A famous 1968 history of the silent movie era with discussion of the great directors, stars, productions, cameramen, editors and title card writers, constructed largely from interviews that the author had with silent movie industry workers and excerpts from biographies and Photoplay articles. Many great photographs. Somewhat disorganized. ( )

This book is for hardcore silent film fans. Which I am. It's very well-written and very extensive. Even though I've read a lot about the silent era, I hadn't heard of many of the people mentioned in this book. There are chapters on the stars (Gloria Swanson, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd to name a few), the directors (D W Griffith, Josef Von Sternberg, etc.), and even the technicians and cameramen. There is a lot of information about camera technique, lighting, and stunts. It was fascinating to read about how filmmakers of this time pulled off some of the most amazing shots and created special effects before CGI made creative filmmaking obsolete. ( )

reference, film, history