1920-1929

Vintage original 8 x 10" (20 x 25 cm.) black-and-white photo, USA. Remarkable candid photo of a meeting between two legendary directors of the silent era.

Abel Gance came to the US in 1921 to promote his film J'accuse, which made its American debut on October 9 of that year. During a lengthy five-month stay, Gance made a point of meeting D.W. Griffith, whose work he had always admired.

There are a couple of slight corner creases, and an equally trifling horizontal crease, NEAR FINE.

Vintage original 8 x 10” (20 x 25 cm.) Vintage original black and white single weight glossy silver gelatin print still photo, USA. Joan Crawford, Ramon Novarro, Ernest Torrence, dir: Willian Nigh; MGM. Before being known as the ultimate flapper, Joan Crawford paid her dues and learned her craft in a variety of film stories.  This story, based on Ben Ames Williams novel was set in an American coastal community during the 1850s.  MGM remade the story in 1953 as ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT.  Anna May Wong made an uncredited appearance...

Vintage original 23 x 35" (58 x 88 cm.) poster, Sweden. Tom Moore, Pauline Starke, dir: Victor Fleming; Paramount. Wild extravagant design for silent adventure film set in the Solomon Islands. On linen, NEAR FINE

Vintage original 14 x 36" (35 x 92 cm.) insert poster, USA. Lewis Stone, Billie Dove, Lloyd Hughes, Arthur Stone, Arthur Hoyt, dir: Millard Webb; First National Pictures. A vehicle for the great Ziegfeld Follies star Billie Dove. She portrays Tamara, married to an inventor who cannot get anyone to see his work, who must rejoin the Follies -- and that causes problems for her marriage. Dove, who started her career as a model, became one of the most decorative of the Follies girls and, when Ziegfeld paid too much attention to her, his wife Billie Burke arranged for Miss...

Vintage original 11 x 14" (28 x 35 cm.) lobby card, USA. James Kirkwood, Anna Q. Nilsson, Geoffrey Kerr, Norman Kerry, dir: George Fitzmauric: Paramount. Paramount made some of the most innovative and decorative of lobby cards during the silent era. This card, with early Art Deco influence, is no exception.

Filmed on location in Italy, it is the story of an American heiress whose fiancé saves a fisherman accused of stabbing his wife. It was based on a Booth Tarkington play. What is most significant about this film is that the art director and title designer was Alfred Hitchcock.

There is...

Vintage original 10 x 8” (25 x 20 cm.) black and white single weight glossy silver gelatin print still photo, USA. Anna May Wong, Kenneth Harlan, Beatrice Bentley, Priscilla Moran, dir: Chester M. Franklin. Metro Pictures Corporation. Historically significant in the use of the early Technicolor film process, presented by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation and advertised as “In Perfect Natural Colors.”  Though not the very first use of the “two-strip” process, it was the very first feature length motion picture filmed in Hollywood in this process. It...

Vintage original 22 x 28" (55 x 71 cm.) half sheet poster, USA. Vilma Banky, Walter, Byron, Louis Wolheim, George Davis, dir: Victor Fleming; Samuel Goldwyn Company. A very fine example of early Art Deco design elements used on a movie poster. The film is lost and of interest is that it was Academy Award-nominated (for art direction to William Cameron Menzies) during the organization's second year. It was also a work by director Victor Fleming and a vehicle for top Goldwyn silent star, Vilma Banky. Brought from Russia, she was greatly celebrated until her thick accent proved too much...

Vintage original 11 x 14" (28 x 35 cm.) lobby card, USA. Lee Shumway, Charles Arling, Stanhope Wheatcroft. Betty Brice, Ruth King, dir: Edgar Lewis; Pathé. A fascinating image of the stock exchange as it appear1ed in 1920. The story, based on a book by Andrew Soutar, concerned business intrigue involving a paper mill. It is likely a lost film.

Minor soiling to blank white margins. Crease at top left corner. Crease at center right edge. Minor waviness to bottom margin. NEAR FINE.

Vintage original 11 x 14" (28 x 35 cm.) lobby card, USA. W. C. Fields, Martha Raye, Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Ross, Bob Hope, Lynne Overman, Ben Blue, dir: Mitchell Leisen; Paramount. One of the finest and best remembered of the 1930s musicals, if for no other reason than the introduction, by Ross and Hope (his first feature role), of the classic song "Thanks for the Memory." It won the Academy Award. Martha Raye, who did her own stunts in a raucously entertaining number, was ingeniously cast as W. C. Fields' daughter (in his last film for Paramount). Everyone shone in...

Vintage original 27 x 41" (68 x 102 cm.) one sheet poster, Clara Bow, Harold Austin, Eddie Phillips, Joe Butterworth, Thunder the Dog, dir: James P. Hogan; Gotham/Lumas Film Corp. Amazingly this film, with one of Clara Bow's earliest supporting film roles, was discovered in a full-print version in Russia in 2000. Of course, Thunder was the real star: German shepherds such as Rin-Tin-Tin and Strongheart were popular with post-World War I audiences (Thunder was a dog that had actually been decorated for his valor at Verdun during the war). This story is about a soldier killed in war whose...

Vintage original 22 x 28" (55 x 70 cm.) half sheet poster, USA. Florence Reed, Norman Trevor, Henry Stephenson, Don Merrifield, dir: Emile Chautard; Ziegfeld Cinema Corporation/Equity Pictures. This tale (based on the Algernon Charles Swinburne poem "Faustine") told of the daughter of a gambling hall hostess who, when down on her luck, impersonates her mother and reopens the palace.

For one brief moment, Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.'s younger brother, William, decided to invest in a film production company. He presented this one film starring premier Broadway actress Florence Reed (and a cast of New York theatre actors), after which there were...

Vintage original 11 x 14" (28 x 35 cm.) lobby card, USA Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove, Tempe Pigott, Donald Crisp, Sam De Grasse, dir: Albert Parker; United Artists. One of Douglas Fairbanks' best roles and one of the most memorable silent films which set the standard for all pirate epics to follow. Story of a nobleman who vows to avenge his father's death by the hands of pirates. He infiltrates their band and becomes known as the black pirate. Dove appears at right with Fairbanks, and a sword duel is presented within the shape of the pirate ship behind. The...