Poetry in title cards?

[gscottrobinson]

I am doing some research on poetry in silent films, which seems like a relatively rare occurrence. I was just rereading an article from 1923 about a title writer who laments trying to incorporate poetry into one of his movies - apparently it didn't get the audience very excited.

The Theda Bara film A Fool There Was is one of the best examples I have seen so far, since the opening title cards show the first few stanza's of a Kipling poem. One report says that performances of the film began with someone reading the poem aloud.

Foolish Wives also contains some title cards that read a bit like Modernist poetry.

If any other examples come to mind, I would love to see them here.

Thanks in advance,

Gregory

[DShepFilm]

The Australian silent feature film A SENTIMENTAL BLOKE (much beloved in Australia, and available there on DVD) is based upon a long poem and quotations from the poem constitute all its intertitles. However, they are in Strine, which takes a little translating for those unfamiliar with this highly colloquial form of English.

Other films include occasional poetic quotations in titles, as D. W. Griffith's INTOLERANCE which uses quite a bit of Walt Whitman; some films have poetic titles which are original to them, such as SUNRISE. I have seen films with titles that parody familiar poems, Robert W. Service being one of the more popular targets.

David Shepard

[LongRider]

Chaplin's 1914 short "Face on the Barroom Floor" from Hugh Antoine D'Arcy's poem.

Cheers,
Maureen

[Brooksie]

The Australian silent feature film A SENTIMENTAL BLOKE (much beloved in Australia, and available there on DVD) is based upon a long poem and quotations from the poem constitute all its intertitles. However, they are in Strine, which takes a little translating for those unfamiliar with this highly colloquial form of English.

The unofficial (and lost) sequel to the film, 'Ginger Mick' (1920), was also based on a poem by the same author, C.J. Dennis, and presumably quoted as extensively from its original source. An American "translation" of 'The Sentimental Bloke' was prepared for a potential US release, but I have never seen it.

There's a mysterious 1925 short called 'In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea' which is based on a poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. It's more significant for the fact that it uses a three-screen effect some time before Abel Gance did. The restoration I've seen physically reproduces the poem itself, but it's not clear whether that was the case originally (or in fact, whether the picture was ever shown publicly).

[gscottrobinson]

David - any idea which films parody the Service poems?

Maureen - thank you for the Chaplin film! It looks like the Internet Archive has a copy.

Gregory

[gscottrobinson]

There's a mysterious 1925 short called 'In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea' which is based on a poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. It's more significant for the fact that it uses a three-screen effect some time before Abel Gance did. The restoration I've seen physically reproduces the poem itself, but it's not clear whether that was the case originally (or in fact, whether the picture was ever shown publicly).

Oh!

I just saw a clip on Youtube. The triptych is really incredible. Thank you for the suggestion!

Gregory

[Rodney]

You might not count it as poetry, but Fritz Lang's Destiny (1920) has a rhyming stanza of a night watchman's song sung each hour in the frame story. The "Death's Chapel" sequence (which is most of the film) interrupts one stanza, indicating that it takes no time at all in the real world.

I'm sure I've seen some comedies with rhyming intertitles, but none comes to mind right now. The garden scene of The Mark of Zorro has Zorro reciting a love poem. Both Chaplin (with The Face on the Barroom Floor, mentioned above) and Buster Keaton (in the opening of The Blacksmith) parody the sorts of poems kids had to memorize in school.

There's a short film illustrating "The Night Before Christmas," (a.k.a. A Visit from St. Nicholas) as I recall, which probably has the verses, but it has been a long time since I've seen it.

Beloved Rogue, with John Barrymore as the poet Francois Villon, has remarkably little poetry, but I think there's at least one poem.

[DShepFilm]

As I recall, THE GOLD RUSH has a parody of Service. Also, there are some silents with scenarios and titles written by poets; THE CROWD (John VanAlstine Weaver) comes to mind.

David

[Ed Watz]

Larry Semon's early Vitagraph shorts occasionally included poems as exposition that earned a chuckle and furthered the plot. Offhand I can think of a good example in FRAUDS AND FRENZIES; there's others, too.

[Tommy Stathes]

Some of the early Bray cartoons (ca1913-1915) contain solely poetry as intertitle content.

Curious, what kind of research project are you working on? Feel free to contact me off-list at cartoonsonfilm (AT) gmail (DOT) com

[Ed Watz]

Chaplin's 1914 short "Face on the Barroom Floor" from Hugh Antoine D'Arcy's poem.

Cheers,
Maureen

The introductory scenes of Keaton's THE BLACKSMITH incorporates Longfellow's "The Village Smithy" in a similar style parody to the Chaplin short.

[gentlemanfarmer]

The Unchanging Sea (1910) - D. W. Griffith is based on the poem "The Three Fishers" by Charles Kingsley, and the inter-titles quote the poem if I recall.

[gscottrobinson]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

Gregory

[silentfilm]

Don't forget that the Intertitle-o-rama website has every title listed for dozens of silent films. With a little browsing, you should be able to find more examples.

[Brooksie]

Another Australian example occurs to me - 'The Sick Stockrider' (1913), a two reeler based on the 1870 poem of the Australian poet, Adam Lindsay Gordon. It survives virtually complete, though I haven't seen it. The fact that it successfully incorporated the verse in its intertitles was presented as a case in favour when the producers of 'The Sentimental Bloke' were searching for backers.

By the way, I have checked the reviews of 'Ginger Mick', and can confirm that the poetry was definitely used in the intertitles, as at least one complains that there is slightly too much verse to be comfortably read.