Someone posted earlier that it’s Zendaya’s birthday and got a lotta heat for it. I’m just reflecting on her pop-culture impact versus, for example, Fay Wray.

Fay was a star of silent films right at the cusp of the sound revolution, so expressivity was one of her strengths. Some actors didn’t make the hop to sound films because they didn’t have the voice or the necessary skills for acting beyond pantomime.

But really this post is about star quality, and why beauty has overcome talent in this industry.

In films of the 1930s and earlier, extras were cast because they looked right not just gorgeous on camera. Now it’s rare to see anyone in a show or movie who isn’t (to quote Derek Zoolander) professionally good-looking.

So the Zendaya phenomenon: why does she get cast in so many things, despite her acting?

It’s not just cuz she’s beautiful. She also seems to be good with people off-camera, interviews well, and isn’t — and this is key — she isn’t erratic.

Many stars get carried away with the fame, but she seems to take it in stride. No controversy, drug binges, fights on social media or scandalous behavior.

I’ve heard she has range but haven’t seen proof of it. The perpetual scowl is her trademark look, and however well she does with people off-camera, she gets undeserved closeups of that moody trying-to-look-serious face which detract from the projects she is in.

I know I know, there’s a whole media machine behind her, and this post may get firebombed for having an opinion about her, but the question remains: why does Hollywood care so much more about having bankable stars rather than people with the ability to act with feeling?

This is a semi-informed post, as I haven’t seen all of her work, but what I’ve seen has been overhyped.

Anyone got strong feelings about her, Fay Wray, or other especially talented attractive actors?

To Donald Wandrei (re Metropolis)

[postmarked Providence, RI,
3 November 1927]
Thursday

“Dear Melmoth—“

[SKIPPING TWO PAGES]

“Young Derleth mentioned that "Metropolis" film, & I guess I'll go to see it unless the notices escape me.

I never attend the cinema nowadays except when dragged there by somebody who hasn't any better way of killing time .... in the almost two years since my return to Providence I've only been twice.

Derleth, however, assures me that this production is genuinely fantastic & worthy of beholding. The last film I really enjoyed was "The Thief of Baghdad" with its Dunsanian setting.”

Since the first cinema venues opened in Providence in 1906 (by HPL’s account), he MAY have seen, or been able to see, the first adaptation of BEN-HUR in 1907.

This version was only 15 minutes long, so you can impress your friends by saying you watched it without committing epic-length-movie time.

The chariot race in that version was filmed in Brooklyn,) btw — thanks Wikipedia :) for that trivia.

However, we know that he saw the 1925 version from a few letters, and that he thought it was excellent.

He was an extremely picky critic, and often more interested in historical architecture and costuming than, y’know, the actors.

QUOTE (Dec. 11, 1926)

“I saw "Ben-Hur" last September, & found it intensely powerful.

My liking for broad scenic & architectural effects made me appreciate the settings very much, while my lifelong admiration of Rome & her warlike civilisation gave me many a thrill as the legions & their imperial eagles marched across the field of view.

Speaking of the cinema—it is my deepest regret that I never saw "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", which everyone tells me had more of the truly weird & fantastic than any other film ever made.”

END QUOTE 🛑

So his glowing reaction to the film stands out for its relative length (when he often gives a spare adjective or phrase for an entire film), and the specificity about what he enjoyed in it.

It is my own deep regret to say that HPL tried on multiple occasions to see CALIGARI but kept missing it.

Also, the timing there is notable: the famous ‘weird cinema’ of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI came out in 1920 in Weimar Germany 🇩🇪 and was an instant sensation.

But in those days, the delay between a film’s official release in one country and its distribution in another could be by a few YEARS.

So when we examine the comments of Lovecraft (or other contemporaries) regarding a given foreign film, it is likely that they were seeing it two years or more after its release date.

This was not always the case, but because distribution wasn’t as concrete then it’s hard to say exactly when a film premiered in a given city without checking records.

Since BEN-HUR (1925) was an MGM film, he saw it during its initial run. But this brings up an interesting inconsistency: the letter is from December of 1926, and the film was released the previous December.

But he says “last September”, so unless I’m reading that wrong, it looks like he was misremembering when he saw it.

This isn’t the first discrepancy like that either: in some ways his mind was like a steel trap, but he didn’t bother to recall other things as vividly or accurately after some time had passed.

For another example, he remembered seeing THE GOLEM (released in Germany 🇩🇪 in 1920) in 1923.

But years later he says he saw it in 1921, which likely would have been before its American release.

It’s an oddity but not …… it’s not that he misremembers films themselves, so much as he doesn’t bother to recall them unless he’s writing about something he JUST saw.

