Silent Film Era Hall of Fame

I'm really hoping lowering your expectations will work for you with this film. I just don't want you going into it with a negative thought because you know the theme of war hangs over it. Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised by it.


Just a bit of nonsense info for all of you, sometimes "The Big Parade" is said to be the highest-grossing silent film of all-time. But I tend to agree with others, unfortunately, that it is probably the second highest-grossing film. The highest being "The Birth of a Nation". (I don't like that one at all - never did )



I feel like the absolute worst HoF host ever! I do. I feel bad that I haven't been able to be around like I should've been. And it seems particularly bad because this is my first time hosting one of these. What sort of reputation am I developing from that happening?! Anyway, I am sorry for my apparent periodic absences. The first "leave" was something that kind of consumed my time. The past few days, though, were just ridiculous. Windows was updating for two days and then I thought everything was fine. And then it spent the past two days updating again! Hopefully that will be it now. Hopefully!!



Anyway, since I can actually use my computer today, as soon as I sign off of here, I will finally watch "The Crowd". Then I will start to contribute my thoughts.

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

Help!

I need a link for "The Crowd".

I had a link for it. I was going to watch it this afternoon. And before I did, I wanted to send it to Mäx. When I clicked on the link, it took me to nothing. It was just a list of websites as suggestions. So I tried the website itself and it appears that is gone, too.

So, if anyone has a good link for it, please PM it to me. It will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

The Big Parade is an epic film, maybe the first anti-war drama in American cinema (French were much faster and made one in 1919), but overall the juxtaposition it tries to create isn't that powerful, mainly due to the overall comedic tone of the first part that never lets go completely in the more harrowing part two. A couple of takes are 10/10, like the one in the woods, or some parts of the trenches footage, but overall it's only a good film.

I highly recommend watching Show People after you finished The Big Parade. It's an incredibly powerful, sorta meta (20 years before Sunset Blvd.), movie whose ending is about three times more powerful if you had seen The Big Parade.

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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.

It's totally cool Vamp we understand that things come up in real life. I noticed you were gone from the MoFo for awhile so I'm sure if you could have popped in you would have. But there was no problems we're just watching the silents. And I watched another!
Did you ever get a link? Matt told me about a service that allows people to email movie files to each other using a regular mail, like google mail. So maybe that could be an option.

Vamp you're doing perfectly well! Stop being so paranoid about stuff, that's my job.

Going to FINALLY start with The Big Parade.

Orphans of the Storm (D.W. Griffith 1921)

I know this was removed from the nominations as Beatle dropped out but I had already started watching it, so thought I would post about it.

I didn't care for this one. This was the first D.W. Griffith film I've seen and geez I had a hard time watching this, it was so slow and plodding! D.W. Griffith is in love with the spectacle of film, as that's what this film delivers...an unbridled spectacle of the French Revolution. Griffith is undeniably the king of costume pictures.

Orson Welles gave an introduction to Orphans of the Storm as part of a PBS TV series from 1971 and that was included on the DVD. I wish I could find the video of it, it's interesting. Orson said of this movie, 'that it was old fashioned even when it was first shown at the theater and it harked back to the stage days of the 19th century' He also said the film 'tasted of old dusty velour'.

Some 2 1/2 hours latter after watching the film, I knew what Orson had meant. The film to me seemed like some of the shorts Thomas Edison had made years earlier. The sets and costumes were fantastic but it was overkill with too much superfluous stuff happening, with little soul. I was just glad when the movie was finally over.

The Big Parade

I should have liked this more than I did. It's technically better than I make it out to be. The war scenes are really well done and they felt as if they were very realistic for its time. The length of the film seemed rather noticeable to me, which was unfortunate as there were times that I had lost interest in the storyline. The music and the score really matched the themes of the movie though. It was a pretty good movie overall, just one that tested my attention span.

Louise Brooks is the big draw here. She certainly can pack a lot of emotion into a scene just with the look on her face. She was fascinating to watch as she seemed so very real and sometimes characters in silent drama films come off as caricatures, but not here. The story concept was brilliant and allowed maximum emotional response from the audience. It was film beautiful too and never felt static, though I wish the pacing was a bit faster as some of the camera shots were held for past the point of interest. Luckily that didn't happen to much and isn't a deal breaker.

I also watched another Louise Brooks film, a comedy, talkie short called Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931), it was interesting to here Louise's voice, though she only had a bit part and you would never know the range of acting she was capable of from this short film. If Louise had never went to Germany to make films, we wouldn't even know her name today.

Yes, I got the link. And I watched the film. That email option is intriguing to me, though. It is something to keep in mind for any future possibilities for film-watching.

These are some of my favorite war/battle scenes in any film. I love the way that they were shot. Particularly the moment where you see the silhouette as he approaches the trench.

The Big Parade (King Vidor, 1925) - +

I feel pretty much the same as rauldc14:

Very good soundtrack and some intense war scenes but way too long - especially, when the soldiers are in the french village. Those scenes were about 60 minutes long and did almost nothing for me.

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

Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922)

Interesting film and I'm very glad I finally got to watch it. But I found it underwhelming. The story didn't click with me. I read that Bram Stoker's widow had a legal suit against the makers of Nosferatu which resulted in an agreement that all the negatives and prints of the film would be destroyed. And they were destroyed too...except a few prints luckily survived in a couple foreign countries.

The film I watched seemed to be almost pieced together with no transitions between the scenes. I wonder if that's because what prints survived were incomplete and so had to be pieced together? I noticed for a few seconds the movie was actually showing a negative image of the print. There's a newly restored version of Nosferatu and I bet the print and the music score is much approved on.

There's a lot to like in this film: the creature was way cool looking! Great makeup and design. And I loved the creepy, up the staircase, shadow scene...as well as the stop action sequences. Oh and the skeleton clock was cool too!

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I remember really liking this the first time I saw it. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

But first, Sherlock Jr.

Hopefully you can get the restored version of Nosferatu. I wish I had.

Enjoy Sherlock Jr.

Why didn't you watch this version from Youtube?


It was even posted here in this thread.

I didn't realize there was a restored version until after I watched it and read about it at IMDB. It would be interesting to watch both versions back to back.

I can't help but compare this to the other three nominations that I've already seen. This one, and I think it's the oldest of the four, is the biggest spectacle. I'd say that this is the biggest blockbuster, and for it's impressive scope, the most ahead of it's time. I think with that, a little bit of the intimacy that the others had was sacrificed. From an acting and technical standpoint, the movie is fantastic. The battle scenes are crazy good. I think the extended time in the French village is too much. I believe some of that time should have been dedicated to Slim's and Bull's background, in the same way we got to know Jim. Furthermore, some of that time should have been used for stronger bonding between the three men. I don't have a problem with the running time, but I think some of that time could have been used more wisely. There are still powerful moments, especially at the end, but I think the movie could have been even more powerful. More character development would have brought that extra power and intimacy that the others have. Still, a terrific film.

Sherlock Jr.

I really like Keaton. I give him a lot of credit for doing it all in this movie. He was very creative in this film and while the story isn't anything special the film has some sort of magic to it that is hard to describe. I think this is one of the films that springboards what cinema is supposed to be, especially from a directors perspective. I like the humor in the film and I'm becoming a bigger fan of Keaton. I would say I like The General a tad better but I really do like this too. Nice nomination by Swan.

I'll be watching Sunrise next. That'll leave me with a repeat viewing of the easy to watch Sherlock, and a repeat viewing of Nosferatu if Destiny is still in. Anyone hear from her?