Classics of the Silent Screen: A Pictorial Treasury by Joe Franklin

The house lights are down, the pianist is tinkling out the theme melody, the first titles are flickering on the screen, and the audience is falling once more under the spell of the silent film - a strange enchantment the talkies never quite duplicated. This is the mood Classics of the Silent Screen evokes anew. In its pages Harold Lloyd still dangles perilously from the minute hand of a tower clock, Rudolph Valentine woos Vilma Banky, Laurel & Hardy happily demolish a whole fleet of cars, Richard Barthelmess as "Tol'able" David tangles with the ruthless Hatburns, and Lon Chaney terrorizes all Paris as the Phantom of the Opera. And you? As you turn the pages you are a kid again, spellbound in the dark, having bought the whole world for a nickel.or you're a little older, holding hands with your best girl and imagining that you are Charles Farrell and she is Janet Gaynor. Or maybe you are too young to remember those far-away days and are meeting the pre-Vitaphone film for the first time. There could be no better introduction to the American silent film as the average movie-goer knew it than this book. The standard great films are all here - The Birth of a Nation, for example, and Nanook of the North, and Creed-but also here are fine films like The Cat and the Canary, Stella Dallas, and Our Dancing Daughters, pictures audiences of the day loved. Fifty films in all are described and illustrated with wonderful stills and rare production shots. Complete cast listings are provided. In its second section the book presents a gallery of 75 great stars and analyzes the special appeal of each of them. These stars range from legendary figures like Rudolph Valentino and Mary Pickford to stars who once rivaled them at the box office but now are all but forgotten, like Carol Dempster and Louise Brooks. And now if the ladies will please remove their hats, we are ready to begin the show . . .There is an old saying that you can't live in the past, but Joe Franklin has been disproving it every day for almost six years, via his "Joe Franklin's Memory Lane" show on WABC-TV in New York. Franklin has more than two decades of show business experience behind him, plus a half-century or so preserved in his priceless collection of films and phonograph records - some 3,000 films and 40,000 records covering show biz from the turn of the century to the present. His career began while he was a reporter for his high school newspaper. Strolling one day in Central Park, he happened to meet the late George M. Cohan, who was impressed by the lad's remarkable knowledge of the entertainment world. A supper invitation to the Cohan residence followed. Joe left that night with an old Cohan recording of "Life's a Funny Proposition After All" tucked safely under his arm. Joe's interest in collecting became twice as avid now, and he spent all his spare time in second-hand shops and record stores, sometimes paying the exorbitant price of a nickel a record, other times being paid to cart away the "useless" discs. After a brief hitch in the Army, Joe started working in radio in 1946. the station was WNEW in New York. In 1948 he joined WABC Radio, where his show started a boom in the old record business. Joe, who had taken to dressing up in shabby clothes and offering a penny for old records, found himself being told by dealers that Joe Franklin had offered over the air to pay $1,000 for the same record. But Joe went on acquiring records and film clips for his new TV show, which began on WABC in September of 1953 and has continued to the present. Franklin's acquaintance with countless movie and music personalities has made it a custom for them to drop in on the show, at which time he may play one of their records or roll one of their film clips. Joe houses his collection of records and films in his large apartment on Manhattan's West 86th's street, which more importantly, also houses his wife Lois and their two-year-old son Bradley. Inside of dust jacket has tape repairs. Thi. …