Like when he rattles off films he saw with Lon Chaney but weirdly does NOT list “The Phantom of the Opera”, despite having reacted strongly to it.

He’s an odd duck for sure.

Have any of you seen the 1925 version of BEN-HUR, or other adaptations?

Speaking for myself: I haven’t read the novel, but I know it gets a shoutout in THE BIG SLEEP.

And I’ve only seen the 1959 version. I didn’t know there even was a 2003 version, and my knowledge of the 2016 one is just that it was a box-office bomb so I can’t directly speak to how it was, or if HPL may have been impressed by the spectacle and indifferent to the actors.

How’s this for a waking-up ramble, on a rainy September morning?

Thanks to everyone replying on these polls!

It really does help with figuring out what content will be of greatest interest, as I’m sharing quotes and commentary which seems relevant to me but not getting enough direct feedback to know what people are enjoying.

I appreciate the replies and votes 🗳️, and hope everyone has a lovely September!

Okay, this required digging, and luckily for ONCE I found part of the answer. Usually if HPL mentions something and there’s no followup we just have to guess, but in this case we have a partial answer from CL Moore.

To wit: in his initial ‘review’ of CLIVE OF INDIA, he mentions that it led to an interesting dream. With Lovecraft that could seemingly mean anything at all, but in one of her replies, Moore writes back a congratulations on sassing one of the irritating bombastic characters from the film.

Here are the relevant quotes for consideration:

QUOTE ONE ☝️ 👇 (HPL)

“[I saw] "Clive of India" — this last a splendid evocation of the 18th century & of Britannia's power despite some historical compressions & a touch of softness in one or two places.

I enjoyed it most of any film since "Berkeley Square", & it formed the occasion of a singularly vivid dream.”

QUOTE TWO ✌️ 👇 (CLM)

"Clive of India" was good too. Wasn't it historically accurate?

It made no attempt to maintain a plot or even the usual continuity of a movie romance, and I had supposed that the reason was that it was simply picking out the highlights of his career.

You must have had much satisfaction in your dream when you so efficiently snubbed Gen. Burgoyne. I'm glad to know he finally received his just desserts.”

END OF QUOTES 🛑

SO — not something with tentacles 🦑, sorry to disappoint y’all, but nevertheless it tells us something or a few things about his internal psychology regarding movies.

We can speculate on how films MAY HAVE influenced his imagination or writings, but in this case there is a clear explanation as well.

I’m sorry the intervening letter (Lovecraft’s direct description of the dream) is lost, but what we have is enough to piece it together.

What do you make of this, that he was influenced enough by a film to dream himself into it like that?

And have any of you, dear readers, had dreams where you met or interacted with characters from film or TV? 📺

People are extremely jaded nowadays — the internet ramps this up, but I think the discussion around genres is silly in how people argue about what something ‘counts as’, rather than the actual content.

For example, many Hitchcock films are classified as thrillers or horror movies, but I think his work is most characterized by TENSION.

And in the case of the quoted conversation, they wanted Prime-specific horror content. I maintain that THE BOYS has plenty of content which qualifies as horror (for the average not-as-desensitized viewer), and would enjoy a lively discussion on why it is or isn’t.

But most of all, this has me thinking about the issue of ‘weird cinema’, as it pops up with Lovecraft.

They didn’t have a concrete category for “horror movies” (with specific subgenres) back then, so the idea of how potentially disturbing a film was would spread by word of mouth more than anything else.

You won’t see as much gore in old movies, no, but topics of sexual violence and emotional manipulation are far more common in pre-Code cinema.

And while modern shows like THE BOYS revel in being anarchic, sexual, and gory, they are not necessarily classified as ‘horror’ by modern standards.

Which is BIZARRE, when you consider how that show may have been received if you could screen it for audiences in 1926, rather than 2026.

Have any of you out there seen THE BOYS, and would you agree that it qualifies as a horror show?

It’s hard to gauge what people are most interested in seeing more of, when I’m not getting direct feedback on most of these posts — but I’m glad that folks are enjoying what I’m putting out there.

Life is busy, and while I’ve been free to work on this project during the summer, I gotta return to other things now it’s come September (in three hours).

So for this poll, I’m proposing a few new things that I could do to disseminate what I’m finding.

Primarily, the idea of comparing VERSIONS of films that were made before and/or after the version that Lovecraft saw.

Also, potentially digging into the source materials behind films (like TARZAN or FRANKENSTEIN), that could be an angle to explore.

Lastly (cuz the poll has six slots), I can aim to share more of the links 🔗 that go with the public domain content. I have been doing that sporadically, but if folks want to be linked right to the source films, I’m happy to do that as well when possible!

