Published in 1996, "Charles Dickens on the Screen" surveys the filmed works of Dickens from the silent era, including TV adaptaions. The book is rather silm in volume, and not so much a thorough discussion on the cinematic skills employed on the screen as an introduction to the vast field of Dickensian films (more than 100), but still Michael Pointer keeps his book always readable and immensely interesting.

After the brief introduction, the book begins with a discussion about "Dickensian" elements in original books, and their relations to visual media. The agrument at first is a bit too general and obvious, but you should just read on. After the third chapter the writer speeds up his discussion, giving well-researched comments on the films, backed up quotations from various materials. Though the materials might not look rare in the eyes of those who are already versed in film history -- autobiographical writings, comtemporary reviews, the synopsis, etc. -- they help those who do not have knowledge on movie history to gain the historical viewpoint to glance back the current of many films.

Chapters 2-4 are devoted to discussion on the silent films. It is now a nearly impossible thing to make a perfect survey about this era, because many of the films are lost forever (the reason is explained by the words of director Frank Llyod in the book), and considering that fact, Mr. Pointer did a very good job, even though the argument often seems to lack in power, relying on second-hand knowledge. But that cannot be helped.

After Chapter 5, the discussion is about "talkies," and the book gets better and better as you read. His discussion covers the films until the 1993 "Edwin Drood," and, instead of displaying tedious scene-to-scene analysis which might have done harm to the book by its slow tempo, he gives each film concise summery of its characteristics and his opinions about it, which may disagree with yours, but mostly fair and to the point. Mr. Pointer does not neglect the more recent TV products, and gives fair judgement on them. There is even a section where the author deals with parodies! (such as British cult TV series "Avengers" -- remember Mrs. Emma Peel?")

The book also contains a list of films (until BBC's "Martin Chuzzlewit"), which is now superceded by our internet source like imdb. Of more interest is the cluster of clear stills (21 in all) which includes a rare one that shows Charles Laughton as Mr. Micawber in the 1935 "David Copperfield." After one-week shooting, he left the film, and as you know, W.C. Fields took the part. Though not a perfect book, since so many have been released after its publication, "Charles Dickens on the Screen" is a good book to know more about the area of filmed classics, which should be given more attention from both academic and non-asademic people.

This great book by Anthony Slide is a comprehensive overview of American silent film history prior to 1920. It is packed full of facts on obscure film performers and production companies for both a researcher or a silent film fan. My only quibble with this book is that it is a little short on critical analysis of the films. The author sometimes dismisses a film in one sentence. Still, this is a great book for anyone interested in the complex world of filmmaking in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The book is both fascinating and infuriating. I have a few other of Mr. Slide's books, and they are full of useful information, just like this one.

This book has great profiles on a lot of lesser known, but still interesting actors and actresses. Some of the profiles are several pages and are in-depth. Others are a very short page or two. Mr. Slide met more than half of the people profiled in the book. For those people, he greatly comments on how these people treated him. The book also documents their talkie careers, their career decline and their lives before their death.

The book does dish dirt on many prominent silent film people. While some of it is certainly true and deserves to be public record, sometimes he speculates on things like sexual relationships that seem unlikely (Ralph Graves and Mack Sennett!). Mr. Slide apparently finds it hard to believe that older women who live together can do so as friends not have a sexual relationship.

I don't know Mr. Slide, but he really lets his personality show through in this book. For one thing, he does not have a sense of humor. Of the comedians, he only wrote admiringly of Harold Lloyd and Alice Howell. He has very poor opinions of Mabel Normand and John Bunny. He says Bunny's comedy "contains
nothing creative" and "one wonders if audiences ever did laugh at his work." Chaplin, Keaton, Langdon, and Raymond Griffith are barely mentioned. Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase are ignored. He talks of Arbuckle as if Roscoe really did rape and murder Virginia Rappe.

Mr Slide seems to remember everyone that made an anti-semetic remark to him. Surely people of this era were just as bigoted toward blacks and other ethnic groups. Yet D.W. Griffith is the only person (remembered by Blanche Sweet) remembered as making a racist remark, and that was before BOAN and INTOLERANCE. (At least he did say in the preface that he decided not to profile Patsy Ruth Miller because of her racist views and he usage of the n-word.

Mr. Slide seems obsessed with determining everyone's sexual orientation, and who had affairs with whom. By the end of the book, you are almost disappointed if a person profiled just married once and didn't sleep with anybody else. In the case of William Haines, J. Warren Kerrigan, Ramon Novarro (only mentioned in the book) and a few others, their sexuality certainly was an important part of their story and certainly affected their careers. After "outing" so many people, I was actually surprised when he said that he had determined that George O'Brien is NOT bisexual.

