In a Nutshell
- Recommended: Yes
- For: Newcomers
A light-weight and affectionate collection of silent film reviews and star biographies. Excellent choice for someone looking for a must-watch list.
Full of pictures, opinions and generally a lot of fun to read.
Availability
Classics of the Silent Screen is out of print but is readily and inexpensively available used from Amazon.
Classics of the Silent Screen
Joe Franklin (ghostwritten by William K. Everson
Copyright 1959
The Citadel Press
Paperback, 255 pages
Hey, the movies were supposed to be fun
From the very first page, Classics of the Silent Screen acknowledges that it is an enthusiastic book. Written by a fan for fans, it makes no claims of being scholarly or complete. And for that reason, it works.
It’s like sitting down with a professor of film studies and watching him let down his guard and show his absolute gusto for his field of study. He has his favorites (Betty Bronson and Sessue Hayakawa, for example) and gushes for pages on end about their accomplishments.
Such excitement can’t help but be infectious. After skimming a few pages, I already had my wishlist updated with all the movies that I had to watch.
There is also a delightful hint of curmudgeonliness. Complaints that sleek cads like Barrymore and Valentino have been replaced with louts like Mitchum and Brando. I like both the cads and the louts but the rant was fun to read. Nothing makes a book on film more fun than a strong opinion.
The book is split into two parts. First, there are fifty great films. Starting with The Great Train Robbery in 1903 and ending with City Lights and Tabu, both 1931. The selections are mostly epic-centric but this is a fan sharing his favorites.
Following the films, there are Seventy-five Great Stars. Most of the major stars are covered with focus on their screen careers rather than their personal lives. The book is topped off with an appendix that corrects common silent film misconceptions. Sadly, many of these misconceptions are still around. Oh well, at least he tried!
First published in 1959, Classics of the Silent Screen is now out of print but inexpensive used copies are readily available. It is the perfect choice for a newcomer to silent films who has perhaps seen a few and isn’t sure what to watch next. Nonthreatening and sliced into tidy one and two page sections, it is an easy book to whittle away at in spare time.
For something a little deeper, try Everson's wonderful book American Silent Film.