What silent movies and anime have in common

I've been watching some silent movies lately, and it made me think about anime.

In silent movies, there's a lot of hamminess and overacting because the sounds of actual human interaction are absent.  All we have to tell the story is the visuals.  Sometimes, especially when I feel like I need about 75 more screens of dialogue to tell me what's being said and what, exactly, is going on, this doesn't work.  Sometimes the desperation of the actors to convey makes them into 2-dimensional caricatures.

I've noticed the same thing in some poor or not-very-well-done anime dubs.  When all you have to act with is your voice, it's very easy to overdo it, be hammy, and generally make me turn on the original language track.  (That's kind of odd considering many Japanese dubs seem way more hammy and overacted and melodramatic.  Maybe I'm just used to that as the standard, and I'm willing to be more forgiving as a result?)

In silent movies, I'm really running into this problem.  Right now I'm watching movies with Louise Brooks, and she is everything her essays and documentaries and critics have described.  She is luminous and rarely hammy. 

Brooks starred in two German films that are very different, but the thing that is most noticeable and consistent in both is that she is surrounded by actors who are used to being big and hammy, and she makes them look ridiculous.  She makes it look so natural and effortless, you don't even realize that she doesn't speak the same language as the actor and directors. 

I take that back, it looks like she is speaking another language they don't really know but are dazzled by, and that language isn't English.  It's quite stunning sometimes.  Some actors end up having amazingly subtle performances pulled out of them in certain scenes, like they're trying to be hammy, and she's exerting this anti-ham gravity or something, and they're being pulled into her orbit.  There's a dance scene in Pandora's Box that is even more incredible if you watch it and then read about what was going on behind the scenes (The collection Lulu in Hollywood has that essay; it's a really fun read).

Sometimes you'll get a similar effect in an anime dub.  It actually makes me kind of crazy when this happens, but there will be one or a few voice actors who are just transcendent, and you want to listen to their every word, and it's just too bad they're surrounded by mediocre or poor performances because you can't stand to watch the dub in that language because the bads are so bad (especially when compared with the luminous goods) that it's painful.  Sigh.

Voice acting for anime and silent movie acting both require people to convey a story using less the full range of their instruments.  It's rare to find someone who can shine even when crippled like that.  Now I kind of want to go read The Name of the Wind again . . .

Do you know what I mean, though?  Are there any dubs you love a few actors' perfomances in and loathe the rest? Any really good silent film actors or silent films you recommend?