The atmosphere just seemed right for a silver screen study. The talented, the mythical, or the opulent could take me on a journey of reading and research. The reason I’m sharing this bit of inane info is because I love the luxury of research. For quite a long while I could turn all this writer’s schmooze into lectures that people wanted to hear and that’s exactly what I did. From all my lectures, this is my favorite topic presented on cruise ships, universities and invitations to speak. I hope you like Part Two of Hooray For Hollywood.
P.S. There are even more parts coming via cyberspace, but not AI———no way——!!!
It is important to me to share my own tale.
MORE HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD! …PART TWO
There’s still a lot more that occurred in those early movie days so please stick around. I promise not to tarry. The early movie doers and shakers generated a madcap rush to action. They would not be stopped. No way!
Remember, this all happened in that small po-dunk town called Hollywood where stars twinkled in their nightly firmament. And, we all know what happened in Hollywood when those nightly kazillion of stars sparkled and shimmered and descended onto that semi-arid landscape…
Every night, every day, every hour, Hollywood’s Celestial radar shone from afar;
we just had to pay our dime…or eventually turn a knob, push a button to see a…gulp…
MOVIE……..STAR!!!
They each created their own orbit and were spurred forward by inspiration and innovation. Epitomizing soulful and expressive starring roles was a stage actress who would help propel silent movies to the next level.
LILLIAN GISH
While visiting the little village of Hollywood in 1912, Lillian and her sister Dorothy Gish met their friend Gladys Smith whom they knew from previous stage engagements. Gladys shared that the (soon-to-be) great and extraordinary director D. W. Griffith was looking for two girls to play sisters. He was elated after observing their talents that came from their stage background and then…he made Lillian a star!
(Incidentally, Gladys Smith’s name was changed to Mary Pickford who was an equally celebrated and prominent movie star.)
Fifteen years later, Lillian Gish was titled “First Lady of the Screen” by Vanity Fair magazine. Her film career would last 75 years and she was accredited with pioneering fundamental performance techniques by using her own complex range of emotions. She helped lead the way into transforming movies into art. Gish considered D.W. Griffith the greatest director who ever lived. He taught her how to edit films, select the best takes, and operate a camera. She went on to direct her one and only one film with her sister Dorothy as the lead…Remodeling Her Husband 1920
1919 Silent Movie—”BrokenBlossoms,” Lillian was age 26 in the above scene.
At age five, Lillian Gish was earning $10.00 a week with a traveling stage company. Fast forward to age 77 when Miss Gish received a special Academy Award for her “superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures.” She died in 1993 at the age of 99.
Another group of sprinkling night stars descending onto that Hollywood hamlet were the Art Directors. They could transform the every day into the extraordinary, the imaginary into the realistic, or the realistic into the imaginary by their artful settings. Art Directors could influence decorators/designers to give our homes, offices and stores a new look, evoke feelings or metamorphose the uncanny. Wilfred Buckland’s use of over-scaled, richly textured drapery and expensively detailed furnishings instructed a generation of designers to follow and learn. This new industry would be guided by the audacious, the experimental, and the unconventional.
In the vanguard was the above mentioned Wilfred Buckland who became Hollywood’s first Art Director. Straight from dominating Broadway productions with his stagecraft in 1914, his career lasted through the late 1920’s.
One of the largest sets ever constructed for silent movies was Robin Hood, 1922.
The Director was Allen Dwan and his Art Director Wilfred Buckland constructed Robin Hood’s towering medieval Nottingham Castle. It was the largest set Hollywood had ever seen during the silent era and the stone spiral staircase became a film icon. The Los Angeles Times review gasped: “Greatest of all the settings is, of course, the castle which for months has been a sort of landmark of cinema enterprise on Santa Monica Boulevard.” Buckland cleverly concealed slides and trampolines around the set, so that Robin Hood could bound onto balconies and glide down the curtains.
Nottingham Castle 1922——Wilfred Buckland, Art Director
In 1924, he was named one of the ten individuals who had contributed the most to the advancement of the motion picture industry since the time of its inception. A 1980 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London advanced the argument that “everything we know as ‘Hollywood’ traces to Wilfred Buckland”. Wilfred Buckland was among the first inductees in the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame.
