goldensilents

I watched a charming MGM programmer from 1925 called *Upstage*, with Norma Shearer, Oscar Shaw, Tenen Holtz, Gwen Lee, Dorothy Phillips, and Ward Crane. It's a cute romantic comedy wherein Norma goes to NY to become a stenographer but is roped into become the 2nd half of a dancer's act instead. She gets a swell head about her negligible contribution to the show and then tries going off with another dancer for more fame and fortune, but with disastrous results. She ends up touring as a chorus girl. ==== spoilers ==== When a knife thrower's child is hurt behind the scenes of the stage Norma proves she can be a trouper too by standing in for the wife of the knife thrower. As the final knife comes flying at her she faints and suddenly the man she loves, her first dancing partner, comes rushing toward her to tell her he loves her. The End. Predictable film but Norma shines and she looks beautiful in the film. One funny scene shows her with a huge frizzy hairstyle, something out of Nazimova's Camille. This film wasn't anything too heavy for Norma Shearer, but "don't let that worry you"; actresses are allowed to have fun too!

Hmm...wonder what she was referring to? That maybe he should have changed his name to Smith so people wouldn't know he was Jewish? Would she have said the same thing to his father Rudolph, also a prominant actor? Lots of anti-semitism back in those days, just as evil as racism against blacks. Could Marlene have been jealous because Joseph was the first non-American actor to win an Oscar as Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Life of Emile Zola (1937), whereas Marlene, also a foreigner, never won an Oscar but was only nominated? Joseph was a consummate professional. When his wife of almost 30 years died he went on to finish a performance in The Twilight Zone, ironically about an old man who refuses a young body so he can stay old with his wife. They just don't make actors the caliber of Joseph Schildkraut anymore.

Last night I watched the part silent - part sound hybrid version of *Song O' My Heart* (1930) starring John McCormack, Alice Joyce, and Maureen O'Sullivan in her second motion picture; the picture is included in the new Murnau-Borzage DVD box set. I thought the music outstanding in the background tracks and of course the parts where Mr. McCormack sang are incredibly beautiful. I teared up when he sang The Rose of Tralee to Alice Joyce and later when she's before the window dying and she listens to an old record of him singing the same song I teared up again. Only Borzage could make such a sentimental vehicle work. I also watched the full sound version with dialogue but when all is said and done I think I actually prefer the hybrid! Some of the accents on the actors were so thick I couldn't grasp what they were saying -- no problem understanding when you can read the title cards with the same dialogue!

Not have I only seen it before but numerous times and it's my favorite version of all. Mainly because of the excellent chemistry between Laura and Joseph (Schildkraut) as the leads. Later versions also tend to soften Gay's abandonment of wife and child -- not this version. It's much grittier. Then of course you have Emily Fitzroy as the mother -- that face enough to scare away a battleship! lol But you know, she was a great character actress -- watch the myriad of emotions play over her face when Gay and Magnolia leave the boat with her grandchild to start a new life elsewhere. Yes, there are silent and sound parts, so it's a hybrid, but that's fine. It seems to work here and isn't obnoxious like some other hybrids of the period. Although it doesn't have the tunes of Jerome Kern it has a lovely vintage soundtrack that is often dreamy and bittersweet. It also has a very beautiful ending. Yes, it is a lovely film. I can't believe you haven't watched it yet, Jeffrey! You will love it.

Photobucket sometimes messes up by giving you a too-long URL to work with instead of a direct link to the image. I'll see if I can do it. K, I figured out the problem. Take out the ?action=view&current= part of the URL. Message was edited by: goldensilents

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1184951547051#versionTabview=tab1&tabview=tab0 Here's the URL for PSP. There are all kinds of Paint programs out there, and then of course the basic Paint program that practically everyone gets when they get a Windows OS. However I have no experience with their latest versions, they might have changed the program so much now I wouldn't recognize it. I stick to PSP version 7. It has all I need. Sometimes newer versions of programs are so loaded down with junk you get overwhelmed and they stop being intuitive. I hate programs like that. Just give me the basic tools and let me learn from trial and error. Here's the animated gif I made up of Norma with PSP. Hope it doesn't slow the page loading down too much.

