To Infinity And...In Theory: Silent America: How 70% of Americana May Be Gone Forever

If you know who any of those people are (besides Charlie Chaplin, everybody knows Charlie Chaplin) you can count yourself among the last of the people who do. Not only have silent films died out in popularity, most of them have died out altogether. Some silent film stars will never be enjoyed by another person ever again. No, it isn’t because people are burning their 35mm reels in protest of something. Sadly, time and neglect killed the silent video star.

Today at TI&IT I’m not really going to talk much about Science, instead I’m going to talk about history and the arts. It isn’t uncommon for science and the arts to cross paths either. Just look at Leonardo Da Vinci for a classic example.

Today we’ll talk a little bit about the history of cinema, how they made these treasures, and what brought about the demise of these golden movies. I’ll also provide links to some of the ones restored and put on YouTube. Some of you may think “aw, who needs silent films anyway. Ain’t no words…” Well, you’d be partially right. There was no way to record voice, but without silent films, you wouldn’t have the most important part of the movies you enjoy today.

So firstly, let’s begin with the often overlooked real hero of every Transformers and XXX (Vin Diesel movie, out of the gutter people…), the man or woman who is literally in the real life danger the actor is pretending to be in. The stuntman.

Any Idiot Could Do It

How apropos for a headstone to mark the beginning of this section. And how fitting it is for Tom Mix. You probably have no idea who he is, and that saddens me, because I have no way of showing you this amazing man’s legacy, as his works are amongst those considered irretrievably lost.

I honestly have a tear in my eye as I write this paragraph. Tom Mix was a Western movie star. But he wasn’t just any Western movie star, he was the original Western star, and in many ways defined the genre. But what was truly remarkable about Tom is that he didn’t just act the part, he had actually lived it.

Tom Mix was a cowboy through and through. Don’t believe me? Well then…

He knew Wyatt Earp. In fact, he knew him so well he was one of the pallbearer’s at his funeral, and he wept like a baby.

What made Tom so incredible though wasn’t the fact that he was a real-life badass, it was the fact that he did his own stunts. And he was an action hero, his stunts were considerably dangerous. Once again I would love to show you some of his work but tragically I cannot.

And it wasn’t just for action movies they needed them. The stuntman actually made his debut in slapstick comedies. See, back then if they needed someone to hang from window 20 stories up, they’d pay some poor, dumb schmuck a dollar and a hoagie and make him do it. Safety nets? Not a chance in hell. They were suspended 20 stories up above concrete. But at least they got to tell their friends they were in a Clara Bow movie…even if they never got to meet her.

One notable slapstick comedian who endangered himself on a regular basis was Buster Keaton. Guys like Max Linder and Charlie Chaplin weren’t above taking a bruise and a lump or two, but Buster took it to a whole other level. With stunts like an entire wall collapsing on him only to be narrowly missed by a Buster Keaton-sized window, and in Seven Chances where he jumps from at least a fifty foot cliff onto a pine tree and rides it to the ground. Yes. He rode a pine tree to the ground, and it was not a fake pine tree, he could have been crushed. Same thing with the wall, the wall supposedly scraped his arm from coming so close. Yikes!

Fortunately, I can show you Buster Keaton. Many of his works still survive today and can be found in stores (on Blu-Ray consequently) and some of it on YouTube. But not all actors were willing to stand on a horse’s saddle while it galloped down the plains as Indians fired arrows and (in a rather racist fashion I might add) “whooped” loudly. For these scenes the stuntman became a Hollywood staple.

But even with a stuntman a silent film is still missing something. Silence would be boring, not to mention a bit unnerving in a movie theatre, something needed to be put on a separate track and played along with the picture. But there was no way to record sound onto the film with the video. So what could they do?

Sound effects baby.

The Piano: Now With Karate Chop Action!

That behemoth right there is no ordinary piano. That is what’s known as The Photoplayer, or more commonly now the Fotoplayer. The reason it was called that is because this is what would accompany your average theatregoer in the 1920s and 1930s. There are many different variations, some with violins, some with banjos, heck, even some with slide whistles, but they all stood to accomplish one goal. To invoke an emotion of some kind when played in junction with a scene in a silent film.

