This month, we are going to be looking at apex predators in silent films. The selections are going to range from silly comedies with dodgy costumes to… well, some of the darker corners of filmmaking during the dawn of cinema.
The idea for this theme came about due to an offhand reference in a pre-WWI trade periodical to “lion pictures.” Indeed, multiple film companies made lions and other large animals their signature and the Selig film company in the United States engaged an entire menagerie.
Big game hunting was prestigious and former President Teddy Roosevelt was releasing films of his post-administration adventures. However, it is important to know that his trigger happy antics were not universally approved of. The Edison film company poked fun at him multiple times as a publicity hound shooting creatures for the headlines. The Teddy Bears features him ridiculously shooting his way into Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
Lions and tigers particularly found their way into Orientalist, Ancient and Biblical pictures as the personal weapons and punishment tools of despots. Conrad Veidt’s vindictive maharaja feeds his rival to his pet tigers in The Indian Tomb and Gloria Swanson is fed to Thomas Meighan’s lion after she rejects him in the Babylonian fantasy sequence of Male and Female. The Roman Orgy is short on orgies but does include lions rampaging through the royal palace.
Circus pictures were also wildly popular– high suspense stunts and skimpy costumes galore!– and what is a circus without animals? (Answer: Better.) Nelly La Domatrice, a 1912 Italian melodrama, is unusual in that the lions are treated as friends by both the adulterous lion tamer wife and her brokenhearted husband.
In the days before any protections for any performers, human or animal, there were some brave activists who attempted to demand such protections. Their efforts focused primarily on horses– the most used and, sadly, most harmed animal performers of the time– and, while real reform didn’t happen prior to the sound era, studios began to shy away from graphic portrayals of animal death in the twenties.
The film selections this month will tilt toward friendly animals and phony animals and any pictures portraying harm to an animal will feature a warning prominently at the beginning of the review as I appreciate such warnings myself. As an animal lover, my goal is not to distress anyone but rather to shed light on the early history of cinema and shedding light on the bad behavior of some pioneers in a tasteful manner. The film selection should remain firmly in the PG zone.
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Movies Silently 