There's a fellow who posts on my board who works for Warners. He says they are laying people off and are bleeding money. That may have something to do with the delays.

The TCM board seems to have their own process for uploading pics. Make sure you have the exact URL and then use exclamation points and put the URL of the image in between those exclamation points. ! -- insert URL of linked image here -- ! I still haven't watched the Bessie movie, only ripped it for Jeff and another male friend who wanted a copy but missed it. It looked like it had quite a few musical numbers in it.

I had both those programs at one time but kept going back to Paint Shop Pro and eventually uninstalled the others. PSP is like a second skin to me, I've used it for so many years. You don't have to pay full price or get the latest version to do great things with PSP. I still use version 7, and they must be up to a version 10 at least by now at this point. However they kept changing the locations of the tools I use constantly in newer versions so I always went right back to version 7 which I started with years ago. I'm guessing you can probably pick up a used disc with the version 7 program on eBay for 10 or 20 dollars. Also you can make animated gifs with it since it has a built in Animation Studio. I made one of Norma Shearer entering a room a few weeks back. Here's another of my Victorian girl postcard transformations. Peaches and cream, such a little beauty!

What graphics program do you use, Jeff? I use Paint Shop Pro. I just love it. It's very intuitive. I've been colorizing old vintage postcards for years with it. My favorites are the Victorian ladies. So beautiful! I even registered a domain name a few years ago, victorianbeauties.com, to upload my collection to, but I never did anything with it. Guess I figured I couldn't handle the stress of yet another website. Maybe someday. Victorian beauty, before and after

>because the producers don't want any carping about the title, the score, and the extras After what I routinely see on message boards I don't blame them! Personally I just keep on focusing on silents that ARE out now and ready and waiting to be enjoyed. These need to be promoted even more than any future releases. I confess I get very tired of endless gossip about future releases. It seems so childish, like a bunch of old ladies sitting around knitting and gossiping about who in town is sleeping with whom. When the time comes they will be released then we'll all know. Meanwhile we who love silent films should watch the ones that are coming out, write up reviews, put them on IMDb or Amazon or message boards, tell friends and family and co-workers about silent films. People worked really hard behind the scenes to get these discs out -- we need to promote these silent films first and foremost. Then this will help pave the way for future releases.

That's really pretty.

This evening I watched the silent avant garde film *The Tell Tale Heart* (1928). Very creepy and well done silent, with stylish expressionist sets and flawless direction by Charles Klein, starring Otto Matieson, who died young at age 40 in a road accident. He looked uncannily like images of Edgar Allan Poe. The old man he kills fits the description in the story to a T. I still like Joseph Schildkraut's later talkie version better though, but this was a very worthy effort. There was a synthesized score by Donald Sosin.

I guess one couldn't really tell that though in black and white movies. He always seemed balding to me too, he probably often wore a toupe. Some stars in old b/w Hollywood films looked blonde when their hair was actually white, like Nelson Eddy.

I suspect drink was what happened. Some people get a little pudgy from drink. Elinor had the same problem. Think she died an alcoholic and destitute. William and Elinor had a baby daughter who died in infancy. I think that must have contributed to their divorce. Here they are in happier days.

I forgot the first William Boyd one but got the second. Had to take a daughter to the dentist and my dog to get groomed. I had actually seen the second one before but hadn't recorded it. It's a little dull but improves because it has Ginger and Marie Prevost. It's funny, when it was on I pointed out William Boyd to my 12 year old daughter and said, "Look, this is the same man on the cover of this sheet music" and I lifted up my vintage piano sheet music on my piano for The Volga Boatman (1926) and showed it to her. She looked at the tv and she looked at the music and said, "It doesn't look like the same man." In just a few years he had aged a lot and gotten a little pudgy.

