Let us move away from all this star-laden stuff, and get back to the nuts and bolts of silent film research. I don’t know how many English-speaking researchers will know about Paimann’s Filmlisten. It was an Austrian film review journal, which ran 1916-1956 (founded by Franz Paimann), listing all new film releases with synopsis and credit details for films shown in Austria. Clearly, it will be known to German and Austrian researchers, but a quick Google search found no English language references.

The reason for mentioning here is that there is an index to the entire run, made available online by the Vienna Bibliothek. It arranges all the films by original release title, followed by Austrian release title, date, and reference number for the issue of Paimann’s Filmlisten. Here’s a section from the letter B, to give you an idea of what’s there:

Biarritz und seine Umgebung 1922-105, Nr. 331
Bibel, Die 1925-45
Biberpelz, Der 1929-105
Bibi la purée (Francsfälscher) 1926-91
Bid to love – Gaby, das Königsliebchen (Der Autoprinz) 1927-137
Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer, Die 1926-81
Biene und ihre Zucht, Die 1918/19-57, Nr.131
Big adventures (Der kleine Landstreicher) 1923-39, Nr. 360
Big City, The (Das unsichtbare New-York) 1928-94
Big Dan – Entfesselte Leidenschaft (Eine verhängnisvolle Nacht) 1926-1
Big Killing, The (Riff und Raff als Scharfschützen) 1929-89
Big Parade, The (Die Parade des Todes) 1926-173
Big Pond – La grande mare (Über’n großen Teich) 1931-63
Big timber – Der Kampf im Urwald (Urwaldriesen) 1925-120
Big Trail, The (Die große Fahrt) 1931-39, 69

There are no digitised copies of the reviews, alas, nor any credits, but as a check list of titles and evidence of their distribution it’s an invaluable resource – all the more invaluable for those with access to the journal itself (the Austrian Film Archive has a set) It appears to go up to 1931 so far, so ideal for investigating silents.

Update (August 2016)

The indexes to Paimann’s Filmlisten are no longer avaiable on the Vienna Bibliothek site, and cannot be traced via the Internet Archive. However, a digitised run of the Filmlisten itself is available via the European Film Gateway, http://www.europeanfilmgateway.eu/de/content/filmarchiv-austria-paimann%E2%80%99s-film-lists