"From one of America's renowned film scholars: a look at the greatest silent film stars - not those few who are fully appreciated and understood, like Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, and Garbo, but those who have been misperceived, unfairly dismissed, or forgotten."--BOOK JACKET. "This is the first book to anatomize the major silent players, reconstruct their careers, and give us a sense of what those films, those stars, and that Hollywood were all about. An essential text for anyone seriously interested in movies, and, with more than three hundred photographs, as much a treat to look at as it is to read."--BOOK JACKET.