Description
Book Synopsis This is a history and critical appreciation of an unusually fertile period for the production of great or near-great silent films: late 1927 through early 1929, in the midst of the tumult and upheaval of Hollywood''s transition from silent to sound. The book offers in-depth looks at several of the best of these films and discusses the gifted artists such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Lillian Gish who helped bring them to life, even as the art they had taken to remarkable heights was about to be obliterated. It depicts some of the silent medium''s most talented filmmakers and their efforts--in the face of inescapable technological change--to give their dying art a rousing last hurrah.
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Introduction: A Doomed Art's Glorious Last Days
- 1. At the Precipice: Mary Pickford and My Best Girl
- 2. "The maddest idea in the world": Gloria Swanson, Raoul Walsh, and Sadie Thompson
- 3. Tramp on a Tightrope: Charlie Chaplin and The Circus
- 4. "A lyricist of light and shadow": Josef von Sternberg, The Last Command, and The Docks of New York
- 5. "The highest reaches of the form": King Vidor and The Crowd
- 6. The End of an Amazing Run: Harold Lloyd and Speedy
- 7. In a Blaze of Windswept Glory: Buster Keaton and Steamboat Bill, Jr.
- 8. A Star Is Born: Joan Crawford and Our Dancing Daughters
- 9. "Astonishing elegance": William Wellman, Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery, and Beggars of Life
- 10. "Time was his; he owned it": Erich von Stroheim and The Wedding March
- 11. "I have a special confidence in you": Lillian Gish, Victor Sjöström, and The Wind
- 12. Partners in Perversity: Lon Chaney, Tod Browning, and West of Zanzibar
- 13. "To reach for the moon one last time": Douglas Fairbanks and The Iron Mask
- 14. Twenty-Eight Other Notable U.S. Silent and Hybrid Films Released During the Long 1928
- Afterthoughts: Requiem and Reemergence
- Where to Find the Films Featured in This Book
- Chapter Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
