Freight Train
R: James H. White. K: Frederick Blechynden. P: Thomas A. Edison, Inc. USA 1898
Filmed ca. early to mid-January 1898, in California.
Print: Paper Print Collection (Library of Congress)
“The long train is just coming out of the tunnel. An engine and a header, nineteen freight cars, a caboose and a pusher engine creep slowly round the curve and up the steep grade. Fine smoke effects. Magnificent scenery. 100 feet.
Edison films catalog, no. 94, March 1900, p. 21.
Southern Pacific Company series: The Southern Pacific Company (‘Sunset Route’) offers special inducements to winter travelers, by reason of its southern route, thereby avoiding the extreme cold of the winter months. Its course lies through a section of the country that presents a variety of beautiful and picturesque natural scenery. It is also the direct route to the popular resorts of Southern California, thereby making it a favorable route for tourists.(…)
Edison films catalog, no. 105, July 1901, p. 43.”
Library of Congress
Zhenshchina zavtrashnego dnya
Engl. title: Woman of Tomorrow
R: Pyotr Chardynin. B: Aleksandr Voznesensky. K: Boris Zavelev. D: Vera Yureneva, Ivan Mozzhukhin, M. Morskaya, Praskovya Maksimova, Aleksandr Vyrubov. P: Khanzhonkov. RUS 1914
Print: EYE
Dutch intertitles By courtesy of Robert Fells who improved contrast, brightness, and the esthetic look of the copy in an excellent way.
“A doctor dedicated to her craft discovers her husband had cheated on her. Frankly, this was kind of lit and I really wish we could remaster it, some segments especially the couple walking down the streets of Moscow (? Leningrad? not sure) were particularly beautiful. In a shocking twist compared usually to the time, this feminist piece shows a more independent woman without sacrificing her emotions. Many films with this theme, of the wife being more financially and in life dominant than her husband, portray the wife as cold and unloving. Here, she adores her husband. She loves him, kisses him and hugs him constantly, fully understanding that her work takes her away from him and feeling sorry.”
Letterboxd (Margarita M)
“Vera Yureneva is a celebrated doctor who performs cures impossible to her male colleagues, tends to the famous and powerful, and is engaged to Ivan Mozzhukhin. (…) The credits indicate that in the original Russian version, as directed by Pyotr Chardynin, they are married. This makes a difference, because her busy schedule causes her to be away from her fiance, or perhaps husband, so he goes out in a huff and marries (or makes a mistress of) cafe waitress M. Morskaya. (…) Both sets of triangles are common enough, in reality and fiction, and depending on your beliefs, may or may not make a difference to you. However, it does in the movie, especially Miss Morskaya falls ill with something that only Miss Yureneva can deal with.
Pre-Communist Russian films have largely fallen into desuetude, but this is a fine and advanced film for 1914, with a tryptich shot the year after Lois Weber used one in Suspense. Had Chardynin seen Weber’s film? Hard to say. The thrust of this film is essentially normative, a well-produced bit of tear-jerking. Chardynin would continue to work after the Revolution — often abroad; eventually he would return to the now Soviet Union, where his career would end in 1928 with official disapproval, after directing more than 100 films. He died in 1934, age 61.”
IMDb (boblipton)
“The remarkable discovery here is the great Vera Yureneva (1876-1962) as the doctor who is also an activist for female rights – which was not just a role for Vera Yureneva. The film was written for her.
Nora (Yureneva) is a famous doctor, and her lover is Robert (Mozzhukhin). There are a lot of patients in Nora’s waiting room. There is an authentic quality in these scenes. (…) There is a (…) threeways split screen from a hotel from which Robert asks the concierge to call Nora. Nora is in the image on the left, the concierge and Robert are in the image to the right, and in the middle there is a city view – of Hanzhonkov studios. (…) There is an electrifying shot when Robert arrives and looks are exchanged. There is a further electrifying shot when Robert approaches and the shock starts to sink in. The performances have been rather subdued until now. The conclusion of the film is about Nora’s infinite disappointment, also involving gesticulation of sorrow and agony. It is a moving pantomimic conclusion to the story.
Chardynin’s early cinema storytelling style is assured. Much is in long shots or full shots, often in long takes.”
ANTTI ALANEN: FILM DIARY
Un cuore ferito
R and actors unknown. P: Itala Torino. It 1912
Print: Museo Nazionale del Cinema
Dutch titles
The video is a copy from the film print held by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema and restored by the EYE Filmmuseum.
“Anastasio receives a letter from his girlfriend Cunegonde, who is arriving the next day: if he has no money, she will never be his wife. Anastasio is desperate and decides to commit suicide. But the bad luck pursues him even in this particular moment: any attempt to hang or shooting himself, is always hindered by unforeseen events. Eventually he falls into a fountain, and is fished out half-drowned. At the end, when he opens his eyes, he sees the beloved Cunegonde taking care of him.”
