"Basinger's fascinating, evocative and at times provocatively revisionist 'Silent Stars' measures the distance between celebrity and fame, and restores key early movie idols to their proper depth of field . . . She has hunted down and screened hundreds of extant silent movie prints . . . This buttresses her critical insights, allowing her to report in meticulous and convincing detail how each star's films present more sides and talents than we were aware of." -- New York Times Book Review

"No tell-all, this book recreates the excitement the actors provoked while illustrating the nature of their appeal . . . Learned and wholehearted, the book is classic Basinger fare: effortless history that . . . establishes its necessity . . . [an] excellent tribute to the silent film era." -- Publishers Weekly

JEANINE BASINGER is Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Curator of Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University. Her many books on film include A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930 - 1960 (1995), American Cinema (1994), The "It's a Wonderful Life" Book (1990), and The World War II Combat Film (1986).

Silent Stars

Wesleyan University Press

Excerpt

The purpose of this book is to celebrate a group of silent film stars who are somehowforgotten, misunderstood, or underappreciated. They are all important stars, notminor figures ? actors and actresses who made a major impact in their own time. Iwanted to watch their movies and consider what was significant about them then andwhat they seem like now. My primary interest lay in sharing the experience of viewingtheir work, since their movies are mostly not readily available to audiences today.Although I wanted to present an overview of each star's life and career, I didn'tplan to write detailed biographies. And in no way would I be writing a history ofsilent cinema.

The stars I selected are not a representative group, and someone else might have madea somewhat different list. (When I told a friend I was embarking on this book, heimmediately said, "You absolutely have to do Harry Carey." Well, I didn't do HarryCarey, even though I think he's first-rate. No doubt my friend will be disappointed.)My choices were not whimsical, but they were personal. I began by consideringeveryone, including names I had barely heard of, and names I knew, but had limitedexperience with. For instance, anyone with a nodding acquaintance of silent film hasseen Constance Talmadge as the Mountain Girl in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance,but who knows her as the title character in The Duchess of Buffalo orVenus of Venice? And there were so many stars then! Soon I had lists of thewell-known, the lesser-known, the unknown, and the known-then-but-not-now ? manynames, many faces. As it turned out, the greatest stars were by far the mostinteresting, and many of them were very different from what I had expected. I hadassumed that the really big names would not fit into the categories of "forgotten,misunderstood, or underappreciated," but to my surprise, many of them did qualify.Even though they still have loyal fans, or excellent books written about them, orrevivals and tributes mounted, or have written their autobiographies, there was verylittle detail available about their actual films, particularly the more obscure ones.The more movies I watched, the more I kept coming back to the actors I liked best,those who piqued my curiosity or made me laugh or captured my heart. In the end, Ifollowed my moviegoer's instincts, and chose the ones I wanted to know more about.Thus, my final choices were influenced by pleasure, by surprise and delight, and by anew awareness of how these stars defined their times. I was, of course, indirectlyinfluenced by the availability of titles to watch, since I wanted to see as manymovies starring the same person as possible. Marguerite Clark sounded intriguing andlooked very pretty in still photographs and, for a while, reviews called her "a rivalto Pickford." But since apparently the only one of her films to survive is 1916'sSnow White, she had to go.

My first two choices were Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. Obviously, they arenot forgotten, but most people have an oversimplified idea of them, so that despitetheir continuing fame, they really are underappreciated. In addition they representthe birth of superstar celebrity; their success, their talent, and their marriage toeach other made them the first King and Queen of Hollywood, and they have never beensuperseded. Next I chose Valentino. He, too, isn't forgotten, but he is badlymisunderstood, locked into an effeminate image that is only one aspect of his personaand that ignores his considerable charm and humor. A similar misunderstanding plaguesGloria Swanson, who has become Norma Desmond, her comedy skills and decidedlyundemented grasp of reality totally unknown, and Pola Negri, a superb actress who isremembered now ? if remembered at all ? as something of a nut who walked aroundwith two Russian wolfhounds and flung herself on Valentino's grave. Colleen Moore wasonce the definitive 1920s flapper, the essential emblem of her decade, but she hasnever been given her rightful place in film history. The underappreciated MarionDavies and Clara Bow suffer from misunderstandings: for Davies, that she had notalent and that her career was manufactured by her wealthy lover, and for Bow, thathers consisted mainly of sex scandals. John Gilbert is a slave to his legend, that ofthe prototypical silent actor ruined by the coming of sound, while Lon Chaney isstill admired, but his marvelous roster of unique characters has been reduced to twomajor roles, the phantom of the opera and the hunchback of Notre Dame. William S.Hart and Tom Mix are "cowboys," which inevitably means underappreciated, and MabelNormand and the Keystone Kops, surreal comedy artists, are lumped together as part ofMack Sennett's slapstick. As to the Talmadge sisters, Norma and Constance, onceenvied and worshipped by their fans ? well, they are just forgotten. And finallythere's Rin-Tin-Tin. He's become a minor-league Lassie instead of themortgage-lifting canine star he really was.

