I am with a non-profit organization and we have a project to restore the 1924 film, "Black Lightning". We need to match, or find a close approximation, to the typeface used in the opening title. Of course these titles were not originally created with computer fonts but very often in cases like this we can find a match or at least something very close in modern fonts. What we need in this case is something that matches the names "THUNDER" and "CLARA BOW" in the attached sample from the film's opening title.

As a bonus, if there is a match also for the italicized "BLACK LIGHTING" we'd love to know.

If the identifier wants to share their name we will include it in the Special Thanks credits at the end of the film.

Thank you!

 

This looks like drawn by hand. Look at the 'A's in 'CLARA'. These old films had all text  usually hand painted. I think better approach would be to vectorize the text.

Yes indeed, these titles were created by staff artists and then photographed. Definitely not mechanical type. I'm just hoping for an ID that's reasonably close. The only surviving copy of the film does not have a The End title, so we need to recreate it. So, in reality all we need are D, E, H, N, and T.

The best matches I could find are Howlett and Brandywine but I feel certain that experts on this forum could do those one better.

Edited April 3, 20251 yr by SilentRobert
Additionl info.

Luckily word 'THUNDER' contains 'T', 'H', 'E', and also 'E', 'N', 'D'.

As others have pointed out, the original titles weren’t created using typefaces at all, but were actually hand lettered.

Unfortunately, I'm not finding that W anywhere in a digital typeface.

Letterhead Fonts Silent Movie might work for you.

Oooh, thanks very much. Silent Movie could do the trick - especially considering the limited number of glyphs we need.

1 hour ago, SilentRobert said:

The best matches I could find are Howlett and Brandywine

I will throw in a couple more, that may or may not be massaged into a desirable shape: Kennerley and Silentina (Film).

Many thanks, MissNobody, Kevin, and Riccardo, for your guidance. I think we've got what we're looking for. 

Thanks again!

16 hours ago, MissNobody said:

Luckily word 'THUNDER' contains 'T', 'H', 'E', and also 'E', 'N', 'D'.

10 minutes with Windows Paint: