FRANKI'S FAVORITE FILMS: silent eddition

they just don't make movies like they did back in the day. i don't mean back in my day, as those movies, with very few exceptions, also tended to suck. i meant way, way, way back in the day, like in the first days of film, when people were still figuring out the tricks of the trade for the very first time. i'm talking teens, '20s and '30s here, before they knew how to syncronize image and sound, so everything was silent, with occasional title cards to fill in crucial dialogue and other explainations.

back then, an actor really had to know how to act, because they couldn't exactly rely on exposition and social status to offset their horrible skills; they had to be able to tell a story through gesture, expression, and timing (something most actors of today lack, due to being born in the era of "talkies").

so today i decided to pay tibute to this lost art by reviewing my favorite silent films.

NOSFERATU.
i can already hear it, my loyal readers rolling their eyes and grinning to themselves as they think, of course franki would review this one first. and, yeah, i do tend to put a lot of signifigance on this film because it was the first real horror story of its kind. classic horror. (i mean classic horror -- not that the "Exorcist" isn't a classic, it's just a different kind of classic). of course, this story is based on Bram Stoker's "Dracula," though all names had to be changed due to lack of permission to reproduce the story. and no, they didn't change his name to "nosferatu" which is the romanian word for "vampire", but to "count orlock" (though in some more recently restored versions, the title cards were replaced to have all the corresponding character names, so he becomes "count dracula" again). in fact, it follows the story of "Dracula" better than the actual film a few years later of the same name, starring Bela Lugosi (click here to read more about him: http://therandomturtle.blogspot.com/2010/10/bela-lugosi-man-wed-go-necropheliac-for.html ). max shreck (not shrek) stares as the nosferatu (ok, it's just easier to refer to him as the word, especially to those who are not exactly connisseurs of the silent film industry... it's just easier on me, as i do not have to constantly explain), and back then, the actors did all their own make up and prosthetics, so he had to have a great vision of himself as a character, and does some great eye-acting, and his "lurking" scenes are ledgendary.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

this frame of the film was one of THE most groundbreaking moments of film history: the moment Erik the Phantom (though he is never referred to by name in this film) is first unmasked on screen, for the very first premiers, audience members would scream, faint, vomit, and run out of the theater (not all at once). great moment in history. ledgendary lon chaney stars as the phantom, did all his own make up and prosthetics (in fact, there was no make up and prosthetics team for actors till like the '60s, and even then, it was only on big-budget films -- the "star trek" series was among the first low-budget small-screen projects to have this -- unfortunately, they only aided in the application, not the removal, and poor leonnard nimoy... sorry, off-topic...), and he was one of the greatest silent film actors of the era (and, while there may be some fairly compared silent film talent of acting, chaney was probably the greatest of all time). anyone who does not know the story line of "phantom" is truely missing out -- it is not a horror, as people like to claim, because the villain is presented with compassion to the audience. we feel sorry for Erik, and, while not all may agree with his decisions, we can understand why he did them (hypnotize and kidnap the girl -- sure, how else would he get a date? murder joseph boquet -- the dude was spreading rumors about him!! sure, they were true rumors, but still.... why haunt an opera house at all? -- i don't know, but i do know that i really wanna give it a try!). this is one of those stories that people just can't seem to get over. there have been over ten different reincarnations of the phantom, never mind the many, many, many references within other films. this is the one stage production that i really, really, really wanna be involved in, with a leading role (no, not christine, that bunny-fart of a crazy girl -- I wanna be the phantom!)

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

a mental mindwarp of a psychological horror. good stuff. would've been tough to see it in theatres back in the day, though -- kinda have to go back and watch it twice to really get it all. ('course, back then, they played showings of the same movie back-to-back-to-back, and if you payed your five cents once and smuggled in some food, you could've just stayed there all day, watching the movie until you had it memorized, picking up on little nuances every new viewing). ok, so there is a magical man in a box in Doctor Caligari's travelling gypsie circus (box=cabinet). he only wakes up every so often, with years between rise-and-shinies. while the circus is in town, there are a string of murders that no one can solve -- the first serial-killer film! and with everything we have in films of the sort today: a set of mysterious circumstances with evidence that the authorities interperate wrong the entire film, until an epiphany in the last quarter, a man with deep regrets, a love interest that serves no purpose but to keep women and little girls from walking out in boredom and/or disturbance, and one of those great twists in the ending. a word on visual graphics: eerie, crooked angles everywhere, makes no bones about the fact that everything's a set, no on-location filming, all sorta through the eyes of a madman, and i can see some aspects that are sure to have influenced Tim Burton, my absolute favorite director, at some time in his impressionable childhood: the crazy angles, of course, the way even mundane objects and settings seem a little off and maybe a bit frightening, and of course character designs for the famous Burton characters, "the Penguin" (his version, at least) and "Edward Scissorhands". very dark, very cool.... (for those in the know....FAKIR!!!)

MODERN TIMES

on a lighter note, after the previous horror-esque films, this is my favorite comedy of the day, starring comedy mastermind, Charlie Chaplin (the only actor of the time, and i think, but don't quote me, of all film history, to ever get the rights to his own character, the Little Tramp, so that he has become non-reproducable or immitatable by law -- the first man to become a rich celebrity through acting). this one starts with him working in a factory in the depression era, where (after a fight with an eating machine, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4sjKJvUia0 , my favorite sequence in the film) he has a nervous breakdown, gets sent to a "sanitarium" (what a forboding word...), comes back having lost his job, goes to jail after a misunderstanding, gets high on crack (YES!!! charlie chaplin on crack!), stops a prison riot and becomes the favorite inmate, gets out with a job recommendation, screws up his jobs, meets up with a cute homeless girl (who actually has a very contemporary look to her), gets back his job at the factory, loses it again, gets a job as a singing waiter (first chaplin film with tiny snippets of sound, but is otherwise silent), and loses his job again, and, my favorite aspect of the film, it is a great movie, wonderful comedy, that does not have a happy ending. oh, it's optomistic, but the two are both out of the job, homeless, and wanted by law, when the Tramp whipes away the girl's tears and says, on his title card, "don't worry, we'll think of something" and they walk down the highway into the sunrise, the girl on his one arm, and his dusty, once-debonaire bamboo cane in the other. sigh. i smile and choke a sob just thinking about it.

so, those are my all-time favorite silent films. hope you liked my review, now friggin' GO TO YOUTUBE AND FIND THEM SO YOU CAN ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

you won't (or shouldn't) be disappointed.