Category Archives: Silent Film

Thomas Meighan shines in “The Mating Call,” a 1928 silent film that casts him as Leslie Hatten, a World War 1 vet who returns home to find his marriage annulled and his town ruled by a KKK-style group called “The … Continue reading →

Russian stories often involve a character’s relationship with the authorities, including “The Overcoat,” made by an avant-garde film group called “FEKS” in the Soviet Union in 1926.  The FEKS group, which stands for the “Factory of the Experimental Actor,” wished … Continue reading →

William Beaudine’s “The Canadian,” a film from 1926, stars Thomas Meighan and Mona Palma as reluctant newlyweds on an Alberta ranch.  Meighan plays Frank Taylor, a friendly but unsophisticated ranch hand who’s looked down upon by the newly-arrived Nora March … Continue reading →

Howard Hughes legacy as a producer may not be as huge as some of the other movie moguls, but he certainly did some very interesting films.  One such film, “The Racket,” made in 1928 and directed by Louis Milestone, contains … Continue reading →

Ernst Lubitsch made a film called “The Loves of Pharaoh” in 1922 in Berlin.  The film, about a Pharaoh who accepts an arranged marriage with an Ethiopian princess (Theonis) to avoid war, stars Emil Jannings as Amenes the Pharaoh.  Even … Continue reading →

“Little Toys,” released in 1933, features the legendary actress Lingyu Ruan as Sister Ye, a talented toymaker in a small village in China.  This Chinese silent movie follows Sister Ye as she designs and makes toys in her family’s workshop. … Continue reading →

Somewhere on the Paramount lot in 1928, Joseph von Sternberg filmed a wonderful silent picture called “The Docks of New York.”  It stars George Bancroft as Bill Roberts, a boat stoker who saves a women attempting to drown herself.  Betty … Continue reading →

In “The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna,” Brigitte Helm plays the title character, a kept woman of a colonel in czarist St. Petersburg.  When Nina spots a handsome lieutenant at a nightclub, she risks her security and affluent life for … Continue reading →

One couldn’t overestimate the importance of “Wings,” a silent movie made in 1927 by Paramount and director William A. Welman.  The massively successful motion picture broke visual barriers in filming aerial combat while successfully telling the story of two pilots … Continue reading →