The constantly increasing use of silent motion pictures by film societies and institutions studying the history of motion pictures makes the question of projection speed of great importance.
Unfortunately, the problem has been over-simplified by youthful program directors many of whom never saw a silent film before they became students of the cinema. There is a wide-spread misconception that there exists a standard "silent speed" of 16 frames per second. Champions of this mythical "silent speed" grow quite heated over the projection of any silent film on a fixed-speed sound projector which runs at 24 frames per second.
The historical fact is that more silent films were intended to be shown at speeds which were much closer to the sound projector's 11 minutes 6 2/3 seconds per reel than the legendary "silent speed" of 16 frames per second which drags the film along at sixteen minutes and forty seconds per reel.
In many, many cases, major silent productions were released with instructions that they be projected at speeds faster than current sound speed.
Even beginning film students must realize that most silent films were produced by hand-cranked cameras. Each operator prided himself on his own "cadence," believing that regardless of the tempo or the excitement of what he filmed, his hand turned the crank at an unvarying rate with all the precision of a machine.
But precise or not, each cameraman's cadence was different from the other's. Moreover, Ince scripts of 1912 to 1914 sometimes carried specific instructions to the cameraman to "crank faster here." How many frames per second was "faster"?
Amateur projectionists confidently believe they are showing Intolerance or Robin Hood or Caligari at the speed of 16 frames per second by switching their projectors to the "silent speed" position. Actually most 16mm projectors having a positive "silent speed" switch, are built to run at 18 frames per second. At 16 frames flicker is quite noticeable.
Showing a 35mm nitrate print on a modern high-powered arc projector which has been geared down to run at 16 frames per second is an invitation to fire.
In presenting a silent film to a group of spectators, the program director should be sure of his purpose. Does he wish (as he often claims) to show the film as it was seen originally? Or does he wish to present the film as its maker intended it to be seen?
If he is seriously reconstructing the conditions of a silent era showing, he should realize that Douglas Fairbanks' Robin Hood, for example, might have been shown in two hours and a half during slack periods of the day or in a little less than two hours during the evening, to squeeze in an extra show.
If he wants to show Robin Hood at the speed originally specified in 1922, he will run it at 12 minutes per reel which is very close to sound speed. (The film will then last two hours and eight minutes.)
If it is decided to show Robin Hood at the arbitrary 16 frames per second, the film will last exactly three hours! And this is the way poor Robin Hood is usually shown to Film Society audiences, painfully limping through the forests at a rate that gets him through his adventures a full 52 minutes later than Mr. Fairbanks intended.
But running Robin Hood at sound speed only misses by seven minutes, the original, correct running time.
How does one know at what speed silent films were intended to be run, since they were all obviously filmed at various rates?
Silent films were usually released with musical cue sheets supplied in many cases by the producing company itself. As early as 1916, Triangle published special instructions to the projectionist. Here are some samples: "The best effects in The Captive God will be had by timing the film to run from 13 to 13 1/2 minutes to the reel. The two big battle scenes... should be speeded up considerably. Following the sub-title 'The Alarm,' shoot it through fast."
For Stranded: "Time the feature to run 14 minutes to the reel. Only two places in the five reels call for speed. When the little girl falls from the trapeze there is great excitement resulting. Speed it here."
In The Halfbreed with Douglas Fairbanks, Triangle's Projection Hints call for several specific scenes where "considerable more speed will help." In the last reel they admonish "shoot the big fire scenes very fast. The only place where the picture may be slowed down at all is in the church scene."
Thus it should be remembered that it was taken for granted that early films would not be shown at constant speeds at all. The situation was summed up by F.R. Richardson in the Projection Department of the "Moving Picture World," December 2, 1911: "Speed is of very very great importance and a comprehension of this fact is absolutely, necessary to do really fine projection. The operator "renders" a film, if he is a real operator, exactly as does the musician render a piece of music, in that, within limits, the action of the scene being portrayed depends entirely on his judgment.... Watch the scene closely and by variation of speed bring out everything there is in it. No set rule applies. Only the application of brains to the matter of speed can properly render a film. I have often changed speed half a dozen times on one film of 1000 feet."
Unfortunately, the creative operator that Mr. Richardson called for was more often a workman under strict orders from his boss, the theatre manager, to give him a fast or a slow show depending on activity at the box office.
Film makers were aware of the growing tendency to speed up their pictures in projection. They sought to offset the resulting frantic action by having cameramen shoot faster and faster. Thus many films toward the end of the silent period were actually produced with cameras operating faster than sound speed. When such films are projected at 16 frames per second by misguided film societies. the distortion can be enormous.
Following are some of the published correct projection speeds for certain individual films of the silent period; time is given in minutes per 1000 foot reel in 35mm or 400-foot reel in 16mm. (* indicates a rate faster than sound speed)
| Minutes per Reel | |
| The Americano, 1916 | 14 |
| Male and Female, 1919 | 14 |
| Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1920 | 12 |
| Pollyanna, 1920 | 14 |
| Mollycoddle, 1920 | 14 |
| The Sheik, 1921 | 12 |
| The Three Musketeers, 1921 | 14 |
| White Oak, 1921 | 12 |
| Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1921 | 12 1/2 |
| Impossible Mrs. Bellew, 1922 | 12 |
| Travelin' On, 1922 | 14 |
| Robin Hood, 1922 | 12 |
| Blood and Sand, 1922 | 14 |
| Scaramouche, 1923 | 11* |
| The Green Goddess, 1923 | 11* |
| Cameo Kirby, 1923 | 12* |
| Sherlock, Jr., 1924 | 11* |
| Seven Chances, 1925 | 11* |
| Sally of the Sawdust, 1925 | 12 |
| Phantom of the Opera, 1925 | 14 |
| The Night Cry, 1925 | 11* |
| Lady Windermere's Fan, 1925 | 11* |
| The Merry Widow, 1925 | 11* |
| The Scarlet Letter, 1926 | 11* |
| So This Is Paris, 1926 | 11* |
| The Divine Woman, 1927 | 11* |
| The Student Prince, 1927 | 11* |
| The Mysterious Lady, 1928 | 11* |
| Four Sons, 1928 | 12 |
Examination of thousands of cue sheets for silent films has failed to turn up a single one which indicates that it film should be projected at 16 1/2 minutes per reel or 16 frames per second. It would seem that in the matter of projecting silent films, Mr. Richardson's advice is still pertinent.
James Card, "Silent Film Speed," Image, October, 1955, pages 55-56.
© 1998, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
Return to the Silent Film Bookshelf Home Page