I probably should post this in precodes, but I thought I'd give a head's up on an early talkie of silent star Bessie Love that is on tomorrow at 6am EST. 6:00am They Learned About Women (1930) Professional baseball players win big with their vaudeville act until love gets in the way. Cast: Joseph T. Schenck, Gus Van, Bessie Love, Mary Doran Dir: Sam Wood C-95 mins, TV-PG

Indeed. Or if the film is incomplete. For instance my copy of Lillian's *The Enemy* has the last reel missing. I watched it and went "eek! I don't know who she ends up with!" (though I suspected) so I quickly bought a vintage Photoplay novel of the story so I could find out. I almost always spend extra to get one with a vintage dustjacket because to me they're incomplete without it. Of course sometimes that doesn't work out. For instance *Beyond the Rocks* was written originally in 1906 and is very different from the much later Gloria Swanson movie, much more Victorian and bittersweet. I bought the novel to see if I could find out what was missing in scenes that were obviously lost to the film (like the scene when they are in the play together) but then I read the book and found there is no such scene. So, I guess we will never know, only imagine.

That's something we can agree on at least, Ed. I think it was great not just for Hollywood to have these tie in books, but also great because it encouraged reading in the populace. The best cover, physically, that I have in my collection is from The Winning of Barbara Worth. I hope this image isn't too big for this forum but I scanned it a few years ago. This is the cover and inside frontispiece. Someone must have really cherished it and cared for it for years because it looks like it came right from the book publisher in the 1920's. Of course I have it under mylar for protection. What's really neat is to collect these books for silent films that have been lost: that way you can read the novel and at least know what the story was about. I have a bunch of those in my collection.

The novel is very good too! I have a vintage Photoplay edition (I collect them and have several hundred) with cover intact and in great shape. I scanned the cover awhile ago for my message board, and one of the pictures inside the book as well.

I'm perfectly happy with my recordings of the films you listed. Not sure I would spend the money to get a DVD of any of them. Some of them like The Show I didn't like at all so definitely wouldn't bother buying. But then I've been into foreign silents far more than American silents for the past year or so.

That's odd. I resent it again. Maybe one of us is having email problems.

Ok, I'll resend it.

Tonight before American Idol was on I popped in Pola Negri in *Sappho* (1921). I just love Pola but this had to be one of her worst movies, if not THE worst. It was so overly melodramatic and OTT that I belly laughed through almost the entire picture! I think the funniest scene was when she was telling the man she was living with "I want to be free!" and she put her hands all over her breasts and rubbed them. I was just collapsing with laughter! Then this guy she just meets and is already hot for comes to visit her. He walks in her living room and he's standing in front of her for not 10 seconds when the title card says "I think I shall leave now." What did she have, garlic for lunch? BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then there was a sequence with insane people outside at an asylum pretending to be various historical figures. One of them had had an affair with Sappho and had gone insane. He has a dream of her in his cell where she is tied on a plank and she levitates -- and then he jumps on her and the ties loosen and she falls off the plank!!! Oh people, I was roaring!!! Then whoever did the soundtrack messed up royally, the music and sound effects would start up for a new scene before the old scene was finished. For instance, in the beginning a woman is at a window reading a telegram and all of a sudden you hear street cars and trucks loud enough to wake the dead -- and the woman is in the country! A few seconds later --- a change of scene ---- and we are in the city and there are the street cars and trucks!!!! LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!! Then later there are scenes in the water and instead of water noises the soundtrack had static electricity noise instead! HAHA! At the end of other sequences there would be a loud REEEEEK! noise when the music selection was (mercifully) over!!! What a dud! Oh my gosh, I just checked IMDb on this title and someone has given it 7.9 stars! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I gave it 3. This is a comedy, not a drama!

The story was pretty suspenseful too.