> I suspect most of the silent movies of the time would seem quite trivial compared with much amateur YouTube content today
I can't say what constituted "most film" in 1926 (are we going by what sold the most tickets? big blockbusters versus daily newsreels & cartoons?) but if you look at the era of 1925-1927 it includes Phantom of the Opera, Battleship Potemkin, The Vanishing American, The Bat, Metropolis, and Wings. Many of this list is iconic to this day to where they continue to be referenced & emulated in pop culture that many people recognize even if they haven't seen the originals before.
Granted this discussion will be hamstrung by how much film has been "lost" with so much of that content no longer in living memory at all (to say if it was masterpieces or crappy filler).
"! Fourteen American bison were brought to Catalina in 1924 for the making of the Zane Grey film The Vanishing American. After all that effort, the footage of the Bison didn’t make the final cut, and they do not appear in the movie. When filming was completed, the production company left the animals behind! "
Hacker Cinema
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> I suspect most of the silent movies of the time would seem quite trivial compared with much amateur YouTube content today
I can't say what constituted "most film" in 1926 (are we going by what sold the most tickets? big blockbusters versus daily newsreels & cartoons?) but if you look at the era of 1925-1927 it includes Phantom of the Opera, Battleship Potemkin, The Vanishing American, The Bat, Metropolis, and Wings. Many of this list is iconic to this day to where they continue to be referenced & emulated in pop culture that many people recognize even if they haven't seen the originals before.
Granted this discussion will be hamstrung by how much film has been "lost" with so much of that content no longer in living memory at all (to say if it was masterpieces or crappy filler).
This reminds me of the bison on Catalina Island.
"! Fourteen American bison were brought to Catalina in 1924 for the making of the Zane Grey film The Vanishing American. After all that effort, the footage of the Bison didn’t make the final cut, and they do not appear in the movie. When filming was completed, the production company left the animals behind! "
https://www.catalinaconservancy.org/index.php?s=news&p=article_24