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LINKS PAGE A compilation of the
author’s favorite silent film-related sites, with an emphasis on European
silents and places to buy silent films on video. THE CATEGORIES: —Sister
Sites Olga Baclanova: The Ultimate Cinemantrap – This is our little sister site, designed by yours truly and run by Paul Meienberg, the world's biggest Baclanova buff. Olga is best known today for her roles as the trapeze artist Cleopatra in Freaks (1932) and as the Duchess Josiana in The Man Who Laughs (1928); she also appeared in the Josef von Sternberg classic The Docks of New York, and in the lost Pola film Three Sinners (both from 1928). Her stunning beauty transcends time moreso than probably any other silent film actress—she takes the cake even by modern-day standards! But sadly, her abilities as an actress are painfully overlooked and underrated, which is something that this site is here to rectify.
Pola Negri at Silent Ladies – Silent Ladies and Gents have no less than seven photo galleries of the lovely Pola to browse through, making this the largest Pola photo gallery on the web to date. Pola Biography on Collector's Homepage – From the autographed postcard collection site comes a short bio on Pola, complete with an autographed postcard (of course). And yes, that frantic up-and-down scribble is what Pola's signature looks like; it got even more vertical and stenograph-looking as she got older. Pola Negri portrait by Tade Styka – A color image of the famous painting of Pola currently held by The National Museum in Warsaw, Poland. Pola Negri Chocolates – Did you know that Pola Negri has her own chocolates in her native Poland? This box of chocolates comes with the Tade Styka painting on the top and contains an assortment of thirty gourmet candies. The director of the Pola Negri documentary, who was born and raised in Poland, used to see the Pola chocolates in his homeland and tells me they are delicious. POLA COSMETICS – And the merchandising doesn't stop with the chocolates! Pola Cosmetics, the Japanese cosmetics company, have named their popular line of skin care and makeup after Pola Negri. This is their Australian site, and this is their American site. Hermann
Braun Site –
German language only. Hermann Braun was Pola Negri's leading
man in her Third Reich film Die Fromme Lüge (1938), where he plays
a young man in her life who we are led to believe is her young lover but
turns out to be her son. Braun also played in the Emil
Jannings picture Traumulus (1936) and in the Viet Harlan-directed Jugend
(1938). He was retired from Nazi pictures because of his anti-Nazi
stance, drafted into World War II, and then killed in action in 1945 at
the ripe old age of 26. There's a lot of pictures of this handsome
young actor here, and if you look you'll see a number of pictures of Pola
too. European silents (especially the German ones) are my first love in film—there is so much more where The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis, Pandora’s Box, and The Passion of Joan of Arc came from! European silents are generally very high in artistic quality, feature hauntingly atmospheric lighting and photography, and just squeeze the emotion out of the scenes and situations they present. They are much less clichéd and paint broader and more realistic character sketches than do American silents, and they aren’t afraid of sad endings! The big argument against them is that they are slow, but if you have at least a reasonably good attention span and don’t have to have everything spoonfed to you then you can handle it. I’ve found a number of fascinating sites about European silent films on the web, but for some unknown reason most of the silent film sites I’ve visited do not list them. Visit some of these sites, watch some of these pictures, and you’ll see why the Europeans gave Hollywood a run for their money in the 1920’s! The German-Hollywood Connection – this detailed English language site discusses German movie people and organizations, new and old, who are associated with Hollywood films. The German-Hollywood Connection will be your best starting point in getting to know the people in early German pictures, because it expounds upon German appearances in films you are already familiar with, such as Casablanca, The Blue Angel, Metropolis, and The Sound of Music, and then begins dropping important names like UFA, Max Reinhardt, Karl Freund, and Erich Pommer as it goes along, all in a communicative and pedestrian-friendly writing style. Includes a list of German-Hollywood film people with capsule descriptions of these film folks’ achievements here and abroad. Filmhistoriker.de – This dual-language (German/English) site is easily my favorite site about German silents. It picks up where The Haunted Screen and From Caligari to Hilter, the two sacred texts on early German film, leave off, providing rare information on rare films like the Caligari sequel Genuine (1920), on lost films like F.W. Murnau’s Der Januskopf (1920), and on unknown actors and actresses like Gilda Langer, the first choice for Lil Dagover’s role in Caligari, who died soon after Caligari’s general release in 1920. Amazing stuff! Collector’s Homepage by Thomas Staedeli – This great bilingual (German/English) site is probably the best place on the web for learning about the big names of the early German film. You’ll get short bios on many of the great early German stars along with a photo from the picture postcards that were so popular