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14 Aug 07:24

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: The Phantom Carriage (Korkarlen,Victor Sjostrom, 1920)

Victor Sjostrom

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14 Aug 07:24

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: The Silent Film of Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

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14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord Silent Film: Greta Garbo in The Temptress (Fred Niblo)

The periodical Motion Picture News during 1926 the filming of "Temptress" with a review entitled "Greta Garbo in the Title Role of 'The Temptress'. It read,"Greta Garbo, Swedish actress, will have the title role in Cosmopolitan's production of 'The Temptress, which will be a Metro Goldwyn Mayer release directed by Mauritz Stiller. She is now working in 'Ibanez' The Torrent'." Greta Garbo had in fact signed to do the film on the condition that Stiller was to direct.
The periodical Motion Picture News during 1925 announced that Mauritz Stiller had been slated to direct "The Temptress" by imparting that he had been brought to the United States by Louis B. Mayer. "Stiller won wide reputation in Europe for his productions."
Author Forsyth Hardy, in his volume Scandinavian Film, curtly, only briefly mentions that Mauritz Stiller was removed as director of the film after a disagreement with Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Biographer William Stewart, in The True Life Story of Greta Garbo gives an account purporting that Mauritz Stiller "had not yet mastered the American method of making pictures. Handling crowds gave him trouble and his lack of English made every move difficult." Hollywood writer Bosley Crowther, in his biography of Louis B. Mayer entitled The Hollywood Rajah writes that Mauritz Stiller "proved to be too finicky and slow" and "difficult", a type of director that "were now being got out of the studio", but adds that before the filming of "The Temptress" was completed, Greta Garbo had met and fallen in love with Jack Gilbert. Although Garbo and Gilbert met during 1926, it seems that Crowther is approximating and according to Clarence Brown, her director, Garbo and Gilbert met on the set of the third film Greta Garbo had made in the United States.
Ruth Biery, who writes "I have seldom met anyone more timid than Garbo' became known to readers of fan magazines as the first biographer to introduce Greta Garbo with an interview from New Year's Eve 1927 that resulted in her appearing in three issues during 1928, Garbo the May Photoplay cover. Ruth Biery returned to the subject of Stiller and Garbo four years later. "They cast her in 'The Temptress' because Mauritz Stiller insisted upon it. He was to direct it. He directed the production in a way that would work to the advantage of his protoge. Garbo was tall. Antonio Moreno, the actor, was not so tall. The directed insisted that he wear his hair pompador fashion to make him look taller. He put him into boots- undoubtedly to make Garbo's feet look smaller. Moreno resented his favoritism. There was a battle and Stiller lost. He was removed from the picture. This was Garbo' first experience with studio politics. Because of her, Stiller lost his job. Yet it was her friend Stiller who insisted on her being in the picture. She was bewildered, crushed." Biery continued, "She may have loved Stiller. I do not know. I do know she enshrined him. When she talked to me of Stiller her eyes filled with tears, her entire body trembled with emotion."
The first instance of Greta Garbo granting an interview to journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, author of The Private Life of Greta Garbo, was on the set of "The Temptress". " 'I was frantic when Mr. Stiller was taken from the picture,' she said. 'It is difficult for me to understand direction through an interpreter. Everything over here is strange and different. And this studio is so large it confuses me.' "
The True Life Story of Greta Garbo by William Stewart continues, "The second disaster to occur during the filming of 'The Temptress' was the death of Greta's sister."
In The Private Life of Greta Garbo, journalist Rilla Page Palmborg wrote, "Garbo made even a greater sensation in The Temptress than in The Torrent....But Greta declared she knew nothing of the technique of acting. That for the time being she 'was' the person in the picture. She did not know how she got certain effects. She did not know why she did things the way she did them."

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Greta Garbo Victor Seastrom
14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord: Greta Garbo in The Divine Woman (1928, Victor Sjostrom)

