Five Silent Films Premiere on the NFPF Website: Starring William Powell, Clara Bow, Wallace Reid, Charles Ray, and Marin Sais
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Frank Keenan, Clara Bow, and William Powell share a tense moment on the phone in My Lady's Lips (1925).
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To celebrate Silent Movie Day the National Film Preservation Foundation is proud to present five new silent films in our online screening room. All were preserved with NFPF support and all but one are appearing online—and on video—for the very first time. The HD videos are presented with notes and new scores by Michael Mortilla and Ben Model, two of the finest silent film accompanists working today.
The films include three features—My Lady’s Lips (1925), starring William Powell as an ace reporter tasked with protecting the reputation of his editor’s daughter, Clara Bow, from a gang of crooks; Paris Green (1920), starring Charles Ray as a war hero returning with mixed feelings from France to his small hometown; and The Roaring Road (1919), starring Wallace Reid as an aspiring racing driver who finds himself in a position to break the record from Los Angeles to San Francisco—plus two shorts: episode 24 of The Girl From Frisco, a rare surviving entry from the Kalem western series starring Marin Sais, and Automobile Thieves (1906), a still-thrilling and very violent tale of criminal lovers, starring and directed by J. Stuart Blackton.
My Lady’s Lips (1925) is the second (and first surviving) film to feature William Powell in a starring role. Before and afterward, until the advent of sound, he played villains and unsavory supporting roles. To fill the most important supporting role, producer B.P. Schulberg turned to one of his contract players, Clara Bow (who appeared in 14 films that year), and cast the venerable stage star Frank Keenan as her dangerous father. My Lady's Lips is also notable for taking a stand against “the Third Degree” and includes an anti-police-torture message from August Vollmer, “the father of modern policing.” Ben Model provides the score for the film, which was preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Stanford Theatre Foundation with funding through Saving the Silents, a collaborative project organized by the NFPF and supported by the Save America’s Treasures program.
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Wallace Reid and Guy Oliver attempt to set a new record when racing from Los Angeles to San Francisco in The Roaring Road (1919). Can they make it within 13 hours?
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From the same archive and preservation effort comes The Roaring Road (1919), which brings together two of the era's most popular entities: the automobile and Wallace Reid. The film’s Santa Monica road race, and the race between a train and car from LA to San Francisco, were inspired by the real-life versions of each. A speed demon in real life, Reid is pitted against the great character actor Theodore Roberts, who plays his blustering boss, an automobile magnate. They’re directed by James Cruze, who got his start thanks to Reid’s advocacy. The Roaring Road was so popular it spawned a direct sequel, which was less common in the silent era, and a cycle of films with Reid as a race driver. Music for The Roaring Road is provided by Michael Mortilla.
Paris Green (1920) was preserved by George Eastman Museum through Saving the Silents and features accompaniment by Ben Model. Produced by Thomas Ince, it exemplifies the sort of film with rural characters and settings that made Charles Ray a beloved star (not only in America but also abroad, where his fans included Rene Clair and Ernst Lubitsch): he played country boys at a time when half the country still lived on farms and in rural communities. Inspired by the 1919 hit song “How are You Goin’ to Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)?”, the film shows Ray returning from WWI service to a disappointing homecoming and then reveals a novel answer to the song. Comedic relief also ensues from everyone in town assuming Ray can speak French, though he spent only 42 minutes in Paris.
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Charles Ray finds a reason to stay down on the farm in Paris Green (1920).
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Only three out of 25 episodes of The Girl From Frisco have survived, which makes episode 24, The Wolf of Los Alamos (1917) all the more valuable. Like all Kalem series, all the episodes were self-contained (unlike those of a serial), and all starred Marin Sais as Barbara Brent, the strong-willed daughter of a western rancher. As Kalem proclaimed, “Barbara meets men on their own battleground and proves by her deeds her contention that woman is man’s equal in any undertaking.” In this episode Barbara solves a murder mystery and saves a vaquero from the noose. The film was preserved by the Library of Congress through an NFPF grant and features music by Michael Mortilla, who also scored our next film.
Automobile Thieves (1906) shows why Vitagraph was making the most exciting and advanced films in America during the advent of the Nickelodeon era. Crafted by early film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton and following the dictum that a film “must have something happening every minute,” within the space of 15 minutes the film gives us multiple beatings, shootings, burglaries and auto thefts, along with a drive-by robbery and highway robbery, and a stolen car set on fire. Billed as “the most thrilling and dramatic film ever produced,” Automobile Thieves also shows off advances in editing, composition, and the car chase, a staple of the next 120 years of cinema. It was preserved by UCLA through Saving the Silents.
Our thanks to the archives that not only preserved these films, but also generously agreed to make them films available to the public. We'll have more to share with you in the coming months. In the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy celebrating Silent Movie Day with this day’s worth of programming!
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A 120-year-old drive-by robbery in Automobile Thieves (1906).
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Founded in 2021 and registered with National Day Archives, Silent Movie Day is an annual celebration of silent movies that advocates for the presentation and preservation. Anyone can take part in Silent Movie Day, which has grown into an international movement. Consult its website to learn more about silent film screenings near you.