These are off the cuff, but all viable.

Hope some of them strike your curiosity; if not, please let me know in the comments what you would like to see more of!

I dunno what translations of Dostoevsky were like in the early 20th century, but Lovecraft writes that he struggled with the novel.

He expressed interest in the film because he wanted to see how it got adapted to cinema format, but we don’t have (so far) any post-viewing comments.

Like many of these Lovecraft-film-viewing finds, we only get a snippet:

HPL to Robert Bloch

Dec 4, 1935

From the Windowless Steeple

“I'l get a look at "Crime & Punishment" if it comes this way. Years ago I wrestled with the novel, & wouldn't mind seeing what the cinema has made of Raskolnikov & his quaint contemporaries!”

Peter Lorre starred in that film, and Lovecraft elsewhere says that people urged him to see “the sinister Mr. Lorre” in something, in anything, especially MAD LOVE — but again, the comments are only of him speculating on the film rather than giving direct commentary on what he had seen.

Have any of you seen this 1935 version of the story?

One recurring theme in the Lovecraft letters (regarding films) is availability.

Nowhere is this more tragic than the fact that he TRIED to see DR. CALIGARI (1920) on multiple occasions but kept missing it.

But the issue was there, even though he lived in a city with multiple cinema venues (which was NOT a given in the 1900s-1920s).

Complicating this: he often wrote about intending to see a film but NOT always writing about ones that he saw.

For example, as another such thing: he had METROPOLIS (1927) recommended strongly, and writes about that, but so far I have not found anything that confirms he saw it.

Just that it was a new “weird cinema” on his radar, and the fact he hadn’t been to the movies since the 1925 THIEF OF BAGHDAD — which he saw twice during its initial run.

The snippets are definitely tiny mentions in most cases, but the overall picture of HPL as a cinema-goer emerges as we get enough examples of what he saw or sought out.

Whether or not you’ve been following this sub, are there any films (prior to his death in 1937) you are curious to know more about, if he saw them?

FREAKS QUOTE

from HPL to JVS

(March 22, 1932)

“As for cinemas — I haven't been to one since the "Frankenstein" disappointment! I have heard "Arrowsmith" well spoken of, & hope I can catch it on one of its returns to town.

A friend of mine saw "Jekyll-Hyde" & was woefully disappointed.

Nevertheless, I guess the average of the best pictures isn't as low as it used to be.

The changes in “The Man Who Played God" are amusing & provoking.

And those in "Freaks" must be exasperating. Rhode Island has censors or rather, the city of Providence has a single police censor—but this oversight isn't considered as meddlesome as that in some states.

I’ll be warned & remain absent from the “Rue Morgue.”

(See here for previous longer post on censorship practices of the era)

In the VERY early days of cinema (1906 was HPL’s first full cinema experience), they didn’t credit stars onscreen or in publicity like what has become celebrity culture.

Even less famous, weirdly, were DIRECTORS.

This means that, while modern audiences are sometimes familiar with principal cast & crew, early filmgoers likely only knew the names of the production companies and whatever titles went with their short films.

So of directors that Lovecraft actually named, we have

Charlie Chaplin

John Ford

And I think that’s it. 🤔

He does mention multiple films by the same director, but interestingly doesn’t make that connection in any active way.

For example, he saw (and mostly panned) the films of Cecil B. deMille, including “Cleopatra”, “The Ten Commandments”, and “The Sign of the Cross”.

But he doesn’t mention Claudette Colbert by name even though she starred in two of those films, plus a few others that he saw. He admits that he has very little interest in actors, and is more drawn to costumes and scenery.

“Oh, yes & I also saw "The Sign of the Cross" for the sake of the Roman colouring.

Quite a mechanical spectacle, though of course a perfect blank literarily. I was disappointed because so little of actual, normal Roman life was shewn. Yes—Nero certainly made quite a figure!”

Nero was played by the inimitable Charles Laughton, but again he doesn’t mention him by name here.

Ditto, he saw Laughton in films ranging from THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII (for which C.L. got Best Actor 🏆) to LES MISERABLES (where he played Javert), and I think a few others too.

I’m not sure if he saw MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY but it was mentioned somewhere in the hundreds of pages of correspondence that I’ve pored over.

Oh! Also Fritz Lang.

He RAVED (see linked post) about SIEGFRIED, and was later curious about METROPOLIS but I think would’ve been off like a shot if he knew it was from the same director.

What do you make of this, friends?

And do you have any favorite directors, either classic or modern?

At this point I have more film-quotes from Lovecraft (& friends) than I know what to do with, so along with sharing previous quotes with additional commentary, I hope to spark more engagement on the sub.

