gagman66

Little Debbie, I guess It should be plenty obvious by this time that I am completely obsessed with Corinne Griffith to the same degree that you are with Rudy! Here are three more Colorized photo's. *Corinne Griffith with long curly hair. She literally appears to be a creature from another world here? I mean nobody looks like this! Do they? I labeled this enchanting Photo as "Glimpse Of Heaven"* *Corinne Looks Astonished here as she gazes upward. Maybe watching Fireworks, or a Barn-Stormer???* *Corinne not yet Lady Hamilton, From Frank Lloyd's "THE DIVINE LADY" (1929)*

Debbie, Well, I don't actually select textures. It's just the way the color plays off the Black and White, as I fiddle with lighting and contrast. Sometimes it works great, other times it doesn't blend well, and that's what I see in the Billie Dove photo. I don't even know how to select textures for this type of thing? Maybe it can be done, but I have never looked into this before?

Little Debbie, MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY (1922) only survives in 16 Millimeter reduction form. The Flicker Alley DVD print was taken from a Private Collector, as Paramount lost the original negative long ago. To quote Kevin Brownlow, "All Silent films were originally always of very high technical quality and clarity. It was careless Telecine transferor's and lab technicians in the ensuing decades, that seriously degraded them". Sadly this is still being done by people like Grapevine, and Sunrise Silent's that are producing sub-par incompatantly produced transfers of films that have much better surviving print material than their DVD releases would indicate. In defense of Sunrise there recent release of Colleen Moore's ELLA CINDERS (1926) is the best print I have ever seen of this film. So some of there releases are pretty good quality. Same with Grapevine. However, most are not. WINGS looks only mediocre, because the Safety-stock transfer of the only than surviving Nitrate print was done clear back in the Mid 60's! For the time it was a decent transfer, but certainly could have been better. I still hope one day TCM will be able air the 1993 Photo-play Productions restoration, with the restored original Tint's and the Carl Davis score. No matter if the culprit is Photo-play, Paramount or someone else, this version has to resurface sometime. What's the sense of producing a superior version that no one is getting to see, and hasn't even been aired here in this Country???

Little Debbie, Well, it's not so much the color of the background in the Photo, I was displeased with, as how the texture made that color appear. Basically, all wrong. I know I could have done allot better than I did on this one? Some Photo's are much harder to work with than others are. It just depends.

Debbie, I'm afraid that SHOPWORN ANGEL is one of those Paramount Silent's that may or may not survive? Status is listed as "Unknown", or "Unconfirmed", rather than 'Lost". There are gobs of Silent's and early talkies that fall into the same category. I've read that Paramount may have a print, but would it still be watchable? I don't know?

Little Debbie, Yes, and Billie Dove had quite a healthy plumage there too! Not easy to hide. I was never happy with this photo. It looks OK, but didn't turn out as well as i would like. The green-backgound doesn't seem right either. The Louise Brooks one is debated, even though she was in the follies. I have several alleged "Art Nudes" of Laura La Plante from about 1922. She became a Star in 1924 with Clarence Brown's BUTTERFLY, but it is impossible to tell if it is really her, or not? Personally, I don't think so.

Debbie, *Gary Cooper And Nancy Carol From THE SHOPWORN ANGEL (Paramount, 1928). The film's original release track produced a big hit record for Annette Henshaw called "A PRECIOUS LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE".*

Debbie, The enigmatic Billie Dove did not appear to be wearing a top of any kind in this photo? Consequently, I had to invent one! LO!

Debbie, Thanks for the photo's. These are wonderful. The photo of Pennington, Logan and Dove, is amazing! All three very lovely! More of Pennington! The Number 4 lady on my list of Top 10 Silent Silent Screen Lovelies. The Stunning Jacqueline Logan. An exquisite big-eyed beauty. Most of Her films are lost, and she is probably best know today for her role as Mary Magdalene, in Cecil B. De Mille's THE KING OF KINGS (1927).

