Intertitles

gscottrobinson · Unread post by **gscottrobinson** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:07 am

Hello.

I'm hoping some of the historians might be able to help me a bit. I'm doing some research on intertitles, and it seems like a logical place to start would be actually seeing one. However, I'm not at all sure where to start looking. Are there archives in the Hollywood area that may have kept some? Do private collectors keep them?

Thanks in advance,

gsr

Unread post by **silentfilm** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:34 am

I can't help you with finding originals of intertitles, but if you want a list of titles in many films, check out the Intertitle-O-Ramasite. It lists most features available on DVD or TCM, plus a few shorts.

N_Phay · Unread post by **N_Phay** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:15 am

Originals, I don't know. I've screengrabbed a couple of favourites over the years:

(top down, "A Woman of the World" - the intertitle kind of sums up the weird perversity of the whole film - "Faust", "The Show Off", 4 from "Ben Hur". I'd love a font like the "Rome knew naught" one.

Let me know if you want me to grab and upload some more, there are so many good ones, the one from the beginning of "The Garden of Eden" - "Under a Vienna moon, over a Vienna bakery" is a favourite, as is the "She's the mother of a child ~ but she ain't got ~ NO HUSBAND" from "Way Down East". The good ones are so charming and likeable in their own right.

Rodney · Unread post by **Rodney** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:51 am

Well, I can't help you with the decorated capitals (which are probably hand-lettered, and probably what you actually want), but I grabbed a screen-shot of the other letters in the "But Rome knew naught" subtitle and uploaded it into What-The-Font. It identified a pretty close match in URW Artcraft Bold, drawn in 1912 by Robert Wiebking. I have no idea if that's Artcraft as in Paramount-Artcraft, there's no explanation or background given for the font. Oddly, in the regular weight the "ear" on the lower-case g goes to the right, but in the bold it goes to the left (as in your sample).

It's a pretty good silent film intertitle font -- serif but mono-weight is always good for reversing out of black.

BenModel · Unread post by **BenModel** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:12 am

http://www.typophile.com is another good resource for finding names of typefaces and fonts. I was tipped off to it by the guy who created the Silentina Font.

gscottrobinson · Unread post by **gscottrobinson** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:36 am

Wow! Thank you so much for the detailed replies! I really like how active this group is.

Now - for some quick replies.

1. It was actually the creator of the intertitle-o-rama site that sent me to this one. It is a really impressive resource.

2. I love the intertitles you posted, especially the one from Faust.

3. I'm guessing that many people ask about intertitles because they want to replicate the font for an art project. I have a different interest. Almost all the literature concerning the creation of intertitles speaks of them like a dangerous necessity since they don't tell the story visually. Victor Freeburg begins his 1918 chapter on the subject with the line "Nature abhors a mixture of species." Yet, I find them fascinating. Every time I see a silent, I'm drawn to the way they are decorated and the way they use language. The images on this post are beautiful examples.

So, I thought it might be interesting to research a history of intertitles, keeping in mind the idea that writing on screen continues long after synchronized sound supposedly made such writing obsolete.

Therefore, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have to imagine that there are still some actual cards in existence, and I'm interested in learning how early silents began to superimpose the text over still and moving images.

Thanks again for your responses.

gsr

Unread post by **silentfilm** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:15 am

By coincidence, yesterday I watched the DVD Discovering Cinema: Learning to Talk by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange. One of the extras on the disc is an amusing excerpt of a film that uses comic-strip type "balloons" to show dialoge in a comic mystery film. I guess that the film was slightly edited after shooting, because there are a couple of traditional intertitles with dialog besides the balloons. I guess the intertitles could be for longer speeches that would not fit in the "balloon".

The "balloons" appear to have been photographed during the scene. The disadvantage is that the film would have to be re-shot for foreign languages. The advantage is that the editing pace was much faster, as a detective questioned several suspects with rapid-fire questions.

