I'm Rich Oliver, founder of Sunrise Silents. My real last name is Olivieri (pronounced Ol-ah-very) but recently I have begun using Oliver because it is easier for others to spell, pronounce and remember.

I am an electrical engineer with a great deal of software experience so my technical background frequently comes in handy when working on Sunrise. My background facilitates both the preparation of the discs as well as the design and maintenance of the website.

Galloping Tintypes: Why did you decide to go into the silent film home video business?

I decided to begin Sunrise in 2003 when I received the news Grapevine Video was closing. Grapevine had released many rare silents that never would have been available otherwise and I felt that somebody should continue to offer scarce titles. I figured I was a pretty good candidate for the job because I had been interested in silent films ever since I became aware of their existence around the age of six.

GTT: How long have you been in business?

I began planning the business and preparing the first DVDs around late April 2003 with the intention of opening the following year. I just wanted to get a feel for what I was getting myself into. I had a couple of DVDs ready to go by December and Sunrise Silents opened for business on January 1, 2004.

GTT: What is the biggest challenge of your business?

The biggest challenge has been to achieve a balance between releasing rare titles and finding high quality source prints. Right now I have a number of scarce titles that I am hesitant to release because the picture quality is far from pristine. I have learned that it is impossible to please everyone so I try to do what I believe will please the majority of the people. The challenge is to achieve a balance between rarity and picture quality, and at the same time satisfy most of the potential buyers.

GTT: How do you decide which films to release?

I take into consideration the condition of the source print, the rarity of the title, and how much interest there seems to be in the film, which is based on both requests and past sales. I listen to requests and try to release any title people ask for, provided the film is in the public domain and a decent copy of it isn't already available somewhere else.

GTT: How do you decide which short films to accompany your feature films?

The choices of short films are based on the stars who appear in them as well as the entertainment value of the films themselves. I don't want to choose shorts that people presumably have little to no interest in just to increase the total running time of the discs. Instead I try to choose shorts that many people are genuinely interested in. That way, the shorts really do enhance the program rather than just help fill up the DVD.

GTT: Which of your film releases are you the most proud of?

For the releases to date, I am most proud of Stella Dallas and The White Sister. In my opinion Stella Dallas is one of the best films of the silent era and it would remain unavailable to most people if not for the Sunrise release. As for our version of The White Sister, it is transferred from a significantly better source print than was used for any other video version currently available. The Sunrise DVD I am the most proud of, however, has not yet been released. I am referring to Ella Cinders, which was previously released by Sunrise but has now been redone with a new transfer. The source print for Ella Cinders is an original Kodascope with excellent picture quality. All of the other prints of Ella Cinders known to exist are nth generation dupes that were originally derived from Kodascope prints. Initially I transferred the film and added tints even though the print was already tinted. After it was released Kevin Brownlow suggested I redo the transfer and present it in the original Kodascope tint. After giving it some thought, I realized that probably was the best way to present the film and I redid the transfer.

I put a much greater effort into transferring the film the second time around however. I made multiple transfers of each reel using different exposures and then edited the film on a shot-by-shot basis to achieve the optimal exposure for every shot of every scene. The DVD is finished and I am very pleased with the result. I plan to release the new version of Ella Cinders later this year.

GTT: How do your choose the musical accompaniment?

Every film has a certain rhythm to it that may or may not be the same from one scene to the next. This didn't come about by accident. It is the result of skillful editing. As I work with the films on the computer I can see the length of each individual shot, which makes the deliberate rhythm of the action that much more obvious. With that in mind I attempt to choose music that matches both the mood and the rhythm of the scene. If the rhythm of the music does not flow at the same rate as the rhythm of the scene both the scene and the music will not work in my opinion.

GTT: What movie do you get asked about the most? Is it London After Midnight?

I wish I had enough requests for the same title to come up with a definite answer to that question. Thus far I have had only one request for London After Midnight. I replied that it wasn't really necessary to ask for that title because I would certainly get it if I could - although I probably wouldn’t be able to release it because of the copyright. Most people don't bother to ask for it. I guess the film I’ve had the most requests for is Cleopatra starring Theda Bara.

People generally request films that feature certain stars rather than specific titles. When it comes to requests based on stars, there is no question about it - I've had more requests for Louise Brooks than any other star. The second most requested star is clearly Clara Bow and Colleen Moore seems to be third. I don't get nearly as many requests for Rudolph Valentino films as I once would have expected. However there are more requests for Valentino pictures and articles than for any other star.

GTT: What less well-known film that you have released on DVD would you like to spread the word about?

That would be Hero For a Night with Glenn Tryon and Patsy Ruth Miller. The film does not feature big-name stars. It is typical of the standard fare quality entertainment of the silent era. The stars are appealing and the film is great fun.

Audiences will recognize Patsy Ruth Miller from The Hunchback of Notre Dame but perhaps not from anything else. And many have never seen Glenn Tryon at all. I think people are missing a great deal if they pass up films like Hero for a Night and only watch the so-called classics. Besides, with the exception of Sunrise, the purported silent “classics” are not very good.

GTT: What do you like most about silent movies?