Eliminating names was sometimes easy, sometimes difficult. Earle Williams and ElliottDexter were popular leading men in the years 1910-19. Both were handsome. Both weregood actors. Both appeared in major films opposite important female stars. But whatreason was there to include them? I couldn't find one. It wasn't hard to give upCarol Dempster, a Griffith favorite, or Charles Ray, a celebrated "country boy," butit was hard not to grieve over a beauty like Dolores Del Rio, or Theda Bara, theoriginal movie vamp, or Pearl White, the intrepid serial queen, or the darklyhandsome Richard Barthelmess, or the deliciously hilarious comic Raymond Griffith. Itwas especially difficult to give up such important names as Wallace Reid and BlancheSweet.

Wallace Reid was a particularly good-looking man who died unexpectedly of drugaddiction at a young age and at the top of his fame. He was the supreme example ofthe "all-American" or "Arrow Collar ad" type. On-screen, he exuded self-confidenceand cheerful good health, and his charm and acting ability were such that he carriedhis movies, most of which were slight vehicles designed to showcase his stardom. Hewas one of the most successful of the popular leading men of the teens and earlytwenties, who were expected to be strong physically, exceptionally handsome,youthful, and excellent actors in the theatrical tradition. Reid fit the bill, but hewas almost too perfect, with no particular quirks or individual characteristics.Unlike Fairbanks and Valentino, he is generic ? only a type. There was nopressing need to write about him.

Blanche Sweet was a major figure, a top star in the first two decades of filmhistory, being especially important in the early days of 1910 to 1914. She was a fineactress, emoting from deep inside herself, predating modern acting techniques byspeaking directly to her audience through the camera. She was unique, quite unlikethe girlish little heroines of her day, and Adela Rogers St. Johns said she had "apersonality so stimulating, so intriguing, so full of interesting vibration . . .[that] she'd certainly never, never bore you." Sweet's role in such landmark moviesas The Lonedale Operator, Judith of Bethulia, and the 1923 version ofAnna Christie ensure her place in film history. But even though she was animportant pioneering actress, her career was marred by inexplicable absences from thescreen. Film historian Anthony Slide concluded that "she did not handle herprofessional life successfully," although she was "capable of fine and subtleemotional performances." And because she was so talented, she was less the movie starand more the actress, and didn't develop one distinct persona to analyze. (Her workwas remarkably varied over the years.)

It was difficult deciding not to include Sweet and Reid and some of the others ?Betty Bronson, Mae Marsh, Thomas Meighan, Ben Turpin, Mae Murray, Dorothy Gish. Itwasn't difficult eliminating such giants as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, HaroldLloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, and even Louise Brooks, a minorfigure in her own time. They have defied the odds against silent film stars and areall still "alive" today. Furthermore, their films have been extensively analyzed.Although I love every one of them, they didn't seem to be in need of reexamination.