European Film Gateway
Le moïse du moulin
R: Léonce Perret. B: Léonce Perret. D: Léonce Perret, Suzanne Grandais. P: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont. Fr 1911
“Suzanne Grandais (1893-1920) was nicknamed ‘the French Mary Pickford’ because of her angel face. She was one of the most beautiful and sophisticated actresses of the French silent cinema. At the age of 15, Suzanne Grandais already started to play on the stage. After roles at the Lux and Eclair film companies, she was discovered by Louis Feuillade who hired her for Gaumont. In 1911-1913, she made some 45 films for Gaumont, mostly short comedies and drama’s for Gaumont, firstly playing in Feuillade’s series Scènes de la vie telle qu’elle est and afterwards in the Léonce series, with Léonce Perret as partner and director. Some were features such as Perret’s Le Mystère des roches de Kador (1912). Suzanne Grandais switched to the German Dekage company [= Deutsche Kinematographen-Gesellschaft] in 1913-14 for which she did another 18 films, directed by Marcel Robert. After that she founded her own film company with Raoul d’Archy, Les Films Suzanne Grandais. During the war, Grandais also worked at Eclipse. The Eclipse drama Suzanne (1916) was a major international success and turned Grandais into a star. Suzanne Grandais, however, died suddenly in a car crash while making the film L’Essor (Charles Burguet, 1920) in the Alsace.”
flickr
Le mariage de Suzie
R: Léonce Perret. K: Georges Specht. D: Suzanne Grandais, Léonce Perret, René Cresté. P: Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont. Fr 1912
The Trainer’s Daughter
R: J. Searle Dawley, Edwin S. Porter. K: Edwin S. Porter. D: Edward Boulden, Miss DeVarney, William Sorelle, Mr. Sullivan. USA 1907
“This film was co-directed by Edwin S. Porter and J. Searle Dawley, who considered himself as the first motion picture director and would direct more than 180 films between 1907 and 1926. It is an interesting example of the transformation of cinema from simple action to more complex narrative when the cinematographic language was not developed enough to allow the public to understand the story without exogenous elements. The story is the following: Jack, owner of a racehorse, and the daughter of a horse trainer are in love. The trainer would rather have his daughter marry Delmar, the owner of a whole stable. Jack and Delmar enters into a wager concerning the outcome of a race in which they both have horses competing and the trainer’s daughter agrees to marry the winner. Delmar realises that his horse cannot beat Jack’s and he bribes a stable boy to dope Jack’s horse, a plan Jack’s jockey overhears. The jockey attempts to intervene, but Delmar and the stable boy overcome him and hide him in a deserted house. The jockey manages to escape but is not in any condition to ride. The trainer’s daughter convinces Jack to let her take the jockey’s place and she wins the race.
Without intertitles, which Edison did not use at the time, the story is difficult to follow. Given that the film is loosely based on a 1904 play by Theodore Kremer, ‘A Race for Life’, which was well-known at the time, it is possible that some of the audience were familiar enough with the story to understand it. It is also possible that the viewers were given a document summarising the action. (…) I have added a few subtitles which are sufficient to understand and appreciate the film. There are indeed many interesting features in it. The film is almost entirely filmed on location on a racetrack and several panning shots give a good view of the track. The film uses also continuity editing to move action from one place to another and crosscutting to show parallel actions and increase suspense, notably to show how the jockey manages to free himself while Jack and the trainer’s daughter are in the paddock and a bugler calls the horses to the start line. There is also a cut to a subjective camera iris shot when Delmar looks in his binoculars at Jack’s horse on the racetrack. One weakness of the film is that all shots are long shots or very long shots, which does not make it possible to have a good view of the facial expressions of the actor. The last shot is missing and the still photograph replacing it seems to indicate that it was a medium shot. The result of the race is also not clearly shown. It is only when the horses return to the paddock that we see the trainer’s daughter raising her arms in a sign of victory.”
A Cinema History
“J. Searle Dawley isn’t a film or Hollywood giant. Directing films for Edison beginning in 1907, Dawley would eventually go out west and make films for Paramount and its predecessor company Famous Players Film Company. The third of three major collaborators director Edwin S. Porter would work with, Dawley somewhat inherited his ‘mentor’s’ straight forward, chameleon style, although he would take it further into the silent era. Nevertheless, Dawley made his last film in 1926. But he left behind a legacy of adaptations. This was not a novel concept even in the earliest days of cinema. But Dawley’s innovation was transposing themes and conjuring visuals inspired by the source material, giving rise to the Hollywood method of telling previously told fictional, and indeed, even ‘true’ stories.” Tristan Ettleman
Medium
THE EARLY SILENT ERA 1895-1915