Released On This Date--Silent Horror (Sort Of)

Released on this day in 1925 we have what is widely called the very first werewolf film.  This may not be 100% true given that several silent horror film before it at least had element of lycanthropy in them (not to mention a myriad of films that I have been researching of late from eastern Europe dating from the silent era--that has turned up a number of silent horror films I never knew existed that run the range of various monsters). Suffice to say that this is (as of this writing) the oldest surviving werewolf film.  It's premise is quite strange--involving a blood transfusion of wolf's blood and what is surely a  strange  series of hallucinations on the part of Dick Bannister, the lead character, essayed by George Chesbro, who ghost (co) directed the film with Bruce Mitchell.  Chesbro was a western specialist, and there is more than a little of the western genre in this film!  Produced by the independent Ryan Brothers Productions, it features some lovely on location camera work (the real gem of the film in my opinion).  Embedded below is the best print that I could find of several currently on YouTube.

Born Today February 5: Tim Holt

1919-1973

Born Charles John Holt III, in Beverly Hills, to actor Jack Holt and his wife Margaret.  His father was a star of silent westerns; so acting, particularly in westerns, was in his blood.  When he was a very young child, he would accompany his father to the set of many a silent film.  Due to his father's ample connections, he found himself in his first film role before the age of ten. So it came as no surprise that his father found him work as an extra on the piece of comedy fluff that was French Dressing in 1927 at the age of 8.  By the next year, he had his very first film acting credit, playing a 7 year old version of a character his father was assaying as an adult in the western The Vanishing Pioneer.  Young Holt was on his way.  By the late 1930's he was under his first contract to work in westerns.  This contract lasted for just two years, after which RKO snapped him up; they had seen him in a film that was produced by Sam Goldwyn the year before.  From there, all throughout the 1940's (when not serving his country in WWII), he was known as fixture in singing westerns [this makes him a very likely inspiration for Hobie Doyle in the Coen Brother's latest film Hail, Caesar!--his many singing side-kicks would have provided fodder for the character as well).  He did have genuine original talent outside the western genre (unlike the Hobie Doyle character); and was well adapted to other types of roles.  In one interesting twist, he was hired by none other than Orson Welles to play the lead in his second film The Magnificent Ambersons.  Welles said of his decision to hire the younger Holt, "It was a lucky decision."  He later remarked the Holt was  "one of the most interesting actors that's ever been in American movies."  Holt also played a Nazi in 1943 in Hitler's Children, before heading off to war himself.  He served in the Pacific Theater in World War II with distinction with as a 29-Bombardier.  He was wounded over Tokyo in the last day of combat, and was rewarded the purple heart.  He returned to RKO after the war.  Later in his career he moved away from making films; he veered instead toward producing rodeos, managing theaters and making personal appearances--he even worked as an independent builder for a time.  By the time he made the horror/sci-fi film The Monster That Challenged The World, he had already been absent from the world of film making for five years.  After this, he would go on to make just 2 more films; spending much of his time continuing with rodeos, producing and starring in western music jamborees and working as an advertising manager at a radio station. All the while, apparently having the time of his life doing it.  His life was cut short by bone cancer at the age of 54 on the 15th of February in 1973.  He was living in Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he was managing a radio station.  This makes him one of the only movie stars born into silent film industry privilege in Los Angeles, to leave and die somewhere far from movieland--not the other way around.  He is buried in the Memorial Lane Cemetery in Harrah, Oklahoma.  He is buried under his birth name "Charles J. Holt."

IMDb

Wikipedia

The Massacre (1912)

This is a western melodrama of war and revenge by directorial innovator and infamous director D. W. Griffith that is surprisingly sympathetic to the Indian predicament.  Which is actually not all the unusual for the earliest westerns made.  It starts out with a peaceful Indian village being attacked, and is pretty unrelenting about showing the violence of the ensuing deaths.  This then becomes a reason for revenge, where in the surviving native attack a covered wagon train heading west through their territory.  The year of this film is in some dispute, but most hard core Griffith scholars insist that it dates from 1912, not 1913 or 1914, however the reason for this dispute could differ from what can be called a premiere.  Since most film's year date is set by it's first public showing is, in the earlier days of cinema, what constituted a "public premier" really was.  

The Invaders (1912)

This is a very western that actually shows a great deal of sympathy with Native Americans.  It is a story of broken treaties.  I was either directed by Francis Ford or Thomas H. Ince, or possible co-directed by the two.  It feature Luther Standing Bear (that in Mato Nanji in Lakota) and numerous other Oglala Sioux.  It also features Anna Little, the one actor in the film playing a native role who was not Oglala, although she, like me, was part Native American.  So the native cast here is completely authentic, unlike what you find in later westerns coming out of Hollywood.  This is here today to protest the continuing celebration any where here in the New World of "Columbus Day."

Don Juan (1926)

Today is Dia de la Raza in Mexico; it's their Columbus Day.  If anyone has visited my Friday Horror Blog or my Native American food blog, you know that have native ancestry from several southeastern tribes and connections to the Mexica ("Aztecs") of Mexicol (alternatively Mexichol the native spelling and pronunciation of the country).  Over at the Scare My On Fridays blog we are protesting with a day long early nod to Miccailhuitl (Dias de los Muertos/Days of the Dead) and to the country of Mexichol.  Over at New World Food we are doing the same with a focus on some Mexican food.  Yehyoli Mexcihol! (Viva Mexico). Here is a Warner Bros. partnership with Vitaphone Corp from 1926 starring the great John Barrymore as Don Juan.