Invisible Women on SALOME (1922)

In today’s episode, released in celebration of Silent Movie Day, we share a fascinating conversation on the final title in the season SALOME (1922), between HippFest podcast-wrangler Christina Webber and members of archive activist film collective Invisible Women: Rachel Pronger, Camilla Baier and Lauren Clarke. Invisible Women are an international collective who seek out and champion the work of women and filmmakers with marginalised identities who have been overlooked, un-credited or left out of the history of cinema. By drawing attention to these forgotten stories, they aim to reinsert female voices into the story of film.

And in today’s release this is certainly the case!

The conversation covers the visual splendour of the film, its oddness, sexiness, and humour, its contemporary resurgence and queer and feminist reclamation, but also paints a vivid picture of the scene in Hollywood at this time, and the cast and crew behind the movie. Alleged to be an entirely queer cast, SALOME (1922) is a perfect example of the subversive networks that were able to operate at the start of the 1920s, and how despite being overlooked in film history, women like Alla Nazimova and Natacha Rambova achieved incredible success.

We hope you enjoy - as always there is a full episode transcript available here.

Relevant links:

• More about the HippFest Taste of Silents season
• Book to watch SALOME (1922) in-person at the Hippodrome (Bo'ness)
• Book to watch SALOME (1922) via online live-stream (available for 48 hours)
• Find out more about the work of Invisible Women and join the mailing list