Recently I spotted this well-illustrated 1917 article from Motion Picture called “Something New in Pictures.” The “Something New” was a short Vitagraph film called The Yellow Girl (no, it’s not about what you think it is), and the image below was the first of a series of large stills showing off an unusual production design. I love the stripes and checks you see in the louder Edwardian fashions and regular readers know I’m also fascinated by German Expressionism, so a novelty film hovering in the intriguing zone between “edgy style” and “avant-garde” grabbed my attention right away.
Silent-ology 