I’m back with another little peek into my silent movie collection. I have received wonderful feedback on my previous posts (find them here under the Shelfie category) so let’s do this again!
The selection is a little more chaotic this time around but it made sense to me back when I will
(Click on image for more information, pricing, purchase options, etc. I live in California, so all discs will be region 1/A or region free unless otherwise noted.)
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)
Anthony Asquith’s silent drama about a boy, a girl and a straight razor. I own the 2007 Kino release, which also include the documentary Silent Britain.
Read my review of the film here.
Oliver Twist (1922)
Dickens and Lon Chaney were made for one another and I am a bit surprised that their paths didn’t cross more often. We also get Jackie Coogan, then at the height of his popularity as a child star. I own the 2000 out-of-print Image release, which also includes the Chaney redemption drama The Light of Faith.
Gypsy Blood (1918)
Pola Negri and Ernst Lubitsch made their own version of Carmen and it was renamed Gypsy Blood when it was released in the United States. I own the 2006 Grapevine release but I hope that the German cut is made available eventually.
Read my review of the film here.
Hotel Imperial (1927)
One of Pola Negri’s most commercially successful American films, this WWI drama was directed by Mauritz Stiller, one of his last projects before his death in 1928. The film is allegedly cursed but I think that’s a lot of hooey. I own the 2006 Grapevine edition.
Read my review of the film here. (I also cover its unofficial remake, Five Graves to Cairo.)
Raffles Double Feature
This 2007 Grapevine release contains two versions of the Raffles story: the 1917 John Barrymore vehicle and the 1925 House Peters film. Neither picture really captures the appeal of the Raffles books but they have interesting elements. The Barrymore film has Frank “Oz” Morgan as his sidekick, Bunny, and the Peters film features Hedda Hopper as the hero’s passionut stalker.
Read my review of the 1917 film here and read my review of the 1925 film here.
Dancing Mothers (1926)
Alice Joyce and Clara Bow star in a look at the modern family of the mid-1920s. I own the 2005 Grapevine release.
Bare Knees (1928)
There are flapper films and then there are flapper films. Virginia Lee Corbin’s cute teenage flapper is a delight but it’s a shame she was saddled with the old “so-called wild chick is really the most moral woman in town” chestnut. I own the 2006 Grapevine edition.
A Little Girl in a Big City (1925)
Speaking of bare knees (at one time, Gladys Walton’s contract stipulated at least one bare-kneed scene per film) here is a film about an innocent country girl who falls in with… wait for it… a big city cad. I own the 2012 Grapevine release.
Phew! All done for now! I hope you enjoyed this look at my shelves.
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Movies Silently 
In your note about the Raffles film with Hedda Hopper I thought “passionut stalker” was a typo, but maybe it’s a comment!
It is indeed a comment. I saw the portmanteau in a book by Charles Somerville and stole it for my own!
I always been interested in Hotel Imperial and Dancing Mothers(I like anything with Clara Bow in it as I just picked up the Milestone version of “It” off eBay for a good price) though I never did know anything about Grapevine Video, from what it seems they put good effort into their DVDs.
You can take a look at screenshots in my Hotel Imperial review. Yes, Grapevine is pretty good. It’s a tiny company so they can’t afford restorations or anything like that but they do release a lot of stuff that is otherwise unavailable.
Please keep doing these shelfies – proves to my husband that some people have more movies than me.
😀