When the topic of the greatest silent epic is under discussion, it is often the predictable names such as D.W. Griffith and Sergei Einstein, and titles like Birth of a Nation and Cabiria that are put forward for the title. However, many of these films are somewhat stodgy and lifeless, with production values and spectacle making up for their lack of warmth or imagination. Here are 3 somewhat underrated epics which I feel embody the best of silent era...
Robin Hood (Allan Dwan, 1922)
Silent star Douglas Fairbanks' adapatation of Robin Hood involved one of the biggest sets thus built, an enormous castle complete with concealed ladders and slides which provided the agile actor with a myriad of gymanstic opportunities, and set the scene perfectly for this big budget, epic retelling of the legend. Fairbanks was just coming into his own as an action star when he made this and the stunts are as top class as ever, but he never loses the sense of winsome comedy that made him popular. Although the 1938 Errol Flynn vehicle The Adventures of Robin Hood now seems to have eclipsed this version in the public consciousness as the definitive rendering of the legend, this engaging adaptation still shines brighter for the expert way that director Allan Dwan manages to maintain a light-hearted tone whilst still effectively conveying the horrific greed and corruption of King John's government, the perfect foil for such a hero of the people (a description befitting either Robin Hood or the hugely popular Fairbanks himself).
The Iron Horse (John Ford, 1924)
Director John Ford never lost his fascination with the creation of American legends and in The Iron Horse he found the perfect canvas on which to paint his version of the taming of the American west, with each stroke as broad and epic as the Mississippi. As we follow the railway workers in their efforts to build the first transcontintental railroad we may as well be watching them build America itself, as Ford uses their story as an excuse to weave together people and events from throughout all of America's short history. Abraham Lincoln, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hicock... all make an appearance in Ford's epic tale, as do so many of the elements that have become familiar parts of the Ford canon; the rogueish Irish comedy, the love of fistfights, the composition - where trivial events are transformed into vital parts of American history when shot against Ford's magnificent western vistas. Ford didn't really hit his stride as a top-class director until the 1930s, but this film is testament to the fact that most of the elements that made his later films so special were right there in the 1920s.
Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (Fritz Lang, 1924)
Although Fritz Lang's Metropolis is rightly regarded as one of the finest films of the entire silent era, and shows Lang at perhaps his most ambitious, it is in this earlier film featuring diabolical supervillain Dr Mabuse that is his most accomplished. Where Metropolis sought to remedy society's problems by looking to the future for enlightenment, Dr Mabuse turns its eyes squarely on the present, exposing the seedy underbelly of Weimar Germany, where morals can be bought and sold on the open market, and where nightclub patrons are greeted with the question "cards or coke?". Rudolf Klein-Rogge is suitably mesmerising as crime-lord, master of disguise and occasional hypnotist Dr Mabuse, and the effects Lang uses to convey Mabuse's mastery over disguise and persuasion techniques are sufficiently bold and striking to never seem dated. If Mabuse is evil incarnate then this film offers new meaning to the phrase "the devil is in the detail" as Lang's rigorous 4 and a half hour thriller guides us through the machinations of Mabuse's empire with a rigorous detail seldom equalled in the 80-odd years of cinema since. That the film manages to be conistently gripping over such a long duration is testament to Lang's supreme mastery of the silent form. The fact that he never managed to reach such heights when working with sound is also revealing, a signifier of the unique pleasures to be gained from this sadly lost form of art.
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