at that time (the author of that site collects autographed picture postcards as a hobby, hence the name). The site also includes write-ups on Max Linder, Metropolis, the Munsters, and even some sumo wrestlers—as long as it’s related to autographed postcards, it gets covered. Steffi’s Gallerie: Die Stars der Leinwand (sound era) – German language only. Contains biographies on many German stars from the early talkie era. Sadly, there are no pictures to accompany them because apparently Steffi was sued by somebody who claimed copyright ownership on a few of the 70-year old photographs she was using to illustrate these pages. Yet another reason we need to repeal bad copyright laws. Steffi’s Gallerie: Die Stars der Leinwand (silent era) – German language only. Some more bios on German stars, this time featuring stars from the silent era. There are bios on Pola Negri, Asta Nielsen, and Henny Porten, as well as Pola’s leading man Harry Liedtke and the forgotten actress Ossi Oswalda, who appeared in several of Lubitsch’s German comedies, such as Die Austernprinzessin (The Oyster Princess), Die Puppe (The Doll) and Meyer Aus Berlin (Meyer from Berlin) (all from 1919). Asta Nielsen: Der Stern Des Stummfilms – German language only. A great place to get to know the original überstar of the German film, an incredibly good actress who is all but forgotten today. Interestingly enough, Asta Nielsen's most-seen film today, The Joyless Street, is not one of her signature films—that honor would have to be split between Hamlet (1920), which you can get from Peter Kavel (I highly recommend it), and Vanina (1922), which is still locked up in the German archives. Here you’ll get a lengthy biography on the first great European star, along with a complete filmography and bibliography, and a varied array of photos and publicity material. Asta Nielsen: The Talking Muse – Point of No Return Productions (Denmark) has released to European television an excellent feature-length documentary on the great Asta Nielsen. Entitled Asta Nielsen: The Talking Muse, this Danish language, English-subtitled documentary centers around a newly-discovered stash of phone conversations with Asta dating from the 1950’s, which provide a previously unseen glimpse into the otherwise notoriously impenetrable heart and soul of Die Asta.
The Reconstruction of The Joyless Street (1925) – This
must-read essay discusses a painstaking eighteen-month reconstruction of
the most butchered masterpiece of the German film, written by one of the
gentlemen who were involved in the gargantuan task of putting Humpty
together again. The Joyless Street, a story about the madness that
was post-World War I Vienna, was directed by G.W. Pabst (of Pandora’s
Box fame) and featured Asta Nielsen and Greta Garbo in the cast.
It was a breakthrough film for the director, but unfortunately for the
film had something
to offend everybody, and hence was chopped and mutilated by censor boards
everywhere it went. Find out what they did to restore the continuity of
the story. German Archives list – German language only. if you ever need to do more in-depth study of early German pictures you may eventually find yourself having to go directly to the German archives for information. This little directory is a one-stop shop on all the public archives in Germany with contact information and a summary of what their holdings are and what they specialize in. Films de France – I love this site! This bilingual (French/English) site is by far the most comprehensive site about French films on the web. Here you will learn about all the important (and some of the not-so-important) films, actors, and directors of la cinema français, old and new—and all guaranteed pretension-free (pretentious commentary is a common problem in researching French pictures, especially from the early talkie era). Fantômas Lives – The great French anti-hero Fantômas began as the ultimate anti-hero in a series of turn-of-the-century French pulp novels. This almost supernaturally evil character was then immortalized on the screen in the 1913-1914 Louis Feuillade serial of the same name, which has since been hailed at the first great cinematic experience in the history of film. The Fantômas Lives site discusses all of the film incarnations of Fantômas, including the Feuillade serial (available on DVD in France) and the 1960’s Fantômas revival pictures and the 1932 Paul Fejos-directed sound feature, which has just been reissued by Sinister Cinema (see below). If you like serialized heroes and anti-heroes like Philo Vance, Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu and Dr. Mabuse, then you have another one to dig into with Fantômas. Conrad Veidt Society – a treasure trove of information about Germany’s most sinister silent star, going from Caligari to Casablanca and back again! This is the website that inspired me to part with a couple of weeks’ pay to purchase about half of Conrad Veidt’s surviving filmography—a move I don’t regret one bit! Lil Dagover: Schauspielerin – German language only. A timeline covering the history of Lil Dagover, following The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari director Robert Wiene's discovery of her in 1916, her early successes in Caligari and Destiny, her work in Nazi films (which landed her the dubious honor of “Actress of the State” in Nazi Germany), her post-war successes, and finally the release of her autobiography Ich War die Dame ("I Was the Lady") before her death in 1980 at the age of 93.