And they worked. Extremely well. Unfortunately though, like the silent film these became an antiquated piece of history as well. And also like the silent movie, when “Talkies” came out there was no more need for them. As such, production of the Fotoplayer was ceased in 1925. Of the thousands that were produced only 50 are thought to remain. Only 12 of those are considered to be in playable condition.

So how did they work? It was all mechanical. That was the true appeal to lugging a giant piece of machinery like that into a theatre; it required no musical talent to operate. In fact, all the music was controlled by a piano roll, a series of pins fastened into a wooden cylinder that spins. As this roll spun around the pins manipulated levers that struck the cords to produce the piano notes.

Things like drums rolls were more complicated as a series of clockwork gears had to be put into place. When cued they would spin rapidly, causing mechanical arms to strike the snare drum at a roll tempo, bass drums and cymbals could be added to this mix as well.

To get even more complicated they added stringed instruments. For the life of me I cannot tell you how these operated, (perhaps someone out there knows and would be willing to leave it in the comments. I sure wouldn’t mind finding out.) However it worked, I salute that engineer.

So for the most part we know how they played the music, but how did they make the sound effects? A series of pull cords, bells, whistles, and steam. The operator could pull a lever, push a button, or flip a switch, whatever the trigger mechanism might be on the particular model of Fotoplayer to recreate hundreds of sounds. From telephones to trains, even steamboat horns were just a button press from the operator’s hand.

So what happened to all these treasures swallowed up by time?

The answer is in the question, simply time.

Reel Fires and Decomposition

In 1889 when moving pictures started catching on, Eastman Kodak provided them with the tools they needed to get the job done. The three men credited the most with early Celluloid film development were John Carbutt, George Eastman, and Hannibal Goodwin. While Hannibal and John had good designs and were almost there, Eastman’s had a benefit that neither of theirs did. It was flexible.

Celluloids are a class of compounds that are made by combining Nitrocellulose and camphor. Nitrocellulose is made by saturating cellulose with nitric acid. The result is an extremely unstable compound known by several names, Guncotton, Flash Paper, and highly dangerous are just a few.

So it isn’t any wonder that this film would be so fragile. In fact, it had such a low combustion point that theater fires were not uncommon as the projector would overheat causing the reel to ignite. The ignition of nitrocellulose is intense to say the least, it burns incredibly hot, extremely fast, and is almost impossible to extinguish by conventional methods.

Perhaps the most tragic example of this is the fire in the National Archives in the 70s. Over 300 silent films were destroyed as the canisters of film went up in flames. Thankfully some were able to be recovered.

Another problem with nitrate films is that they deteriorated rather quickly. If not kept at a cool temperature to slow the deterioration indefinitely the film would decompose. This act is known as “Vinegar Syndrome” and has been an enemy of film preservationists for years.

But perhaps the most unforgivable act of all is the intentional destruction of these films by the studios. It wasn’t that they hated the films, they just need vault space. Nobody cared about silent films now that talking pictures had been invented. It was time to move on. These reasons are why it is so important we preserve what little bit of this nostalgic Americana we have left.

The Best of the Best

In closing I just want to remind you all, remember where the movies you enjoy now came from. Most of them are rehashes of movies made in the time periods of the 20s through the 50s. Nothing really original is done anymore. And there is something to be said for the artistry that went into making something look so simplistic. It wasn’t like the digital era, they couldn’t just do an instant replay and decide the shot looked bad and redo it. It would take weeks to develop the film, just to find out it was terrible and had to be redone!

I’ll let the surviving works below “speak” for themselves. You all have a wonderful day, and I hope you enjoyed this little history lesson. Promise we’ll be back to the science tomorrow! I just had to share this with you, as it is something I feel strongly about. Thank you for reading.

-Ryan Sanders

Comedy

Charlie Chaplin