> {quote:title=dougiezerts wrote:}{quote} > Somebody told me once that as much as 80% of all silent films are considered to be lost. Could this be true? How sad! dougiezerts, Sorry to say that this is essentially true. About 75 to 80% of Silent films, and around 50% of all Movies made before 1950, are considered to be Lost! Our Motion Picture heritage in general has been decimated, and only exist's in fragmentary form. Who knows how many Mastepieces are gone forever? What's worse, much of what still survives is slowly turning to dust! Way to many films, even important titles have not been properly restored, droves of them are rarely ever seen, and than only for the ocassional live screening. Universal, Paramount, Fox, and even Warner's continues to sit on much of it's surviving Silent film library. In addition to Warner Brother's titles, that includes Metro, MGM, and First National titles. I am of the opinion that many, many so called "lost films" do indeed still exist, but it is a race against time to get to them before they are beyond reproach. The longer these films sit around in vaults, the damage will eventually become irreversible. George Eastman House spent over $80,000 in 2006 restoring Colleen Moore's HER WILD OAT (First National, 1927), which was paid for by Warner's I believe? Particularly costly as the title-cards were in Czech, and had to be translated, and redone, back in English. But when you compare this to the umpteen million dollars that it cost to make just an average Hollywood movie today, that amount is very, very miniscule indeed! I mean for the price of one even modestly budgeted big studio release made today, probably 50 or 60 vintage movies still on Nitrate stock, could be salvaged and even restored, maybe more? Think about it! Here is an interesting interview with UCLA's Bob Gitt. Robert Gitt is the preservation officer at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Gitt's restoration of the dark 1955 classic, The Night of the Hunter, won him worldwide acclaim. In New Delhi recently, he spoke with Avijit Ghosh on the art of restoring films: What is film restoration? Film archives around the world are taking a number of steps to preserve films. One is conservation, which is simply taking care of old films, storing them in vaults with temperature and humidity control to make the celluloid last as long as possible. Then there is preservation that usually implies taking the reels on flammable nitrate film stock and transferring them to the more stable modern polyester film stock. Film restoration is a more complicated form of preservation where you try to find missing scenes from a film because they were censored or because the studio went against the director's wishes and took some things out. You find them and put these things back in. It also involves fixing up a film. May be the colour has faded or the sound has become noisy because of scratches and wear and tear. One has to rid the film of all that. It takes a lot of time and effort. Has digital technology improved the quality of film preservation? Digital technology is wonderful in removing scratches and dirt particles. But you can also misuse the technology by changing the image in subtle and major ways. You can make certain colours appear brighter over others. You can bring details out of the shadows. It sounds like a good thing to do but it isn't supposed to happen. The scary thing about digital technology is it either works or doesn't. In the old analog film, you get warning signs. The film first begins to smell, then it begins to change colour. You know it is deteriorating and work on it. With digital everything is fine till one day it goes blank and you cannot play it anymore. Is film restoration a costly exercise? Yes. Using digital technology for restoration is even costlier. A black and white feature film that is about 90-120 minutes long will cost $30,000-$40,000 to restore. A technicolour film would cost between $1,00,000 and $1,50,000. Digital work could vary from $2,00,000 to a million dollars depending on the complications. At the UCLA film archives, over the last 20 years, we have preserved about 350 feature films and hundreds of newsreels and animated films. My favourite is Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter . Laughton spent looking at D W Griffith's silent films before he made it. It is an unusual nightmarish film with beautiful dark cinematography. It is a very expressionist film.

*"TORCHY" a Good Girl Art Comic Book cover from the very early 50's. This is pretty Candid, I would say? This cartoon just struck me funny for some reason, so I thought I would go ahead and post it.*

AnnieLaurie, Wow, a good friend sent me MGM Laser-disc transfers of THE TORRENT, LOVE and WILD ORCHIDS today! This was out of the blue! I never expected this! I have all these films, but off of TCM, not from Laser-disc. I had A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS, WILD ORCHIDS and THE KISS from Laser-disc previously. It's great to now have all of these without logo's popping up several times during the recording. All that I am missing is THE MYSTERIOUS LADY with the score on the older VHS release, which I am told was much more appropriate than the Vivek Maddlla one on the DVD.

CelluloidKid, Wow, That's a great one The "Cover Girl", and The "Pin Up Girl" together! Those patrolman must have been going berserk! To bad this is just from an old Newspaper printing. I will see if I can't find a higher resolution image?

bohemian,

Angie, Here you go! Almost like a Genie in a bottle! I colorized Coop and Fay, just for you! Looks awesome too! What a great photo to work on, with that kind of clarity. I'll look up some of the others you sent me soon.

*Betty Compson With Red Hair. Portrait taken about 1924.*

*An unusual photograph of Renee Adoree, From George Hill's THE COSSACKS (1928).*

*An unusual still of Renee Adoree From George Hill's THE COSSACKS (1928).*

Thanks again for the repeated Kudos. Here are a couple more of tiny little pixie Janet Gaynor Including a photo that can only be described as "Big And Wild Hair!" Or Maybe the girl was just doing her best Nazminova impression? Not sure? *Janet Gaynor, Pixie Sweet* *Take That Navminova! Janet Gaynor, Great Big Wild Hair!!!*

Does this count as a Candid? *Nazminova Eat Your Heart Out! Janet Gaynor with "Big And Wild Hair!"*

Great! Thanks again. Here are a couple more of Janet Gaynor Including a photo that can only be described as "Big And Wild Hair!" Or Maybe the girl was just doing her best Nazminova impression? Not sure? *Janet Gaynor, Pixie Sweet* *Janet Gaynor, Great Big Wild Hair!!!*

Kate, *Curious production still of Corrine Griffith. A unique Fashion Statement, or just another Grape Wench ? Love to know the details behind this scene, from THE LADY IN ERMINE (1927)*

These photo's of Corinne Griffith illustrate pretty well why I still have her in the Top spot. Just so remarkably photogenic. *Corinne Griffith with long curly hair. She literally appears to be a creature from another world here? I mean nobody looks like this! Do they?* *Corinne is certainly far from your average Grape Wench, in this unique still from THE LADY IN ERMINE (1927)* *Corinne Looks Astonished here as she gazes upward.? Maybe watching Fireworks, or a Barn-Stormer???* *Corinne not yet Lady Hamilton, From Frank Lloyd's "THE DIVINE LADY" (1929)* *Wow! An incredible Portrait! All I can say is Holy Toledo!*

Debbie, OK, Here is one of the Photo's of Corinne Griffith that you just posted, now Colorized. Man, It turnerd out great! Thanks much! I'll get to the others sometime.

Debbie, Wow! these are great! Thanks much! They will give me a bunch more photos to color! Anything with Corinne Is plus! Can you find me some photo's of Marceline Day? How about Jacqueline Logan, or Dorothy Janis? Maybe Mary Brian? Mary Philbin please! And Camillia Horn! *Diminutive Little Janet Gaynor, who was actually quite a Pixie. If you have good photo's please Post them, or E-mail them to me.* *Angelic Marecline Day, I perfer her with long hair too. But this is the only photo that I have. No Actress ever looked more stunning than she did opposite John Barrymore in THE BELOVED ROGUE (1927).*