The Telephone in Silent Films

[akhenaten521]

Hello all. I work for a museum, and I’m putting together an event about the cultural impact of the telephone during the period of 1876 to 1930. I’d like to include some clips from silent films, to illustrate how filmmakers depicted the early telephone’s role in society.

Do you know of any silent films:

a) where the telephone plays an integral role in the plot, or
b) includes a scene where a character uses a telephone for comedic effect

I’ve tracked down a few films in my early research, including:

Max et son chien Dick (1912)
Amour et Science (1912)
The Bellboys (1919)
Number, Please? (1920)
The Cameraman (1928)

...and I’d love to have a few more. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[topchap]

Chaplin uses a phone booth in a hotel lobby in The Idle Class.

[wingate]

Now this isn't a silent film.However Lights of New York 1928 was the first all talking picture.In many scenes a telephone is standing on a table surrounded by the actors.The phone is in actual fact the microphone.It is used in the course of the film.I think it must be the first use of the phrase"take him for a ride",in a talking picture.

[Dean Thompson]

Under (a), consider the split-screen shot in Lois Weber's Suspense (1913). Two characters talk desperately on telephones before a third cuts the line. It's still a wonderfully taut moment after more than a century's passing.

[drednm]

Ducks and Drakes (1921) revolves around Bebe Daniels playing phone pranks.

[Arndt]

The scene in INTOLERANCE when the governor phones the prison to stay the execution.
The scene in THE LAST COMMAND when Emil Jannings is called to the communal phone in the hallway of his rooming house.
The video phone sequence in METROPOLIS when Alfred Abel talks to Heinrich George.

[silentfilm]

[silentfilm]

Not a silent film, but Oliver Hardy has one of the greatest lines ever on the phone in Going Bye, Bye (1934).

[R Michael Pyle]

Very good scene(s) in "The Arizona Express" (1924) with Pauline Starke and Evelyn Brent. Trying to save someone from hanging. It's literally down to the last second!

[stairstars]

A telephone related tidbit:

This rare telephone case (copyrighted "Love and Life around the world" March 15, 1915 by LC Mayer) appears in Harold Lloyd's AMONG THOSE PRESENT (1921) used by the social climbing matron. It was, in it's day, not a common object, as it was retailed by a 5th Avenue jewelry shop for a whopping $35. PATHE inventory ended up at Paramount, via RKO, and the case is again used by Max in SUNSET BLVD (1950). It later found a home in Captain Kirk's quarters on STAR TREK (1966) and in an episode of MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE when Trek was canceled.

[Eric Cohen]

Certainly the Keystone Cops were always being summoned by phone starting with The Bangville Police (1913).
Griffith featured telephones in The Lonely Villa (1909) and An Unseen Enemy (1911) and The Telephone Girl and the Lady (1913).
Ben Model has posted Sherlock's Home (1924), Chapter 4 in The Telephone Girl 2-reel comedy series with Alberta Vaughn and Gertrude Short as hotel switchboard operators:


Then there's this 1927 documentary, How to Use the Dial Telephone, timely once more in this cell phone era. There are many posted videos of millennials thoroughly stumped on how to make a call on a rotary telephone. It's followed by another 50s doc about phones:

[greta de groat]

Griffith also used the phone to good effect in Death's Marathon, though probably not something you'd want to include in a light-hearted compilation.

greta

[akhenaten521]

Thank you all so much for your help! These suggestions are fantastic, and I greatly appreciate it.

[Spiny Norman]

Doesn't Buster Keaton phone instructions to his horse at one point?

[R Michael Pyle]

Doesn't Buster Keaton phone instructions to his horse at one point?

I'll bet the answer isn't "neigh"...

[Harold Aherne]

In Within the Law (1923), Norma Talmadge enters a lobby phone booth and uses a pencil or pen to tap out a message to Lew Cody on the metal mouthpiece. There's also a closeup of the ringer box in the apartment where Cody is attempting a burglary. Such closeups were a common practice in silent films to indicate that a phone was ringing.

A similar Morse-code-by-mouthpiece technique was used in the 1913 film Chelsea 7750 (the title of which is itself a phone number). Only an incomplete copy survives at the BFI, so that one may not be accessible to you (and I don't know if the phone sequence survives -- I only know about it from the AFI Catalog description).

--HA

[MaryGH]

In "The Texas Tornado" (1928), Jack Anthony calls up Nora Lane at her home and gives her a tip off on the whereabouts of her little brother Frankie Darro over the phone. The intertitle reads:

"Is this the Briscoe dame? Listen, I seen that brat 'a yours with that gun packer Jones."

Jones is of course Tom Tyler. This silent film is available on DVD.

[Rodney]

Doesn't Buster Keaton phone instructions to his horse at one point?

I think that’s in “Cops” when he’s driving the furniture wagon. But the phone gag in The Cameraman with the cutaway apartment building is quite amazing.

Harold Lloyd’s “Number Please?” has an extended sequence with him trying to reach his girlfriend’s father by way of a cranky telephone operator.

[Roseha]

If I remember correctly, don't Roxie (Phyllis Haver) and her husband have a pay phone in their apartment in CHICAGO? It's the first time I've ever seen that in a film.