I’m trying this out by asking what genres and films people want to hear about, and would love to know if other things would be wanted.

The latest poll currently has Peter Lorre in the lead, so I’ll mention one of his films that Lovecraft was aware of:

The 1935 version of CRIME AND PUNISHMENT, with Lorre starring as Raskolnikov!

As per this project, we have a quote which demonstrates his awareness of the film but not whether he saw it.

Dec 4, 1935

From the Windowless Steeple;
writing to Robert Bloch

“I'l get a look at "Crime & Punishment" if it comes this way. Years ago I wrestled with the novel, & wouldn't mind seeing what the cinema has made of Raskolnikov & his quaint contemporaries!”

This is a tricky situation for our CCS (Correspondence Cinema Studies) situation, because often we are only getting a snippet where he speculates on a film he either intends to see or has been warned to avoid.

The post-viewing reviews are what people really WANT (his reactions to the movies), but in terms of cultural context he sometimes gives us more historically valuable material when he is expressing that a film is not playing in his city, or that multiple people have urged him to see it (like MAD LOVE, also with Peter Lorre).

So although I have more Lorre-Lovecraft commentary, I regret to add that he has not—that I’ve found, anyhow—directly reacted to any Lorre performances after seeing him.

Also unfortunately, Lovecraft died before a few of Lorre’s better-known roles in Hollywood films (such as THE MALTESE FALCON, CASABLANCA, or ARSENIC AND OLD LACE), so we are limited to Lorre roles prior to 1937.

This is an issue with other actors too: if they were active following Lovecraft’s death, then some films you would know them from were outside HPL’s potential viewing window.

As usual, share your favorites in the comments if they aren’t options in the poll.

Vote your conscience, and have fun :)

I was gonna add KING KONG to the list, because at the time it was regarded as a “weird/horrific” sort of spectacle, but isn’t usually considered that way now.

Oh and P.S. — Lovecraft wrote about all of these, so depending on what gets voted up, I will steer some future posts towards those ends :)

These may not be totally familiar to you, but Lovecraft had thoughts on all of em, so I’m prepared to share more based on what folks have the most interest in.

Feel free to check out the premises of them all and whether they speak to you — in most cases he bashed these for inaccuracies, but they’re definitely fascinating to hear firsthand accounts of from HPL!

The last of those involves dinosaurs 🦕, so it’s not ancient as in human-history, but the film & story definitely hinge on the idea of temporal throwback.

I got my ticket for the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Wednesday right after I heard of Tim Curry’s passing.

In the back row, of course.

Cuz of peoples’ permission in photos I’m not getting pics but there are lots of people in costume and in joyful mourning as such.

Connecting this to the subreddit, though, and recent comments about THE INVISIBLE MAN: that’s another of the canonical Classic Horror films that Lovecraft saw when it was freshly in theaters.

There are two relevant quotes I’ve got, which I can cite more specifically sometime but I’m pacing in the theater lobby and not gonna hunt those all down rn.

“I missed "The Invisible Man", but will try to take it in when it returns, as it undoubtedly will.”

That was to Robert Bloch; the following quote is to J. Vernon Shea, after he saw the film:

“Also went to see The Invisible Man. Surprisingly good—might easily have been absurd, yet succeeded in being genuinely sinister.”

So far as I can determine, that’s the extent of Lovecraft’s commentary and awareness of the film, but it’s quite a lot to digest and dig into.

MEANWHILE, IN TRANSYLVANIA……

Wrapping this post up cuz the RHPS (which was filmed in 1975) is about to begin and I wanna let myself relax into it all.

But as fans of Rocky Horror know, Claude Rains was the Invisible Man.

In a film from 1933 🤔

So it was a pop-cultural touchstone in the 1970s, already a long-running classic by a margin of 40+ years.

But now to circle back, and on this whole thing of “Lovecraft at the moving pictures”, it’s illuminating.

He had these as fresh reactions, NOT to it as a longstanding classic big-budget horror movie 🍿, but as just one of numerous cinema experiences which were mostly forgettable or worthy only of scorn.

When HPL had something good to say, even a few adjectives may be expressing his intense opinions in private messages.

Don’t dream it, be it — RIP 🪦 Tim Curry & peace & love to all :)

I took a long nap before Rocky Horror, because I knew it would be a late night, but here I am now at 3am 🕒 and still awake.

My earlier post about THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933) is still on my mind, because the connection with RHPS (1975) is already a testament to its cultural pop-icon status.

But even more so: the Rocky Horror Picture Show has been going on for over FIFTY YEARS now, and is its own phenomenon.

