Silent Favorites

In the last few months I've been having fun with TCM's silent films shown on Sunday. I've been thinking of queuing some from Netflix. Does anyone have some favorites? Just watched Sunrise and thought it was amazing.

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Permalink Reply by Opinionated-Gal on April 15, 2009 at 6:30pm: "Sunrise" and "The Crowd" are two of the best *movies,* period, that I've ever seen!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jrim on April 15, 2009 at 7:56pm: I'll add The Crowd. I agree with you on Sunrise. I thought it was stunning!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Opinionated-Gal on April 15, 2009 at 8:46pm: "Broken Blossoms" is another one that has a long, lingering impact ... as does "The Last Laugh." I should start DVR'ing TCM's silent movies ... I'm never awake enough to watch a late-night movie sans sound ... but TCM is exactly where I discovered each of the movies I mentioned ...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jrim on April 17, 2009 at 11:56am: Hooray for the DVR! :-) I like to watch the silents when I don't have any distractions.

Have you seen The Cat and the Canary? I really enjoyed the humor in that one.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jrim on July 1, 2009 at 8:33am: Finally saw The Crowd. Incredible film!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aces on June 30, 2009 at 10:38pm: I never appreciated silent movies but the synopsis of The Penalty sounded so good I rented it. Now I want to see all Lon Chaney's movies. What a brilliant actor he was! Here are some I've watched lately of his:
The Penalty, Oliver Twist, The Phantom of the Opera, The Unknown, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

And with other actors, Nosferatu: Original Version and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jrim on July 1, 2009 at 8:38am: I've seen Phantom and Hunchback and enjoyed them both. I've got Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll in my queue.

I enjoy Lon Chaney as well. I saw him on TCM recently in one called Tell it to the Marines. It was great fun. NF doesn't carry that one, however.

A fabulous silent was Cecil B DeMille's The King of Kings done in 1927. Incredible film!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Aben Rudy on July 26, 2009 at 9:01am: D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm is a remarkable silent. Griffith spent more than a million 1920 dollars on the sets, which reconstruct 18th century Paris faithfully, and on his cast of thousands, each and every extra costumed as history would demand. The superb cast includes Joseph Schildkraut and both Dorothy and Lillian Gish, with Dorothy for once having a chance to shine, as a blind orphan. (You may know Schildkraut as Anna Frank's father in The Diary of Anne Frank, filmed more than forty years later.)

My one problem with many NF silents is that they are produced by Westlake, a firm that does no restoration whatsoever. That is unfortunately true for Orphans. Luckily, the Instant Watch version is excellent, and after struggling with the DVD for a while, I switched to Instant Watch and enjoyed a much restored film-- complete with tinting -- on my computer screen.; ▶ Reply to This