At It Again (1912) Keystone

[Kitty]

That sounds like fun. So what color is the sand in New Jersey?

Dirty. Haha. It's like yellow sand colored with a lot of black bits. Some beaches are much worse.

[donnie]

1912 is a particularly fascinating year because that's when the feature films really were on the cusp of taking off. 1912-ish through about 1921 or so is really my bread and butter when it comes to silents. Not that there aren't a lot of things I like before and after, especially before—but the more sophisticated films of the late 20's in general don't interest me as much. Do you have a favorite stretch?

[Kitty]

I'm really enjoying from 1900 through the teens. There are a lot of movies I like throughout the 20s, but I feel they were a bit more inventive before that. They could tell in 15 minutes just as well as a story of a 90 minute film, many times with more effect.

[donnie]

That's an interesting point. I hadn't thought about that, but maybe that's one reason the films from the teens appeal to me more. And the ones from 1910 on back are so interesting just because of the age of them, even when the technique is primitive—maybe even because it's primitive, in a sense—they were still actively experimenting with how to tell a story on the screen. And that experimentation was still going on into the teens, before the mega Hollywood studios got going.

[Kitty]

Exactly. You hit the nail on the head.