Why Silent Films will always by gypped come Award time

With the overrated Academy Awards tonight (who's traffic will bar me from even setting foot NEAR Hollywood) I would just like to take a moment to state my annoyance with award shows, top grossing lists, best selling lists, and overall collective movie lists. Why? Because so so VERY rarely are silent actors and silent films counted on them. For instance Mary Pickford came in #24 on American Film Institutes Top 100 actors (for the past 100 years) list!!! Below freakin Mae West! Don't get me wrong...I like Mae West...but seriously? On a top movie list they ranked Birth of a Nation as #44!!! Seriously.

Most of these problems stems from the fact that not only do most people not remember silent films, they cant remember anything pre color (I mean 1950s color, not 1929 color)! As one person put it, "Most historians forget anything before Marilyn Monroe". The public is one thing, its even sadder when film buffs are guilty as well. Look at that stupid list yourself, most of the actors are from the late 40s and 50s...the fact Gloria Swanson isn't even on the list (or Valentino and the fact Chaplin is not #1) says it all. Back in the day there may have been reason for this...there was no internet, no easy 'click and order', no TCM. In this day and age there is no reason for anyone receiving an Oscar tonight to have no clue who Mary Pickford is (sad thing is I doubt even one of them does!) I guess karma is a funny thing though...80 years from now no one will care who Brangelina is or know anything about Tom Cruise beyond his couch jumping career suicide (and even that will only be film buffs).

Top grossing lists never seem to include silents. In fact the only time they do is if they don't adjust inflation, and suddenly Birth and Four Horsemen top the list. The trouble with highest grossing lists is even when limited to silents exclusively (or talkies only) they are so flawed its stupid. The oft repeated list of top grossing silents comes from a 1932 article in Variety (click here to read). Even in this day and age that list is still likely very flawed.

The way silent films were distributed was this: they'd play a very large theatre in the major cities for a premiere. Once that was done a road show would begin to other smaller but still important cities. Finally they would trickle down into the sticks. This could literally take years (thus why films weren't seen as valuable beyond the first release). To make matters even more complicated the profit system was different then now; and accounting was very lax (and probably crooked). The best indication we have of what did what business is the trade journals from the day and the magazine popularity polls.

With things so hard to account for the stars didn't exactly help. Fake numbers were put out for press releases and later in life in autobiographies or interviews they would give a number that was just ridiculous. Mabel Normand's film "Mickey" is usually cited as being released in 1918 and the highest grossing picture of the year making $18 million. No one stops to realize that up to 1932 "Birth of a Nation", the highest grossing film forever-ty-ever, made only $10 million. No way "Mickey" beat that. That number came from Mack Sennett later in life, and everyone just believed him. Four Horsemen and Birth suffer similar problems, no one can agree on how much they really cost or made during their original runs.

Even if the Variety list is as dead on as we'll ever get, Silent films will never be able to compete in top grossing lists. There is a fundamental flaw in these lists: ticket prices change, inflation changes, and distribution changes. In 1915 tickets to Birth were $2 (at a time when most other pictures were 5 or 10 cents) which would be near $40 in this day and age. In 2008 tickets to Dark Knight were around $11-$12 in big cities...which would be an extremely high price back in 1915. It could take 2 years for Birth to reach the sticks, and even longer to reach beyond the States (in fact it was playing Europe in the mid 1920s). In 2008 Dark Knight could play in Los Angeles the same as Podunk, Iowa...and Rome. And the grosses could be immediately tabulated. Obviously this will always slant newer films to the top of the list.

What makes it even more unfair is re-releases which rarely occurred during the silent era but occurred on and off over the past 90 years, are not counted. Revival house showings aren't counted. Home prints of any format are not counted (and by now what with all the various formats over the years it would be very hard to count). And once again...we don't even have the proper original totals! And even if we did...it'd be hard to compare!

I think modern people like to overlook just how powerful some of these films were. Birth will probably be the highest grossing film (and most important at that) for all time...just given what it was and what it did...similar success is impossible to match less a new art form is discovered and quickly devoured. I also think Big Parade, Gold Rush, and Four Horsemen are very underrated in their overall places in history.

Gross lists are one thing...I still think its saddest that the very people who made these films are so underrated today. If the day ever comes that I encounter someone who doesn't know the name 'Charlie Chaplin'...well that's the day I'll give up hope.