GENERAL SILENT FILM (AND RELATED) SITES: Golden Silents – A beautiful and comprehensive site about American silents and the stars we all adore. This is really the first site to go to if you're new to silent movies and want to know more about them. You'll have hours of fun absorbing information and finding out who's who. The webmaster did an exceptional job illustrating this site, using vibrant color and artistic flair to bring these stars back to life. You also get to see exclusive clips of many silent films from frame-by-frame digital restorations the webmaster did herself. All in all one of the very best silent film sites on the web; I just can't recommend it more. Silentera.com – My favorite general silent film website keeps abreast of new happenings in silent pictures, namely DVD and book releases, film festivals, and the discovery of lost films. Their DVD and book reviews are detailed, honest, and reliable concerning issues of content and quality (check out their deservedly brutal review of the book Love Rules!), and their Progressive Silent Film List, although far from done, is already proving to be a great resource on the films that it covers. Internet Movie Database (IMDb) – I really don’t need to say much about this resource, as it is undoubtedly the biggest and best site for film research on the web. Movie Review Query Engine (MRQE) – The MRQE (pronounced "Marquee") dates back to 1993, making it one of the oldest sites on the web. This established and comprehensive site is practically a one-stop shop for seeing what the experts have to say about the movies you are wanting to watch. And yes, that does include many silent movies, including vintage reviews from Variety and The New York Times as well as current reviews. Unsung Divas of the Silent Screen – Silent film historian Greta de Groat and the author of this site are two of a minority who share a passionate love for silent drama, and Greta has created this page to celebrate the great drama queens of the silent era. She covers all the big names, offering short biographies and giving plenty of links with which to research these great ladies further. And appropriately, Pola Negri is included toward the top of the list! Of particular interest here is Greta's amazing Norma Talmadge website, a much-needed tribute to one of silent cinema’s best and most unjustly forgotten dramatic actresses, as well as her similar websites for the similarly great actresses Pauline Frederick, Clara Kimball Young, and Alice Joyce. In other words, the Unsung Divas site is silent drama queen heaven! Welcome to Silent Movies – This is one of the original websites about silent pictures, as well as the first to start promoting the Pola Negri Appreciation Site. Here you’ll find a healthy smattering of enjoyable tidbits and articles about silent pictures, including the article “The Speeding Sweethearts”, a full calendar of birthdays and dates of passing from all the stars (who shares a birthday with you?), and a lexicon of 1920’s lingo. Fun, fun, fun! Silent Ladies and Gents – a gigantic photo gallery featuring scads of photos of all the silent stars you can think of. And yes, Pola Negri gets a generous representation here, with no less than seven galleries to her name! Forget the Talkies – This is a blog written by a gal named Hala who lives in the LA area. Hala loves silent movies in general, but in particular is doing a lot of work on researching the silent vamps, including Nita Naldi and the great Theda Bara. Check out this great background story on Theda Bara's lost film Kathleen Mavourneen (1919) as an example. Theda Bara and the other vampy ladies were my initial area of interest as well, so I'm glad that Hala is taking on this important area of silent movie history like she is. The Vitaphone Society is an organization dedicated to recovering and restoring early sound-to-disc sound features and shorts and their accompanying sound discs. They publish a bi-annual newsletter that is loaded with great information on these early pictures. It is so nice to be able to read about these pictures and that fragment and those sound discs being found, and makes me suspect that the reason many silent and early talkie pictures may be lost is because nobody’s bothering to look for them. Matsuda Films – Matsuda is an organization in Japan that is keeping Japanese silent film alive, complete with traditional Benshi narration. In Japan and elsewhere in the Orient, the silents and the talkies got to co-exist throughout most of the thirties because of protests from Benshi and musicians’ unions—too bad they didn't get to co-exist in the West too! You’ll get a good primer here about Japanese silents, and you can purchase a handful of Japanese silent pictures here as well, only beware—the prices are astronomically high! (Facets looks like a bargain basement in comparison!) Classic Images magazine – this Iowa-based monthly is the most prestigious and widely read classic movie fanzine in the States. In their magazine you will find articles on every imaginable topic related to classic movies, biographies on everyone you can think of, and classic movies galore for sale. And yes, the author of this site has contributed a couple of those nit-picky articles. The magazine's website will give you a thorough introduction to this print monthly, with many of the biographies from past issues available on the site. The Lon Chaney Home Page – silent film pianist Jon Mirsalis has created this detailed site on silent film's greatest character actor. Much of the information presented here was created for a never-released book called The Films of Lon Chaney, offered to but rejected my Citadel Publications. Mirsalis