Surely, just like the general population, silent actors got crotchety in their old age. The best chapters are actually the ones where Slide spent a lot of time with the person, like Jetta Goudal (!) and Blanche Sweet.

Mr. Slide also calls anybody who does not agree with his political views "right-wing". In an otherwise glowing profile on Lloyd, he calls THE CAT'S PAW (1934) "unfortunately right-wing". I'm not a conservative, yet his judgements of
the subjects' political views are unusually harsh.

The most shocking line in the book to me was, "Nowhere is the tragedy of Clarine Seymour's death more pointed than here; if only she might have lived and [Carol] Dempster died, how much better would Griffith have fared in the coming decade." While I agree that Dempster wasn't a very good actress, this is really some bizarre wish.

So anyway, it is a fun, fascinating read. Having said that, Kevin Brownlow's books have better interviews with their subjects, and Eve Golden's GOLDEN IMAGES book has better profiles of obscure silent film stars.

I have gotten quite a bit of flack for my glowing review of Anthony Slide's "Silent Players." Yes, I am a longtime personal friend of the author and, yes, I am mentioned in the acknowledgments. But I would love this book regardless. It is, in my opinion, about time that someone wrote a more personal account of this bygone era. It is, of course, also a dangerous thing to do, as some of the scathing comments below seem to suggest. One especially virulent writer -- who, quite cowardly, chooses to remain anonymous although any insider will immediately recognize the style; the writer is actually mentioned, twice, in Slide's text, albeit obliquely -- questions the author's slighting of such icons as Greta Garbo in favor of forgotten ingenues like Mary Brian, Ruth Clifford and Priscilla Bonner, all of whom were his dear friends. But that is exactly the point of the book: a personal journey through silent films. Several reviewers also take Mr. Slide to task for dismissing the comedic prowess of John Bunny. A negative review of the very, VERY, late Mr. Bunny is controversial in 2003? Yes, "Silent Players" is quite dishy in places but isn't that its charm? Do we need another ponderous and dry Who's Who serving up the same old platitudes? I, for one, do not. And by the way, anonymous Reader from L.A., like most other contributors, Tony Slide was never compensated for his many years as a book reviewer for CLASSIC IMAGES, a magazine much poorer since his withdrawal.

We have always been the first to say that silents is golden. And now there's proof. Anthony Slide's "Silent Players" is an biographical and autobiographical study of 100 silent film actors and actresses. Here, in this chunky compendium with its glorious cover, Slide pays homage to little-known actors and actresses with personal remembrances straight from the giants of yesteryear; quotes have been culled from conversations and previously published sources. Some of the names will be familiar, if only because of legend or a brief transition to talkies . Swanson, Garbo, Keaton, Gish, Fairbanks and Pickford. Then there are those only die-hard film freaks will recognize: Robert Harron, John Bunny, Babe London, Dorothy Mackaill, Lowell Sherman, Jetta Goudal ...names whose faces were introduced to us at 16 frames per second. Slide renounces the reputation of some while restoring fame to others. The profiles are concise and compelling, reminding us that real lives can often be sadder than any Hollywood scenario. The vintage photos remind us that they had faces then. And so we will be silent no longer: "Silent Players" slides into our list one of best reference books around.

Andre DeToth is a fascinating character and one of the most underrated directors of golden age Hollywood. In this q&a book, the great DeToth is ill served by the banal questions and one dimensional approach of the interviewer. DeToth himself seems vaguely contemptuous of the questioner's dull inquisition, and refers to him with a sarcastic "Herr Future Director." DeToth (by evidence of other interviews and his own book of memoirs) is a hilarious, larger-than-life figure, and some of this comes through, but the interviewer's complete lack of a sense of humor more often deadens the proceedings.

A READER from New York DIDN'T read.

First I suggest reading Andre de Toth's amazing autobiography, FRAGMENTS - Portraits from the Inside (Faber and Faber, 1994).

Having known de Toth since 1972, I can certify that he had a great deal of respect for the book's interviewer/editor Anthony Slide, or he wouldn't have given him his most prized possession, time.

Slide did his homework and spent enough time with de Toth to cover de Toth's films in detail. This was an amazing achievement since de Toth rarely wanted to discuss past, being a "now" and "future" man.

The "Herr future director" references throughout were to the READER, the aspiring director to whom the book was largely aimed.

When one reads BOTH books, one gets a huge impression of this amazing man's life, and the world as he experienced it.

My only dissatisfaction with both books is the relative paucity of photos. De Toth was a director of IMAGES, and there aren't enough.

Otherwise, between these books, you'll have an experience few film-maker books have ever delivered.

But there are better books on the topic. Useful reading for pointers to further reading.