Arndt · Unread post by **Arndt** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:45 am

André Stratmann's German silent film site http://www.stummfilm-fan.de/ has a very good section on intertitles with many examples from German and international films. Just click on "Zwischentitel" in the bar on the left-hand side.

Penfold · Unread post by **Penfold** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:08 pm

Whether or not this is of interest I don't know; but I have seen an original intertitle card, in the papers of British writer/director Adrian Brunel, in the BFI Library Special Collections.
The card itself is very thick brown cardboard, not unlike the sturdy sort you may see used for boxing thirties toys; the letters seem to have been stamped, as their surface was depressed below that of the surround....and either stamped in silver leaf, or the depression used to contain silver paint; the surround painted a very matt black. The size was about 10"by 8".

My favourite intertitle ? From the silent version of The Skin Game, remade by Hitchcock in the early sound era. I think it's the gamekeeper, or the head gardener who has this speech intertitle...
"By George, you're a handsome woman when you're roused"
I'm just dying to use it in real life....

N_Phay · Unread post by **N_Phay** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:29 pm

I've been looking for that stummfilm site for ages, I remember doing a google search for "Colleen Moore" and those cute title cards with the little stick figures showing up, I looked again several times but never managed to find it again before now. Better still, I have a list of Colleen's films with "survivor"/"lost" and "unknown" status as best I can find, "Her Bridal Nightmare" was an unknown, I guess it must actually still exist somewhere? So, thanks Arndt!

Thanks for the help on IDing the "Ben Hur" font too guys, I do actually want to package my next couple of self-release CDs in a kind of silent movie graphic style, and that's the perfect font.

There is something great about a good set of intertitles, the way they're written, the archaic language, they can be enjoyed alongside the film, it's like a little subsidiary artform in its own right. I remember reading once, where, I forget, that writing the words for them, if you were skilled at it, and able to convey as much information as possible in as few words as possible, was someting that paid very well back then. I'd be interested in finding out more about the history/evolution of them as well.

Jim Henry · Unread post by **Jim Henry** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:06 pm

The art slides in many of Harold Lloyd's films are wonderfully wry commentaries on the film action with both the words and the pictures. Unfortunately the DVD transfers on many of the cards make the art quite dark and hard to see. If you do a frame grab and manipulate the tonal range there is quite a bit to see that is missed as the cards roll by in the film. H.M. Walker wrote most of Lloyd's intertitles and he got an on screen credit for his work.

Blood and Sand also has some very nice art titles.

Unread post by **silentfilm** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:50 pm

Now that I'm off work I popped the DVD in and the film with the dialog bubbles is The Chamber Mystery (1920).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188493/

H.M. "Beanie" Walker was one of the best title-writers. Even after the silent era was over, the Laurel & Hardy sound comedy shorts usually opened with a humorous title, like Mike G. spoofs in his signature.

One of the best things about the restoration of Colleen Moore's Her Wild Oat was the restoration of the (text only) original titles. There were some great ones.

Unread post by **Danny Burk** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:16 pm

Sometimes you can find beautiful hand-tinted art titles, if the film in question has original (not recreated) tints. A good example is in AFFAIRS OF ANATOL; one title card includes a rose at the bottom. The petals are tinted pink, the leaves green, for a beautiful effect.

One of my favorite title cards is in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as the Phantom, having just been unmasked, says to Christine "Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my accursed ugliness!"

Rodney · Unread post by **Rodney** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:58 pm

Danny Burk wrote:Sometimes you can find beautiful hand-tinted art titles, if the film in question has original (not recreated) tints. A good example is in AFFAIRS OF ANATOL; one title card includes a rose at the bottom. The petals are tinted pink, the leaves green, for a beautiful effect.

One of my favorite title cards is in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as the Phantom, having just been unmasked, says to Christine "Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my accursed ugliness!"