As I sifted through the names and watched the movies, I became increasingly aware ofthe incredible influence silent stars had on their audiences. This was especiallytrue of the people I finally did choose, the Valentinos and Pickfords and Swansons.The fame they achieved was dizzying, a level of adulation that simply had not existedbefore movies were invented. And it all happened so fast! (And ended so swiftly. Fromthe time the fan magazines first began promoting movie stars in 1911 to the end ofthe silent era in 1927 was only sixteen years.) Of course there had been stars beforethe movies were born ? in theatre, opera, ballet, burlesque, sports, and vaudeville-- but there had never been a stardom like theirs. Their fans felt they knew them,understood them, owned them. Their audience believed in them. These stars appeared inclose-up on gigantic screens, and their movies were distributed to their audiences,into every small town; they came often, and stayed long; and they could be watchedover and over again, performing the same role in exactly the same way, never flubbinga line, never changing, never failing. They offered intimacy, a secret and intenserelationship that was one-on-one in the comfort of a cozy darkness. Because titlecards could easily be translated into other languages, their stardom wasinternational, knowing no boundaries of politics or culture. And it wasn't snobbish,because anyone could afford a ticket.

Silent stars bonded with their audiences. Between them and the men and women in theseats was a strong connection forged in a quiet world of dreams and imagination.Sometimes they played ordinary people like their fans and sometimes they playedfantasy figures who were rich and royal; but always they connected. And as the fanmagazines promoted them, the myth was born that they were special, yes, but also justlike the audience. The implication was clear: You, too, could be a star. With noeducation, no experience, not much brains and a minimum of talent, you yourself mightleave the gas station, the ten-cent store, the barber shop, or the manicure table andbecome a tremendous success. Like your heroes, you could become class ? orpseudoclass ? because if you acquired money and status by just being yourselfon-screen, in America that meant you were royalty. (As Elizabeth Taylor summed it updecades later, "There's no deodorant like success.")

None of that notion of democracy was true. Stars were unique, not ordinary, and theyworked hard for their success and even harder to maintain it. But for the first time,everyone seemed to have easy access to stardom: you could see it on the screen, anddream of its possibility in your own life. Silent film stars were doubly powerful,both as objects of desire and as role models.

The first star (although it's dangerous to use the word "first" in film history) isreputed to have been the softly beautiful Florence Lawrence, who emerged around 1908.When Lawrence first appeared in movies for Biograph, she wasn't identified by name,and when audiences started asking exhibitors, "Who is that girl?," Biographwas unwilling to answer ? their policy was not to allow players to become known,since billing identity might give actors bargaining power in salary negotiations. Thepublic was not deterred, however; they merely called Lawrence the "Biograph girl,"bestowing on her a popularity that catapulted her into stardom and soon enough intooblivion. (Lawrence represents movie stardom in all its horror. In 1938, shecommitted suicide by eating ant paste.) When Lawrence left Biograph in 1909, MaryPickford was just making her film debut. The fickle public fell even more in lovewith her, and soon she became the "Biograph girl," and then "America'sSweetheart, Mary Pickford," the person who deserves the official title of "first realstar" in motion picture history.

In the beginning, the public found its own favorites and singled them out as they hadLawrence and Pickford. Once businessmen discovered that popular players withrecognized names helped to sell tickets, they changed their policy about allowingbilling for actors. Soon, with the help of fan magazines, they began activelypromoting ? and creating ? movie stars.

These magazines understood their purpose, and didn't shrink from it. Their excessesof prose and attitude are often both hilarious and inexplicable. Consider, forinstance, an article on an alleged invention of Gloria Swanson's, the "Stop-Go Hat."Underneath a photograph of Swanson wearing her creation is a caption that identifiesit as "a very useful, in fact, indispensable article for motoring." A fur structureatop the hat conceals a periscope that enables a driver to see where "he" is goingand where "he's" been: "For night driving, the periscope is equipped with a red andgreen light making the driver practically [his] own traffic cop."

Writers automatically employed flowery descriptions, as in a full-page layout fromMotion Picture of October 1918, in which famous actresses are described inpoetic terms. Lillian Gish is "a potted lily in a lonesome window" . . . NormaTalmadge is "scarlet poppies in a white field, sable and ermine, a studio tea inGreenwich Village" . . . her sister Constance, on the other hand, is "April showers,a college campus, a ride in the rain, a kiss in the dark" . . . and Mary Pickford is"every little girl's dream, white kid gloves and white tulle, a playground andchildren's laughter." This gushing tone is not the whole story, however; themagazines could be acerbic. A piece appears in the very next issue of the samemagazine which "explains" to movie fans what the advertising they see for filmsreally means: "A thrilling spectacle is 50 horsemen riding around in and outof the picture; a masterpiece is a picture that cost more than expected; and acrowning achievement of the screen is something in which the author is starred."

