Silent Magic: Rediscovering the Silent Film Era

by Ivan Butler

1988 hardcover with dust jacket as shown. Tight spine, clear crisp pages, library donation with discard stamp otherwise no writing, no tears, smokefree. Jacket in New condition. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0804420785
• ISBN13: 9780804420785
• Release Date: April 1988
• Publisher: Frederick Ungar
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A TRULY EXCELLENT BOOK!!

Here at last is a book that was written by a man who had the pleasure of viewing the films of the silent period first hand. This is not a book that was written by someone who was not born during the silent area, this is the real deal here. Presented in chapters that go year by year with interesting asides of noteworthy events, the author describes his views of what he had seen during the silent period. His memory is honest, with a few interesting 'honest' reviews of films that he remembered seeing as a filmgoing young adult. The pictures are a bonus as well, as many have never been seen before of films that were/are lost to us, which is heartbreaking considering the amount of films that will never be available to the public to view. Ever. This is not a large volume book, just a doccument of informative information of silent films that one person viewed many years ago. This does not go into detail on every silent film ever made, just an overview, which to me let me understand the films he saw at a casual pace, which helped me understand each film and what each film had to offer in history. As a resource, it does help one understand the power of the silent film, and how the medium progressed through the 20's, which is considered the decade where silent film peaked as an art. The last few chapters amazingly covers the silent films that were converted to sound when sound was the preferred choice by studios, and the difficulty of the movie houses had in doing so to meet the demand of the public, and the films that were released silent, even as late as 1929. I read this book in 3 days, and was a thoroughly wonderful read indeed.