"The Divine Woman" directed in the United States during 1928 featured three Swedish Silent Film stars from the Golden Age of Swedish Silent film, two of whom, Victor Sjostrom and Lars Hanson, would soon return to Sweden to mark the advent of sound film. Sjostrom would return to act and only act, in front of the camera rather than behind it. Only one reel of the film survives, it being presumed lost with no other footage of the film surviving other than the fragment.
Bo Florin, Stockholm University, in his volume Transition and Transformation- Victor Sjostrom in Hollywood 1923-1930, looks as a film detective not only to film critics and magazine articles printed during the first run of the film, as I have, this webpage in fact subtitled "Lost Films, Found Magazines", (please excuse the trendy contemporary use of subtitles during peer review) but also to the the cutting continuity script, his finding a specific sequence where Sjostrom uses "a combination between iris and dissolve", one which, as an iris down, fulfills the "classic Sjostrom function of an analogy". There are two other dissolves in the same sequence that are used as transitions, spatial transitions, yet both are taken from different camera distances. It is a contonuity cutting script from which author Bo Florin has found fifty four dissolves that were used in the film. Again, no footage from the scene or the reel it is from survives. One can ask if double exposures were only infrequently published in magazines or advertisements as publicity stills, or even as lobby cards or posters and if modern audiences have ever seen photographs from the scene.
Journalist Rilla Page Palmborg, in The Private Life of Greta Garbo fulfills the search for Lost Film, Found Magazines when giving an account of being on the set of 'The Divine Woman' for a rare interview with Greta Garbo, giving a description of what what on film in a film we at presenent no longer have. "There came a shy little French girl and a young officer wlaking slowly down the street. They paused in a doorway. The officer asked a frowsy inkeeper for lodgings. The girl looked up shyly at the officer. She hesitated a moment, raised up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. Then she hurried past him up the stairs. 'Cut' shouted the director." The director was in fact Swedish Silent Film director Victor Sjostrom, Greta Garbo leaving the set in a high collared cape to bring journalist Rilla Page Palmborg to her dressing room. The commodity Garbo at that time? The journalist had obtained the interview not to ask about Lars Hanson, Victor Sjostrom or the upcoming film "The Divine Woman", but was admittedly there to ask Garbo about her tabloid romance with actor John Gilbert. The dressing room was small and on wheels and Garbo politely expressed concern if they both would fit into it. Greta Garbo answered the question regarding her intentions of marriage with "it is only a friendship. I will never marry. My work absorbs me. I have time for nothing else. But I think Jack Gilbert is one of the finest men I have ever known." There would seem a contradiction between the onscreen Garbo who 'nearly invented the torrid love scene' and the extratextural discourse of pursuing the reclusive hermit Garbo everywhere- oddly enough Palmborg claims that the relationship between Garbo and Lars Hanson and his wife Karin Molander was more professional than social although Hanson and Garbo arrived from Sweden at the same time with Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller. Swedish Silent Film actress Karin Molander explained, " 'Garbo never had any friends with whom she chummed around in Stockholm.' said Mrs. Hanson. 'When we knew her she was devoted to Mauritz Stiller. He seemed to be the only person with whom she would associate.' "
Paul Rotha, in his volume The Film Till Now, commented on the topic that would be taken up by Bo Florin during this century, the artistic differences between the films made by Victor Sjostrom for Svensk Filmindustri, Stockholm and for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Hollywood. "But Sjostrom has ceased to develop. He remains stationary in his outlook thinking in terms of his early Swedish imagery. He has recently made little use of the progress of cinema itslef. 'The Divine Woman', although it had the Greta Garbo of 'The Atonement of Gosta Berling' had none of the lyricism, the poetic imagery of the earlier film."
Victor Sjostrom and Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo in The Temptress
Greta Garbo in The Torrent
14 Jun 19:10

Swedish Silent Film Stars on the Theater Stage

Pauline Brunius

During 1911, Pauline Brunius acted on stage at the Svenska Teatern. After directing and acting in film, Pauline Brunius, wife of Swedish Silent Film director John Brunius, went on to become manager of the Royal Dramatic Theater, Stockholm.

John Brunius

During 1912 John Brunius acted on stage at the Svenska Teatern.
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14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord Swedish Silent Film: Gyurkoricsarna (John Brunius, 1920)

14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord Silent Film: Gustaf Wasa (Brunius, 1928)

14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Silent Film: The Great Train Robbery (Porter,1903)

scottlordpoet shared this story from Swedish's Favorite Links from Diigo.