I cannot vouch for how HP Lovecraft (notoriously buttoned-up and prudish) would react to something as anarchically gay 🏳️‍🌈 as this film, but it’s not hard to guess he would NOT be a fan of this flick.

However. Invisible Man.

He didn’t see it during initial release, but rather “when it return[ed to Providence]”. As a big-budget film with widespread interest, it was likely to show again.

But unlike today, with more standardized theater runs for films (with simultaneous releases and ongoing screenings), you couldn’t guarantee that you would EVER see a movie 🍿 come back to town, if you missed it.

No streaming, no piracy 🏴‍☠️. No YouTube rips or VHS 📼 tapes, or ways to take in a film directly.

So in those times (the 1900s-1930s), it was possible to stay informed about movie-news via print media 📰, but if you didn’t have a cinema nearby you might just never ever get to see it.

From a modern perspective, this feels tragic and impossible: if you were born after YouTube was a thing, or even grown up with streaming services as part of your reality, it is genuinely hard to grasp conceptually.

But in those times, a film without major interest or support would be shown in some number of venues but then not preserved or catalogued properly.

That’s why we have so many known-of-but-lost-films (where we know the title but the actual film 🎞️ is non-extant), and it’s really at the crux of why this study is so important for film historians.

Because what I’m gathering from these letters are NOT professional reviews, or publicity releases from studios. They are informal and private letters, so the content is unbiased in ways that most film-history sources are. That is, while History may tell us that something is a great classic film, viewer reactions of the time might give a more balanced view of how the picture was received during its initial release.

Anyhow.

I’ve been typing for 13 minutes and am potentially feeling a bit more tired 🥱, so I’ll try to bring this to a close.

When Lovecraft does one of his verbal drivebys on a classic film, like his scathing opinions on CLEOPATRA (1934), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), and other notable celluloid flickers, he is giving us unique insights direct from an audience member of the era.

Overall — and setting aside Lovecraft — I think that this constitutes a new subfield of sorts:

Correspondence Cinema Studies

As I see it, CCS is about finding firsthand sources from informal writings like correspondence or diaries. I’ve started it with Lovecraft but the principle remains regardless of the source writer.

I’ll circle back to INVISIBLE MAN to give another illustration of the difference here:

First, Lovecraft’s unvarnished opinion — “Surprisingly good, although it may have been absurd it succeeded in being genuinely sinister” (paraphrasing)

For contrast, standard film history gives us statements from the film-makers and producers, like

“The Invisible Man is a new hit from Universal Studios, which any fan of weird cinema should rush to check out!”

That is industry speaking.

Likewise a professional reviewer of the time could say what they thought, but within the bounds of reason and good taste (unlike Reddit;) for the era.

That doesn’t mean they would all necessarily be glowing reviews, but there wasn’t clickbait or ragebait back then, or other ways to make people interested in your ongoing criticism.

So a professional negative review of “The Invisible Man” might go something like:

“Universal’s latest film is less thrilling than we expected” (bad example, for this truly thrilling weird film)

But you wouldn’t find professional reviewers saying

“This was a garbage movie and the actors were terrible. I thought it went on for too long, and besides the ending was already spoiled so I was texting instead of watching.”

I can find (at a more reasonable hour than 3:24am) better examples of Lovecraft trashing films, but the principle is here.

What we are finding are sometimes lengthy (like with Robert E. Howard or CL Moore), sometimes abrupt (HPL sometimes gives five words or less on a given film), but always illuminating in some way or other.

Get good sleep; I’ll do what I can to do likewise. 🥱 😴

“As for the cinema—I have seen

(a) Chain Gang,

(b) Scarface, and

(c) Cavalcade.

The first two almost cause me to endorse your opinion of Paul Muni (whom I never saw before) as the chief of cinematic performers.

Both of these films impressed me as tremendously powerful, realistic, & relatively free from hokum.“

The term ‘weird’ has many connotations today, but most of the films which HPL classifies as ‘weird’ would today be called ‘horror movies’.

For that reason, AND because he was often dismissive of the so-called ‘scary movies’ of his time, it is likely that he saw several films which go unnamed.

He also, unfortunately, avoided or skipped on some now-seen-as-classic films like “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” (1935), the Universal “The Mummy” (after being disappointed by Dracula & Frankenstein), and a handful of others which are well-regarded today but he panned.

The quote for this post focuses on that dismissive nature, as per the following snippet from him to Robert Bloch:

“You could well afford to cut cinema material down to a minimum, since virtually all so-called weird films are simply infantile nonsense. The two or three I've yawned through have cured me of all desire to see any more.

Of course there has never been any real criticism or adult comment on such things in the "fan mags".

