Showing posts with label Ossi Oswalda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ossi Oswalda. Show all posts

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Funny Ladies Of The Silent Era: A Baker's Dozen

My purely idiosyncratic list designed to promote the Funny Lady Blogathon now up and running at Movies, Silently. "A baker's dozen" implies pies will be thrown and some of these funny ladies, particularly Mabel Normand, threw a mean one. Things might get messy so dress appropriately—you've been forewarned.

13. Daphne Pollard—standing 4' 9", this diminutive comedienne was a star in Mack Sennett's stable in the mid-1920s.

12. Bebe Daniels—co-starred in the early Harold Lloyd shorts then jumped to Cecil B. DeMille's sex comedies.

11. Jobyna Ralston—the "girl" in most of Harold Lloyd's latter-day features, including Girl Shy, The Freshman and The Kid Brother

10. Constance Talmadge—remembered now for her turn as the "Mountain Girl" in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, in her day she was beloved for her comedy.

9. Edna Purviance—made more movies with Charlie Chaplin than any other actress.

8. Ossi Oswalda—maybe the least known to American audiences, she was Ernst Lubitsch's go-to girl before he moved to Hollywood.

7. Colleen Moore—this fresh-faced girl-next-door had a knack for finding trouble.

6. Gloria Swanson—long before Norma Desmond, she was playing second fiddle to superstar Teddy the dog for Mack Sennett then graduated to DeMille's groundbreaking sex comedies.

5. Marion Davies—Orson Welles owes somebody an apology: this woman was talented and funny.

4. Clara Bow—the original "It" girl: beautiful, tender, funny and ultimately doomed.

3. Marie Dressler—the star of the first feature-length comedy, 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance, she made a comeback in 1928 and eventually won an Oscar. (Dressler's the one on the right.)

2. Mary Pickford—number one at the box office, number one in our hearts, number two on this list.

1. Mabel Normand—sometimes credited with throwing the first pie in movie history, she was the beauty who starred with such beasts as Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

That's it. Have at it.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Best Actresses Of 1917

Vera Karalli (Umirayushchii Lebed a.k.a. The Dying Swan)

Doris Kenyon (A Girl's Folly)

Ossi Oswalda (Das Fidele Gefängnis a.k.a. The Merry Jail)

Mary Pickford (The Poor Little Rich Girl and Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm)