Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Updates for the week! Film review/ Article added

Having felt the deep joy of finishing the 1913-14 filmography, I took a little time and added only a few things, but here are some site updates:

LB as Holderlin and Phillips Holmes as Paul Renard in Broken Lullaby

BROKEN LULLABY is the new film review, so please check it out. It's an outstanding film , and a perfect example of Mr. B's vocal and physical skills to show a developing character. I wish Phillips Holmes were more consistent, but well...

A new article written by Barbara LaMarr on her four "lovers" in the 1923 Eternal City is on the article page, and it's unintentionally funny and revealing. PLEASE read the bit on Lionel Barrymore as a film "lover"! :)

 A few new audio bits have been added as well as a few photos. Please enjoy!

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

1913-1914 FILMS ARE DONE!! YAY!

April 1914 MPStory portrait

Amusing Variety May 1913 blurb on LB in  In Diplomatic Circles

Okay, so 103 years after 1914, I have finished to the very best of my present ability the 1913-14 filmography.  I can tell you these truths right now:

He is NOT in The Exploits of Elaine. He appears and is very well-touted in ads as appearing in the later Romance of Elaine, 1915.

Upon leaving Biograph after Klaw-Erlanger got their unfortunate mitts on it, he became more and more popular. He also, along with John and Ethel, took the Barrymore name off the stage alone and made it quite famous.

By March 1913, he is occasionally named in reviews, and by the mid-to-end of 1914 is featuring in them.

He is probably not in the weird Almost a Wild Man of June 1913, but IS in Pa Says, released July 21, 1913, according to not only IMdB but the comprehensive bio of William Beaudine, who wrote Pa Says. Beaudine also assisted on the almost completely not-online-info The Suffragette Minstrels.

Late 1913, LB was on the list of 26 Biograph actors whose names were going to be widely released on a 16x23 poster. I would LOVE to see it!

He IS in The Bartered Crown, which is on IMdB but not on AFI or Wiki. Released as his first film January 10, 1914.

It is still UNCERTAIN if he is in The Massacre. He COULD have been a soldier dying somewhere, as it was filmed in 1912 but released in the US in 1914. So if it was filmed around the same time as something like The Informer, maybe he is in it. It exists, and I haven't seen him in it--yet.

He IS in the non-AFI or Wiki film The Cracksman's Gratitude, with Joseph McDermott and Claire McDowell, directed for Biograph by Anthony O'Sullivan.  I hate AFI.

The Power of the Press exists apparently on DVD and though public domain, one company online claims to have it.. RetroFilms?

By late 1914, Lionel Barrymore was famous enough to be sold and to sell films, including two released on the same day, December 7, The Span of Life for Kinetophote and the really epic The Seats of the Mighty. He was under contract to Colonial Motion Pictures for Mighty, their first film, made in Fort Lee, NJ.

He stars as the villain in Under the Gaslight, an Augustin Daly melodrama that his father played a role in back in1874.

He seems to have authored or coauthored three identifiable films, The Tender-Hearted Boy (Jan 1913), The Vengeance of Galora (writer only, July 1913) and The Criminal's Thumb (coauthor, according to Herrick archive and Motography Vol 15, p 1459).

He directed at least two films in 1913, His Secret (October) and Where's the Baby? (November) (from the Herrick archives).

AND OH MY HEAD. 
That was a really crazy bit of research, probably the most difficult years to do (well, 1914 was the most difficult). I'm not totally satisfied with everything and a few probably have pics somewhere, but for now, I'm pretty confident in what's there as an accurate list for 1913-1914. I'm surprised by how many are extant (maybe 2/3, maybe a bit fewer) even if most are stuck in archives somewhere.