gets down to such fine details as what the budget was for each MGM Chaney film and how much money each one made—wow! And yes, London After Midnight (1927) gets covered here too, and no, it has not been found yet. Arbucklemania – Ever want to know what really happened to poor old Fatty Arbuckle? Arbucklemania sets the record straight once and for all! No, Virginia Rappé was not Virginia Rapee, and yes, the Hearst newspapers lied to the hilt about this man, unfairly and prematurely ruining his career. This site will give you the dirt about the dirt concerning this loveable fat man. From the makers of Silent Ladies and Gents. Haroldlloyd.us – Annette d’Agostino Lloyd, Harold’s biographer (no relation), runs this site. Annette is one of my favorite writers and her love affair with Harold is absolutely contagious. There are essays galore to read here, mostly gathered from the wonderful Harold Lloyd fanzine Mrs. Lloyd published in the early and mid-1990's. Louise Brooks Society – Louise Brooks is probably the only silent film actress whose popularity is more widespread today than it was in her heyday. Lulumania started in the 1950's with the rediscovery of Pandora's Box (1928), and turned into a full-fledged revival of interest in the 1980's, when most other silent pictures (minus Metropolis) were still almost completely ignored by the movie-watching populace. There’s plenty to read, watch and listen to here concerning the girl with the black helmet, including an in-depth filmography, a complete list of video sources (both in and out of print), twenty-four picture galleries, a bibliography, vintage articles, and Lulu Radio.
Remember Vilma Banky?! – an affectionate and detailed tribute to one
of the most ravishingly beautiful actresses of the silent screen, best
known for her appearances as Rudolph Valentino’s leading lady in The
Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). The story of the
actress’ discovery in her homeland of Hungary is one of those amazing
twists of fate that sounds like something out of a movie—you’ll get to
read all about it here. Great filmography, too! Alice White webpage – a cute little site for a cute little actress. I like to refer to Alice White as the “Travel Size ‘It’ Girl” because she is so tiny. First National made a star out of her to cash in on the flapper craze in the late 1920’s, and her star continued to shine into the early 30’s, with her newly-revealed voice perfectly fitting her sassy, spunky, and uncontainable personality. Featuring some rare photos of Alice, a filmography and a short bio, this new page is getting better all the time! Alfred's Place – Everything you ever wanted to know about the Master of Suspense, including a summary every one of his surviving feature films, information on Alfred Hitchcock mystery novels, a listing and description of all of Hitchcock's famous cameos in his own films, and complete feature film and Alfred Hitchcock Presents scripts (including several of the latter not actually filmed) and even super rare Hitch silents and early talkies available for sale!
Jeannette
MacDonald and Nelson Eddy: A Tribute – Eleanor Knowles Dugan, one of
the world's foremost authorities on Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy,
assembled this beautiful and easy-to-navigate treasury of information on
the most famous musical duo of the 1930's. Knowles is also author of
The Films of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, Hommage à Hedy Lamarr – a very nice bilingual (German and English, despite the French name) site about Austrian/German actress Hedy Lamarr. At this site you’ll get a good read on the life and times of this lovely and intelligent actress, and get a look at her invention for the American war effort, which ended up being the pioneering technology behind cell phones! Hedy Lamarr Foundation – Hedy died in the year 2000, and this Foundation was set up in her memory. This site gives an overview of her life story and offers a little memorabilia for sale.
The Golden Age of Hollywood – A very active board run by an American and an Englishman who love old movies. The Silent, Pre-code and Golden eras of Hollywood films all get equal time here. They also have a weekly chat every Saturday where they pick a subject and discuss it in detail. A great place to meet other movie lovers and talk movies, movies, movies. Harold
Lloyd Message Board – Back when
the official Harold Lloyd site was up and running, their message board
collected a broad array of Harold Lloyd fans and became another
cyber-gathering place where a lot of information is traded and friends are
made; it attracted such a strong following that the message board actually
outlasted the official site itself. It's not as busy as it used to
be but it's still an excellent place to talk about Harold with his other
fans and learn more about him and his movies.
International Al Jolson Society – Al Jolson was by far the greatest
musical entertainer of the early 20th Century. In addition, he has a
supplementary claim to fame as the man who accidentally killed silent
pictures in 1927 with the breakthrough part-talkie The Jazz Singer. Considering that we live in
a day when rock music and terrible derivatives thereof have a stranglehold
on pop culture, and considering that most of the musical artists that date
before Frank Sinatra are completely ignored by the general
public, it is no wonder the Al Jolson Society has sprung up to preserve
the memory of this great entertainer. Of particular interest on this site
are a series of
remastered CD releases of Al’s work that are only available to members
of the Al Jolson Society, a reason in and of itself to join this
organization.