There are some interesting titles in SOUL OF YOUTH (which is on one of the Treasures from the American Archives collections). The text is written out on top, and below is a filmed vignette of the character who's speaking. Then there are the animated titles in the American cut of SUDS, with moving backgrounds. Animated titles with moving or flashing words appear in many films, including THE SAPHEAD, REDSKIN, and THE CAT AND THE CANARY.

There's a patent application shown in the book SILENT FILM SOUND of a technique of inflating balloons with words printed on them. The idea was that during the filming of the scene, the actors would inflate the balloons so that the words would appear to be coming out of their mouths. Creative idea, but I doubt it was ever used!

Jim Henry · Unread post by **Jim Henry** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:46 pm

Rodney wrote:There's a patent application shown in the book SILENT FILM SOUND of a technique of inflating balloons with words printed on them. The idea was that during the filming of the scene, the actors would inflate the balloons so that the words would appear to be coming out of their mouths. Creative idea, but I doubt it was ever used!

That would be U.S. Patent 1,240,774. You can see it here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=PM9bAA ... dq=1240774

rudyfan · Unread post by **rudyfan** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:54 pm

Rodney wrote: That would be U.S. Patent 1,240,774. You can see it here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=PM9bAA ... dq=1240774

All I can say is, as one who works in the business, most patent applications were much much shorter in those days! Not nearly as much fun, either.

Rodney · Unread post by **Rodney** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 1:11 pm

Based on the drawing these look similar to those party noise-makers, so I'm wondering if the use of these dialog balloons would be accompanied by a shrill raspberry sound.

I'd like to have the one from the drawing -- "Oh! The fraud!" -- as I think it could be useful in many circumstances.

I'm sure other ideas could be suggested, perhaps taken from silent film intertitles.

Frederica · Unread post by **Frederica** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:27 pm

N_Phay wrote:Originals, I don't know. I've screengrabbed a couple of favourites over the years:

I think I've just found my Nitrateville sig line. "I am Golthar! Golthar the Terrible! What have I to fear from Rome?"

Fred the Pesky

FrankFay · Unread post by **FrankFay** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:11 pm

Jim Henry wrote:
Rodney wrote:There's a patent application shown in the book SILENT FILM SOUND of a technique of inflating balloons with words printed on them. The idea was that during the filming of the scene, the actors would inflate the balloons so that the words would appear to be coming out of their mouths. Creative idea, but I doubt it was ever used!
That would be U.S. Patent 1,240,774. You can see it here: http://www.google.com/patents?id=PM9bAA ... dq=1240774

That is the (in)famous Charles Felton Pidgin patent, which had two variations. On a more serious note he patented a tabulating system which was popular but lost out to the Holerith punch card system. More related to our topic he was a novelist, author of "Quincy Adams Sawyer" which is a lost film of Lon Chaney.

Agnes · Unread post by **Agnes** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:44 pm

I agree with the comment aobut H. M. Walker (who wrote the titles for the Harold Lloyd films) was just amazing.

On the Silsnt Film Comediand website,

i use one of his titles as my signiture line . It is from Bumping Into Broadway :"I know it's good, I wrote it myself". It is a great line! Maybe I should use it here. Oops, I already have!

Agnes

Frederica · Unread post by **Frederica** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:56 pm

Danny Burk wrote: One of my favorite title cards is in PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as the Phantom, having just been unmasked, says to Christine "Feast your eyes, glut your soul on my accursed ugliness!"

Hunh. I see that intertitle in my mirror every morning.

Fred
(never at her best before the first cup of coffee...)

radiotelefonia · Unread post by **radiotelefonia** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:39 pm

I would like to get a free fonts of a typical silent film title.

I want to translate to English the title of LA CHICA DE LA CALLE FLORIDA (to which I will eventually put an ersatz soundtrack of mine as well).

