50 Fun Facts About Silent Films

Which 1927 film, the first commercially successful sound feature, is said to have ended the silent era?

It used Warner Bros' Vitaphone sound-on-disc system and six songs sung by Al Jolson; silents were still the majority of releases in 1927 and 1928.

What are the on-screen text cards used in silent films to convey dialogue and narration called?

The title writer was a distinct profession from the scenario writer, and cards were often decorated with illustrations.

Roughly what proportion of American silent films are believed to be lost?

The nitrate stock was unstable and flammable, and studios junked films that had no remaining commercial value.

What kind of film stock made early movies so prone to decay and fire?

Slow projection was itself a fire risk, since each frame sat longer in front of the hot lamp.

In Japan, what was the live narrator who voiced characters and explained silent films called?

Their popularity is one reason silent films lasted well into the 1930s in Japan.

Which giant theatre organ, with train-whistle and pistol effects, accompanied silent films?

From the mid-1910s large theatres used organists or small ensembles; small-town cinemas made do with a pianist.

Which composer wrote one of the first purpose-built film scores, for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908)?

Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov scored Stenka Razin the same year; Joseph Carl Breil's music for The Birth of a Nation made original scores common.

In silent-era tinting, what colour usually signalled a night scene?

Amber or yellow meant day, red meant fire and green a mysterious mood; by the early 1920s about 80 percent of films had some colour.

Why was tinting abandoned once sound-on-film arrived?

Colour would not be as common again for nearly four decades, until three-strip Technicolor became affordable.

What frame rate is often quoted as 'standard silent speed', even though there was no real standard?

Edison's William Dickson ran his kinetoscope at a blistering 40 fps, and cameramen often cranked faster than they claimed.

How many blades did silent-era projector shutters commonly have to cut flicker?

A three-blade shutter turns 16 frames into 48 flashes a second, just above the 46 that Edison found would 'strain the eye'.

Which pioneer built the kinetoscope, introduced in 1893 as a silent peep-show viewer?

He had wanted a system synchronised with his phonograph, but the later 'kinetophone' versions flopped.

Which siblings gave the first public film projection, in Berlin on 1 November 1895?

Edison's 1896 New York exhibition set the precedent that showings should have an orchestra.

What was the nickname of the Motion Picture Patents Company formed in 1908 to control the industry?

Its grip is one reason studios fled to the West Coast; it was found guilty of antitrust violations in 1915 and dissolved.

Which 1914 Thanhouser production is regarded as the first film serial?

Thanhouser of New Rochelle made 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917; The Perils of Pauline was shot largely on Staten Island.

Which actress has been called film's 'first true actress' for pioneering screen acting under D. W. Griffith?

Director Marshall Neilan complained in 1917 that stage people should get out of pictures; Garbo's naturalism arrived in 1926.

Which French filmmaker made A Trip to the Moon in 1902 and hand-tinted his fantasy films?

His colouring was done by Elisabeth Thuillier's Paris workshop; a hand-coloured print of A Trip to the Moon found in 1993 was restored in 2011.

Who directed the 1903 Western The Great Train Robbery for the Edison company?

He shot it in New York and New Jersey in November 1903, and even made a parody of it himself.

D. W. Griffith's 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation was adapted from which novel?

It was screened at the White House for Woodrow Wilson; its Klan ride was tinted a striking red.

At which studio did Charlie Chaplin first find fame in 1914?

He soon adopted the Tramp persona and developed it emotionally in The Tramp (1915) at Essanay.

Which company did Chaplin co-found in 1919 with Fairbanks, Griffith and Mary Pickford?

It gave him complete control over his films; his first feature was The Kid in 1921.

Which was Chaplin's first sound film?

He resisted talkies for over a decade, making City Lights and Modern Times without dialogue but with synchronised scores.

What nickname did Buster Keaton's deadpan expression earn him?

Orson Welles called his 1926 film The General 'the greatest comedy ever made... and perhaps the greatest film ever made'.

Which Buster Keaton film did Orson Welles call 'the greatest comedy ever made'?

It, Sherlock Jr. and The Navigator all made the AFI's 100 Laughs list; Keaton supposedly got his nickname at 18 months.

In which 1923 film does Harold Lloyd dangle from the hands of a clock high above the street?

His 'glasses character' wore lensless horn-rims; the danger was real but exaggerated by camera angles.

