Deck 3: American Cinema in the 1920s

Question 1

King Vidor's first talkie,Halleluja,employed which one of the following now-common recording techniques?

A)voice-over
B)dubbing
C)sound montage
D)none of the above

Answer 1

B

Question 2

To many ordinary Americans,what seemed true about those larger-than-life silent movies coming out of early Hollywood?

A)They were impossibly glamorous.
B)They were a little dangerous.
C)They were scandalous.
D)all of the above

Answer 2

D

Question 3

Chaplin's comic work probably owes its great appeal to the fact that it has a great sense of

A)the physical.
B)the political.
C)the psychological.
D)the philosophical.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The female actor whose own career paralleled the development of movies themselves was

A)Mary Pickford.
B)Mabel Normand.
C)Greta Garbo.
D)Lilian Gish.

Question 5

Adding a microphone to a set to record the actors talking did which of the following to acting?

A)Stopped the actors dead in their tracks
B)Made them say their words very,very precisely
C)Made the loud camera relocate to a sound-proof booth
D)all the above

Question 6

Buster Keaton's characters exhibited all of the following traits except

A)industriousness.
B)earnestness.
C)an inability to assimilate the reality around him.
D)cowardice.

Question 7

Silent films blended several arts except for

A)photography.
B)music.
C)acting.
D)special effects.

Question 8

The film that opened Hollywood to sound in movies is

A)The Blue Angel.
B)Tabu.
C)The Jazz Singer.
D)Wings.

Question 9

What woman,at age 24,wrote a script for D.W.Griffith and later worked on the subtitles for his Intolerance?

A)June Mathis
B)Anita Loos
C)Francis Marion
D)Dorothy Azner

Question 10

Chaplin was more than a comedian and The Gold Rush is more than a comedy.___

Question 11

Each of the following is a thematic aspect of Charlie Chaplin's best work except

A)conveying the pain of being human.
B)portraying the joy of being rich and powerful.
C)showing what it is to love more than to be loved.
D)dramatizing being ignored when one does not deserve to be ignored

Question 12

Harold Lloyd's films like Safety Last were on "the myth of the Good American," and in such films,viewers find

A)Home.
B)Hearth.
C)One True Love.
D)all the above
80

Question 13

Many comedians in early Hollywood movies came from

A)vaudeville.
B)Broadway.
C)Burlesque.
D)little theatre.

Question 14

The female director whose work was so admired that Universal built a studio for her that was hers alone was

A)Lois Weber
B)Alice Guy-Blache
C)Francis Marion
D)Mrs.Wallace Reid
81

Question 15

Most female film directors flourished when the "talkie" era began.___

Question 16

The qualities which prohibit Erich Von Stroheim from being the Marquis de Sade of cinema are

A)precision and clarity.
B)sex and doomed love.
C)fascinating and likeability.
D)humor and humanity.

Question 17

Charlie Chaplin was always famous,even before getting into movies,for his "Little Tramp" character.___

Question 18

Which of the following films is not one of Douglas Fairbanks' swashbuckling spectaculars?

A)The Mask of Zorro
B)The Private Life of Don Juan
C)The Iron Mask
D)The Thief of Bagdad

Question 19

Buster Keaton's analytically abstract humor is more in tune with modern sensibilities than Chaplin's open vulnerability.___
82

Question 20

Who of the following is considered a carefree flapper?

A)Clara Bow
B)Greta Garbo
C)Lillian Gish
D)Mary Pickford

Question 21

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
King Vidor ___

Question 22

What were some of the filmmaking techniques or qualities that made Buster Keaton's early film comedies the antithesis of Max Sennett's comedies?

Question 23

Matching

-Ed Lubitsch ___

A)first European woman director
B)satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
C)a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
D)The Navigator
E)stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
F)City Lights
G)Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
H)made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
I)made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
J)produced The Jazz Singer which included sound.

Question 24

Erich von Stroheim,who increased the latitude for serious filmmakers,was
responsible for shifting power from the creative to the business end of filmmaking.

Question 25

Tom Mix and Clara Bow best personified the early Hollywood era,its ascent from primitivism into aesthetic accomplishment.___

Question 26

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Harry Langdon ___ two of his best works

Question 27

Studios like Universal hired "prestige" directors to please the critics and justify the wealth and influence standard Hollywood fodder generated.___

Question 28

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Buster Keaton ___ h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise
en scene helped to wean audiences from

Question 29

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
F.W.Murnau ___

Question 30

What was Hollywood's resistance at all levels - studio owners,directors,actors,etc.- to introducing sound to the movie experience?

Question 31

The Jazz Singer was spectacular success from its first performance,thereafter prompting theaters to begin wiring for sound at considerable expense.___

Question 32

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Charley Chaplin ___ rural romances

Question 33

What were some of the ways that Mary Pickford's film career paralleled Hollywood's evolution as the filmmaking capital of the world?

Question 34

Says Alexander Walker,"The silent stars were less mythic figures,but not quite human because they didn't speak yet,giving emotions human shape." ___

Question 35

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Alice Guy-Blache ___

Question 36

Unlike Chaplin,Harold Lloyd was a creature of the movies almost from the
beginning and so required a long apprenticeship to learn how to make people laugh.

Question 37

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Mary Pickford ___ and Chaplin to form United Artists

Question 38

How did Charles Chaplin create pathos (sympathy for another)in his comedies like City Lights or The Gold Rush? Illustrate.

Question 39

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Warner Brothers ___

Question 40

Matching
a.first European woman director
b.satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
c.a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
d.The Navigator
e.stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
f.City Lights
g.Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
h.made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
i.made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
j.produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
von Sternberg ___

Question 41

In a Charlie Chaplin comedy,which element is dominant: slapstick comedy or the psychological study of character?

Question 42

Why was vaudeville an excellent training ground for acting in movies?

Question 43

What was the typical tone of the movies that women directors made in the silent era?

Question 44

To what extent and in what way(s)did the introduction of sound turn films into "talkies" (sound dependent)rather than movies (image/picture dependent)?