Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies [Hardcover]

Robert K. Klepper (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0786405953 | ISBN-13: 978-0786405954 | Publication Date: March 1999

This film reference covers 646 silent motion pictures, starting with Eadweard Muybridge's initial motion photography experiments in 1877 and even including The Taxi Dancer (1996). Among the genres included are classics, dramas, Westerns, light comedies, documentaries and even poorly produced early pornography. Masterpieces such as Joan the Woman (1916), Intolerance (1916) and Faust (1926) can be found, as well as rare titles that have not received critical attention since their original releases. Each entry provides the most complete credits possible, a full description, critical commentary, and an evaluation of the film's unique place in motion picture history. Birth dates, death dates, and other facts are provided for the directors and players where available, with a selection of photographs of those individuals. The work is thoroughly indexed.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Expanding on his Silent Films on Video (McFarland, 1996), Klepper offers his personal appraisal of 646 films. Arranged by year of release and then alphabetically by title, the entries provide a chronology of the development of the film industry as well as information on specific titles. Each entry includes production company, running time, director and other technical contributors, and cast, including vital dates and the names of the characters portrayed. While these facts are helpful and sometimes hard to come by, the real merit of the book lies in the zest with which Klepper covers his subject. He goes beyond the usual feature films and serials and delves into the early experiments of Edison and Lumi`ere, issue films on such topics as civil rights and homosexuality, and even some films that were considered pornographic at the time. His critiques summarize the plot, note historic significance, give facts about the filming, and relate fascinating anecdotes about the stars on and off the set. Well over 200 illustrations, a four-star rating system, and a copious index add to the appeal of the book. Unfortunately, the sources for obtaining the films are not usually mentioned, so another reference book such as Klepper's own (mentioned above) must be consulted. Recommended for any library where there is interest in silent films.AVivian Reed, Long Beach P.L., CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Klepper has a most serious love affair with silent movies. His previous work, Silent Films on Video (McFarland, 1996), listed more than 700 silent movies available on video. This work builds on the earlier one and has entries for 646 silent movies with cast lists and birth and death dates of performers, directors, etc., when known. The work covers 119 years of films, from the experimental photography of Eadweard Muybridge in 1877 to The Taxi Dancer in 1996. The earlier experimental films are not rated, but the longer works are assigned ratings that range from four stars (a masterpiece) to one star (abysmal). The purpose of the work is to provide information on silent movies, lobby for wider availability of some, point out the ones to ignore, and provide a comprehensive study of the topic.

Within each section, arrangement is by year, and then alphabetical by film title. The first chapter covers the "Experimental Years (1877^-1885)." Most of these films are very short and depict actions, such as Woman Hopping on One Foot or Woman Walking Down Stairs. The 1890s saw more Edison Kinetoscope Company shorts, generally less than a minute in length, such as Fred Ott's Sneeze and Serpentine Dances. "The Nickelodeon Age (1902^-1911)" began with films that told a story. One of the most famous is A Trip to the Moon, which appears in most movie and science fiction retrospectives. As much as can be located about the film's cast and crew is included along with pertinent dates. There is also a brief plot summary and evaluation. The longest section is "The Golden Era of Silents (1912be as long as two pages. All the big names pop up, including Lon Chaney, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, and. Gloria Swanson. A Free Ride (1915), which is the oldest hard-core porn film in existence, is described. Early African American films such as Body and Soul (1924), with Paul Robeson, are included. Black-and-white photographs of many of the movie stars are scattered throughout.

The work concludes with an extensive bibliography of the works consulted and a comprehensive bibliography of films and people. The film titles analyzed are in italics. One thing to note about the index is that citations refer to the number of the entry, not the page.

The work is not without flaws. Errors such as "good buy" instead of "good guy" and "short" instead of "shot" are found. Also, in the entry for the 1927 version of Ben Hur, the main character is called "Judas" instead of "Judah." It can be difficult to locate film entries if one does not know the year of release, and the index is not always helpful. The index listing for Intolerance gives more than 30 entry numbers, with no indication of which is the main one. Generally, however, this labor of love is a readable and critically perceptive analysis of silent movies.

Other resources on the topic include the three-volume Magill's Survey of Cinema: Silent Films (Gale, 1982), which has long critical summaries of 308 films from the years 1902 to 1936. Many more films are listed in the silent-films volume of The Motion Picture Guide (Cinebooks, 1985) and in pertinent volumes of The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States (Univ. of California, 1970^-), but these provide only brief descriptions. Silent Films, 1877^-1996 covers more years, has a number of unique titles, and offers descriptions that are often considerably detailed. Recommended for public, academic, and special libraries.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 596 pages
• Publisher: McFarland & Company (March 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786405953
• ISBN-13: 978-0786405954
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,678,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference book and a fun read., May 22, 1999

By 

L. B. Young (Iowa City, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies (Hardcover)

As an amateur film critic and historian, I found this book both accessible and excellently-researched. Although the book would serve well as a film history text, it is so clearly written and organized that one can learn much by simply picking a page and reading. For instance, the chronological presentation helps the novice (like myself) place the film in its historical context, while the criticisms of the films, which are all available on videocassette, highlight the artistic significance of the works, relating them to contemporary films and actors. While it is a comprehensive reference of 119 years of silent film, the abundance of photos throughout the book tell the story of the silents all by themselves. Finally, the index is the place to start if one wants to learn about the early days of so many stars of cinema's Golden Age, who started out in silents.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Very Engaging but Overpowering with Biases, June 2, 2009

By 

Patricia Wray (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies (Paperback)

Profiling over 600 movies in general is very time-consuming, but Robert Klepper does a superb job in highlighting not only the most popular silent films in existence but also vague titles that seem lost in time well deserving of recognition. By the fact that Klepper's research went as far back into the 1870s, when many short films twenty years later are lauded as the first silent film shows his dedication to this art and we in turn are given a fun but necessary history lesson in filmmaking.