Which silent star was known as 'America's Sweetheart'?

She defined the screen ingenue and was one of the four founders of United Artists.

How old was Rudolph Valentino when his sudden death in 1926 triggered mass public mourning?

He died of peritonitis after surgery; his hits included The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik.

Nosferatu (1922) was an unauthorised adaptation of which novel?

Bram Stoker's widow Florence sued and a court ordered every copy destroyed; the vampire was renamed Count Orlok.

Who played the vampire Count Orlok in Nosferatu?

Shadow of the Vampire (2000) later imagined that Schreck really was a vampire; the film entered the public domain worldwide in 2019.

In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), what is Cesare, the character played by Conrad Veidt?

The hypnotist Caligari uses him to commit murders; the film is the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema.

Which Soviet director's Battleship Potemkin (1925) contains the endlessly imitated Odessa Steps sequence?

It dramatises the 1905 mutiny and is the prime example of Soviet montage editing.

Who directed Metropolis (1927)?

His wife Thea von Harbou co-wrote it from her own novel; a damaged print of the original cut turned up in an Argentine museum in 2008.

Metropolis was the first film added to which UNESCO register, in 2001?

In 1984 Giorgio Moroder released a controversial cut with a rock score featuring Freddie Mercury and Pat Benatar.

Which producer gave Metropolis a rock score with songs by Freddie Mercury and Pat Benatar in 1984?

Controversial as it was, it opened the door to new approaches to presenting silent classics.

Which 1927 war film won the first Best Picture Oscar, the only fully silent film to do so?

It starred Clara Bow and gave Gary Cooper an early break; Sunrise took a separate 'Unique and Artistic Picture' award.

Which F. W. Murnau film won the Academy Award for 'Unique and Artistic Picture' at the first Oscars?

It was his American debut and one of the first features with a synchronised Movietone score and sound effects.

Which restorer's 1980 reconstruction of Abel Gance's Napoleon kicked off the modern revival of silent-film scoring?

Coppola later distributed a sped-up version in the US with a live score by his father Carmine.

Which Mel Brooks film of 1976 paid homage to the comedies of the pre-talkie era?

Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday and Chaplin's own Modern Times are other well-known homages.

Which dialogue-free 2011 French film set in 1920s Hollywood won Best Picture?

Jean Dujardin became the first French actor to win Best Actor, and Michel Hazanavicius won Best Director.

In Sunset Boulevard, which real silent star played the faded silent star Norma Desmond?

Singin' in the Rain tackles the same transition to talkies from the comic side.

Which sound-on-disc system did Warner Bros. use for its 1927 Al Jolson breakthrough?

Fox's Movietone (1927) and RCA's Photophone (1928) were sound-on-film rivals; 'goat-glanded' films were silents with a sound section inserted.

Which Japanese director made silent films like I Was Born, But... well into the sound era?

Mizoguchi's The Downfall of Osen (1935) was also silent; the benshi tradition kept the form alive in Japan.

Whose 1878 photo sequence of a galloping horse solved the long-exposure problem for moving pictures?

He lectured from 1880 with his own zoopraxiscope projector; the phenakistiscope toy had shown the principle since 1833.

According to a 1908 US catalogue, where was virtually all hand-colouring of American films done?

A coloured 1,000-foot Ben Hur cost $270 against $120 plain: 16,000 frames had to be painted by hand.

What was the name of Brazil's early 'singing films', with performers singing behind the screen?

They were filmed operettas; other countries found their own workarounds for the missing sound.

Which 1940 Disney feature is effectively a silent film, with only one short dialogue scene?

Its eight animated sequences are set entirely to music.

How long does a 1,000-foot reel take to project at 24 frames per second?

At 16 fps the same reel runs 16 minutes 40 seconds, which is why silents shown at sound speed look jerky and fast.

In 1978 over 500 reels of nitrate film, preserved by permafrost, were dug up in which Yukon town?

The town was the end of the distribution line; in 1929 the flammable reels had been dumped as landfill in a condemned swimming pool.

Which Italian town hosts the first and largest festival devoted to silent film, Le Giornate del cinema muto?

San Francisco's Castro Theatre hosts the other major annual silent film festival.

Which Edison employee settled on an astonishingly fast 40 frames per second for early films?

Silent films were shot anywhere from 12 to 40 fps; the 24 fps standard only arrived with sound films between 1926 and 1930.