11. Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Orphans of the Storm is the last D.W. Griffith movie on the list, and my feelings about it are pretty similar to what I felt about the rest of them (with the exception of Broken Blossoms): the technical aspects of the film are praiseworthy (the set pieces are particularly impressive), but the characters and plot are formulaic and left me feeling pretty bored. I figured out how this movie was going to end with over an hour of running time left.

Lillian Gish and her sister Dorothy play the requisite innocent heroines in a French Revolution setting, bad guys threaten to tarnish their innocence, etc., a battle between good and evil ensues....you get the idea.

Factoids about this film:

It is based on a play called "The Orphans" that had already been filmed at least twice before 1920; one version starred Theda Bara and was released in 1915. (I've seen some other examples of multiple silent films being based on the same source material--I guess the precedent for the current remake frenzy sweeping Hollywood was set a long time ago!) Theda Bara was one of the film industry's first sex symbols/femme fatales. She made over 40 films in her career but, unfortunately, most of them were lost in a fire in 1937 and very little footage of her survives to this day.

This movie is the last Griffith film to star Lillian Gish, and it's also considered his last big commercial success.

I am so glad to have all the D. W. Griffith films on the list behind me now.

10. The Phantom Carriage (1921)

The frame story of The Phantom Carriage is that whoever dies last on New Years' Eve is doomed to serve as Death's servant for the following year and collect people's souls when they die. The doomed servant of Death must ride around in a ghostly carriage to accomplish the task.

The film opens on New Years' Eve as a young Salvation Army sister lies ill on her deathbed. Her final wish is to speak to a man named David Holm before she dies. The next scene reveals that David Holm is a local drunk, but it's not immediately clear what the connection is between him and the girl. The rest of the movie explains the connection between them, and also what happens next for David Holm.

I absolutely LOVED this movie. It is suspenseful and chilling from the start and never really lets up.
This film is known for its use of extensive flashbacks and special effects: the carriage and the dead characters appear transparent. The effects add a lot to the film and make it extremely eerie.

The effects were created with multiple double exposures. And cameras had to be hand-cranked at that time, so the cameras had to be cranked at exactly the same speed for the exposures to match up. Post-production of this film took a while because of these technical challenges, but it all turned out beautifully.

Telling the story with flashbacks is also very effective. And in an early stroke of marketing genius, the movie was first released on New Years' Day in 1921. It had a big impact on a 15-year-old Ingmar Bergman, who would later become Sweden's most celebrated film director.

This is probably my favorite from the list so far. Highly recommended.
The whole thing is available on YouTube, if you want to watch it.