Military History Photo Friday: Earliest Film of U.S. Black Troops

Here's an interesting old silent film from the Spanish-American War. It was filmed in 1898 by Edison Studios and shows the steamer Mascotte docked at Port Tampa, Florida, on its way to Cuba. The 2d Battalion of Colored Infantry is going ashore. The tide is very high, and the gang plank is extra steep, so the soldiers have to be careful coming down. Their commanding officer is on the wharf trying to get them to hurry.

Black troops played a prominent role in the capture of Cuba from the Spanish and participated in most of the major battles, including the famous charge up San Juan Hill. The African-American press was divided over the war, some editorials saying that black troops shouldn't fight abroad until they gained equality at home, while others said that it was a patriotic duty and would lead to more respect for the black community. The debate continues to this day.

I believe this is the first film of black troops in the U.S. army. Given the date, it certainly must be one of the first.

Wild West Photo Friday: Real Outlaws in Western Movies

This dusty gunman is Al Jennings, a lawyer from Oklahoma who became a bandit in the 1890s. He had a brief career of robbing banks and stores before getting injured in a shootout with the law and sent to prison. When he got out, he went back to being a lawyer and even ran for governor of Oklahoma!

When his political career didn't pan out, he decided to make movies where he played himself. Westerns had become a popular genre in the early silent films and he wasn't the only real-life bandit to sully the silver screen. You can read more in my post for Black Gate about Wild West Outlaws in Silent Film.

This image is a still from the film The Lady of the Dugout (1918) and is in the public domain.

Forgotten Masters of Fantasy and Science Fiction Silent Film

Satan at Play, bu Segundo de Chomón, 1907.

As you may know, I blog every Wednesday over at Black Gate. For the past two weeks I've been delving into my love of silent film. Ever since I was a kid I've been captivated by these early movies and as an adult I've been doing some research into them. Two early directors who have been all but forgotten are the subject of my recent posts.

Segundo de Chomón was a Spanish director who in the first decade of the twentieth century made some two hundred films, mostly fantasy and horror. Walter R. Booth of England was another early pioneer, starting in films in 1899. He created the first science fiction film trilogy with his Airship Destroyer series from 1909-11.

Both directors used techniques such as animation, split screen, jump cuts, superimposition, multiple exposures, and stop motion animation to make their special effects. Even though their films are more than a century old, many of these effects hold up surprisingly well. Check out the links to the articles and you'll find more links to their best films. Most early films were less than six minutes long so they make a perfect break from work. Enjoy!

Metropolis: seeing the complete classic film

This week I went to my favorite arthouse cinema, RagTag in Columbia, Missouri, to see the restored, full-length version of Metropolis.

You've probably seen Fritz Lang's 1927 Expressionist masterpiece, and you've certainly seen some of its most famous images: a robot turning into a beautiful woman, slave workers turning the giant hands of a man-sized clock, immense machinery exploding and killing the crew. It's visually stunning and memorable, but until now it wasn't complete.

The original ran 153 minutes, too much even for the longer attention spans of a more patient age. At least half an hour was cut from most versions, and more in some cases. This left the film jumpy and at times incoherent. The extra film was considered lost until a few years ago when an original, full-length copy was found in Argentina.

The film was in bad shape and transferred to 16mm, so it had lost its original dimensions. With painstaking care, experts fixed up most of the missing parts and this almost complete version of the film is now on international tour. I say "almost complete" because a few minutes were too mangled to be restored. Even the parts that were restored are grainy and scratched. Missing scenes are explained with intertitles.

Go see it anyway. The complex and compelling plot now makes sense for the first time, and even the scratchy bits contain some alluring scenes. Lang was a master, one of the greatest directors of all time, and the Expressionist movement of the Weimar Republic created some of the most enduring silent classics in history. Seeing it actually upped my productivity as a writer. As I've mentioned before, I'm more inspired by artists in other fields than I am by writers. Seeing great DJs or painters, or even ancient ruins, gets my creative juices flowing.


[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]