Silent films to live on in movie theater lobby card project
Many silent films from the early 1900s no longer exist
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — “Missing Millions" is a 1922 silent film with a darkly prescient title — like the vast majority from that era, the movie all but vanished in the ensuing century, survived mostly by lobby cards.
The cards, scarcely bigger than letter paper, promoted the cinematic romances, comedies and adventures of early Hollywood. More than 10,000 of the images once hung in movie theater foyers are now being digitized for preservation and publication, thanks to an agreement between Chicago-based collector Dwight Cleveland and Dartmouth College that all started when he ran into a film professor at an academic conference in New York.
“Ninety percent of all silent films have been lost because they were made on nitrate film, which is flammable and explodable,” Cleveland told The Associated Press. “What that means is that these lobby cards are the only tangible example that these films even existed.”
The cards, traditionally 11 by 14 inches (28 by 35 centimeters) and arranged in sets of eight or more, displayed a film’s title, production company, cast and scenes that could convey a sense of the plot. Movie screen trailers didn’t become a common practice until the rise of the movie “studio system” era in the 1920s, said Mark Williams, associate professor of film and media studies at Dartmouth and the project's director.