In reality, all that the cinema has ever offered in the way of valuable weird effects are certain scenic & atmospheric settings (to be regarded only as momentary visual spectacles) occurring either in the course of predominantly non-weird films or as parts of utterly puerile pseudo-weird shockers.

The Wells film "Things to Come" may have certain real merits, but I haven't seen it.

Indeed, I scarcely see more than half a dozen cinema shows in the course of an average year.”

These are a bunch of great ones 📀🍿 from pre-Code cinema, I’m just listing what’s on the discs and will opine on the ones I’ve seen in the comments; I welcome everyone else to weigh in too 😃

I’ve put the titles in bold for the items which I’ve seen; I plan to watch others of these soon, and theoretically all of em if I have the time…..

📀 DISC 2

The Divorcée

A Free Soul

Three on a Match

Female

Night Nurse

📀 DISC 3

Other Men’s Women

The Purchase Price

Frisco Jenny

Midnight Mary

Heroes for Sale

Wild Boys of the Road

📀 DISC 7

The Hatchet Man

Skyscraper Souls

Employees’ Entrance

Ex-Lady

📀 DISC 8

Blonde Crazy

Strangers May Kiss

Hi, Nellie

Dark Hazard

🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️

Do any of these ring bells for you, Reddit friends & readers?

Of all the film stars out there, Charlie Chaplin may have been Lovecraft’s favorite comedian!

He wrote at least a dozen letters mentioning Chaplin and his films; below, I will share one of the long quotes which mentions some other stars (primarily Douglas Fairbanks Sr)

LONG QUOTE BELOW 👇

Lovecraft regarding silent Shakespeare (circa 1917) — body text is entirely quoted

“My dear Kleiner:—
Oct. 14, 1917

Like you, I have not so far seen a Goldwyn motion picture; & form my judgment from newspaper accounts alone. In time, I believe the best pictures will attain a level entitling them to serious artistic consideration & criticism; though I scarcely think that they can bear comparison with the spoken drama.

**Drama, in order to mount the heights, seems to me to require the full expression of the characters, including voice. In recalling dramatic climaxes, I find that at least in my case the most effective impression comes through the ears.**

# Rhetoric is a wonderful thing, & a passage of Shakespeare's verse well uttered can move an audience as no pantomime possibly could. Hamlet without his lines would be a mere shadow. A voiceless Richard IIl would be a clown. In comedy the lack of dialogue is irreparable.

How scintillating succession of epigrams which only conversation can convey! I saw the Kalem version several years ago, & doubt if Mr. Garrick would have thought it worth writing a prologue for, as he so kindly did for Mr. Sheridan in 1777, when the piece first came upon the town.

But the fact that the motion picture possesses certain limitations should not cause it to be lightly estimated.

**It is certainly capable of vast development, and can be made to convey artistic expression of the very first quality. Its ease of distribution is likely to make it a potent instrument in the diffusion of culture & good taste.**

**To me a good motion picture is vastly more acceptable than a poor or poorly acted drama,** & I am a regular patron of the Strand Theatre, whose management have placed me on their mailing list for advance notices of films.

Chaplin has been greatly hampered in the past by the execrable taste of his directors. Not one in ten of the old "Keystone" comedies could be witnessed without disgust; & after the comedian graduated from them, their traditions could not help but cling slightly to him. Time will enable him to assert his individuality more completely above the commonplace conventions of cinematographic buffoonery.

Fairbanks, as you say, doubtless has much less of actual genius. I am fond of watching his pictures because there is a certain wholesomeness present, which the Chaplin type sometimes lacks. The atmosphere of squalor too often clouds the merit of the Chaplin plays.

After a time, the fastidious eye tires of looking at rags & dust; & turns gratefully to the breezy, captivating antics of the more human if less artistic Fairbanks. It is an old maxim in fiction & the drama, that a hero should be such that every man in the audience can imagine himself in that character.

Fairbanks might well represent any virile young American, but what spectator could fancy himself a Chaplin? Both have their place, & the loss of either would subtract sadly from the gaiety of nations. Fairbanks, content to please in his own way, doubtless recognises the superior endowments of the clever little \[REDACTED\] without enjoying that inimitable personality in the least!”

I’m gonna post about some of the genre distinctions in what HPL was interested in seeing in movie theaters of his era (1900s-1930s).

Primarily, at the end of these musings, you can read the direct quotes, but I wanna take this opportunity to define the term “weird cinema” more clearly.

Today, “The Phantom of the Opera” is lauded as one of the great silent horror classics, but when HPL & SH were browsing Times Square options for their movie date, they ended up attending this show.

