Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Cinema Europe The Other Hollywood (1995)

This six-part documentary, originally prepared for British Television by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill of Photoplay Productions, is ostensibly a European counterpart to their acclaimed documentary series on silent era Hollywood (1980). Following the form and style of Brownlow and Gill’s other documentaries on silent era subjects, Unknown Chaplin (1983), Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987) and others, this is a fast-paced but thorough overview of the subject matter, illustrated with scores of films clips from both common and rarely-seen films. Along with the overview and concluding episodes, we follow the development of motion picture production methods and style, from its rudimentary beginnings through to its silent-era pinnacle in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy and Britain.

We noted with some informed amusement that viewers are barely two minutes into the first program when they are shown footage from Napoléon (1927), a French epic by Abel Gance that has been the recipient of two major restoration efforts by Kevin Brownlow and his team. Any serious discussion of the European silent cinema by Brownlow will certainly include at least one reference to Napoleon.

— Carl Bennett