What's the first silent movie you watched?

[Big Silent Fan]

When I was in my early teens (before 1961), I bought a short 8mm film, "A Small Town Idol" to play along with the family's home movies. A longer version of this was shown on TCM this year.
Back then, no expected to hear anything other than the sound of the home movie projector, but using a battery operated tape recorder, and my LP of "Music From the Silent Film," I created my first music to play along with the 12 minute comedy.
A few years later, on Saturday afternoon television, there was a 30 minute program, "Silence Please." From the internet:

Silents Please showcased abridged classic silent films edited into a half-hour television format. Ernie Kovacs became the host during its second season.
Each episode included an edited abridgment of a classic silent feature, a summary of the excised missing footage, an interpretive narration, and synchronization of the original music score and effects.

Image quality on our 1960s B&W television was awful, but that's where I was first introduced to Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan, Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood, and Lon Chaney as the hunchback. Who could have guess most all of these films would someday be available in 'better-than-new' condition. Most are now in my own library.

If only someone would do to the remaining 60 minute version of "Tarzan of the Apes," like they have done to so many others. The film was once much longer, but this abridged version still tells the most complete story conceived by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It should. Burroughs is the one responsible for bringing his story to the Silent Screen.

[maliejandra]

The first silent feature I ever saw was Daddy Long Legs starring Mary Pickford. I came about that in kind of an odd way. I was interested in black and white movies because I loved the Our Gang films, and had seen a few silent shorts of theirs. I owned a book my aunt had bought me called Girls Who Rocked the World vol. 2 and it had a chapter about Mary Pickford so I reserved Daddy Long Legs from the library (one of several Pickford films they had on VHS from Milestone films). I watched it a few times before I really got into it but I immediately liked her and I thought the drunken sequence was funny.

After binging many movies the library had, both silent and sound, I discovered a Harold Lloyd message board which had threads about Our Gang and Mary Pickford. From there I was invited to the Golden Silents message board which opened up a whole new world of classic movies and like-minded fans.

[Mike Gebert]

Oh, there's another early part of it—borrowing 8mm films from the library. Saw a lot of comedy shorts that way, and I recall at least one feature projected on my wall-- the Elmo Lincoln Tarzan.

[Paul Penna]

Has to be Killiam's “Silents Please,” for me, during its original broadcast runs. By then (1960-61) I was already a big Laurel & Hardy fan from the then-frequent TV showings of their sound shorts and features, but I don't recall seeing any of their silents, at least in full. Seeing full-length silents had to wait until the 1970s at San Francisco's Avenue Theatre, with Bob Vaughn at the Wurlitzer.

[Cineanalyst]

I suspect I became more interested in silent films once I started viewing films on my own that were older than me. Likely Chaplin and Griffith films first, but then just about every other silent film I could borrow on VHS tapes from libraries. On a big screen, it was probably sitting in on class screenings by Rick Altman, also on piano. I remember being flummoxed that students were laughing at the climax of Tol'able David, which I had previously seen and thought that part to be dramatic.

[TerryC]

One of the first silent movies I saw in a theatre was “Intolerance”. It was the height of popularity for “Saterday Night Live” which still had the original cast. I was on a date with my future wife, who leaned over to whisper in my ear at a dramatic moment with “the dear one” to say “She looks like a cone head!”

I basically lost it. I was laughing so hard I almost slid on the floor and could not catch my breath. I had the giggles for the rest of the movie off and on. All my wife had to do for the next few years was whisper “cone head” to me and I’d almost lose it again.

[Mitch Farish]

When I was about 4 or 5, there were lots of Keystone comedies on TV (kid shows in the morning and in the afternoon). I can't remember which one I saw fist, but there were quite a few with Ben Turpin and the Keystone Cops. I think the first feature I saw was a cut-down version of Tarzan of the Apes (1918), also on TV. Dad used to watch Silents Please, but I don't remember any of those. I didn't really become a fan of silents until about high school when I started watching The Silent Years with Orson Welles.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

I think, possibly THE GENERAL, which was shown around 1967 as part of Michael Bentine's 'Golden Silents' series on BBC-TV. As with his other shows, I think it would have been recorded at the NFT. And possibly the first silent I saw projected was STRIKE, at the Portsmouth Film Society, around 1972, although the film was unfortunately shown mute.

Saying that, I would have seen a number of Chaplins a little earlier, but these are the first features to my recollection...

[silentfilm]

I'm sure that I had seen some Chaplin films at a Shakey's Pizza Parlor. My dad had a super 8mm silent projector for home movies. I saw an ad in Boy's Life magazine for Blackhawk Films, so I ordered Laurel & Hardy's From Soup to Nuts.