[Rick Lanham]

[CoffeeDan]

In THE PATSY (1928), Marion Davies is stuck on sister Jane Winton's boyfriend. When he phones Jane at home, Marion listens in on the extension, and continues the conversation with him after Jane hangs up, without him knowing it. Hilarity ensues.

[Brooksie]

Colleen Moore plays a telephone switchboard operator in Orchids and Ermine (1927). It's up there with manicurist and secretary as professions that movies of the time would have you believe were typical occupations for flappers. Madge Bellamy in The Telephone Girl (1927) is another example. I know it only from a lobby card, but apparently the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam has a copy.

[R Michael Pyle]

In "Beau Revel" (1921) Lewis Stone is on the phone many times trying to set up times to meet with Kathleen Kirkham in an illicit affair.

[Jim Roots]

A telephone related tidbit:

This rare telephone case (copyrighted "Love and Life around the world" March 15, 1915 by LC Mayer) appears in Harold Lloyd's AMONG THOSE PRESENT (1921) used by the social climbing matron. It was, in it's day, not a common object, as it was retailed by a 5th Avenue jewelry shop for a whopping $35. PATHE inventory ended up at Paramount, via RKO, and the case is again used by Max in SUNSET BLVD (1950). It later found a home in Captain Kirk's quarters on STAR TREK (1966) and in an episode of MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE when Trek was canceled.

That's quite fascinating! I wonder how much a working version of this elaborate phone would be worth on the antiques market?

Jim

[Rodney]

A telephone related tidbit:

This rare telephone case (copyrighted "Love and Life around the world" March 15, 1915 by LC Mayer) appears in Harold Lloyd's AMONG THOSE PRESENT (1921) used by the social climbing matron. It was, in it's day, not a common object, as it was retailed by a 5th Avenue jewelry shop for a whopping $35. PATHE inventory ended up at Paramount, via RKO, and the case is again used by Max in SUNSET BLVD (1950). It later found a home in Captain Kirk's quarters on STAR TREK (1966) and in an episode of MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE when Trek was canceled.

That's quite fascinating! I wonder how much a working version of this elaborate phone would be worth on the antiques market?

Jim

It's not even a phone, it's just a case to stash your phone in (they're so unsightly, you know). It's pretty common in silent films to have the phone hidden away, at least in an elegantly-designed upper-class home. I seem to remember Gloria Swanson using a similar phone cozy, maybe in Why Change Your Wife?, but I'd have to look at it again. In College, Buster Keaton's girlfriend stashes her phone under a full-skirted doll in her dorm room, and calls Buster to save her from the campus bully. I'm sure a whole thread on phone cozies would unearth hundreds of other examples.

[stairstars]

Jim,

Rodney is correct in that it is just a case for a candlestick phone. When I queried the Bell Museum, they claim only to know of six examples, most with damage, including the one they have on display. I assume the cost and limited retailing account for that. The Paramount piece has been repainted in a bronze iridescent finish in the interior, which can be seen in SUNSET BLVD. Upon seeing that image, BELL lamented changes done to such rare items which "detract from the original". Of course, it also makes it possible to determine the use.

[Jim Roots]

Yes, I'm quite aware that this is only a cabinet in which to hide the phone. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

And yes, silent films are rife with such cabinets. Many are just boxes, like small pine coffins standing on end, which makes this elaborate ornamental one all the more remarkable.

When my family and I moved into our present house 20 years ago, we had a small wooden cabinet built to "conceal" the mini-TTY we had back then. Even had a lock and key, though we hadn't asked our handyman friend for that. We dumped the TTY a dozen years ago (they're such old technology!) but the cabinet had been screwed into the adjoining food cupboard, so it's still there. At the time, I never even thought about how closely we were following in the silent film tradition of "hiding the phone"... we just didn't have room for the TTY on the very short shelf that could only fit the phone. It was a practical decision, not an aesthetic one.

Jim

[tguinan]

I’ve tracked down a few films in my early research, including:

Max et son chien Dick (1912)
Amour et Science (1912)
The Bellboys (1919)
Number, Please? (1920)
The Cameraman (1928)

...and I’d love to have a few more. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

There's also Max and His Dog which has the dog calling Max to let him know his wife is cheating on him.

oops. Never mind it's the same film

[silentfilm]

Oh see the pretty telephone operator! Who is she? None other than Colleen Moore, versatile screen star. Her newest picture shows her as a phone girl, so here she is, learning from Los Angeles exchange girls just what happens when you jiggle the hook. -- L A Bureau

Colleen is preparing for ORCHIDS AND ERMINE (1928).

[CoffeeDan]

When my family and I moved into our present house 20 years ago, we had a small wooden cabinet built to "conceal" the mini-TTY we had back then. Even had a lock and key, though we hadn't asked our handyman friend for that. We dumped the TTY a dozen years ago (they're such old technology!) but the cabinet had been screwed into the adjoining food cupboard, so it's still there. At the time, I never even thought about how closely we were following in the silent film tradition of "hiding the phone"... we just didn't have room for the TTY on the very short shelf that could only fit the phone. It was a practical decision, not an aesthetic one.

Jim

Uh . . . forgive me, Jim, but what the heck is a TTY? I was almost afraid to ask since "mini-TTY" sounded vaguely obscene to me . . .