The Movie Alphabet: Silent Films, A to Z

Fletch at Blog Cabins tagged Adam at Movie Chunks, who then tagged Rab at Estoreal with a meme asking people to list their favorite movies, A to Z. Rab posted his list and then sent out a plea for meme-tag volunteers -- so I decided, what the heck, I'll join in the fun. My list is posted at the end of this article. If anyone else would like to volunteer and post their own lists on their blogs, here are Fletch's rules:

"Pick your favorite film for each letter of the alphabet. Some will be tough because there are too many choices (R, S, T, L, N, E...), and others will be tough because there are so few choices that you have trouble finding much of anything (Q, anyone?). I'm sure I missed some great ones and I'm hoping that you find them.

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter 'A' and the word 'The' do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under 'R,' not 'S,' as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with 'S.' Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under 'R,' not 'I,' as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the Lord of the Rings series belong under 'L,' and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under 'C,' as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgment to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. So, 12 Monkeys would be filed under 'T.'

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that [Fletch] can eventually type 'alphabet meme' into Google and come up #1, then make a post where [Fletch] declares that [he is] the King of Google.

6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people."

So, there you have it.

Now, it seems that most of the people responding to the meme have trouble listing movies that are more than thirty years old -- despite the fact that film history is over 100 years old. SO, I'm going to add my own twist to the proceedings by posting favorite movies from the SILENT ERA that fit within the alphabet. Here they are:

Across to Singapore
Big Business
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Barrymore version)
Extra Girl, The
Faust (Murnau version)
General, The
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The (Chaney version)
Intolerance
Jack-Knife Man, The
Kid, The (Chaplin version)
Last of the Mohicans (Beery version)
Metropolis
Nosferatu
Our Hospitality
Phantom of the Opera, The
Queen Kelly
Road to Mandalay
Safety Last!
Tillie’s Punctured Romance
Underworld
Variety
Wings
Xiao Wanyi
You’re Darn Tootin’
Zander the Great

And, NO, you smart alecks -- this list is NOT indicative of my age. It's indicative of a lifetime of exploring movies from any and all genres. So there. :-)

My favorite movie from this list? It's THIS one: