It occurred to me recently that a number of Rupert and Elsie’s films have been (amazingly!) restored in the past few years, and I should really tell people about this! So I’ll create a list here of all the ones I know of currently and where to find them, and add to it as new ones appear. If you know of any I’ve missed, please let me know!
Rupert Julian’s Restored films
A poster for Scandal Mongers (1918), a revised version of Scandal (1915) by Lois Weber, which features Rupert Julian.
Scandal (1915)
The earliest film I can find with Rupert appearing in it, Scandal (revised and expanded to Scandal Mongers in 1918) was written, directed by and starred Lois Weber and Philips Smalley, and was rereleased as part of a Kino Lorber box set entitled “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers”—but I’ll have more to say about that a bit later…!
A huge number of Rupert’s earliest films when he first arrived in Hollywood were with Weber & Smalley, the IMDB suggests at least 43 between 1913-1916, but very few appear to have survived—so we’re lucky to have this one at all.
The Dumb Girl of Portici Blu-Ray cover art from Milestone Films
The Dumb girl of portici (1916)
Rupert co-stars alongside legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova, in her only screen appearance.
Content warning: as noted by the Movies Silently blog, “Masaniello (Rupert Julian, future Kaiser impersonator and director of The Phantom of the Opera) is an educated fisherman living in Portici. His desire for revolution couldn’t have been clearer if he had a hammer and sickle tattooed to his chest but of all the things I thought I would see in my lifetime, Rupert Julian in short shorts was not one of them. Consider this a warning, it’s too late for me but you can save yourselves.”
Milestone Films released a Blu-Ray/DVD remaster of this, but it’s also available to rent on Vimeo now.
Photo of Rupert surrounded by rolls of film, with a handwritten caption “sorting my film of the ‘Merry Go Round’ for cutting”, which he sent to his mother at the time. (Image courtesy of Marc Wanamaker/Bison Archive)
The Merry Go Round (1922)
This new restoration of Merry-Go-Round reconstructs the original continuity by combining the surviving original abridged and incomplete elements scattered around the world, meticulous image restoration, and recreation of the original stunning color effects, to offer audiences the closest look possible at the original version of the film.
A slightly contentious one—was it directed by Erich von Stroheim, or Rupert Julian? (Rupert said it was definitely him…!) Either way, there’s a Flicker Alley blu-ray available here.
Rupert Julian on the set of The Phantom Of The Opera (1925).
The Phantom of the Opera (1925/29)
Where to begin, really—this is far & away Rupert’s most re-released film, with copies on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray available over the years (I’ve got at least six versions, myself).
Of course most of them are the 1929 sound re-release version, but a few also include a 1925 copy of the most ‘original’ version available, which tends to have lesser image quality, but is probably closer to what Rupert intended.
The most recent/highest quality version is either the Kino Lorber Blu-Ray, or the BFI Blu-Ray edition—and I’ll let the most passionate fans debate which is better! Though which one you get may come down to which one you can find, or which one will play on your region’s Blu-Ray player. If you’re in the UK, you might also be able to stream it here—I can’t tell!
Silence, a Rupert Julian Production (photo by Robert Byrne, courtesy of San Francisco Film Preserve)
Silence (1926)
Restored in 2017 by San Francisco Silent Film Festival and Cinémathèque française, this surviving French print carries its own mystery: an entire subplot was cut from the original release, papered over with a single intertitle. What happened in those missing scenes? You’ll have to watch to find out. Accompanied by a stunning score from the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, this is pure silent cinema magic.
Watch it online for free at San Francisco Film Preserve!
The Yankee Clipper DVD cover from Flicker Alley
The Yankee Clipper (1927)
Produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Rupert Julian, this is a feature-length melodrama recreating the real-life race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China tea trade. The gorgeous production filmed at sea for six weeks aboard the 1856 wooden square-rigger Indiana with stars William Boyd, Elinor Fair and Frank “Junior” Coghlan. Renowned organist Dennis James, in his solo DVD premiere, accompanies the film on an original-installation 1928 Wurlitzer pipe organ, recorded at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre.
Flicker Alley released this film as part of a DVD set titled “Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema on the High Seas” which is now out of print, but it’s available to rent or own via their Vimeo page.
A double cast portrait with Rupert Julian (front left, sitting on the ground) surrounded by his cast on the set of The Cat Creeps, and the Spanish language cast and director on the right of the image.
The Cat Creeps
I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here, but it’s exciting that elements of this film, Rupert’s only ‘talking picture’, have recently been discovered. Read more about that here—and hopefully we’ll find out soon when those fragments will be available to view…!
Kino Lorber’s box set, Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers
Elsie Jane Wilson’s Restored films
The Cricket (1917)
The Dream Lady (1918)
By some miracle, Kino Lorber released a Blu-Ray/DVD set of restored films titled “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers” that managed to include both a fragment of a longer film (The Cricket, 12 mins), and a longer feature as well (The Dream Lady, 53 mins), both directed by Elsie.
The Cricket is about a child actor (Zoe Ray) who becomes an orphan, and is raised by some of her artist friends (including New Zealander Winter Hall); and The Dream Lady features an orphan (Carmel Myers), who spends her inheritance fulfilling other people’s wishes, thereby realising her own dreams by becoming the Dream Lady.
The DVD is still available here, but some of the films (including The Dream Lady) have also been available on Netflix in various regions, so check for that as well.
That said—it’s been widely reported that Elsie spent a lot of time directing actors on Rupert’s sets, including several listed above, like The Yankee Clipper; so I think we can give her some credit for most of his films as well, really.