Book Shelf: "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" by Daniel Blum

A sample of what this book contains (from the very earliest movies in 1889 to the end of 1930, when movies had fully transitioned to sound).  Here it covers some of the movies that came out in 1918, including Tallulah Bankhead and Theda Bara.

I don't know what happened to my copy of "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" by Daniel Blum, but as a teenage movie buff in the 1980's I would spend hours looking through it.

A young-looking 21-year-old Daniel C. Blum, posing for his passport photo, filed prior to a world-wide tour he was to make with his father Daniel Blum.  Passport Application Form for Native Citizen, Daniel C. Blum, Washington, D.C., 1 Jun 1921, NARA Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925, Roll 1636, Certificate: 45213; digital image, Ancestry.com database U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1174 : 27 Feb 2018).

The author, Daniel Blum (1899-1965), was an editor of Theatre World and Screen World annuals, and compiled various works on show business (an obituary can be found in "Daniel Blum, Editor, Dies," The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD), 25 Feb 1965, page 19, col 2; digital image, Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com : 27 Feb 2018).

The book is available for free at the Internet Archive.  There are many used and new copies at Amazon.

This must have been a very interesting book for the first generations of people who grew old with the movies.
Only a few years before this book was published the classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) was released, a story of a movie star Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson, superstar of the silent era) who refused to acknowledge the passage of time.

Surely some of our ancestors in the 20th century were movie fans, and I wonder who their favorite actor or actress was?  And did they follow these fashions?

I looked through my various newspaper subscription services, and sure enough many newspapers mentioned or reviewed the book when it originally came out in 1953 (I find reviews in 1953 and 1954), and was mentioned well into the 1980's as a reference work (before the Internet).

An example of the book's mention in a newspaper: in Sarasota, Florida, the wife of Harry Benham (a local who had been in some silent movies) was compelled to buy a copy to see pictures of her husband.  Loveless, Hattie,"City Trailer Park Activities," Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, FL), March 28, 1954, pg 17; digital image, Google News (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A7-hzOuI2KQC&dat=19540328&printsec=frontpage&hl=en : 27 Feb 2018).

And sure enough, there is Harry Benham (portrait and film clip of him in "Merchant of Venice" (1912).  (page 27)

I need to look through my tree and see which of my actor/actress relations (I have a few) might make an appearance in this work.

Fun fact:  the Harrison Ford of Han Solo fame wasn't even the first famous Harrison Ford!  Here is a clip of Harrison Ford (1884-1957) in 1916 in "The Mysterious Mrs. Musslewhite."  (page 119).

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.