this is particularly apparent in paulette goddard's role. goddard really never did silents. her style evolved from soundstage acting. while chaplin remains the master of nuanced gesture, goddard's approach drops that necessary accoutrement of the silent film and, thus, appears more modern particularly in speech patterns.

what i mean here is: in pre sound silent acting there is a tendency to overwork the facial muscles when doing dialogue particularly when there was an intertitle (as tho the audience needed to lip read). with goddard, that artifice is gone and speech patterns seem more naturalistic.

maybe it's just me or maybe it's just this film or actress but, i swear, it comes across as a real definable change in acting style.

BTW, a lot of time the audience was lipreading. Not hard to do - if you existed solely on a diet of silents, you would probably pick up some ability in that direction as well. If you watch Wings, I think it's Charles Rogers who clearly says, "Bastard!" during one of the dogfight scenes. And several stars clearly went through the silent version of the FCC's seven dirty words. (I'm not sure how often they were caught.)

You might want to check alt.movies.silent - there's a thread called "Who Has the Filthiest Mouth in Silent Movies ?" (The answer seems to be, "Go see What Price Glory?").

The discussion about reading actors' lips reminds me of the time I had to see On the Waterfront for a film class. I don't particularly care for Marlon Brando, partly because I have trouble understanding what he is saying. I think I picked up a smidgen of lip-reading from my mother, who had a partial hearing loss. I could make out some of what Brando was saying when he was facing the camera, but when he turned his back on it (as he often did in this film), I was totally lost. The result was a severe headache, and a lack of appreciation for what is generally considered to be a great film.

"Silent Clowns: this may be cutting it a bit close, but the Silent Clowns Film Series in NYC ends on December 4th with a showing of Laurel and Hardy films. (Actually, tomorrow they're doing Raymond Griffith, Lupino Lane and Lloyd Hamilton, comedians all.) Depending on timing, maybe the NYC folks can meet up for the showing... http://www.silentclowns.com/"

Great, MV. I wish I were in NY.

since i finished my trivia question, i assume most are aware the THE GENERAL is based on an actual event. ...

every georgia schoolboy learns this story by fourth grade. in a plot to cut confederate supply lines to eastern tennessee in advance of a union attack against chattanooga, a group of union operatives sieze the general (the real nickname of the actual engine).

their intent was to disrupt communication and destroy the rail link, bridges, etc. from atlanta thru to chattanooga. at first moderately sucessful, they ultimately are caught up with (by atlanta & western employees who commandeer "the texas" to pursue) in resaca, ga, just short of chattanooga.

i believe eight of the original 21 conspiritors were hanged and were awarded the first medals of honor to be issued...