And whom to fill the shoes of Robin Hood——the exuberant Douglas Fairbanks, one of the biggest movie stars at the time.
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks loved swashbuckling films and why not——he was the American actor best known for being the first star to play the masked Zorro. His athleticism had him swinging from ropes, performing twirling and whirling handsprings over terrain and leaping from rooftops. His huge fan base loved his acrobatics that were done with a broad smile and were instant hits. Fairbanks was popularly known as “The King of Hollywood” and was not only a talented actor, but excelled at film making and business. Hollywood history would dub him “one of the greats”. Extras (actors) being directed by Allen Dwan using a mega Megaphone.
Robin Hood, 1922.
One of the heads of Paramount pictures was concerned that the sets were too dark and so someone came up with the title “Rembrandt Lighting” and furthermore “Rembrandt Lighting” would be sold under the heading known as Art Films. Hollywood knew how to be resourceful.
Also, above the hugely constructed tower, a new endgame appeared segueing into early marketing——high above the sky a billboard was placed advertising “Robin Hood.” It was the first motion picture to have a Hollywood premiere. Robin Hood was one of the most expensive films of the 1920’s and a time when American cinema would dominate the International Film Market.
Of his many swashbuckling films, The Thief of Bagdad, 1924 was said to be Douglas’ favorite because he was able to display “catlike, seemingly effortless movements that was as much dance as gymnastics”. A magic rope, a flying carpet, leaping from rooftop to rooftop the enchanting flying horse Pegasus and frightening monsters are featured among the gigantic sets that depict scenes from Tales of the Arabian Nights. The legendary Art and Production Designer William Cameron Menzies used advanced trick photography such as a wonderfully gnarled tree that steadily and purposefully turned into an old man,
and an under the ocean scene filled with kelp where attached wires make a swaying motion. Amazingly the ocean scene actually had not one drop of water.
Flying over the city of Bagdad on the Magic Carpet, 1924.
Behind the scenes, that is the “romance scenes,” Douglas had a real-life romantic partner——the equally famous and popular star Mary Pickford. The discreet, hush-hush affair posed a weighty problem——they each had a spouse. Also, Fairbanks had a son from his first marriage who would become an equally famous actor in his own right——Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
It helped that the romantic duo were together in 1917 touring the country along with their close friend Charlie Chaplin. They were selling World War I Liberty Bonds creating a wonderful excuse for the secret lovers to be together, but they were very worried that a divorce would ruin their careers and tried to hide their feelings and romance from the public.
In 1919 through an effort to control their independence from the controlling movie studios, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chapman and D. W. Griffiths formed United Artists film studio giving them control over artistic sway and finance. It permanently altered the film business.
Finally, in 1920, they quietly divorced their spouses and married each other.
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks 1920
Their popularity with the public was enormous and they were dubbed “Hollywood Royalty”. As a wedding gift to his bride, Fairbanks bought a huge estate in Beverly Hills as a wedding gift that they called “Pickfair”.
Pickfair: A home renown for entertaining and hospitality.
Silent movies were Douglas Fairbanks’ forte. He loved showing off his athleticism and balletic moves making some hazardous stunts look effortless and in his future eschewed “talkies”. But his business acumen, plus his stage and screen knowledge kept him involved in all facets of movie making. In 1921, he, Pickford, Chaplin, and others, helped to organize the Motion Picture Fund to assist those in the industry who could not work, or were unable to meet their bills.
Section of the Pickfair Living Room Design:
Pickfair was an elegant English-style home with leaded-glass windows, parquet flooring, ceiling frescoes, two new additional wings, an L-shaped veranda and a copper roof supported by heavy wrought iron. Ample seating for the multitude of guests entertained at Pickfair shown here in shades of golden tones. Pickfair’s interiors were filled with decorative arts and antiques, including English and French period furniture from the early 18th century.
