But the idea was more academic than reflecting any passion of mine for silent movies. The thought of spending months writing essays about silent movies before I got to the movies I really loved, movies like Duck Soup and The Thin Man, struck me as nuts. So as you may recall, what I wound up doing was handing out four career achievement awards for the pre-Oscar Silent Era: The General (best picture), Charles Chaplin (best actor), Lillian Gish (best actress) and D.W. Griffith (best director).Then something unexpected happened: I fell in love with silent movies. I discovered I like watching them, become absorbed in them, the good ones that is, the ones that figured out to tell stories without words, movies by Keaton and Murnau and Chaplin, with stars such as Fairbanks and Chaney and Garbo. And now I think I have a handle on what those pre-Oscar Katies would be.
Don't worry, though. I'm not going back and writing essays about all these winners. I'm not delaying my arrival at the sound era by another day. But I do hate to let all that hard work go to waste.
Even so, this expanded list only goes back as far as 1919. In truth, my first-hand know- ledge of movies made before that date is pretty much limited to a couple of D.W. Griffith movies (The Birth Of A Nation and Intolerance), a handful of Mary Pickford classics and a bunch of Charlie Chaplin shorts. Griffith may have invented the language of cinema with an impressive if controversial run from 1915 to 1921, but to my mind, movies didn't really take off as both a modern art form and as a fun, visceral experience until the German Expressionists Robert Weine and F.W. Murnau came along.If you're interested, this is my rough draft of Katie winners for the years 1919 through July 31, 1927, but I'm warning you that until you've dipped heavily into the list of twenty silent movies I gave you a while back and convinced yourself that silent movies are your cup o' joe, I wouldn't go wading into this at random:
1919
Picture: Broken Blossoms (prod. D.W. Griffith)
Actor: Richard Barthelmess (Broken Blossoms)
Actress: Gloria Swanson (Male and Female)
Director: D.W. Griffith (Broken Blossoms)
1920
Picture: The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (prod. Rudolf Meinert and Erich Pommer)
Actor: Douglas Fairbanks (The Mark Of Zorro)
Actress: Lillian Gish (Way Down East)
Director: Robert Weine (The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari)
1921Picture: The Kid (prod. Charles Chaplin)
Actor: Charles Chaplin (The Kid)
Actress: Dorothy Gish (Orphans Of The Storm)
Director: Charles Chaplin (The Kid)
1922
Picture: Nosferatu (prod. Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau)
Actor: Erich von Stroheim (Foolish Wives)
Actress: Anna May Wong (The Toll Of The Sea)
Director: F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu)
1923
Picture: Safety Last! (prod. Hal Roach)
Actor: Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!)
Actress: Edna Purviance (A Woman Of Paris)
Director: Buster Keaton and John G. Blystone (Our Hospitality)
1924
Picture: The Thief Of Bagdad (prod. Douglas Fairbanks)
Actor: Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh)
Actress: Zasu Pitts (Greed)
Director: Raoul Walsh (The Thief Of Bagdad)
1925
Picture: The Big Parade (prod. King Vidor)
Actor: Lon Chaney (The Phantom Of The Opera)
Actress: Irene Rich (Lady Windermere's Fan)
Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin)
1926Picture: Faust (prod. Erich Pommer)
Actor: John Gilbert (Flesh And The Devil)
Actress: Greta Garbo (Flesh And The Devil)
Director: F.W. Murnau (Faust)
1927 (January 1 - July 31, 1927)
Picture: The General (prod. Joseph M. Schenck and Buster Keaton)
Actor: Buster Keaton (The General)
Actress: Brigitte Helm (Metropolis)
Director: Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman (The General)
Subject to revision and the threat that someday I'll write bushel baskets full of essays about the winners, you may consider these to be official Katie Awards. Which should please faithful reader Douglas Fairbanks no end.
Katie-Bar-The-Door and I are expecting an invitation to Pickfair for the after-ceremony party.
