The Silent Film Quarterly・!15
The Moving Picture World: Where Everything Old Is New Again by Annette D’Agostino Lloyd Movie magazines are an invaluable resource to silent film scholars and fans alike. Join noted author and researcher Annette D’Agostino Lloyd as she describes the fascinating story of one of the most important such publications. ・・・ Chances are, if you are reading this, you are a dedicated silent film student and/or chronicler. And if that is the case, chances are even greater that you have, at one time or another, benefitted from the insights preserved within the pages of the granddaddy of all film magazines, The Moving Picture World. If you haven’t…well, I’m here to make your work a lot easier. I first met this marvelous trade journal in 1993, while working on my first academic tome on Harold Lloyd. I needed reviews of Lloyd’s earliest films, dating back to 1913, many of which are not available for me to
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personally assess. I decided to peruse all of the magazines of the day, and found MPW to be the best of them. So entranced was I of this lovely little journal that I decided, after finishing the Lloyd book, to compile two indexes to assist researchers in using MPW. More on that later. First published on March 9, 1907, and remaining in circulation until December 31, 1927, The Moving Picture World offered 1084 issues, and 108,798 pages of information which, now, is film history. The 89 volumes averaged 1222 pages per volume, and each issue averaged 100 pages. Based in New York, the MPW had a Spanish-language sister publication, Cine Mundial, and, over its nearly 21-year run, boasted the highest circulation of all similar periodicals. It merged with one of its competitors, Exhibitors Herald, in 1928. The idea for a magazine called “The Moving Picture World” came, in a small office at 361 Broadway, New York, to James Petrie Chalmers, Jr., editor of the photographic publication Camera and Dark Room, and Alfred H. Saunders, editor of Views and Film Index, more commonly known as The Film Index. The first issue cost