Most of these magazines promoted stars through superbly photographed, full-pageportraits suitable for cutting out and framing. They held popularity contests andendless discussions of who was the handsomest, who the prettiest ? and there weremany candidates, because these early stars were the most beautiful people of theirtime. The faces of silent film stars, particularly the actresses, are not the facesone sees on-screen today, nor are they the faces of women like Garbo, Dietrich, andCrawford (who all started in silents, but who were not typical of the era). Thesilent stars look rounder. Their faces aren't shadowed or hawkish, with razor-sharpcheekbones, but romantic and soft, with apparently no bones at all. (Detractorssometimes call this look a "pudding face.")

To say that "they had faces" is true, but that's only the beginning. They hadradiance, and projected a kind of magnificent emotionalism that today's more ironictimes can't sustain, much less inspire. In their world of silence, these actors andactresses use their complete bodies in performance, treating the self as a singleexpressive unit. Every big star in those years has enormous physical control, whetherit's Colleen Moore trying to keep her balance on a whirling fashion dais, GloriaSwanson flouncing past a lineup of mocking soldiers, or Rudolph Valentino holding hispartner tight for a sudden moment of hesitation in the tango. They were not afraid oftheir bodies. Clara Bow constantly hugged herself. Douglas Fairbanks leapt off abuilding in a suit and sensible shoes (or slid down a ship's sail in a pirate'scostume). Lon Chaney twisted himself into legless creatures and crippled hunchbacks.They boldly used their arms to express emotion ? raising them dramatically andreaching out their hands, things no actor today would do under any circumstances.Each star had a distinctive body and put it to use in developing a character which inturn developed into a persona that the audience fell in love with and wanted to be inthe presence of as often as possible.

Sometimes, watching these gorgeous people, I had the sense that I was kneeling downand peeping through a knothole, spying on another world, a perfect world full ofbeautiful little people. They are all so small! The women are often barely five feettall, and the men are short, compact, and well proportioned. (Where do these teenypeople come from, and where are such people today?) The women hop about on feet thatlook as if they might have been bound at birth. They're like today's gymnasts,without real breasts or hips or shoulders, but with large heads and enormous massesof hair. The men have small hands and feet and make perfect matches for the littlewomen they are wooing. When a genuinely substantial woman ? a Greta Garbo ? or areally tall man ? a Gary Cooper ? enters the frame of silent film, it's startling.

Most of the silent stars play representational types: the all-American, the LatinLover, the stalwart hero, the country rube for the men; the vamp, the city siren, theunhappy wife, the small-town sweetheart for the women. The male stars made theirheroes energetic, optimistic, and quintessentially American on the one hand, or, asin the case of Valentino, exotic, sensual, and inherently foreign. The various typesof women add up to reflect the emergence of the modern woman. There is somethingtouching about the covert desire for liberation their characters collectivelyrepresent. Often, the stars are grown women pretending to be little girls, denyingtheir female bodies and thus rejecting their roles as wives and mothers in somehidden, visually nuanced way. These girls are called "hoydens" or "tomboys," and thedesire to escape the traditional female self is obvious. In the teens, women likePickford and Mabel Normand, two very different stars, both play tomboys who dophysical comedy and who trick the world into giving them what they want. They controlother people and their environment with their cleverness, and they spend more thanhalf of every movie uninvolved in a romantic tangle or a sexual situation. Althoughthe later flapper type would be sexualized by Clara Bow, the original flapper was, asColleen Moore once described herself, "sexy, sexless" ? both liberated andold-fashioned. There's a single image that provides a crystalizing glimpse of the1920s modern girl in transition. As Broken Chains (1922) opens, ClaireWindsor (playing second lead to Colleen Moore and wearing a huge hat with feathers)is driving her roadster at top speed and busily planning her "radiophone" dance forthe coming evening's entertainment. She's "new" ? driving a powerful machine at highspeed ? and "old" ? she's got feathers on her head and her "work" is merely social.