Note: For those with an interest in such things, I included a producer credit for each of the best picture winners. Some interesting names on there, including the heretofore unmentioned Hal Roach, who produced some of the greatest comedy acts of all time—Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, and Will Rogers, among others. He was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1992 and lived to be 100.One name shows up twice, Erich Pommer, maybe the most important producer in the influential German film industry during the 1920s and early 1930s. He fled Germany when Hitler came to power and ended up working in an American porcelain factory during World War II. Pommer eventually became a U.S. citizen, returned to making movies after the war and died in 1966.
By the way, if you're keeping score, William Fox produced Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans, the Katie winner for 1927-28. As for the best picture winner of 1928-29, The Passion of Joan of Arc, all I have is the name of a company, Société générale des films. Maybe the board of directors can come down and pick up the award.
one.
ReplyDeletelousy.
katie
[i'm so steamed, you don't know]
don't give me any "producer" crap, either.
ReplyDeleteswashbuckle this
I take it Sally Field wasn't available to write your acceptance speech ...
ReplyDeleteI just don't understand, after all that I did for movies, and for monkeys, why I still don't earn the respect I so richly deserve.
ReplyDeleteAm I not responsible for technicolor in popular movies? [I was in the first!] Did I not bring you Robin Hood? UA ?
WHile constrained by the conventions of silent film, I brought and athleticism and naturalism that foreshadowed moviemaking for the bulk [that's buck-uhl] of the medium's history. I was asked to mug, but I brought so much more.
Sally Field can fly her nun right up my crotch.
I was the King of Hollywood, and you know it.
monkey my ass
Dear Doug,
ReplyDeleteWe watched "The Thief of Bagdad" this weekend and you are a gorgeous hunk o' man. You're right, the Monkey is wrong, you deserved something for that performance. "Best Acting While Not Wearing a Shirt" maybe? I did kind of wonder why the Thief didn't steal himself a shirt while he was stealing everything else.
Seriously the movie was lyrical, the movements so fluid that the Monkey compared it to a ballet. We both really enjoyed your performance.
Yours truly,
Katie
I have to tell you, the difference between watching "The Thief of Bagdad" on YouTube and watching it on a big screen television is like the difference between, well, watching it on YouTube and watching it on a big screen television.
ReplyDeleteA great movie, highly recommended.
NOW you say something nice.
ReplyDeleteAfter the awards.
It's people like you that brought down this country.
My father left behind a family, and a law practice, in search of cooze.
I, on the other hand, married Mary pickford.
I bested my father.
And then I bested my son.
And for this I get "highly recommended."
I am just not believing the kinda luck I'm having
Well, see, this is the problem with not writing explanatory essays with each winner -- I would have pointed out as I wrote about Douglas Fairbanks and "The Mark of Zorro" that the movie essentially invented both the modern action movie and the superhero. Fairbanks was the model for Superman's physique and nearly all of Batman -- the costume, the secret hideout, the rich playboy alter ego. And many of the conventions of the modern action movie were established right off the bat and then refined by Fairbanks throughout the decade.
ReplyDeleteAs for The Thief of Bagdad, it would be my choice for the best example of its genre, the fantasy movie, until The Wizard Of Oz fifteen years later.
And I would have written about Douglas Fairbanks role at United Artists and how he and Mary Pickford were the biggest stars of their era, with 300,000 people showing up to see them when they arrived in Paris on their honeymoon in 1920 ...
It's a pity Katie-Bar-the-Door didn't say "four months" instead of "three" when Mister Muleboy asked what the over-under was for getting to the sound era. Who would have thought there would be a lobby for this blog to become even more long-winded than it already is?
I'll also note that when the blog gets to 1936, I've been kicking around the idea of creating a Hall of Fame (to coincide with the first votes for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936). Maybe limiting entrance to anyone who had begun their career at least twenty years before (ala the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame). You've got to figure the initial wave of inductees will include the co-founders of United Artists ...