[Rufus T Dowd]

I remember watching Fractured Flickers as a young kid. It always seemed to get preempted for various reasons.
I luckily happened to catch Safety Last on the New Hampshire public television in the late 1970's. Harold Lloyd films were shown of early Saturday afternoon.
The Brattle Theater in Cambridge MA. at about the same time had 4-6 week schedule of Lloyd, Chaplin, Keaton and Langdon films. What a treat that was. I have a fan ever since

[Dave Pitts]

I know I saw Chaplin shorts at a young age -- some with the horrible sound effects that were added in 30s reissues. The first feature I saw was Chaney's Hunchback. It was a local library showing, screened in a small meeting room. This might've been '66 or '67. After that, I got to see a few more silents at libraries, but the "great thaw", when lots and lots of silents would flow out to us midwestern movie buffs, would have to await the VHS age. By '68 I had Blum's silent movie book and knew hundreds of the stills. I'd look at them and wonder if the films still existed, and if they existed, where they were stored, and why on earth they were being stored if no one was viewing them.
The wonderful answer proved to be that, in spite of the loss of 70% of them, there were still thousands of silent films that survived, and there was just enough of a fan base to make it feasible to bring them out of the vaults. I've seen over 1100 silent features, and every month I discover yet more titles that I can access.

[Zool]

I believe it was Safety Last when I was a young teen. I knew what silents were by then, having grown up watching clips here and there. Having had my parents tell me "Look! It's a silent movie!" or "Look! It's Charlie Chaplin."

[T0m M]

While I do not recall the exact circumstances, my earliest recollections of silent film are of Harold Lloyd, most likely a rare cinema visit with my father to see one of Lloyd’s early 1960’s compilation films. Thereafter, a research trip to my local library unearthed Joe Franklin’s Classics of the Silent Screen which exposed me to dozens of fascinating stars and movies. Back in those days, I had little hope of seeing the films, but it turned out that the library had a sizable book collection pertaining to silent cinema and I was at least able to read about them.

Soon after, high school beckoned and silent film faded into the recesses of my mind until the early 1990s, when a chance encounter with a bargain bin copy of Neil Sinyard’s Silent Movies brought the memories flooding back. Fortuitously, a business trip took me to Chicago where I discovered a wide selection of laserdiscs and, despite not having a laserdisc player, I bought copies of Nosferatu, The General, The Crowd and The Wind. Since that time, I have been slowly expanding my library.

[Donald Binks]

Back in the 1950's in Melbourne, the newsreel cinemas were all still going and screened "hour shows". My father would often take me in to one when I was with him in town. Part of the programme was invariably a Charlie Chaplin - so I would have been well acquainted with silent comedy at a very young age.

In the early 60's television played a role in my education as there were the two series - "Fractured Flickers" and "Silents Please" which attracted my attention. The latter was the one that really got me going with a fervent interest in the medium.

In those days it was a little harder to get to see a silent drama film. However, we were living on the Gold Coast in 1968 and Channel 10 in Brisbane screened "The Son of the Sheik" with Rhubarb Vaselino at about 10.00pm one night. I watched it with my father who had remembered the picture when it first came out - and not terribly favourably I may add. Later the same year, back in Melbourne, for a brief trip I saw "The Phantom of the Opera" accompanied by the Wurlitzer Organ at a late show.

I was really hooked and as I had an 8mm projector, I started to buy 8mm copies of silent films, later going through the laborious task of putting sound on to a magnetic sound stripe so I could have musical accompaniment. Apart from the cost of the films - and the Customs Duty on import - I paid a fortune in finding suitable gramophone records! A lot of my friends were suitably underwhelmed as they sat through one of my silent film presentations.

In the late '70's I joined a Film Society and finally was able to see a whole lot of silent films I had only read about. The only problem here was that a lot of the films didn't have an accompaniment soundtrack and the audience had to sit there in silence watching them. This all changed in the 1980's when "Napoleon" came on tour followed by the "Thames Silents" series - where the films were played at theatres with a full orchestra in attendance.

It was getting better all the time - and now I own heaps of silents on DVD!

[wingate]

Easy Street.I showed it on my 8mm projector in our lounge.My dear grandmother laughed when Chaplin is at the counter and you can see a sign for French Tarts.This was about55 years ago.

[sepiatone]

Projector
During lunch hour certainly, the one or two reelers of Laurel & Hardy(particularly the Christmas tree classic) and a mix of Little Rascals which were not silent. In those days(mid to late '70s) our Jr. High School guidance counselor would check them out from the public library on 16mm, just like a book no monetary cost. Lunch break in those days were 90minutes , rather long by today's standards, but ample enough time to show a L&H and a Little Rascals.

TV
probably the episode of Gilligan's Island where the Castaways find silent movie equipment on a sunken wreck in the lagoon and try to make a silent film to indicate their island. The names of Theda Bara,Mary Pickford Valentino others come up in the episode.

Features
I think it was a Public Access channel, where the reception is very snowy as if they're broadcasting from the far side of Pluto or something. But it was my first feature silent viewing habit. The films were Pickford's "Sparrows", Valentino's "Son of the Sheik", Barrymore's "Tempest" and others.

[QueenOfSilents]

The First Silent Film Me Watched Was The Flapper (1920). I Decided To Watch My First Silent Film 2 Months After I Became Obsessed With Silent Film Stars. Me Was Very Impressed How A Movie Can Be Enjoyable Without Talking!