Different types of male stars all have the same goal: success. They're going to makeit somehow, against all odds. The only variance has to do with how the success isdefined. It can be getting rich, winning the game, marrying the beautiful girl,stopping the villains, inventing the cure for a mysterious disease, finding thetreasure, or perhaps just figuring himself out, finding a value system that will workbest for his character and its world. For the men, it's an open world, with unlimitedopportunity for good or evil, romance or seduction, but always with the challenge tosucceed.

The fictionalized world these stars inhabit is never silent in the viewer's mind,even today when there's often no musical accompaniment. Sound is never missed,because silent films are about emotion and action ? two things that don't requireit. The absence of sound becomes irrelevant as viewers read titles aloud inside theirheads and "hear" everything that is happening. In fact, the representation of soundis often embedded in both titles and story action. Shouts are presented in BIGLETTERS on a title card and simulated by such things as Norma Talmadge shaking a coalscuttle in Kiki (1926), while Ronald Colman is trying to talk on thetelephone. (He covers his ears.)

Title cards provide an ongoing conversation with the viewer. When well done, they'refolded into the story, never interrupting it needlessly, never breaking the mood, andnever providing unnecessary information. (A bad film will often have too many titles,most of which supply only dialogue.) In a good film, titles are used for historicalbackground, exposition, commentary, mood and atmosphere, irony, moralizing, dialogue,and touches of wit. The brilliant pacing of many silent films is helped by titlecards that cover narrative developments which, if visualized, would slow down theaction.

When you enter the world that silent stars inhabit and bring to life, you enter astrange and private place, a world of reinvention and sudden redemption. It's notoutdated ? there are too many modern concepts and too much that's surprising andfresh ? but it's not our world, either. It's an Ur-world, full of strong emotion,and you seem to be constantly sharing lives in secret ways, looking on at secretmoments, watching scenes of deeply felt and hyper-expressive revelation. More thanany other type of film, silent film is voyeuristic. If porn had a purecounterpart, it would be silent film. The secret watching, the silent sharing ? thesense that we're intruding in emotional space that has no easy words to explainitself, no noise to distract us from our feelings. It's a world of beautiful lovers,friendly old parents (much better than your own), and exciting monsters to stir youup and get you going. Safe monsters, however, along with safe floods, safe loveaffairs, safe dangers, safe sex ? anything and everything in its purest possibleform, one that gives you all you want but robs you of nothing. It's a world ofadventure and romance, and it takes you to exotic times and places: RevolutionaryRussia, Napoleonic France, jungles, the days of knights and ladies, imaginarykingdoms, and of course, the wonderful world of wealth. You enter a magnificentmansion where there are fresh grapes in silver bowls, lace tablecloths, crystalglasses, velvet draperies, all kinds of things. The high-class woman of thehouse dresses in a fur-trimmed cape with no buttons or sleeves, the ultimate in theirresponsible garb of the very wealthy, something she can toss lightly over her dressand hold together with her own delicate yet superbly manicured hands. She isn't goingto need those hands for anything practical such as driving a car or carrying a purse;she has people to do that for her. And she isn't going to have to worry about badweather, either ? she's going to be untouched by the elements, riding in cabs,carriages, limousines, the conveyances of wealth and position. Again and again inthese movies, exquisite women in silk shoes clutch their wraps around them and moveeffortlessly through time, living in a world where the snow is never cold, their feetnever get wet, and pneumonia strikes only when needed for plot development.

In contrast to the mansion with the grapes, there's a bucolic landscape that isunrecognizable today ? a world of quiet dignity. Scenes could easily be shot on reallocations since there was no need to worry about chirping birds, honking motorcars,or airplanes overhead ruining the take. This world offers real information, an honestglimpse into dreams of the past. A heroine stands in the farmyard while a gentle windruffles the apple trees and blossoms drop around her feet. The rural world of theteens and twenties is a sunny fantasy, something beautiful, innocent, and lost. "Sixspring broilers" at the Busy Pie Café would cost you $5, and a piece of homemade pie,a nickel. (Wine, however, would be $49.) Characters are freely using "arnica" (whichhas not been seen in American homes in at least four decades) and clothes are made of"linsey-woolsey." A biscuit is a "clinker," a bad dancer a "corn shredder," ahalf-smoked cigarette a "dincher." Sometimes you haven't a clue to what's going on.When a villain gets out of prison and discovers his shoes squeak, he goes immediatelyto the waterfront and dips his feet. This means something ? but what?

