Hands Up 1918 2 - Vintage movie public domain poster

By 1908 there were 10,000 permanent movie theaters in the U.S. alone. For the first thirty years, movies were silent, accompanied by live musicians, sound effects, and narration. Until World War I, movie screens were dominated by French and Italian studios. During Great War, the American movie industry center, "Hollywood," became the number one in the world. By the 1920s, the U.S. was producing an average of 800 feature films annually, or 82% of the global total. Hollywood's system and its publicity method, the glamourous star system provided models for all movie industries. Efficient production organization enabled mass movie production and technical sophistication but not artistic expression. In 1915, in France, a group of filmmakers began experimenting with optical and pictorial effects as well as rhythmic editing which became known as French Impressionist Cinema. In Germany, dark, hallucinatory German Expressionism put internal states of mind onscreen and influenced the emerging horror genre. The Soviet cinema was the most radically innovative. In Spain, Luis Buñuel embraced abstract surrealism and pure aestheticism. And, just like that, at about its peak time, the silent cinema era ended in 1926-1928.

Burton Rice was an American designer, illustrator, photographer, and poster artist, also known as Dynevor Rhys. He was born in Riverside (Illinois), a suburb of Chicago, on April 15, 1894, and died in Paris 14th on April 4, 1977. Burton Rice's signature appears around 1915 in the Modern Art Collector Magazine, a quarterly published in New York. Subsequently, in February 1916, Burton Rice became the artistic director of Universal Pictures' advertising division, Bluebird Photoplays, based in Manhattan, and as such produced many posters using a rich color palette. In December 1916, The Moving Picture World announced that Rice joined the American Volunteer Motor Ambulance Corps on the French front, then from Paris and London would send cartoons to the newspapers, in order to bear witness to the war effort. In fact, he will execute several posters encouraging donations in favor of the allied armies. The commitment of Burton Rice responds to the request of his cousin, the diplomat Cecil Spring Rice, ambassador of the United Kingdom in the United States4. In 1918, he founded the agency Rice-Canavaugh Inc. and worked among others for Rialto De Luxe Production and Pathé6. The association ended in February 1919. In 1920, he joined the artist Julian E. O'Donnell (1894-1963) to found an artistic agency7. On November 16, 1923, his New York studio located at 41 West Eight Street was destroyed by flames in a fire that injured his three students. After that, he began using "Dynevor Rhys" as his signature, composing covers for magazines and delivering designs to Harper's Bazaar and Ladies' Home Journal. He regularly travels between New York and Paris, a city he particularly likes. He managed to leave the French capital shortly before June 1940. In early 1942, he enlisted when the United States entered the war and worked for the US Department of Commerce. He was one of the founders of the American Shakespeare Fellowship, the American branch which took over from the British parent society in 1939. He lived in Paris, from 1947, at 15 rue du Cherche-Midi, making photographs for Good Housekeeping, Woman's Home Companion, and Life Magazine.

Ruth Roland (1892-1937) was an American silent film actress and early film producer. She was born on 26 August 1892 in San Francisco, California, and began her acting career in the early 1910s. Ruth Roland appeared in numerous silent films and quickly gained popularity for her roles in action-adventure and drama films. One of her most notable works is the film serial "The Adventures of Ruth" (1919), in which she starred and showcased her athleticism and daring stunts. Roland was known for performing many of her own stunts, which contributed to her image as a strong and adventurous heroine. In addition to her acting career, Ruth Roland also became involved in film production. She co-founded the independent production company Ruth Roland Serials, which produced several successful film serials. Roland's career peaked during the silent film era, and with the advent of sound in cinema, her popularity declined. She retired from acting in the early 1930s. Tragically, Ruth Roland died on 22 September 1937 at the age of 45. Despite her relatively short career, she left a lasting impact on the silent film industry, particularly through her pioneering roles as action heroines and her contributions to film production.