Like if I get a huge outpouring of sentiment that I delay entry into the Early Sound Era before I post my next blog entry today about the Early Sound Era, then I'll spend a couple of weeks writing about all the winners from 1919-1927.
ReplyDeleteA huge outpouring of like, say, three people not named Douglas Fairbanks ...
What say ye, Bellotoot, Who Am Us, Katie, lupner, Uncle Tom, etc?
Well I was going to say "On to the sound era", but actually I'm finding the essays about the silent movies really interesting. I'd be happy either way.
ReplyDeleteCan somebody be banned from the Hall of Fame if they bet on the movies? Will there be Ritz Brothers trivia as well as Marx Brothers trivia? Will this be a better world because the parents have to eat the spinach? As you see, I'm not good at waiting ...
ReplyDeleteThe quicker we can get to "Weekend at Bernies II" the happier I'll be but since I don't actually contribute anything other than mindless dribble posing as commentary, I say let the Monkey pull the lever and see if he gets a shock or a food pellet.
ReplyDeleteThat's not really helping is it? I'm just excited to get to the "word verification" portion of this so I can see what dandy the gods of "word verifying" have come up with today! Ah, its "palizes" today.
I had initially planned to post about the Sound Era today, coast with some photos of Early Sound Era stars (Cagney, Harlow, Robinson, etc.) while I'm waiting for a DVD of Howard Hughes's Hell's Angels to show up, and then announce the Nominees for 1929-30 on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteBut I see a compromise shaping up -- I'll post on the Sound Era today, backfill all week with short essays about various 1919-1927 winners and announce the nominees on Saturday anyway. How's that?
You'll get your photo of Joan Blondell in a bathtub only a week or so late ...
How's that?
its paliz-o-rific!
ReplyDeleteAlright, f^ckf^ces, let's get down to bidness.
ReplyDeleteand by bidness I mean industry.
I am just as keen as anyone else to get you to write about the silent era; you can correct some strikingly obvious oversights.
Strikingly.
Obvious.
But I also see that you post this:
with some photos of Early Sound Era stars (Cagney, Harlow, Robinson, etc.)
How, exactly, can I vote for more verbiage on . . . well, me . . . or ANYTHING when the alternative is "photos of . . . Harlow" and such?
I assume that we're talking about Missori's second-finest product ever, the unsurpassed Jean Harlow. . . .
Hubba Hubba!
[you're gonna do what you're gonna do -- I appreciate that no one here is making it any easier.
Oh, btw, let me add this:
Douglas Fairbanks and "The Mark of Zorro" [ * * * ] essentially invented both the modern action movie and the superhero. Fairbanks was the model for Superman's physique and nearly all of Batman -- the costume, the secret hideout, the rich playboy alter ego. And many of the conventions of the modern action movie were established right off the bat and then refined by Fairbanks throughout the decade.
As for The Thief of Bagdad, it would be my choice for the best example of its genre, the fantasy movie, until The Wizard Of Oz fifteen years later.
And I would have written about Douglas Fairbanks role at United Artists and how he and Mary Pickford were the biggest stars of their era, with 300,000 people showing up to see them when they arrived in Paris on their honeymoon in 1920 ...
See, if you'd just gotten this in the original reviews. . . .
my word verification is
pigmeake
Will someone please pull the plug on "Fairbanks"?
ReplyDeleteYou've got a good point about the Missouri Bombshell.
ReplyDeleteNothing says I can't post twice a day, with photos in the morning and essays in the afternoon ...
Oh, and welcome Senator Thompson. You probably don't remember but I interviewed with you for a job in your law firm, oh, twenty-plus years ago. Thank God you hired somebody else -- I would have been stuck doing criminal defense work in Nashville all these years instead of globe-trotting with Katie-Bar-The-Door.
Sometimes failure is the biggest success you can have.
Fred Thompson: Nashville's Finest!
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeletethe endless quest to top himself -- douglas fairbanks
ReplyDeletethe endless quest to top himself -- douglas fairbanks
ReplyDeleteI thought that was Mary's job.