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14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Silent Film: America (D.W. Griffith, 1924)

D.W. Griffith

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14 Jun 19:10

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Svenska Filmhistoria

Swedish Silent Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Blogger: User Profile: Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film

Scott Lord

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scandinavian Film

Scandinavian Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Swedish Silent Film

Swedish Silent Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Victor Seastrom - YouTube

Victor Sjostrom

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14 Jun 19:09

The Speckled Band

14 Jun 19:09

Silent Film

Silent Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Silent Film

Silent Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Greta Garbo Mauritz Stiller

Mauritz Silver

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Silent Film Biograph Film Company

Biograph Film

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Svenska Filmhistoria

Silent film

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14 Jun 19:09

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Victor Seastrom Greta Garbo

Victor Sjostrom

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14 Jun 19:08

Swedish Silent Film: Anna Hofmann-Uddgren

by Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film

Swedish Silent Film pioneer Anna Hofmann-Uddren began filming for Orientaliska Teatern in 1911 with the film "Stockholmsdamemas alskling" starring Carl Barklind, Sigurd Wallen, Erica Tomberg and Anna-Lisa Hellstrom. The film is presumed lost, with no surving existing copies. For a brief period of time, actors Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller, then new to filmmaking, would be rivalled by film versions of the plays of August Strindberg before their having aquired world renown for establishing the Golden Age of Swedish Silent film with the film "Terje Vigen" (Victor Sjostrom,1916), based on Ibsen's poem.
Not quite apart from the account of the use of the proscenium arch in early cinema in Vardac's Stage to Screen, the films directed by Anna Hofmann-Uddgren in 1911 were tranpositions of "Miss Julie" (Froken Julie) and "The Father", the intimate theater of Swedish playwright August Strindberg. "The Father", starring Karin Alexandersson, Karen Thoren and Rene Bjorling featured an admittedly static camera and is an example of filmed theater. And yet cameraman Otto Bjorkman used two exterior shots and cutting that would bring about scene changes during "Miss Julie", a film that had had its premiere at the Orientalisks Teatern, starred Karin Alexandersson and Manda Bjorling. Both films were later remade by Alf Sjoberg and boths films were written by Anna Hofman-Uddgren's husband Gustaf Uddgren.
Ingrid Stigsdotter, Stockholm University, has noted that the reception of the films of Anna Hofman Uddgren was shared with her husband, his being a well known journalist, "Filmmaking was such a new activity that professional designations (the Swedish terms for "director", "producer", "scriptwriter", "actor", "cinematographer"....) had not yet aquired a fixed meaning in relation to the film medium an what was expected for example a director or writer of a film was in the process of fluctuation or negotiation."
To add a feminist historiography to the films, one reason for the films seeming to be overlooked, other than the director's career having had been being brief and not having continued to the 1916 incipience of the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film, whether having had been being "filmed theater" or not, is primarily the availability of the films; "The Father" is the only film directed by Anna Hofmann-Uddgren known to exist, there being no surviving copies of five of the six films she had directed, those being considered Lost Silent Film.
Anna Hofmann-Uddgren during 1911 also directed acress Edith Wallen in two films, both filmed by cinematographer Otto Bokman, "Single a Dream" (Blott in Drom) and "Sisters" (Systarna). Both are included in the five lost silent films directed by Hofmann-Uddgren, her having scripted the former, Elin Wagner having written the photoplay to the latter.
Actress Karin Alexandersson during 1914 went to Svenska Bio to make film under the direction of Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller before returning during the 1940's to appear in more than a dozen films. Director Anna Hofmann-Uddgren in fact appeared in front of the camera as an actress twice during 1921 in the films "De Landsflyktige" (Mauritz Stiller) and "Pilgrimage to Kevlaar" (Ivan Hedqvist).
The Blue Tower in Stockholm, where August Strindberg lived bewteen 1908-1912 and where he wrote the play "The Great Highway" is now part of the Strindberg Museum. Strindberg had gladly acquiesced to have his plays adapted into films, almost congradulating Anna Hofmann-Uddgren's husband, Gustav.
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14 Jun 19:08

Silent Film, Biblical Drama

by Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film
14 Jun 19:08

Silent Film: The Primitive Lover (Sidney Franklin, 1922)

by Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film
14 Jun 19:08

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Lost Film Found Magazines- Lon Chaney and the Silent Horror Film

Lon Chaney

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14 Jun 19:08

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Worsley, 1923)

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14 Jun 19:08

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney inThe Phantom of the Opera (Jullian, 1925)

Lon Chaney

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09 Jun 06:27

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Silent Horror Film

Silent Horror Film

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09 Jun 06:27

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Swedish Silent Film

Swedish Silent Film

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09 Jun 06:27

Scott Lord on Silent Film Hollywood, Lost Silent Film, Swedish Silent Film, Danish Silent Film: Scott Lord Silent Film: Greta Garbo in The Temptress (Fred Niblo)

Greta Garbo

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