Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Son of The Sheik (1926) Rudolph Valentino
You asked for a silent movie post, but, I didn't know a lot about silent movies. So, I immersed my blogging self into it for days......and nights. I watched everything on the net. Rudy was hot, but, I still think I prefer the bumbling Little Tramp. Mary Pickford charmed me, but, no one had better eyebrows than Clara Bow. Eyebrows seem to be the number one accessory when there's no sound. Well, there's sound. But, at least with silent movies you can turn off the annoying music and still get it. Errol Flynn was one crazy mother, wasn't he? No stunt was big enough for him.
So, here's a silent movie post..say what you need to. As for me, all this obsession led to was biographys and the history of Hollywood, which then led to Hollywood scandals and then haunted Hollywood. I am left better educated, but, back to my original obsessions. Sorry.
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41 comments:
Thanks DD :)
Well Valentino the quintessential Italian lover.
How apropo his name was. St. Valentine
being the saint that represents amore. Kiki :)
Ti amo sempre per tutte il tempo Rudolfo
mio caro. Fine il giorno dope eternita.
-Kissabella Marie Antoinette.
Sorry I hit send too soon everyone. -Kiki
Here is the translation from Italian to english.
I will love you always & for all time R my darling.
Until the day after forever.
-Kissabella Marie Antoinette ( aka - Kiki )
The group AMERICA has a lovesong
called RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES
that pays tribute to Valentino in a mention
as well as Garbo. It's a beautiful lil ditty.
Do do do do do do so ..... Kiki ;)
btw -where is everybody today ?
i never liked valentino....
errol flynn was in silents?? that's a new one on me!
i love chaplin but his movies always make me sad....
Oh yay! Thanks for the silent movie post. I came to read more than talk for this one as my obsession with silent movies begins and ends with Buster Keaton. I'd rather watch Buster than anything put out today. He did all his own stunts and actually went to work with a broken neck for a few days before he finally realized something was wrong! Buster is my favorite comedian ever! Thanks for the open post, DD!
I'm here Kiki LOL. I don't get silent movies either.? Right now I'm watching Little Women from 1949 on TCM (no commercials). Can someone tell me why there is a turnstile at the Marchs' front gate? Are there that many men lining up for those girls?
You're right Tia. I shouldn't have included him here..he was the post silent answer to Douglas Fairbanks. I just kinna liked him. One film leads to another and that mofo would jump off anything!
escrow, what? LOL.
There's a turnstile in Jo Marchs' front yard. Ya know like when you buy a ticket and then go thru the turnstile to keep the crowds orderley? Go watch the movie on Hulu.
The Navigator is my favorite Buster Keaton movie. Show me a comic today who could spin out over an hour of laughs just using an empty ship as a prop. And have the movie be curiously spooky at the same time. I dare you to try it Robin Williams you unfunny hack.
Also Chaplin's The Circus. Possibly the strangest movie ever made by a major star. Done at a time when he was going through a nasty divorce and had completely had it with women and Hollywood. The bitterness of that film is palpable. The whole premise of him as this pathetic guy everyone laughs at even though he's not trying to be funny, and the way he doesn't fight for the girl, like he's too worn out to bother. And the great scene where he's on a highwire and these monkeys get out and are climbing all over his face - it edges into surrealism. It's probably the most painful confessional film any major Hollywood figure ever made.
aw! i thought perhaps you meant fairbanks! he did fantastic stunts! he had such a joy for life and working.....you can just tell he was enjoying every minute of making his movies!!!
that is very surreal when he's on the high wire in the circus, crabbie....
anybody appreciate german expressionism?
lol! escrow, I was watching that today & wondering the same thing too. Why a turnstile where you'd normally have gate? I've seen them like that on old fairgrounds, but I didn't think pa March was selling tickets to peep in the windows at the womenfolk.
even though they aren't silent does anyone else enjoy the ma & pa kettle movies? the blondie movies??
i was just watching little women today too and thought the turn style was funny. lol
you want to read a good hollywood scandal.
http://www.classicmovies.org/articles/aa110702a.htm
fatty arbuckle was one. jean harlow was another. i liked her. she had the greatest eyebrows.
i saw a documentary on olive thomas....i think it was an accident....
fatty arbunkle was hounded until he died.....i don't think he raped her or killed her....
i have heard lolita was based on chaplin too.....
oh I love Buster he was a hoot. I agree Crabbie, he could get long laughs over some of the most simple antics.
Yes miss tia, ma & pa kettle have given me many laughs, I haven't seen too many Blondie movies, but enjoyed the few I saw. It's been so long I'm going to have to give them all another look.