Notable items in the collection are thought to have included gilded neo-classical and Rococo antiques, and Louis XVI furniture. The four-story, 22-room mansion featured many Chinese objets d’art, collected by the couple on their many visits to Asia. These included a pair of fine Chinese carved rhinoceros tusks and a Thai damascene silver lotus form covered urn, which was a gift to Pickford from the King of Siam.Pickfair was said to have the first in-ground swimming pool in Hollywood, large enough for the Pickford’s to canoe.
Douglas was elected first President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences and he presented the first Academy Awards at the Roosevelt Hotel. Fairbanks and Pickford divorced in 1933 and each married new partners. Mary Pickford continued to live at Pickfair. On December 12, 1939, Fairbanks suffered a heart attack and died later that day at his home in Santa Monica at the age of 56.
At the same time that Fairbanks was vaulting over rooftops, there was an abundance of other consequential silent films such as a scarily malevolent film made in the German Expressionist movement, The Cabinet of Caligari, 1920.
It is now considered to be the first and greatest horror film in that genre and said to still be frightening to watch with its scary monsters, decomposing bodies, and grotesque art scenes.
Here’s a film trailer with discussion of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari research by J.A.Hernandez \
The Movie: Directed by Cecil B. DeMille starring Wallace Reid and Gloria Swanson, Anatol dreams of spicing up his marriage and proceeds to seek excitement as does his wife. The film had pricey sets, lavish costumes and elegant lighting with outstanding actors of that time.
Design: A cozy and comfortable corner for conviviality or contentment with a draped tablecloth, slim bamboo chairs and a table set for dining. The background has patterned wallpaper two/thirds up the wall leading to pleasing flowered window boxes. Light is generated by the paned clerestory windows and two strange looking chandeliers. Clerestory windows originated in religious temples/ churches and are placed high on the wall. They are excellent for natural light to flood the area. Natural light has a powerful and often positive effect not only on mental health, but also for the older eye. They became popular in mid-century architecture. (Clerestory is pronounced clear story.)
2016 Roger Ebert 18th Annual Film Festival” A showing of L”Inhumane 1924:
“…no other silent film, perhaps, could match its sheer stylistic and imaginative daring.”
According to Ebert “their real concern all along was with style, visual tempo, subjective states, delicate textures and private sensibility… The aim was less to tell a story…”
Visual techniques were interesting and prolific. They conveyed a scene showing a dining table resting on pontoons in the swimming pool. During the movie swans floated by the table.
Dining: Table on pontoons in the pool——L’Inhumane 1924 Design: It was the goal of French Director L”Herbier to showcase France’s contributions to the decorative arts. He went all out displaying painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and, of course, fashion. It was a veritable who’s who of Parisian artistic greats. Represented as contributors were: the glassmaker René Lalique; the Cubist painter, sculptor, and filmmaking compatriot Fernand Léger; architect Robert Mallet-Stevens; and the famed fashion couturier Paul Poiret, to name a few. The leading star, Georgette Leblanc wore Poiret’s latest. L’Herbier delivered one of film’s history’s first haute couture touchstones. A century later it stands as a firsthand visual account of one of Paris’ greatest artistic periods and made L’Herbier one of the first filmmakers to integrate couture and cinema.
(As quoted in telling the movie’s story, Ebert wrote: “Of course, L’Inhumaine must be one of the most absurd Great Movies ever made.” The ludicrous plot concerns a femme fatale and her four suitors.”)
The value of this movie is not so much about the characters, but the showing of the worlds they inhabited and the way those worlds were created.
Sy’s Salient Points: I wrote the name Robert Mallet-Stevens in Italics in some of the credits for L’Inhumane because I wanted to draw attention to the fact that he was a subject from other research. He was profiled in parts of my lecture ,”Modernism” which was presented at Design Conferences.
As a successful Architect, Furniture and Set Designer, Mallet-Stevens reflected the avant garde spirit of the twenties.
Research used in this blog came from the Hurray for Hollywood Lectures by Sheila Yates, Wikipedia, Britannica and other internet sites.
Hooray for Hollywood Blog Pictures: Original slides from SY lectures, Wikipedia, Britannica, Varying Websites
Happy Easter Darling Blaire
“To be continued…” Part Three