It’s Saturday night, and you are looking for something to do. How about going to your local theater for a movie? The movie theater has been a destination for generations. But how did it all start?
The movie business has very humble beginnings. In the 1800’s, many inventors, such as Thomas Edison and the Lumiere Brothers worked on machines that projected images. This led to the silent movie era which ranged from 1894 to 1929. During this time period, a number of moving pictures were created and shown in theaters on big screens.
Silent movies were just that – movies that did not have any talking or music in them. To provide drama and excitement to movies, 
live music was played in sync with the action on the screen, by pianos, organs, and other instruments. The silent movie producers brought famous films such as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, The Circus and many others.
The era also brought us many silent movie stars, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Pearl White. Some actors and actresses continued their careers in film when talking pictures started in 1929, others did not.
The silent movie provided entertainment to people for decades and provided the industry with a springboard to talking pictures, and the movies we know today. To learn more about this fascinating time in the history of the theater, please view the following resources, and re-live the glory of the silent film.