PLACES TO BUY SILENT AND EARLY TALKIE PICTURES: A-1 Video – Lots of rarities for fans of silent comedy here, including a nice selection of Buster Keaton television appearances and a myriad of rare shorts from Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chase, Lupino Lane (five volumes of material from him!), Our Gang, Larry Semon, and many, many more. Alfred's
Place
– I mentioned this incredible Alfred Hitchcock fan site earlier, but
must mention it again here because they are the only place you will find
the rare Hitchcock titles The Pleasure Garden (1925), Elstree
Calling (1930),
Mary (the German-Language Murder!
featuring Alfred Abel of Metropolis fame) (1930), and Le Chant du
Danube (the French-language version of Waltzes From Vienna)
(1933) for sale. They also have the
silent Blackmail
(1929) and Downhill (1927) for sale, but you can
also get those on the German DVD releases of Blackmail
and Alfred
Hitchcock: The Early Years respectively. Edition
Filmmuseum
– PAL format only. This organization is releasing DVD's of film museum
restorations of rare and early European films, as well as distributing
independently released DVD's from European film museums, including the
Danish Film Institute's releases of rare silents by Asta Nielsen, Carl
Dreyer, and Benjamin Christensen. They are also releasing the
restored version of The Joyless Street on DVD! Hooray!
Sunrise Silents are a newer company who offer a number of
desirable titles, including the rarely-seen classic Stella Dallas
(1925), the Mary Miles Minter feature The Eyes of Julia Deep (1918),
and the Louise Brooks titles Love
'Em And Leave 'Em (1926) and The Canary Murder Case (1929).
They are also beginning to release complete movie fanzines on CD-R, most
notably the April
1925 Motion Picture magazine with Pola Negri on the cover,
the feature article "The Mystery of Pola Negri" by Harry Carr, and a
review of Pola's then-current movie East of Suez.
OTHER ARTICLES BY DAVID
GASTEN, Lighthouse-Ornaments.com: This is an informational/commercial website about lighthouses that I was contracted to do. It has extremely informative but easy to read articles about many of the famous lighthouses of the United States, and also sells working Amish outdoor lighthouse ornaments. The site was purposely built to turn your computer monitor into a "window" that lets you see and experience the lighthouses . The article about West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, the lighthouse on the easternmost point of the United States, has some VERY rare information and anecdotal stories not available anywhere else; I actually called the lighthouse itself to get that information. Brian Slagel and Metal Blade Records—why they are cool: This article covers a very different area of interest to me: heavy metal music. It's a tribute to the independent record label Metal Blade Records and their CEO Brian Slagel, and features stories on four of the bands that they've been uncommonly good to over the years. Harold Lloyd House: In September 2003, the author of this site attended the Grand Opening of the Harold Lloyd Birthplace in Burchard, Nebraska. This was the first time the newly restored house had ever been opened to the public. I created a PICTURE PAGE to commemorate the occasion, and did an in-depth article about the occasion that you can visit at Haroldlloyd.us. Ten Christian Albums Every Satanist Should Hear, Part 4: Daniel Amos – I used to work as a staff writer for an online music journal called Dallasmusic.com, writing album and concert reviews and doing interviews with mostly Dallas-area artists but occasionally regional and national artists too. By far my best work for them was a four part-article series called "Ten Christian Albums Every Satanist Should Hear", a discourse on ten masterpiece albums by musical artists from several different modern music genres whose work has only been released to the Christian music market, but whose music is so good it needs to be heard by all fans of modern-day rock music, regardless of their religious affiliation. Part 4 is the last and the best of the series, and it discusses the influential new wave/art-rock band Daniel Amos' The Alarma Chronicles Book Set (2000), a reissue of an amazingly ingenious and groundbreaking tetralogy of albums the group released between 1981 and 1986. I cannot stress enough how important this musical super-production is and will be to modern-day music, and highly recommend you read this if you are interested in the new wave and art-rock subgenres and the possible places modern-day pop music may still be able to go.
Oh, and you’ll find my name on the Thanks List in Silentera.com’s Lost Films section. It’s always good to get films off of that odious list.
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the massive and
amazing 636-page tome on the duo that is now in its second edition and
which I'm proud to say I had a hand in bringing into
existence.