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I’m a PhD candidate at Northwestern, writing on the cultural reception of silent film. At the moment, I am attempting to compile a list of silent films in which we see people watching films.

I’m especially interested in depictions of naive spectatorship — where the
viewer takes the image for reality as in Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture
Show or Buster Keaton’s dream in Sherlock Jr.

Chris Snowden turned me on to this site after I posted the question on his blog (Thanks a million, nitrateville is my new favorite internet locale!) He suggested the following and I'm hoping that folks here can help me extend the list. Thanks!

THOSE AWFUL HATS (1909),
HOODOO ANN (1916),
THOSE LOVE PANGS (1914) (aka the rival mashers)
LUKE’S MOVIE MUDDLE (1916).
THE EXTRA GIRL (1923),
Felix the Cat’s FLIM FLAM FILMS (1927),
Our Gang's BETTER MOVIES (1925).

HIS NIBS 1921
SHOW PEOPLE 1928
WO IST COLETTI 1913
A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR 1929

Beth C-D

Here are three more. There are many others, but I can't think of any specific titles right now.

MOVIE NIGHT (1927)

THE CAMERAMAN (1928)

SHOW PEOPLE (1928)

Not a silent itself, but SUNSET BOULEVARD has the unique situation of Gloria Swanson watching herself in a silent (QUEEN KELLY).

I believe Charlie and Mabel are seen at the flickers in TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE (1914).

THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE CINEMATOGRAPH (UK 1901) [yokel is alarmed by film of approaching train]
HIS NIBS (US 1921) [plentiful broad comedy inside small-town cinema]
SHOOTING STARS (UK 1927) [depressed film actor visits cinema and cheers along his screen self being more heroic than he is in real life]

There's a Buster Brown comedy c. 1927 at the BFI National Archive which has some excellent scenes inside a silent cinema. The BFI records only give a German release title, BUSTER UNTER WILDERN - synopsis here: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/503498

urbanora wrote:THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE CINEMATOGRAPH (UK 1901) [yokel is alarmed by film of approaching train]

Is this where the legend started about people reacting to the Lumiere's film?

Other way round. There seems to have been a popular myth about people running away from trains which had its roots in some people flinching at the unexpected realism and sense of something approaching them. Stephen Bottomore has written a classic essay on the historical and psychological background to the phenomenon, 'The Panicking Audience?: early cinema and
the `train effect’'' (available here: http://www.sg.uu.nl/prog/2009a/doc/Gelo ... tomore.pdf). Films like THE COUNTRYMAN AND THE CINEMATOGRAPH and UNCLE JOSH AT THE MOVING PICTURE SHOW are responses to the myth.

The end of The Crowd.

MABEL'S DRAMATIC CAREER (1913)

A MOVIE STAR is on the Slapstick Encyclopedia set from Kino, and has a movie star going to watch his own film in a public theater. Quite amusing. Charlie Chaplin's A FILM JOHNNIE starts with him going into a theater and causing a disruption. Somewhat similar in tone to MABEL'S DRAMATIC CAREER. Interestingly, the pianist is shown playing an upright piano that's against the back of the auditorium. No way that music synced with the film...

What's the short where Snub Pollard goes to the movies and experiences the worst customers and conditions in the world? When he sits in the front row the screen is slanted up so he can see, when he sits in the back he's behind enormous people, etc.

We already discussed this a few months ago, so you can find many examples at here.

One of the best is Movie Night where the Chase family goes to the movies for the free drawing as much as for the film. And their teenage son Spec O'Donnell has to dress like a kid so that he can get in for the child's price!

LES VAMPIRES, chapter 3 I think.

silentfilm wrote:We already discussed this a few months ago, so you can find many examples at here.

I'm terribly sorry for the redundancy. Thank you everyone who contributed to this and the previous thread!
-beth

I think no one has mentioned many european shorts from around 1910-1914, such as:
UNA TRAGEDIA AL CINEMATOGRAFO
AL CINEMATOGRAFO, GUARDATE MA NON TOCCATE
ARTHEME OPERATEUR
[and many other comic character had a go too: Patouillard, Cretinetti, Bebe, Max Linder etc]
And what about MATINEE IDOL? Isn't that with the swooning fan who is so mesmerized she cannot leave the cinema?

Elif wrote:And what about MATINEE IDOL? Isn't that with the swooning fan who is so mesmerized she cannot leave the cinema?

