Introduction

While I do watch many new films, and have annual awards and will discuss current cinematic topics. Part of my desire to create my own site was to not have an agenda forced upon me that was not my own. This allows me to discuss films from all periods of history whenever I see fit. Recently my Short Film Saturday posts have been running toward silents more often. I questioned this tactic for a second until I realized that if I really do hope to encompass all of film history then the silent era most definitely should not be ignored. If you mark the silent era from the birth of film (1895) to the first talkie (1927), and I realize it could be argued that the silent era stretched a few years beyond that, and also that there were experiments with sound very early; that’s still 27% of film history at current which was entirely silent. Therefore a weekly post (or, however often I put it up) is not out of line at all mathematically or otherwise.

The good news is that many silent films are available to watch online, and are in the public domain. So I will feature some here.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Folks, the intent here initially was to get to see some new silent features I’ve not seen. However, in certain cases I have been pressed for time to screen them. But, wanting to keep this post active I have dug around and found some titles that I have seen that I had not considered yet.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is what I would describe as one of the great stories, which in my vernacular means that I’ll gladly take in many renditions of it. This 1920 version features John Barrymore and is among the best of the bunch. Enjoy!