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A Personal Odyssey Silent film, the truth at sixteen frames per second, has dominated much of my adult life. It has brought me happiness through the individuals I have met as a result of my interest, and it has also resulted in endless frustration in regard to both the lack of interest in the genre and the combined efforts of many who debase it through distribution of misinformation, arrogant and often worthless opinions, and shoddy presentation. The silent film we see on screen today is not what was viewed by an audience contemporary to the film. No matter how fine, dedicated, or caring the preservation or restoration, an acetate 35mm print of a silent film can never look as good as an original 35mm nitrate print. An archivist can make every effort to reproduce the tints and/or tones of the originaL but the end product will never be the same. Technicians may argue over silver content in the nitrate film against that in an acetate or safety print, assure us that their best efforts have replicated the originaL but I know differently. Ifell in love with silent films because, week after week as a young man, I saw original 35mm nitrate prints of silent films. Iwas born and educated in Birmingham, England, and had my first work experience at the age of sixteen in the Northern city of Hull. I subsequently escaped from there and from my family to London, where I worked in local government by day and tried desperately to find a niche in the film field. My first involvement in film in the mid-1960s was as honorary secretary of the Society for film History Research, a group of dedicated scholars and nonscholars concerned with the more esoteric aspects of motion picture history. My first published essay, "William Morton and His Cinemas," dealing with an early film exhibitor in HulL appeared in the December 1963 issue of the Society's journaL Cinema Studies. During that same period, Iwas involved in the formation of the CinemaTheatre Association, which was concerned with the movie theatre as a building, and whose newsletter I edited. In London, Iwas lucky enough to meet a middle-aged silent film collector named Bert Langdon. Each Saturday night, Bertwould screen original 35mm nitrate prints of silent films in his apartment in the Camden Town area of London. He utilized a hand-cranked, vintage 35mm projector and would accompany the films with contemporary music selected from a wide range of 78-rpm recordings. Because he had only one projector, there would be a break xvi A Personal Odyssey between reels. but because he had two turntables. he was able to keep the music playing constantly throughout the screening. fading in and outfrom one recording to the next. Incredibly. he operated both the projector and the turntables single-handedly. Only after Bert suffered a stroke and I took over the cranking of the projector did I realize just how remarkable was Bert's presentation . It was hard enough to keep the projector turning at a constant speed. trying to ignore the muscle ache. let alone to operate two turntables! Bert Langdon was no wealthy collector. He lived with his wife and son in a council flat-what in America would be termed subsidized housing-and purchased his films for a few dollars a reel at flea markets and the like. What wonderful films they were. There. for the first time. I saw a Mary Pickford feature. The Hoodlum (1919). and could comprehend the vibrancy of her personality . Bert owned the only extant print of a 1924 British feature film. Reveille . starring Betty Balfour and directed by George Pearson. Ifell in love with both the production and Betty's performance and had the good fortune to meet and become friendly with both her and her director. Another wonderful British film was The Rat (1925). starring Ivor Novello and Mae Marsh. and Bert's print featured a hand-colored sequence of french nightlife. Through Bert. I discovered just how many ways there were to color silent films. I even saw Kinemacolor projected-and it was extremely difficult to crank the projector at twice the normal speed in order to obtain a satisfactory merging of the two primary colors. The regular Saturday night group at Bert's did not comprise what would today be termed film buffs. There was another 35mm film collector. frank Shelton (who specialized in early talkies). Harold Dunham (who wrote pioneering articles in Films in...

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