Actually I meant THE PICTURE IDOL (1912)...
Not sure what you see exactly in the other film...

Add A Movie Star (Keystone/Triangle--1916). in which we see a complete (bad) western starring Mack Swain on screen, with cuts to the audience showing lead actor Swain receiving adulation (and a few sharp objects) from the crowd.

Elif wrote:And what about MATINEE IDOL? Isn't that with the swooning fan who is so mesmerized she cannot leave the cinema?

Oh, that's fabulous! Have you actually seen this film? Do you know where I can view a copy?

For a different take check out A GIRL'S FOLLY (1917). A young girl gets to try out for the movies. In the screening room we never get to see the actual film but we see her horrified and embarrassed reactions to it.

Beth C-D wrote:

Elif wrote:And what about MATINEE IDOL? Isn't that with the swooning fan who is so mesmerized she cannot leave the cinema?

Oh, that's fabulous! Have you actually seen this film? Do you know where I can view a copy?

It's available on pressed DVD....Amazon and the other usual sellers should have it.

It's available on pressed DVD....Amazon and the other usual sellers should have it.[/quote]

Sorry for the confusion, I actually meant to refer to THE PICTURE IDOL (1912) -- where the is a swooning fan in the cinema. It looks like there are a few versions of the Matinee Idol. That could be a whole other interesting topic of conversation -- films that show people watching plays (perhaps as analogs to the cinema? -- A DRUNKARD'S REFORMATION (1909) comes immediately to mind in this category.)

Elif wrote:

Elif wrote:And what about MATINEE IDOL? Isn't that with the swooning fan who is so mesmerized she cannot leave the cinema?

Actually I meant THE PICTURE IDOL (1912)...
Not sure what you see exactly in the other film...

Danny Burk wrote:

FrankFay wrote:For a different take check out A GIRL'S FOLLY (1917). A young girl gets to try out for the movies. In the screening room we never get to see the actual film but we see her horrified and embarrassed reactions to it.

There's a similar scene in SOULS FOR SALE except we see the film as well.

I'd love to see THE PICTURE IDOL--several archives have it but i have never seen it on video except for the clips that are in LYRICAL NITRATE--which do show Clara Kimball Young excitedly watching a film.

greta

How about MARY OF THE MOVIES (1923). Considered the first feature length Columbia Pictures production with a boat load of famous cameo appearances. This film is being restored by Sony. Maybe we will get a progress report soon?

A couple from the Flying A are MAN AFRAID OF HIS WARDROBE (1916) and CALAMITY ANNE TAKES A TRIP (1913).

How about Thanhouser's THE EVIDENCE OF THE FILM (1913), now on the LOC Treasures List. The police watch a film that ends up revealing who committed a crime. What's great is that we see the film being shot and the women cutting it in the cutting room.

Here's another good one: HAROLD TEEN (1928), in which the high school kids decide to make their own film. The finished product becomes a film-within-the-film, the premiere screening of which we the audience watch along with the young filmmakers themselves. As I wrote in the review I posted on the imdb a few years ago, "part spoof of silent westerns and pantomime acting, it is unlike anything you've seen before."

~Roger

Perhaps I missed it, but it appears no one has mentioned the great Our Gang short Dogs of War (1923) in this thread or the earlier one. That's the short where the kid invade a movie studio, and we get a double-dose of Hollywood self-satire: first, the grownups enact a ridiculous melodrama entitled "Should Husbands Work?," and then the kids decide to make their own movie, and produce a parody-of-the-parody. Their movie is screened in the studio projection room, and is a surreal masterpiece full of great camera tricks.

Dogs of War has the jump on both Harold Teen and The Cameraman, which have similar sequences, by a number of years. It's my favorite Our Gang short of the entire series.

missdupont wrote:How about Thanhouser's THE EVIDENCE OF THE FILM (1913), now on the LOC Treasures List. The police watch a film that ends up revealing who committed a crime. What's great is that we see the film being shot and the women cutting it in the cutting room.

And its available for online viewing! http://thanhouser.org/films/Evidence.htm
Similar to this one is The Story the Biograph Told, which is on the Origins of Cinema set (vol 2)

Daniel Eagan wrote:What's the short where Snub Pollard goes to the movies and experiences the worst customers and conditions in the world? When he sits in the front row the screen is slanted up so he can see, when he sits in the back he's behind enormous people, etc.

Are you thinking of LUKE'S MOVIE MUDDLE? Also starring Harold Lloyd?