Carmen is a 1915 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The film is based on the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. The existing versions of this film appear to be from the re-edited 1918 re-release. Carmen was praised as a “triumph of superb acting and magnificent scenery” in Motion Picture Magazine. “No small share of this artistic… Read more →
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a 1916 silent film directed by Stuart Paton. The film’s storyline is based on the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. It also incorporates elements from Verne’s The Mysterious Island. This was the first motion picture filmed underwater. Actual underwater cameras were not used, but a system of watertight tubes… Read more →
The Mark of Zorro is a 1920 silent adventure romance film starring Douglas Fairbanks and Noah Beery, Sr.. This genre-defining swashbuckler adventure was the first movie version of The Mark of Zorro. Based on the 1919 story “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCulley, which introduced the masked hero, Zorro, the screenplay was adapted by Fairbanks (as “Elton Thomas”) and… Read more →
West of Hot Dog is a 1924 American comedy film starring Stan Laurel. By Scott Pembroke / Joe Rock (YouTube) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Info.
Blood and Sand is a 1922 American silent drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by Fred Niblo and starring Rudolph Valentino, Lila Lee and Nita Naldi. It was based on the 1909 Spanish novel Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand) by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and the play version of the book by Thomas Cushing. Blood and Sand premiered at… Read more →
Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Wallace Beery, is the first motion picture ever to have a Hollywood premiere, held at Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre on October 18, 1922. The movie’s full title, under which it was copyrighted, is Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood. It was one of the most expensive films of the 1920s, with a budget estimated at approximately… Read more →
The Leopard Woman is a 1920 American silent adventure romance drama film starring Louise Glaum, House Peters, and Noble Johnson. Directed by Wesley Ruggles and produced by J. Parker Read, Jr., the screenplay was adapted by H. Tipton Steck and Stanley C. Morse based on the novel The Leopard Woman (1916) by Stewart Edward White. By Wesley Ruggles (YouTube: FwCucOSpd44)… Read more →
The Kid is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin’s first full-length film as a director (he had been a co-star in 1914’s Tillie’s Punctured Romance). It was a huge success, and was the second-highest-grossing film in 1921,… Read more →
Through the Back Door is a 1921 American silent comedy drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford, and starring Mary Pickford. By Alfred E. Green and Jack Pickford (YouTube) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Info.
The Black Pirate is a 1926 silent adventure film shot entirely in two-color Technicolor about an adventurer and a “company” of pirates. It stars Douglas Fairbanks, Donald Crisp, Sam De Grasse, and Billie Dove. The Black Pirate was the third feature to be filmed in an early two-tone Technicolor process that had been first introduced in the 1922 feature Toll… Read more →