It's a world where railroad tracks run alongside every back road, and railroadhandcars are free and available for stealing to use in a freewheeling chase. Thesechases can be serious, with a heroine needing rescue; or comic, with an eloping groomfrantically chasing the speeding train that carries his would-be bride; or western,where the outlaws are creeping up on the train they're going to rob. The handcar isan all-purpose story element recognized by everyone, and none of us today has so muchas seen one, much less commandeered one to solve a problem.

It's a world full of strange rituals and a great deal of attitude, and the films thatillustrate it best are probably the wacky silent film comedies. Anything that canpossibly go wrong absolutely does, and there's always a gun somewhere: in a pocket, apurse, or a drawer. When "Help! Help! Police!" rings out (on a title card), thosereliable troopers always arrive promptly. They arrive, but they don't help much.People fall down, jump, scream, run, and bump into things, but just when all settlesdown, fresh disasters strike, from new and unexpected sources. All the women areindignant and the men don't know what to do about it. They just try to be stoic, andwithstand assault. Everyone is concerned with money. There are rich people, and thereare poor people, and there's a big gap between the two. However, lines can becrossed, because the poor victimize the rich with real dedication and trueimagination and resource. This doesn't mean that silent film comedy ? or silent filmin general ? suggests that there is no evil in the world, no poverty, nocatastrophe. But it suggests that individuals can triumph and bad things can beovercome with enough enthusiasm, hard work, optimism, and decency. To look at thesefilms today is to learn about the optimism of Americans. It's not just that peopleare so ingenious at solving problems, but that there are so many problems to besolved. While characters lie asleep in their beds at night, burglars are breaking indownstairs. If they stand under a drainpipe, it will break and they will be drenched.If they take to the floor in a rented tuxedo to tango, trouser seams will give way.All the machinery they try to operate will backfire, break down, or run away withthem. Opportunity knocks, but on their heads as well as their doors. On the otherhand, they have a chance to move forward and accomplish something, even while waginga constant battle against disaster. Their glass is both half empty and half full.They teeter between profit and loss, winning and losing, loving and hating. It's awild and unpredictable place full of crooks and con artists, suckers and rubes.Anything can happen. It does. They survive. And that's America.

Watching silent films from the teens and twenties, one observes a society undergoingrupture. At first, the films reflect an attempt to hold on to innocence. The womenare childlike, the men impossibly heroic. Many of the stories concern children, andsex is always a cautionary tale. D. W. Griffith's is the dominant sensibility, withits roots in agrarian society and the melodramatic theatrical tradition. By the endof 1919, after World War I has given the nineteenth century the coup de grace, thetwentieth century cracks open. The tempo changes from the waltz to the Charleston,and the energy, pace, and rhythm of silent films begin to produce unexpected riffs,shifts in tone, and wildly improvisational scenes. The silent film becomes visualjazz. Women cut their hair, shorten their skirts, and become aggressive. Men startswanning around in impeccable evening clothes or exotic Arabian garb. Both women andmen are looking for sexual satisfaction or, rather, sexual stimulation. The ruralworld of sun-dappled forests, flowing rivers, and lazy farms with clucking chickensfades away to be replaced by art deco apartments, limos, and roadhouses selling"hooch." Stars become more casual, and the acting style shifts from one ofdeclamation, broad gesture, and overt emotion to a loose naturalism that will leaddirectly to the sound era. The fantasies of the audience change from grand dreams ofa generic quality ? settling the frontier, owning their own land, escapingoppression ? to specific dreams fueled by the movies themselves: wealth, socialposition, passion, clothes, furniture, glamour, exotica, and, of course, sex.

The twenties became a movie-dominated decade, and the silent stars its beautiful,representative citizens. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "It was an age of miracles, itwas an age of art, it was an age of excess, it was an age of satire." It's theperfect introduction to silent film and the world of stars who did not speak.

Continues...
Excerpted from Silent Starsby Jeanine Basinger Copyright © 2000 by Jeanine Basinger. Excerpted by permission.
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