I really do love Marie Dressler, she could do so much & she didn't have to be a glamour puss to do any of it, she was great.
Anna May Wong was also very interesting.
Fattie Arbuckle didn't kill or rape that woman, I've read so much on it, poor dear man. They have something on it in the Tru Crime Library that I'm going to have a look at.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/classics/fatty_arbuckle/1.html
Buster Keaton also has a number of interesting things to say about the whole thing, he was best friends with Roscoe/ Fattie from what I recall.
Kiki where the heck were you when I lived in Toronto, it would have been amazing to have someone who loves all this like you to talk with. :) I love watching pretty much all silent movies & shorts, can't think of one I don't like.
i wish so many silent films weren't missing!!!! There are hundreds in the national film archives but they don't have the money to restore them and don't know what they have!!!
Percy kilbride and MArjorie mains ahhh who
could not love them? Dagwood could he ever
make it in on time to work? Miss Tia what fun
films those are. I wonder if you know the Tuttles
of Tahiti ( they didn't take off in poularity such as
the afore mentioned families but are worth a
look ) TCM shows them every 1s in a while. Kiki
Crabbie indeed can't picture Robin doing anything
of the sort except for his usual shtick. Kiki : /
The calibre of Buster will not be seen again.
I don't understand the obsession with "Old Hollywood" and how glamorous it supposedly was. Stars back then were just as selfish and rude as stars now. It's just that their PR people covered it better. There was no "UsWeekly" or "TMZ". If those things were around back then we surely would have seen Marilyn Monroe throwing milkshakes at the paparazzi and Clark Gable screaming no one can look him in the eye, and all that same shit stars pull today. Hollywood's always been a place for nasty egotists..."glamorous" my foot.
Have any of you read this silent movie blog?
http://thesilentmovieblog.wordpress.com/
There's a second silent movie blog I'm looking for where they raise money to try & restore as many of the silent movies as they can. So many of Theda Bara's are gone. If I find it I'll post it.
Can't see sheep I've been here my whole life.
Born & bred. Where abouts did u live ? Which
area the downtown area. I'm in Rosedale.
Midtown area myself but I grew up in the
oakwood area. My favourite neighbourhood is
Foresthill area for the Georgian style olde
homes. The bridlepath is too ostentacious
for my liking. Why did u leave us ? Kiki :)
lol, yes I agree bridlepath is too ostentatious. Oooo Rosedale, hey that's a beautiful place. Some of the houses are so incredible in Rosedale, the architecture is really something to see. When we were in the area we'd go for walks there to look at the architecture & see the beautiful gardens. I was stuck in Brampton, I moved up for college then stayed 11 years.
Whoops hit the button too soon. I left because I wasn't happy in TO. I was raised on a farm with plenty of space & woods to wander, hubby & I wanted to return to it, so we purchased a farm & that's why we left.
old hollywood goes beyond gable and monroe....and the first stars had more class....
there also was a lot of movie magazines in the teens and twentys...
I love Laurel + Hardy...they have some silent shorts from 1921-1926 era that are excellent. Also adore Chaplin & I always liked Errol Flynn too, even though he wasn't in silents. Miss Tia, I do enjoy Ma + Pa Kettle! Kiki--you crack me up!
Can't see sheep. I would leave Brampton
too. I don't blame you guys. Not that I've ever
been there the furthest west into the GTA
area I frequent is Lester B. Pearsons place. Kiki
The glamour of Hollywood is that it was of a bygone
era. The romanticizing of the memories of olde. Kiki
People love to escape into nostalgia.
Nancy b why I wasn't even trying to. Which
part was funny ?
Can't see sheep. Yes the ravines of Rosedale
or as I refer to them my backyard. It took us
a lot of hard graft to get here though. We are the
only manse on our private street who GAsP !!!
Do not have a chauffer driven Rolls @ our
beck & call or any staff in residence. Ironically
we own one of the nicest homes east of
Yonge street. Ten years ago when we first
arrived we wondered if we should have gone
to Foresthill but now we know our first choice
was indeed our best choice and have no regrets.
My neighbours do find us a bit of a novelty when
they see me just go outside and drive myself
but I think they are used to it now. LOL ;) Kiki
Shhhhhh if any of my neighbours find out I
clean my house all by myself (0cd) oh my they
may just have a whip round. LoL :) Kiki
Its a beautiful day in the neighbourhood !
Some of you (2-3) will know what I mean.
