Close-Up on Legends of the Early Cinema

“We had faces.” Thus boasted the aging, silent era glamour queen Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard.” But if memorable faces are what you crave, how about Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, William Holden, Paul Newman, Barbara Stanwyck, to name but a handful of stars from the “talkies”? Still, there’s no doubt that silent film stars had tremendous appeal for the audiences of their day. Nowadays, when few moviegoers are familiar with the early classics of the sound era, let alone the silent screen, it is difficult to recapture a sense of their impact.

Jeanine Basinger’s aim in her delightful and enlightening book is to celebrate “Silent Stars” who have been pretty much forgotten--or, if remembered, insufficiently appreciated. The chairwoman of film studies and curator of the cinema archives at Wesleyan University, Basinger wants to share with readers the experience of viewing these films, most of which are not readily available to general audiences. Although she wants to rescue forgotten stars from obscurity, the figures she treats were very famous in their day: the sisters Norma and Constance Talmadge, for example.

Between them, Basinger contends, they illustrate the range of roles that women of their era played on screen. Norma, the brunet, played dramatic parts; Constance, the blond, was the comedian: “Norma,” writes Basinger, “appeared mostly in stories that touched on the typical tragedies of women’s lives--bad men, bad luck and bad marriage--while Constance usually played in movies that provided escape and promised a better deal: good men, good luck and good marriage.” Norma played all kinds of heroines, from stalwart frontier women to exotic dancers to the suffering courtesan Camille, the Meryl Streep of her day, as Basinger calls her. Constance played spirited blonds, anticipating the madcap antics of Carole Lombard.

Flappers Clara Bow and Colleen Moore, cowboys Tom Mix and William S. Hart, and “women of the world” Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson are the paired subjects of three more chapters in which Basinger contrasts two versions of a specific type. Subsequent western heroes, for instance, can be seen as deriving either from Hart’s tough, laconic loner or from Mix’s cheerful, flashy cowboy.

Apart from Marion Davies, most of the stars to whom Basinger devotes a full chapter are so famous they may not seem much in need of “rescuing”: Rudolph Valentino, Lon Chaney, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford. But famous as they still are, Basinger contends, their careers have not been studied in detail, and few modern moviegoers really comprehend the powerful impression they made in their day.

Basinger is the perfect guide to movies past: savvy, discerning, funny, not only in love with her subject, but able to convey the reasons for her enthusiasm. One of the most inspiring stories she tells is of a young German orphan rescued by an American soldier in the aftermath of World War I. This talented immigrant grew up to become one of the best-loved stars of the silent screen. Happily married and the father of four, he truly lived the American Dream, and managed to die with his head in Jean Harlowe’s lap. This celebrated canine’s name was Rin Tin Tin.