' scene. Both the technical side of this opening shot, and the story each of the couples tell at the 5 tables in the foreground is amazing.




My gawd! it's the silent era and William Wellman the director actually shows us a real view of what it would be like to fly a plane into enemy territory strafing enemy soldiers. All of the battle scenes are huge! There's no way anything like this would be made today, unless is was CG

I don't know if you guys know this but William Wellman was a fighter pilot in World War I and the first American to join the French Lafayette Flying Corps, just like the two friends in Wings were.

I love this film! Buddy Rogers the dark haired pilot is amazing in this, he seems so personable which makes this film seem so real. Of course I liked the other pilot Richard Arlene and there last scene together is very touching...And I liked Clara Bow in this and there's even a brief camo by Gary Cooper, this is the film that launched his career.

But mostly it's 'Wild Bill' William Wellman the director who I admire most of all. In his films and in his life he goes all out and lives life on the edge and his films reflect that gusto for life.

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Well, how do you liked the film?

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"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."

I liked it lot! I was going to write a big review about it, but ran out of time. But yeah, I was totally impressed with the pilots eye view of air battles. But I loved the Paris 'bubbles' scene best of all.

It might seem like I've already lost interest, but I promised I haven't. I've gotten thirty minutes into Diary of a Lost Girl and already I feel like it's a masterpiece, stunning film so far, but I hate watching it on YouTube and I think that's why I haven't finished it yet. I know a few of the others are on YouTube as well, but I'm going to pass watching those that way because I really don't like the experience, even if I love the film.

Alas, the first thirty minutes of Diary of a Lost Girl have left such an impression on me I might just buy it. And what more can be said about Louise Brooks? I've heard interesting commentary about her, but based just on this film I think she's a stunning actress.

I agree with you Swan, if I love a movie I'd like to see it on a decent DVD not on Youtube. So yeah I can understand wanting to get a DVD of Diary of a Lost Girl. Do you have a library near you that might have some of these movies? I was able to get most movies from my library or Netflix.

I have Netflix, I'm going to use that for the rest (aside from the Vidor which aren't on there).

Sounds good, I have Diary of a Lost Girl on queue at Netflix DVD.Com...My library use to have it along with Pandora's Box but it must have gotten damaged or lost as they don't have it any more

Diary of a Lost Girl is also available on Blu-ray. From Kino (USA) and Eureka (GB). I own the British release but haven't seen it yet.

... or so i thought ...

Wings (William A. Wellman, 1927) -

I don't know what i expected from this movie but it blew my mind! I wasn't at all prepared for such dynamic, intense and well choreographed action sequences. Especially the aerial combat scenes were nothing short of frickin' amazing. Combined with an absolutely fantastic soundtrack (the one with the sound effects) it made for a really engaging film with not one single boring second. The scenes offside the battle grounds were at times dramatic and at times funny. Great movie! Glad, it was nominated here, otherwise it probably would've taken me years to get around to it.

I will watch that^^next later in the week. Good job Max!

Glad you liked Wings Max!

Thanks, guys. Things actually became a lot more complicated than I hoped they would, unfortunately. So that is why I didn't come around. But hopefully everything is more on the positive side now.

I just updated the list of reviews: http://www.movieforums.com/community...08#post1556508
I think I got everyone. If I didn't, please let me know.

Citizen Rules - Do you want me to link the abridged review of Sherlock Jr that you have posted in here, or would you like me to link the full review?

I may not have been around but I DID get my movie-watching done! Well, practically done. The only film that I have left to watch is the one that I planned on being the first to watch, which is "The Crowd". So I hope to get that done this week.

I am still guilty of not reading reviews, but I will do so tomorrow probably. And since I have watched them, I have no reason to "avoid" them now.

I will save my detailed opinions for my review, but I just want to say that I just love "The Big Parade" so much. With the stress and stuff that I had going on these past few weeks, this was just the right time to watch that one again. It was just the movie that I needed to see again. I love movies that make me feel satisfied after I watch them, and "The Big Parade" is very satisfying for me. Nobody else may feel that way here when they see it , but I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of an idea of where I will be going with my review.

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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe

How did you manage to see the Vidor films? I completely forget if someone had a link or something.

Welcome back Vamp!....I still have 5 of the films to watch. I hope to watch one maybe tomorrow.

Please link the abridged version.

OK. So does that mean that I should link what you have written there to the list of "Wings" reviews?

All 3 of her Oscars went to silent film performances: Sunrise, Street Angel and 7th Heaven.

They were just called "titles". I suppose the correct word for them are "intertitles", but I have always just called them "titles" or "title cards", too.