The Adventure of the 1920s Films

A little while I was gifted a copy of the book 1000 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I occasionally used it to look things up but last autumn I had a crazy thought- what if I attempted to watch all thousand films, in chronological order of when they were released. It's a mammoth undertaking and last week I finally left the 1920s and moved into the strange new world of the 1930s. 

Watching my way through 1920s cinema history has been fascinating. Fortunately the majority of films of this era are freely available on YouTube and most of the rest haven't been too difficult to get hold of either. The first sound film or 'talkie' wasn't released until 1927 and really until the turn of the decade most films were silent. Watching a silent film feels like a very different experience. It requires a level of concentration that we're not used as modern film and TV viewers. There's no way you can follow a silent film whilst scrolling on your phone- you have to watch closely in order to read the intertitles and generally understand what's going on. 

My tactic has been to watch half an hour of film every day as my attention span struggles to sit through much more of a silent film than that. Besides, some films of this era are pretty much impossible to view in one sitting, like 1927's Napoleon which is an outrageous five and a half hours long. Incredibly it was supposed to be another two thirds longer and barely gets into Napoleon's life and is so fantastic I found myself surprised that I wished the longer version had actually been made. 

The film's that are most remembered from the 1920s tend to be the silent comedies. I'd seen a few of these before embarking on this quest but now I'm pretty familiar with them. Charlie Chaplin films stand up incredibly well- his performance was like a comedic dance which was executed perfectly. There's also a surprising amount of emotion in them with powerful love stories and an exploration of issues of the time such as the economic depression in Modern Times. Buster Keaton films are less overtly comedic and often feel more like adventures, a sort of precursor to the likes of Indiana Jones. The stunts are still incredible and some of the best ever put on screen and I loved the films, not least Sherlock, Jr which is genuinely one of my favourtie films of all time.

The 1920s portion of the list is far less America based than later decades. Many of the films come from Weimar Germany which arguably produced the best films of the decade like Nosferatu and Metropolis. One of the great benefits of silent films is that there's no language barrier- you just translate the titles into English and the film works exactly the same. There are also a handful of films made in the USSR which I didn't much enjoy but found interesting from a historical perspective. They are obvious propaganda (the most famous being Battleship Potemkin) which involve the working class being subjugated and then rising up to overthrow them. Weirdly they don't tend to have many named characters, the working class are one collective character in that Soviet "we're all in this together way". 

This was a time long before political correctness and so filmmakers though nothing of having white actors paint their face black or yellow and play an African-American or Chinese character. There's also The Unknown, a film about a character called 'Alonzo the Armless', a man who pretends to have no arms but secretly does, which clearly wouldn't be made today. There's also very few female characters in most of the films with most being wives or love interests to the main characters. It's easy to consider that this was just the way things were but there are films which buck the trend. Within Our Gates was the first known film directed by an African-American and is an unflinching look at the way the race were treated in the deep south, The Smiling Madame Beudet is a feminist tale about a woman under the control of her husband and The Passion of Joan of Arc features the best acting performance of the decade from French actress Renee Jeane Falconetti.

There's plenty of other highlights from the decade. I think lots of people are fascinated by Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated mission to be the first man to reach the South Pole but what I didn't know is that a photographer went with him to Antarctica and took a film camera. The resulting film, The Great White Silence, is one of the most fascinating documentaries I've ever seen. Then there's The Adventures of Prince Achmed which is regarded as the first animated feature film. It's made by cutting paper into the shape of characters and scenery which sounds really primitive but the level of skill and artistry has to be seen to be believed. 

The technology finally developed to synchronize sound with pictures so that sound films could be made towards the end of the decade. The first of these is The Jazz Singer, which is actually mostly silent but features a few songs by vaudeville performer Al Jolson. I can only imagine how mind-blowing it must have been to be in a cinema in 1927 and hearing an actor for the very first time on screen. The final film of the 1920s from the book is Blackmail which is regarded as the first British talkie and the first directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It's a fantastic film which is generally not talked about but it's easy to see how the young British director went on to make some of the best films ever made. 

There have been plenty of films that I found underwhelming and some I found a real slog to sit through but on the whole I was surprised how much I enjoyed the silent film era. Good stories, good acting and good filmmaking will always remain good no matter how much time has passed. I'm now into the 1930s and I'm fascinated to see what masterpieces and oddities I have awaiting me. 

This was perhaps the nerdiest thing I've ever written which is really saying something but I hope there was some interest to be had. I'll probably do a 1930s post when I eventually reach the end of the decade. If you are interested I write a short piece on every film over on this blog. See you soon!