1911-1920

Widely recognized as the source of the Frankenstein myth, the ancient Hebrew legend of the Golem provided actor/director Paul Wegener with the substance for one of the most adventurous films of the German silent cinema.Read More »

“The Man From Kangaroo” was the first film of Australian athlete Rex “Snowy” Baker (1884-1953). It was filmed in September-October 1919 on location in the Kangaroo Valley and at Gunnedah, with interior shots filmed at Sydney’s Theatre Royal. It opened at the Lyceum and Lyric Theatres in Sydney on Saturday 24 January 1920, It appears to have escaped a detailed review in “The Sydney Morning Herald”, but the Adelaide newspaper “The Register” of 28 April 1920 enthused about it in the following terms:Read More »

Quote:
In short, this film tells in quasi-mythic terms the struggle of a father with his son. The father is a simple man, who earns his living on the sea. His wife brings two children into the world: the first a saintly daughter, and the second a boy, who has nothing but disrespect for the humble lifestyle of his parents, and who longs for nothing more than to booze and carouse in the taverns of the local town.Read More »

Quote:
René Clair’s ghost comedy begins melodramatically, with the story of a young man who seeks the hand of a politician’s daughter in vain. But when a mysterious doctor frees the spirit of the despairing young man from his body, the film takes a fantastic turn. From then on, the lover wreaks havoc on Paris in the form of an invisible phantom. With double exposures and imaginative tricks, Clair successfully capitalizes on the surreal, Dadaistic undertones of the story. Everything culminates in a breakneck chase through the streets of Paris.Read More »

Epic trek of the Boers of South Africa. Silent film. Dramatic feature of the Great Trek and Battle of Blood River

White version of the Great Trek of the Boer people across South Africa – actually, the invasion of Zulu land. This silent film shows the villainy and treachery of the Zulus and the heroism of the whites. But in its renegade Zulu character Sobuza (played by the actor Goba), who aids the whites, it may have created the first African film-star.Read More »

A wild man and genius becomes a master painter’s disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.Read More »

The first version of Gamboa’s novel about an innocent young girl who is betrayed by the man she loves and must become a prostitute after her family rejects her.Read More »

From the Danish Film Institute website:
The titular villain is an infamous international criminal, Mrs Valentin Kempel, known as “The Predator Spider” due to her habit of ensnaring innocent victims in her web. Men are enchanted by her, and she uses this to coerce them into taking part in her criminal activities. When one of her victims takes his own life, the victim’s brother and a detective decide to put an end to the beautiful criminal’s reign of terror. But The Hunting Spider does not give in so easily – and she is not afraid to use unsporting tricks against her new opponents.Read More »

Following some dodgy dealings, stockbroker Saccard is determined to pull himself out of the gutter and regain is reputation. He is of such ill repute that few, not even his own brother, want anything to do with him. Yet against all the odds he manages to establish a bank. Using straw men and secret knowledge of the course of the war, Saccard inflates the bank’s shares to feed his own sordid desire for speculation. Unfortunately, false success rarely endures. The preserved material is a fragment.Read More »