Shawn Hall brings his love of silent films to new audiences through his Shawn Toks Silents TikTok account, where he is currently working his way through reviewing each movie on Silent Era’s Top 100 Silent Movies List. He stretches back a little bit further than most silent film enthusiasts, however, by exploring 1905 through films of “serious” topics and advancing forms of comedy and feel-good stories.

Shawn also writes his long-form thoughts on silent cinema and early Hollywood at his blog The Everyday Cinephile.

Films and resources mentioned:

• The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach (1905) - Albert and Willy Mullens
• Revolution in Russia (1905) - Lucien Nonguet
• A Trip to Salt Lake City (1905) - Billy Bitzer
• The Night Before Christmas (1905) - Edwin S. Porter
• The Nihilist (1905) - Wallace McCutcheon Sr.
• Greed (1924) - Erich von Stroheim
• Metropolis (1927) - Fritz Lang
• Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) - Henry Lehrman
• Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Sergei Eisenstein
• A Night at the Opera (1935) - Sam Wood
• Santa Claus (1898) - George Albert Smith
• White Christmas (1954) - Michael Curtiz
• The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edwin S. Porter
• Jack and the Beanstalk (1902) - Edwin S. Porter
• Personal (1904) - Wallace McCutcheon Sr.
• The Suburbanite (1904) - Wallace McCutcheon Sr.
• The Red Rooster Scare - Richard Abel
• The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 - Charles Musser