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Old 10-06-2007, 05:20 AM
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Countess Marya Remembers

Oh hi!

Countess Marya your Hostess Of The Supernatural here.

Getting a little nostalgic and remembering when I was a young vamp( pardon the pun), there were many horror movies made during the silent era.

Many of the best ones starred Lon Chaney, Senior

Some of Chaney's famous silent horror films were:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame(1923)
The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)
The Monster (1925)
London After Midnight (1927)
A Blind Bargain (1922) as an apeman
The Unholy Three (1925 -silent) & (1930-sound)

There is no known complete copy in existance today of In London After Midnight. There is however a piecemeal project with scenes from the film put together as a narrative. I'm not sure about A Blind bargain, but the others are either available on DVD or come on the TCM channel.



There was a german actor named Conrad Veidt and he was best known as Major Strasser in Casablanca.

Some of his early silent horror films were:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) where he played the Sonombulist.


The Man Who Laughs (1928) where he plays the role of Gwynplaine. The gist of the story was that as a child Gwynplaine had a grotestque smile carved onto his face by an evil king. However, in the end, Gwynplaine is restored to his noble station in life. This would be a good film to review since it has been restored and reissued on DVD.



Another German actor named Paul Wegener played in a few good horror movies of the silent era.

The first was a 1913 German film called A Bargain With Satan and in 1926 it was remade (again German) as The Student Of Prague.

The plot is that a student makes a deal with a sorcerer ( or the devil) for fabulous wealth and anything he wants, not realizing the end results.

In 1926 MGM starred Paul Wegener in The Magician . In this film Wegener is a real sorcerer who has found the means of creating artificial life. There are no known coipies of this film in existance today.

Another Paul Wegener film was The Golem (1922) about an ancient Jewish legend. This film is available on DVD.



I could go on forever about many more films but I will close mentioning the 1927 version of The Lost World. It starred Wallace Beery as Dr. Challenger and had some fine special effects for the time.



The best thing about any reissued silent classic is that there is usually a musical score which helps make the film more enjoyable. In the silent days, there was usually an organ played while the movie was shown.

I would highly recommend any real film or horror buff or student of film history to at least view the above movies that are available today. A real horror buff will also have them in his or her film library as well.

I have also attached some photos of me ( Countess Mayra) in my younger days as a vamp as well as a vampire! Tee hee hee!



Have a great weekend. Talk at you again next week!

Your Hostess Of The Supernatural,

Countess Marya
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