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RR 2006/102 Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies Robert K. Klepper McFarland Jefferson, NC 2005 ix + 586 pp. ISBN 0 7864 2164 9 £34.50, $49.95 Paperback reprint of title first issued in hardback 1999 (ISBN O 7864 0595 3)
Keywords Film, Guides and handbooks
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120610647573
Did you know that from 1902 to 1927 the Faust legend was filmed 15 times? This and other interesting facts are found in Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies. The work is a select critical guide, international in scope, of silent films. The work's author, the late Robert K. Klepper, provides a chronological history of the silent film industry, including the actors, producers, directors, and other trailblazers who originated films as we know them today. Covering over 119 years of filmmaking, Klepper includes "every type of film that existed in the silent era". The work, a labour of love, was first released in 1999 and is now available in a 2005 paperback edition. Klepper is also the author of Silent Film on Video (Klepper, 1996).
Klepper notes in his introduction that such a guide would have been impossible prior to the video revolution and his intent is to "provide information on what films are around, which of them are not as widely available as they should be, and which ones are not worthy of...