The Great Marriage Debate of 1924: Lubitsch’s Masterful Silent on DVD
A pioneering entry in a rare genre: the screwball comedy of manners
Category: Silents
Actors & Personalities · Directors · Silents
“Why Are They All Ugly Little Men?” Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon: The Great Silent Clowns Reformatted
“Why are they all ugly little men?” asked Cindy, after I’d dragged her to three solid weeks of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, and Harold Lloyd at a silent[…]
Reviews · Silents · Thrillers & Action
The Diabolical Dr. Mabuse on DVD: The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse; The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse; The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Please pay attention to the madmen behind the curtain “You have no existence except as my tool. The individual has no being except insofar as he is part of a[…]
Experimental & Underground · Horror · Silents
Jean Epstein’s The Fall of the House of Usher
Poe’s favorite story dressed to kill by a legendary surrealist auteur Poe has proven to be one of the more enduring sources for filmmakers, not only because there’s something modern,[…]
Historical & Epic · Reviews · Silents
Behind the Brocade: Abel Gance’s Lucrezia Borgia
The Borgias are having an orgy Old master Abel Gance directed this juicy potboiler of family values run amok as a frankly commercial job to put baguettes on the table.[…]
Shaddup! The 2001 San Francisco Silent Film Festival
All’s quiet on the cinematic front in this seductive survey of the artful ’20s Superman had his Fortress of Solitude; San Francisco has its Silent Film Festival. This annual event,[…]
Masterpieces of Japanese Silent Cinema on DVD-ROM
Japanese silent films are no longer silent in this fabulous – and expensive – DVD-ROM Western interest in Japanese film falls mainly into three realms: the Godzilla movies and their endless cheesy[…]
Denounced, Cut, and Burned: The Passion of Joan of Arc
The film suffered almost as much as Joan before arriving in a gorgeous DVD. In spite of the hype, DVD is more often promise than fulfillment. Many, perhaps most, of[…]
Thanhouser Classics: Long-Lost Pleasures from the Dawn of Cinema
Thanhouser produced 1,000+ titles between 1909 and 1917, but less than 200 survive. Silent cinema is often written off, even by cinephiles who pride themselves on their intimate knowledge of[…]
Directors · Interviews · Silents
Angel in Exile, Part II: Talking with Pioneering Director Allan Dwan
Outtakes from an Interview with Dwan, December 1980 * * * Fairbanks, Shirley Temple, Ronald Reagan, all the “pansies and poseurs of Hollywood” – no one was safe from the[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Ollie’s Somersault: Thoughts on Oliver Hardy (and Stan Laurel)
(from Triste, Solitario y final (Sad, Alone, Final), a novel by Osvaldo Soriano, Einaudi Editore “Roll it!” Makeup had changed the fat man’s face into a clownish mask. He’s in an enormous[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Eternal Child: The Many Meanings of a Mask (on Stan Laurel)
Laurel’s mask – the goofy, sweet-natured grown-up child – had its roots in the classic commedia dell’arte. The reasons why Stan Laurel is always entered in film annals as an[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Stealing the Clown’s Clothes: Stan Laurel’s Relationship with Chaplin
Chaplin’s most famous “creation” was his little tramp – but Stan Laurel did it first, as Chaplin knew all too well. One of the most troubling aspects of Stan Laurel’s[…]
Actors & Personalities · Silents
Meet Asta Nielsen: Gender-Bending Silent Star Who “Taught Me Everything I Know” (Garbo)
“Asta brings a subtle twist to her version of Hamlet not by playing a man, but by playing a woman disguised as a man, adding another level of gender complexity.”[…]
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