For silent film buffs, these are, with apologies to Charles Dickens, the worst of times and the best of times. It is estimated that less than 20 percent of silent films are still extant. To add insult to injury, only four silent films were included on the American Film Institute’s list of the century’s 100 best films.
Home video, however, has become a sanctuary for this neglected and endangered art form.
Itasca-based Critics Choice Video, one of the nation’s premiere direct mail catalogs with an extensive selection of silent films, recently released rare and exclusive titles from its Killiam Library collection, named for Paul Killiam, a collector and pioneer in film preservation. Their historical importance makes up for any imperfections in the source material.
Killiam was an influential voice in raising public awareness of our cinematic legacy. One of Critics’ Choice’s coups is “Silents Please! The History of the Motion Picture.” Originally broadcast on ABC in 1960, this six-volume series, packaged in two three-volume sets of 4 1/2 hours each ($59.95 per volume), is an overview of “the stars, thrills, laughter and heartbreak” of the silent era.
The revelatory inaugural episode, “Film Firsts,” sets the tone for the series. “In their first year,” states narrator Killiam, “movies thought out and tried most of the ideas, stories and techniques which we regard as standard.” Presented are clips of the first highway chase, gangster film, Western and even a 1913 musical by Thomas Edison that predates “The Jazz Singer” by more than a decade.
Other episodes spotlight such screen legends as Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino and comedy impresario Mack Sennett, and present condensed versions of a cross-section of films ranging from F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” to “Rin-Tin-Tin Tracked By the Police.”
“It’s an amazing introduction,” said Diane MacIntyre, president of Silents Majority On-Line Journal of Silent Film (www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/) in a phone interview. “You could go into it cold and become a buff by the end. I think the shows turned a lot of people on to silent film.”
Another Critics Choice exclusive is “Seventh Heaven,” the 1927 romantic melodrama about a pitiable waif and a strapping Parisian sewer worker that established Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell as one of the screen’s most popular couples, and, along with “Street Angel” and “Sunrise,” earned Gaynor the first Academy Award for Best Actress.
John Ford’s still-thrilling Western epic “The Iron Horse” (1924) stars George O’Brien as Davy Brandon, who has a one-track mind in realizing his slain father’s dream to construct America’s first transcontinental railroad.
Not available for preview but also released from the Killiam Collection: the Tom Mix Westerns “The Great K&A Train Robbery” (1926) and “The Last Trail” (1927); a William S. Hart double feature, “Hell’s Hinges/The Toll Gate”; “Little Annie Rooney” (1925) starring the original America’s sweetheart, Mary Pickford; the newly discovered “A Tale of Two Cities” (1917); D.W. Griffith’s “The Girl Who Stayed At Home” (1919); John Ford’s “Three Bad Men” (1926) and “A Silent Christmas”; a compilation of holiday-themed shorts that includes a 1905 adaptation of “The Night Before Christmas.”
Each video retails for $19.95. To order or for the Critics’ Choice Video catalog, call 800-367-7765 or visit the Web site at www.ccvideo.com.
“Silents Please! The History of the Motion Picture”
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