I have the following that were posted today:

http://www.taringa.net/posts/downloads/ ... -2008.html

http://www.taringa.net/posts/downloads/ ... Fonts.html

And these, in a post of Portable Adobe Software:

http://www.taringa.net/posts/downloads/ ... +-DD!.html

gscottrobinson · Unread post by **gscottrobinson** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:59 pm

Thanks again for all the replies. An actual intertitle has become even more elusive and that makes it even more fun to track down. I'm encouraged by the report of actually seeing one. I'm going to keep doing some digging, and I'll post if I find anything.

gsr

Jim Henry · Unread post by **Jim Henry** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:49 pm

radiotelefonia wrote:I would like to get a free fonts of a typical silent film title.

I've never found any font that works as well as Silentina for making intertitles that look "right." It is available here for US$ 25:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/typodermic/silentina/

BTW, in my experience you need to add some other effects like a subtle hotspot, a bit of jitter, and a slight softening of the edges if you want your intertitles to look like they were part of the original film rather than a slide that is stuck in the middle of the film.

Just found Silentina Movie for US$5 here:
http://www.fontmarketplace.com/font/silentina.aspx

gscottrobinson · Unread post by **gscottrobinson** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:16 pm

Hi! For those of you that are interested, I have actually found one intertitle:
A 1926 card from the film The Caveman. They've got it at the
Margaret Herrick Library in California and I'm going to arrange a visit.

I never thought it would be this hard!

If I had the ability to chase down Penfold's lead at the BFI I probably would.

Also, I found a dissertation on the Pacific Titling company, which apparently did work on silent films as well. At this point, they are closed to visitors, but I'm going to do a bit of digging.

I don't suppose anyone knows anything about early Hollywood titling companies?

Thanks,

Gregory

Chris Snowden · Unread post by **Chris Snowden** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:05 pm

gscottrobinson wrote:Hi! For those of you that are interested, I have actually found one intertitle:
A 1926 card from the film The Caveman. They've got it at the
Margaret Herrick Library in California and I'm going to arrange a visit.

I never thought it would be this hard!

If I had the ability to chase down Penfold's lead at the BFI I probably would.

Also, I found a dissertation on the Pacific Titling company, which apparently did work on silent films as well. At this point, they are closed to visitors, but I'm going to do a bit of digging.

I don't suppose anyone knows anything about early Hollywood titling companies?

Thanks,

Gregory

I'm pretty sure Bob Birchard has a few original title cards in his collection. You might bring up the alt.movies.silent newsgroup in Google and do a search on intertitles... it seems to me he discussed the creation of title cards there one day and conveyed more information than I've seen anywhere else.

The greatest intertitle I can think of appears in Harold Lloyd's For Heaven's Sake (1926), but it's not by Beanie Walker, it's from Ralph Spence, the king of the title-writers. It's that introductory title about the story being about a man with a mansion meeting a miss with a mission... it fits the movie's storyline just right and it's such an elegant play on words.

A lot of the great art titles from the late 1910s-early 1920s were painted by Ferdinand Pinney Earle, who was so highly regarded that he sometimes got screen credit for them. (He's also credited with something far less laudatory in Anthony Slide's Silent Players, but that's another story.)

FrankFay · Unread post by **FrankFay** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 3:36 pm

I don't have Silent Players, but Googling Ferdinand Pinney Earle brings up all sorts of interesting tidbits like Byronic, Free Love, reports of marital problems (repeatedly) and being jailed for kidnapping his child after a divorce, popularizing the term "affinity" as in "You are my affinity", (also "Soul Mate") and I think he had some involvement with the Arbuckle trial. Sounds quite colorful.

Frederica · Unread post by **Frederica** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:11 pm

FrankFay wrote: ... and I think he had some involvement with the Arbuckle trial. Sounds quite colorful.

He did? How?

Fred

FrankFay · Unread post by **FrankFay** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 7:46 pm

Strike that- seems he had no connection to the happenings, and no more involvement than anyone else in Hollywood. From what I read though, Earle had the sort of parties that everyone THOUGHT that Arbuckle was throwing.

gscottrobinson · Unread post by **gscottrobinson** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 9:05 pm

Chris,

Thank you - It looks like the best way to try to reach him is through Cinecon.

Gregory