HP Lovecraft the Cinephile Lesser known about the cosmic…
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HP Lovecraft the Cinephile
Lesser known about the cosmic horror writer HP Lovecraft, but he was a fairly significant cinematic audience-member.
His letters contain over 100 named films from the 1900s-1930s, with direct contemporary comments on their releases.
I’ve made an ongoing study of this, and here’s one such snippet:
# Aug 14th, 1933 (to J. Vernon Shea)
“As usual, your cinema notes offer interesting suggestions—though I've seen no shows since the Onset one to which the Longs dragged me.
I shall try to see the coming Chaplin event — which reminds me that I have probably seen nearly all of the immortal Charlie's efforts.
"Destination Unknown" ought to have some good effects, though the moral latter half sounds sappy.
What you say of the quality of the different nations' films is probably true—amusingly so in contrast to the conditions when the industry was young. In those days-say '06 & '07—over half of everything came from France, so that a cinema show was almost synonymous with the Pathé coq rouge atop the warning "Marque Deposeé" \[sic\].
Italian films were also numerous but France was in the lead.... so much so that cinema-devotees of that time picked up a pretty good idea of French lifehouses, street scenes, urban types, &c.
Some of the things weren't bad for their time—they were far less crude than the American products.
I recall a splendid comedian named Max Linder, & two very fair actors named Kraus & Liabel. I hope to see the cinematic “Emperor Jones" — I saw the original play a decade ago, with Charles Gilpin (now deceased, I believe) as the central figure. It was tremendously effective.”
#entertainment
Lesser known about the cosmic horror writer HP Lovecraft, but he was a fairly significant cinematic audience-member.
His letters contain over 100 named films from the 1900s-1930s, with direct contemporary comments on their releases.
I’ve made an ongoing study of this, and here’s one such snippet:
# Aug 14th, 1933 (to J. Vernon Shea)
“As usual, your cinema notes offer interesting suggestions—though I've seen no shows since the Onset one to which the Longs dragged me.
I shall try to see the coming Chaplin event — which reminds me that I have probably seen nearly all of the immortal Charlie's efforts.
"Destination Unknown" ought to have some good effects, though the moral latter half sounds sappy.
What you say of the quality of the different nations' films is probably true—amusingly so in contrast to the conditions when the industry was young. In those days-say '06 & '07—over half of everything came from France, so that a cinema show was almost synonymous with the Pathé coq rouge atop the warning "Marque Deposeé" \[sic\].
Italian films were also numerous but France was in the lead.... so much so that cinema-devotees of that time picked up a pretty good idea of French lifehouses, street scenes, urban types, &c.
Some of the things weren't bad for their time—they were far less crude than the American products.
I recall a splendid comedian named Max Linder, & two very fair actors named Kraus & Liabel. I hope to see the cinematic “Emperor Jones" — I saw the original play a decade ago, with Charles Gilpin (now deceased, I believe) as the central figure. It was tremendously effective.”
#entertainment
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