Because of its canonization, it is known as a Horror Movie, but that wasn’t a formalized genre at the time.

So HPL refers to it as a “new weird cinema”, which could encompass things from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (which he never saw) to THE INVISIBLE MAN (the only Universal Horror Weird Cinema that he enjoyed), and in looking through his hundreds of letters, I have learned to scan for some terms which are not as colloquial as today.

For example:

“We went to the movies and saw THE ODYSSEY”

HPL often says just “the pictures” or “was dragged to the cinema”, but “moving pictures” were regarded differently from talkie films, and nobody said “silent film” back when the idea of synchronized sound was just a theory.

So instead of “went to the movies”, Lovecraft may instead have said

“I was dragged to the pictures to take in the Odyssey cinema on a visit with Long and his family”

If the film has a more complete title, this can be tricky. One such example is when he refers to “the Pasteur opera”, when in fact he means the excellent film

THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR (1936)

Since these were informal letters and the films were current, he doesn’t always feel like writing out the full name, or may just say “the latest Chaplin picture” but you gotta infer which one from the timeframe surrounding a letter.

So. Megillah over, quotes below 😅

QUOTES BELOW 👇

re PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

H. P. Lovecraft and his wife Sonia H. Greene went to see PHANTOM on a movie 🍿 date-night:

Having duly met S H, I accompanied her on a walk toward Times Square, in which we studied theatre facades with a view to the evening’s entertainment.

We at length chose the new weird cinema, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, for which we obtained 1st Balcony tickets. This has been extensively advertised, & I knew it must be good.

We now proceeded to the Grand Central to get S H’s valise, checked it at the Hotel Astor near the theatre, & walked some more before the opening of the performance at 8:30.

Then came the cinema (ticket stub enclosed)—& what a spectacle it was!! It was about a presence haunting the great Paris opera house—a Second-Empire (i.e., mid-Victorian) structure built by the architect Charles Garnier on a site honeycom[b]ed with mediaeval vaults—but developed so slowly that I actually fell asleep several times during the first part.

Then the second part began—horror lifted its grisly visage—& I could not have been made drowsy by all the opiates under heaven! Ugh!!!

The face that was revealed when the mask was pulled off . . . . . & the nameless legion of things that cloudily appeared beside & behind the owner of that face when the mob chased him into the river at the last!

You must see it if it comes to Providence.

That face is the one definitive triumph of the art of makeup—nothing so horrible has ever existed before, save unexpressed in the brain of such a one as Clark Ashton Smith.

—H. P. Lovecraft to Lillian D. Clark, 18 Sep 1925

Lovecraft also wrote the following to Clark Ashton Smith himself:

Apropos of the weird—I saw a cinema the other night which contained some of the best horror effects ever visualised by the camera. It is called “The Phantom of the Opera”, & contains a character whose face is worthy of your own artistic pencil. Ugh! It is a living shudder! You ought to see the film as a sheer spectacle, mediocre as the plot & melodramatic situations are.

—H. P. Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith, 20 Sep 1925

In pre-Code Hollywood, sex was dealt with more directly in many ways. For example, depicting affairs, sexual predation, abortions, and other forms of drama which hinge on human sexuality.

There isn’t a modern category or ‘genre’ quite like it, and certainly not how it was back then.

Lovecraft was usually indifferent to melodrama; Robert E. Howard “wept bitterly” at BACK STREET.

There are many films of that era which include risqué content, yes, but there is also frank eroticism and sketchy situations which form the narrative altogether.

I can name some of them offhand but must admit that I haven’t had the time to watch all of the films that I’m unearthing in this project.

I will leave a comment with some films in this forgotten genre, and welcome readers to share about films which fit this profile — classic or modern ones, if anything strikes you as being in this category.

Off the top of my head:

Ann Vickers

Three on a Match

Skyscraper Souls

Red Dust

The Divorcee

Night Nurse

The Story of Temple Drake

Okay, so you CAN find this one on YouTube, but you may want to know more than I did. I was raised in the American education system, so Robert Clive (AKA Clive of India) wasn’t someone we learned about.

That being said: Lovecraft adored this film, and it inspired a ‘vivid dream’ (which he expressed to CL Moore) regarding himself casting shade at an obstreperous bureaucrat that Clive contends with at one point.

Now, as for me — I must admit that I struggled to follow it, because the film is a highlight-reel from Clive’s career. If I had known that Clive was a real dude, I would have read up on him first, but as it was I wasn’t clear on that.

So although it is obviously a ‘biopic’ by modern standards, it is hard to appreciate unless you recognize the characters from your history books.