Unfortunately as this is a critical guide, I felt less of the impact of the movie and more of Klepper's own interpretations and opinions on film. While it would be unrealistic to think that all 646 movies would get an equal amount of page time, there are some movies he doesn't even explain the plot of, only telling us how good or bad it is based on the actors or how it's directed. Shouldn't we be allowed to make that judgment ourselves? It's impossible if we don't know what the movie's about. One glaring example of this is the 1925 version of "Ben-Hur", by which the 1959 multi-Oscar winner was based on. Most of the time in writing about this movie is Klepper describing his own disdain for the remake and how much better this version is, without listing very many valid examples why this is so. He does very little overall to highlight the positives of this movie, only telling us to watch it over the remake. I personally like both versions and would recommend both version, but considering the remade Ben-Hur is tied for holding the most Oscars in movie history I don't believe it should just be dismissed as a stupid remake because of all the controversy surrounding it. Tell me WHY I need to see the silent version, and not at the expense of an equally magnificent version.

This didn't bother me as much as the way Klepper played favorites with actors and directors. Halfway through the book I could easily idenitfy his two favorites: D.W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim. Not only does he highlight multiple movies by both men (whereas in other cases he'll only highlight one movie of a prominent director), but he continuously repeats himself with each description, idolizing storytelling but mostly lavishing both men's works. It really bothered me that he wrote a lengthy description of "Birth of a Nation" and completely neglected to highlight the massive controversy of this movie and the negative impact it had on American society, only praising the compelling storytelling and cinematography. He completely ignored the impact of the movie by focusing on its cimematic context.

I guess this bothers me more because of the take he had on Charlie Chaplin and his movies. He makes it clear he's a somewhat fan of Chaplin but he detests the "little tramp" character. And because he detests this character he ignores a number of movies Chaplin made that involved the tramp character and those that he reviewed he ignored the context of the movie entirely to lambast Chaplin. "The Kid" and "Gold Rush" for example have reviews that completely downplay Chaplin's role in each movies success, only highlighting the achievements of the other actors and punctuating all the reviews with "I don't like the tramp", something in which he uses to give a masterpiece like "Gold Rush" a very low review. Unlike Griffith and the "Birth of a Nation", he ignores the context of Chaplin's movies and focuses on negatives that hardly anyone notices.

As for Erich von Stroheim, it almost seemed like to me that Klepper wants us to believe this man was a flawless filmmaker caught in the Hollywood wheel, when that clearly wasn't the case. As with the movie "Greed" Klepper presents studio producer Irving Thalberg as some heartless monster who cut the movie apart without considering the artistic aspects of the movie. Though Klepper briefly acknowledges it, Greed was seven hours long, cost the studio tons of money, and was completely unmarketable until Thalberg got hold of it. Klepper completely glosses over the fact that von Stroheim would burn through the studio's money constantly on EVERY movie he made and used his stardom to bully the studio and actors into getting what he wanted. But he made great movies and Thalberg was part of the studio and so he was OBVIOUSLY a bigger bully than von Stroheim.

It's impossible to highlight every single silent movie, but Robert Klepper obviously chose which movies to review. And it really bothered me that the basis of his list revolved around continuously praising those he favored (D.W. Griffith, Erich von Stroheim), downplaying the achievements of others (Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow), or outright ignoring the achievements of others (Fritz Lang, William Haines) just to name a few.

Don't get me wrong; I don't hate this book. Thanks to this book I've been introduced to many fascinating silent films and I've become a strong fan of Rodolph Valentino. But I felt this would've fared better if it wasn't so riddled with Klepper's own biases. Let us decide which movies are good. And please, spend some time talking about more than the same two people.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars labor of love, June 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies (Hardcover)

Robert Klepper has a remarkable love and knowledge of silent film. His understanding of the historical place of any movie he reviews is impressive and thoughtful. The book is a standing resource for any film enthusiast. In watching these films some of our favorite practices are to look for scenes that more modern films either steal (or pay omage to - depending on your thinking) and to pay attention to stunts that no actor or actress will ever have to duplicate in a more advanced film age. These are things that Robert Klepper also makes notice of and shares with his readers. I find his rating system to be reliable to my own standards and his humor to be very welcome - though I think some readers might miss some of it.

I do cherish this particular book and guard it heavily - no one is permited to borrow it. (I am usually pretty generous with my shelves.)

I assure you that the book is well worth the price -it is an excellent resource to the novice or the expert.

J