Silents Are Golden

 

January 6, 2024

 

If you’ve thought of silent films as only melodramas or slapstick, check out “Souls for Sale.” It’s hilarious. It’s a spoof of Hollywood, made in 1923. The dialogue isn’t at all stilted; it could be from a movie today. The only difference is that it’s written instead of spoken.

 

Some of my favorite lines:

 

A woman dying of thirst in the desert is found by an actor filming there.

 

“Are you real or—a mirage?”

“Neither. I’m a movie actor.”

 

The director goes looking for the actor, and finds him giving water to the thirsty woman:

 

“Good Lord, Tom Holby, is there anywhere in world you don’t find a fan?”

 

As the movie-within-a-movie continues filming, the caption reads, “THE USUAL SHEIK CROSSES THE USUAL DESERT WITH THE USUAL CAPTIVE.”

 

And, over a decade before Rhett Butler uttered the line that roiled the movie world, this sentence appeared on screen: “None of your damned business!” Surprised? I was.

 

There are lots of other good lines, too. Check it out.