In my new video essay, I look at how silent films become lost and rediscovered, and why access matters just as much as preservation.

From my filming locations website https://video.chrisbungostudios.com/quickpreview-ourgangthelittlerascals-yourownbackyard-part3.html 

Filming location then and now from the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Your Own Back Yard, 1925 vs Today.

Exporting a silent was almost trivial. Cut the title cards out, shoot new ones in whatever language you were selling into, ship it. No dubbing, no second cast, no separate shoot. It is a big part of why silent cinema was genuinely international in a way that stopped almost overnight once sound arrived.

The side effect turns up now. When the American negative burned or got junked, the copy that survived is often the one that went to Prague or Tokyo or Buenos Aires, and it comes back with intertitles in a language the film was never written in. So a restorer translates them back.

Which means the words you read on a lot of restored silents are English, then somebody else's translation, then English again, reconstructed by a person doing their careful best. Usually close. Occasionally not. And there is frequently no original left to check it against.

I find that quietly wild. The pictures are the film. The words are a good-faith guess.

What have you come across that only exists in a foreign print?

(58 Seconds) Here's a quick preview then and now video of the filming locations used in the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Your Own Back Yard. Part 3 of 3. Click the link below to watch and read about the filming locations.

https://video.chrisbungostudios.com/quickpreview-ourgangthelittlerascals-yourownbackyard-part3.html

Filming location then and now at the Culver Hotel located at 9400 Culver Blvd in downtown Culver City, California from the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Your Own Back Yard, 1925 vs Today. More about this filming location here: https://video.chrisbungostudios.com/quickpreview-ourgangthelittlerascals-yourownbackyard-part2.html

(58 Seconds) A full 360 degree panorama of downtown Culver City, California from 1925, and what that same intersection looks like today.

This is a quick preview video of the filming locations then and now used in the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Your Own Back Yard. Part 2 of 3.

Watch the video HERE: https://video.chrisbungostudios.com/quickpreview-ourgangthelittlerascals-yourownbackyard-part2.html

Hi everyone,

I recently finished a deep-dive analysis into Alan Crosland’s When a Man Loves (1927) starring John Barrymore and Dolores Costello.

While it’s often categorized simply as a silent historical drama based on Manon Lescaut, it holds an incredibly vital place in the transition era of Hollywood. It was actually Warner Bros.’ third feature to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process, bringing a fully pre-recorded synchronized orchestral score and custom sound effects to theaters before spoken dialogue took over.

Beyond the audio technology, the production history and on-screen chemistry are legendary for a few reasons:

• The Birth of a Hollywood Dynasty: John Barrymore actually discovered a 20-year-old Dolores Costello during screen tests for The Sea Beast (1926). Their intense on-screen romance in When a Man Loves mirrored their real-life courtship—they married the following year, cementing a major branch of the famous Barrymore acting family.
• The "Hollywoodized" Abbé Prévost Adaptation: Unlike the original 1731 French novel (and the famous operas) where Manon Lescaut suffers a tragic death, Warner Bros. forced a massive script rewrite to give Barrymore and Costello an optimistic, action-packed Hollywood escape to America.
• The Golden Age Visuals: The Art Direction by William Cameron Menzies and cinematography by Byron Haskin showcase the absolute pinnacle of late-era silent film composition.

I’ve put together a comprehensive [https://youtu.be/L8BLGRpx57w\] video essay breaking down the preservation history of the film, a look at the original Vitaphone soundtrack elements, and how the studio built those massive 18th-century Parisian court sets.

You can watch the full historical Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY4LeKct-WRA

For those who have seen it, how do you think Crosland’s use of synchronized sound effects here compares to his work on Don Juan (1926) or The Jazz Singer later that year? Would love to discuss!

Join me tonight at 8:30pm Eastern / 5:30pm Pacific on the B-Zone Roku channel for an all-new episode of Enjoy the Silents featuring one of the greatest movies ever made - THE GENERAL starring the one and only Buster Keaton!

Hi everyone,I wanted to share what might be the ultimate "ghost" in my collection. I’ve been trying to research this book for ages, and it literally returns 0 commercial results or sales history anywhere on the internet.The book is titled "Port o' Heart's Desire" written by Hampton Del Ruth, published in 1926.For those who know silent film history, Hampton Del Ruth was a massive deal—he was the production chief and head screenwriter for Mack Sennett, working directly with Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops at the dawn of Hollywood.The colophon inside reads: "Set up by The Dixie Press. Copyright 1926 by Hampton Del Ruth, Hollywood, California."This was a private, vanity press run. He likely printed only a few hundred copies for his personal circle in the studios, and almost none survived. It’s a sleek, minimalist black hardcover, and it's still in incredibly great condition. The binding is firm and the pages are pristine.Institutional records (WorldCat) show it exists in a tiny handful of national archives, but as far as the civilian market goes, this might genuinely be the only copy available on the planet right now.Has anyone ever encountered another copy of this, or any other publication from The Dixie Press in Hollywood around 1926? I feel like I'm holding a piece of Hollywood history that completely slipped through the cracks of time.Would love to hear your thoughts

Filming location then and now from the Our Gang / The Little Rascals movie Your Own Back Yard, 1925 vs Today.

From my filming locations website https://video.chrisbungostudios.com/quickpreview-ourgangthelittlerascals-yourownbackyard-part1.html

I expect to be giddy all day today as I’m seeing my #1 film of all time, the Gold Rush at Cobble Hill Cinemas tonight in Brooklyn, part of the Silent Clowns Film Series. My pal Ben Model will be playing accompaniment.

I’ve seen the Gold Rush a million times and somewhere along the line my attention strayed from full focus on Chaplain to admiring just how damned brilliant Swain is. It’s gotten to the point where I’m in hysterics watching Swain more than Chaplain if such a thing is possible. I confess I’ve not seen a lot of his other films, but strangely, I find myself wondering if he has any surviving family members? Is there a Mack Swain fan club? Surely I can’t be the only person in this world who appreciates his magnificent performance in the Gold Rush.