After I laughed at the cartoon, the classic line in the title for the post popped into my head and I wondered where it came from. I found the answer at SFGate:
After all, catchphrases have been a major part of people's enjoyment and contemplation of cinema for almost 100 years. The phenomenon even predates sound. In 1915, millions of Americans went to see Theda Bara as a deadly vamp in the silent film "A Fool There Was." In an intertitle she told her hapless slave, "Kiss me, my fool!," which was immediately adapted as "Kiss me, you fool!" and said by millions of women to their husbands and boyfriends.Here's the relevant moment from the film -
i wish that when silent movies are restored, those dialog cards were taken out and replaced with subtitles that appear at the bottom of the film frame. that jump from a moving image to a still and then back to the moving image is so jarring. it makes the silent film unenjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI-)
I like that the passersby stop being so and become onlookers.
ReplyDeleteSometimes in modern movies you can see people, on pavements et cetera, stop and turn when they see someone famous being filmed walking down the street.
Years ago, so many it seems there are cobwebs over them, I saw a then famous singer being filmed walking along a busy Wellington (N.Z.) street as her song played.
Then, a few months later, I saw myself, agog, on the T.V. watching her walk along, singing her song.