Wow Kiki, no chauffeur or staff & they haven't voted you out of the neighbourhood. :) Bet you make their tongue's wag especially when you first moved in. I mean you...gasp... heat your own soup! I think you made a good choice too with Rosedale it's a beautiful. I used to look at the houses there & dream. The houses made me think of earlier times, a few really made me think of the 20's, Edwardian, Victorian eras. You're a wise woman not to venture any further west than Lester B. Pearsons place, I called my time in Brampton living in the 1st level of hell.
I love the "magic" in the earlier movies that you don't really see in later ones. I've tried to put it into words to describe it better than that, but have yet to successfully do it. There's just something about them, an age of innocence that ended when the 2nd World War started. I really enjoyed seeing the original of the Divorcee with Norma Shearer, instead of the other version they had to show all the following decades because of the laws that came into Hollywood & nixed the original. I know it wasn't a silent one.
http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=192001
TCM is doing Joan crawford's 100th birthday on March 23rd. I've seen some of her silent films & really liked those. I believe one was Our Dancing Daughters, the other I'm not certain.
I also liked Beyond the Rocks with Rudolph Valentino & Gloria Swanson, they'd showed it for it's first time in ages on TCM awhile back. That's the one they thought was lost & then found in the Netherlands.
age of innocence...that's it....
and i agree....it's magic and there's no real way to describe it....everything was 'new'.....
I love the age of innocence by Edith wharton.
There is a rather good made for tv movie
starring Daniel Day Lewis in it.
FYI the major airport for Toronto is named
after our first mayor and greatest ever
Lester B. Pearson. Akin to Fiorio la Guardia
in manhattan mayor or NYC.
CSS - Brampton is niknamed browntown due
to the surplus of immigrants from Punjab In.
Oh my neighbours are fine with us right from the
getgo they just thot that I was the child of the
family that lived there & not the lady of the house.
LoL
I have pride in doing things myself if I can
why not do so. OCD aside I can't abide anyone
making another human feel inferior. It's the polar
opposite of me. One of my neighbours recently
commented on the great condition of our floors
( in that her live in housekeeper can't seem to
get them to gleam ) like I do. I replied back that
it's simple they are not her floors if they were
I'm sure she could do it. This is sort of related.
Lenny kravitz s mom the actress Roxie rokor
was in her penthouse scrubbing the toilet and
little Lenny walked in on his mom and asked
why she did that menial job herself. Well she
gave him a good dressing down. Lenny tells
the story as a life lesson. The actual answer
after Roxie got done with him was because it's
my bathroom. Most people who grow up poor
can appreciate that where they started is not
where they have to stay. However you can be
gracious and attend to the needs of your family
if you so wish to. It's like I said earlier there is
pride at the end of a job well done especially
when you can and choose to do it yourself. Kiki :)
Exactly miss tia, like when you see something for the very first time. It's young, fresh & new for everyone involved, cameraman, actors, audience & you can feel the wonder of it all, the magic. That makes a lot of sense it was a new media to capture the world with. you don't get that sense with early photos because everyone had to sit for a dog's age, but you can get that with movies. It was a new world.
I can understand that Kiki, pride in doing things yourself, that was something I was raised with. I don't really understand the whole servant thing anyway it freaks me out when hubby decides he's going to clean my work area, I lose track of everything & spend the next three days trying to locate all of it.
On TCM Silent Sunday nights, March 28 1:00 am ET The Navigator with Buster Keaton is going to be on.
Oh thanks cj I will note it down and also the
birthday tributes on tcm march 23 Joan Crawford.
I appreciate the info.
Umm I think they grew up rich so the servants
come with the lifestyle they have had for generations.
My neighbours are the Eatons ( dept store family )
and the toronto stars food critic Sarah Waxman
( actor Als widow ) Marty short used to live around
the corner and Eugene levy still keeps one of
his many homes here. As does sir Elton John and
and TAFKAP ( I call him prince still ) lives a lil further up
in the bridlepath hoi paloi area of Toronto. LOL
Prince has several Rolls royces parked behind
his 12 foot high gates. He fits right into the bridlepath
I saw him at Bruno s and he's as tiny as I am. Kiki :)
I just got back here and haven't read the rest of the messages so forgive me if I cover stuff that's already been answered but I had to tell Miss Tia that I ADORE Ma & Pa Kettle but haven't seen one of their movies in years! I really need to watch one.
1st annual Rudolph Valentino Film festival
http://therudolphvalentinofilmfestival.com/
i remember seeing a documentary about the celebrity cemetery in hollywood and a guy who ran a memorial for valentino every year was in it.....they do a memorial service every year for him....
Was it Valentino's grave that was visited by a woman in black every year who left a rose?
i think so....i remember hearing that....
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