Mike Herbold
Member
Blindfold yourselves, Mo and Michael S. There's a new threat to your wallet on the market in the form of a book entitled "The Titanic and Silent Cinema" by Stephen Bottomore. It's printed in England by a company called The Projection Box, and the printing is only 500 copies.
The author is a film history buff rather than a Titanic enthusiast, so he comes to the Titanic story with a different perspective. For his Titanic information, he draws heavily from the Encyclopedia-Titanica website and people like George Behe and Don Lynch. For his Titanic movie history, he parallels Simon Mills. Along the way he acknowledges and footnotes all their contributions very well.
But it is his history of the silent cinema --- slides, newsreels, and films --- that makes this book different from all the rest and worthwhile. He draws on sources that most Titanic historians are probably not aware of. Who has ever heard of
the "Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly",
the "Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal",
the "Moving Picture News", and
"Moving Picture World"?
True, in his "The Titanic in Pictures", Simon Mills mentions "Kinematograph Weekly" (wonder if that's the same publication?) a few times, but Bottomore has even more information about early American cinema history.
"Titanic and the Silent Cinema" talks about passengers with a film background: Daniel Marvin, William Thomas Stead, Jacques Futrelle, Noel Malachard, Arne Fahlstrom, and William Harbeck. There's a 22 page chapter on Harbeck, and that alone made the book worthwhile for me.
There's a detailed background on the many newsreels of the Titanic, and how profitable they were for early theatres, and there's stories about the cinema's involvement in relief efforts.
One warning. Even though the author credits ET everytime, it's a little annoying to have some things written word for word. Everybody who has read this sentence before, please raise your hand: "He died in the sinking, and his body, if recovered, was never identified."
All in all, though, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book and a worthy edition to your Titanic library.
Mike Herbold
California
The author is a film history buff rather than a Titanic enthusiast, so he comes to the Titanic story with a different perspective. For his Titanic information, he draws heavily from the Encyclopedia-Titanica website and people like George Behe and Don Lynch. For his Titanic movie history, he parallels Simon Mills. Along the way he acknowledges and footnotes all their contributions very well.
But it is his history of the silent cinema --- slides, newsreels, and films --- that makes this book different from all the rest and worthwhile. He draws on sources that most Titanic historians are probably not aware of. Who has ever heard of
the "Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly",
the "Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal",
the "Moving Picture News", and
"Moving Picture World"?
True, in his "The Titanic in Pictures", Simon Mills mentions "Kinematograph Weekly" (wonder if that's the same publication?) a few times, but Bottomore has even more information about early American cinema history.
"Titanic and the Silent Cinema" talks about passengers with a film background: Daniel Marvin, William Thomas Stead, Jacques Futrelle, Noel Malachard, Arne Fahlstrom, and William Harbeck. There's a 22 page chapter on Harbeck, and that alone made the book worthwhile for me.
There's a detailed background on the many newsreels of the Titanic, and how profitable they were for early theatres, and there's stories about the cinema's involvement in relief efforts.
One warning. Even though the author credits ET everytime, it's a little annoying to have some things written word for word. Everybody who has read this sentence before, please raise your hand: "He died in the sinking, and his body, if recovered, was never identified."
All in all, though, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book and a worthy edition to your Titanic library.
Mike Herbold
California