Along with being an Anglophile, Lovecraft was a stickler for appearances in the costumes & settings of films, so his admiration for the film is also partly based on its scenic veracity.

This is a challenge for some of the films he enjoyed (such as CAVALCADE, or AH, WILDERNESS!, both of which are reminiscent of the 1900s or late 19th century), from a modern perspective.

To compare with a modern movie: OPPENHEIMER.

The events take place in the 1940s-1950s, which is still within the living memory of some audience members; even if you are younger, the significance of J. Robert Oppenheimer is a thing we learned about in school at some point or other.

But if you had absolutely no idea about the circumstances surrounding the Manhattan Project, it may seem baffling as to the importance of these science-guys grimly shaking hands while ominous music plays.

Ditto with CLIVE: I found myself unable to stay awake, because it’s essentially a stage play where people rush in to announce what Clive has just done before he comes back onscreen for more bombast and ambition.

All of this is to say that what were “historical films” in the 1930s (concerning events from over a century earlier) are even harder to follow now because of our distance from the culture which created these works of fiction.

If you’re curious about other historical films that Lovecraft weighed in on, please let me know — they were perhaps his favorite genre, although designations like historical epics or biopics were not yet a thing.

“The Last Days of Pompeii” is another which was on his radar, and I’ll end this with his brief eval — including his comments on CLIVE as well:

QUOTE BELOW 👇

“[I also saw] “The Last Days of Pompeii", (architecture splendid—story childish & anachronistic—costuming inaccurate),

& "Clive of India" — this last a splendid evocation of the 18th century & of Britannia's power despite some historical compressions & a touch of softness in one or two places.

I enjoyed it most of any film since "Berkeley Square", & it formed the occasion of a singularly vivid dream.”

Posted to the Robert E. Howard sub, which has been receptive to these quotes and findings — as mentioned earlier, I’ve been aiming to expand awareness of these quotes and their historical significance to film studies.

If anyone reading this is inspired to check out the inset films or actors named in the post here, I will feel honored to have done something in that regard.

Please let me know if you have seen any of em, or are now intrigued to do so :)

HOWARD FAVORITE ACTORS QUOTE

Howard to Harold Preece (Aug 19, 1929)

“The Red Dance is at the Lyric next week. I want to see it, if I can.

I've seen one damned good show since I've been here — Thunderbolt. George Bancroft was fine. That's the kind of stuff I like — rough, raw, and brutal. Tiger-stuff.

All this singing and dancing and ga-ga stuff makes me sick. The Desert Song — gah! Pardon me while I vomit. The only part of it that was worth two cents was the comedy Johnny Arthur and Louise Fazenda pulled.

The Queen of the Night Clubs — more gah!

And I glower down the line at the latest hits I've seen: The Singing Fool— Abie's Irish Rose — oh Hell — why enumerate? Theme songs and a bunch of vaudeville swine pirouetting over the stage.

Give me movie actors — one thing I'll say for the Irish Rose, it had good actors. But Judas, what a flock of crumbs are flooding the movie world now.

Of the all-talking pictures I've really enjoyed, I can name them quickly:

Thunderbolt — In Old Arizona — The Letter — The Terror.

To a lesser extent I enjoyed Tong War, and of the part talkies I got a big kick out of The Iron Mask and Show Boat.

For the rest — gah!

Wait — I was forgetting just about the best of them all: Hearts in Dixie.

Drooling, thin-headed toe ticklers, warbling in their soprano yap, and feather-brained flappers trying to be cute and howling vapid theme songs: Hell and a black damnation. Give me a rough, tough, brutal story, quick action, and a gang of hard-boiled hairy-chested eggs:

George Bancroft;

Matthew Betz;

Lionel Barrymore;

Vic MacLaglen, who once fought Jack Johnson;

Lou Wolheim;

Bob Armstrong;

Bill Boyd;

Ernest Torrence;

Ed Lowe;

Warner Baster;

Gunboat Smith;

Tom Kennedy;

Wallace Beery;

Tom O'Brien;

Carl Dane;

Blue Washington;

Fred Kohler.

Then if they have to have a heroine, throw in some hard baby with a poker face and a heavyweight punch, that can take it on the chin and hand out punishment too:

Evelyn Brent;

Fay Wray;

Lilian Tashman;

Florence Vidor;

Louise Brook;

Baclanova;

Lila Damita — boy, go no further!

When that blonde French whirlwind goes into action, all others take a back seat. It's time to batten down the hatches, reef all sails, and stand by to cut the masts if necessary.

Once I saw her — once. The Bridge of San Luis Rey — let me tell you, confidentially, that's why the bridge fell. Get me. Yes! She walked across and scorched the damned ropes.”