For those who love the silent film antics of , , and others, UW Libraries has something new that’s as good as a Christmas present: the .
It’s a streaming service administered by Alexander Street Press that includes more than 500 silent films, serials and shorts produced from the 1890s to the 1930s. Fritz Lang’s famous “Metropolis” is there as well as works by Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffiths (including his “), Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and even Thomas Edison.
The movies feature some of the great players of bygone days: John and Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Clara Bow and even Rudolph Valentino in the film that sealed his fame, “The Sheik.”
, associate professor of comparative literature and head of the UW’s , called the database “a genuinely unique resource that’s invaluable, fun 鈥� and time-consuming for anyone who gets hooked!
“It provides easy, immediate streaming access to high-quality silent era films, especially those that have been restored and distributed in recent years,” Bean said. “These films are the sort that never pop up on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Having such a database available is part of what makes the 天美影视传媒 a preeminent research environment.”
And Bean knows the subject well: A about silent movies at Seattle’s Paramount Theater and its Mighty Wurlitzer Organ listed some of her favorites, saying she “knows more about silent films than Stephen Hawking knows about physics.”