What I like most is the manner in which the storyline is communicated to the audience without the use of dialogue. There are no words getting in the way, provided the intertitles are only used when necessary. If the musical accompaniment matches the rhythm of the film, the shots flow by seamlessly with a steady cadence as the story progresses. After sound arrived, actors were straining to speak clearly in the ‘30s. They were hollering and screaming at each other in the ‘50s. They were using profanity and plenty of it in the ‘60s and ‘70s. These are all sounds I prefer not to hear. The silent film conveys its message beautifully without any jarring noises. Instead there is only music and sublimity.

GTT: What is your favorite genre to work with?

I must admit I do not have a favorite genre. I enjoy working with all types of films for different reasons.

I often tell people that I cannot follow the action or storyline of a film while making a transfer because I am too busy paying attention to other things, such as the focus and exposure. There are two films, however, that I actually began to watch while making the transfers. Both times I had to go back and redo portions of the transfers because I had missed something while watching the action. Those two films were Stella Dallas and believe it or not, Hero for a Night. So I think it would be impossible for me to identify any particular genre as my favorite to work with.

GTT: Your favorite silent era actor, actress and director?

My favorite silent era actor is Douglas Fairbanks. Some popular actors of the silent era had a limited appeal to men and boys but Doug was different – he appealed to men as well as women.

Of course there were two Dougs – the early Doug and the later Doug – and both were fun to watch. The early Doug was typically a rich and athletic young man, eager to make good and win the girl. The later Doug was the Doug of the costume pictures. He, too, always ended up the hero even if he had been a bit of a rogue along the way. And of course he always won the girl as well.

The two Dougs appeared together onscreen at the nexus of their evolution in The Mark of Zorro (1920). In that pivotal film the early Doug of the teens actually became the later Doug of the 1920s. And the rest of his silent films were costume pictures ending in his 1929 swan song to the era The Iron Mask – in which he died and marched into heaven with his companions to pursue even greater adventures in the Great Beyond.

Doug went on to make a few sound films of course. His final film was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934). If The Iron Mask has been a swan song to his silent career, his final film was a swan song to his entire career. In The Private Life of Don Juan, he plays the aging Don Juan, who takes a break from romancing women. When he tries to return to his old ways, he finds that women no longer believe he is the legendary Don Juan and they laugh at him. He is left with no choice but to retire and return to the only woman who knows his true identity – his wife.

Doug’s onscreen enthusiasm and optimism had an enormous appeal. In one of his early films when the girl finally says yes, Doug flings his arms open wide and the title reads, “I’m the happiest man in the world!” That was Doug – he was great!

My favorite silent era actress is Colleen Moore and none of the others even come close. As much as I like the other actresses of the silent era, Colleen was the one who had just the right amount of everything. She wasn’t wildly exaggerated like some of the vamps nor did she have an exaggerated degree of sweetness and innocence either. She was just right.

Like Fairbanks, there was both an early Colleen and a later Colleen. The early Colleen was an ingénue and the later Colleen was of course a flapper. The nexus for the two occurred in Flaming Youth (1923) in which she played a girl who longed to be a worldly woman. By the end of the film she discovered that the fast life was a little bit too fast for her – but she was no longer a girl and there was no going back.

Colleen had grown into a woman and the character she would play for the remainder of the silent era – a wannabe flapper who deep down was really sort of a modern ingénue with short hair. In spite of her worldly surroundings, she always remained a “nice” girl who somehow embodied the quintessential silent era flapper. She was perhaps only out flapped by Clara Bow, whose screen persona was a bit more suggestive than Colleen’s. But as far as I’m concerned Colleen achieved the optimal balance of contemporary ingénue and flapper – Colleen was the greatest little star of them all.

My favorite director of the silent era is Erich von Stroheim. Von’s propensity for overspending, extreme length and meticulous detail are indeed foibles but all of this somehow enhances his greatness. I have never seen a von Stroheim film that I didn’t immensely enjoy, in spite of the fact that someone else usually finished the film or reedited it.

I love the stories about his excess and his unrealistic expectations that audiences would sit through hours – and hours – and hours – of grimly sadistic stories of avarice and lust. I certainly admire the work of a number of silent era directors but none stand out like Von. And he was extremely entertaining onscreen as well.

Von Stroheim sometimes came across as “the man we love to hate” but there was frequently an element of sincerity in his work that was exemplary and I think that was his greatest virtue as a director. As good as the other directors were and as impressive as some of their films are, none of them stand out like Von.

GTT: What lost silent film do you most want to see?

I would most like to see Flaming Youth (1923). The film provided the prototype for the1920s screen flapper, the incarnation of which was delightful Colleen Moore. It sounded the death knell of the screen ingénue and was also the seminal film that kick-started the entire onscreen flapper movement. I don’t think the importance of Flaming Youth can be underestimated when one views film as a mirror of contemporary popular culture and desires to study the evolution of such. And besides, as I already said, I like Colleen Moore.

So I guess if I someday find a theater complex in some sort of Cinema Heaven showing Cleopatra in Cinema I, London After Midnight in Cinema II, and Flaming Youth in Cinema III, I will buy a ticket for Cinema III. Cinemas I and II will probably be sold out anyway.

GTT: Thanks so much for taking the time for the interview.

Thank you for asking me.

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