1921-1930

Synopsis
The simple and honest elementary school principal Taiga (Iwata) was at a loss after the school’s donation money was stolen. At that time, he found a bag containing a large sum of money and hid it at home, intending to use it for the school. His wife, who happened to discover it, took the blame upon herself and committed suicide together with their beloved child. Grief-stricken, Taiga resigned from his position and moved to Oshima, seeking to detach himself from the world. Yet life there became nothing but days drowned in alcohol…Read More »

Rural comedy about a farmer’s fiancée who becomes distracted by a handsome young officer staying with them in 1910s Germany.Read More »

An early Dostoevsky adaption by Carl Froelich and an uncredited Dimitri Buchowetzki. According to Julian Connolly’s book Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov (Bloomsbury, 2013), this is the film adaption of that novel. For those that haven’t read it, here’s something from Encyclopedia Britannica: ‘The Brothers Karamazov, the final novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, first published as Bratya Karamazovy in 1879–80 and generally considered to be his masterpiece. It is the story of Fyodor Karamazov and his sons Alyosha, Dmitry, and Ivan.Read More »

Quote:
This film is one of many collaborations between Kawada Yoshiko, who grew up as a stage actress under the tutelage of “Japan’s first actress,” Kawakami Sadayakko, and became Shochiku Kinema’s first actress when she appeared in the company’s first film, “Island Woman” (1920), and Moroguchi Juku, whose good looks earned him the nickname of a leading kabuki actor of the time, and depicts the turbulent love story between a young man whose love has been broken and a farm girl in Hokkaido. This is a rare surviving film that conveys the atmosphere of early contemporary dramas produced by Shochiku Kamata before the Great Kanto Earthquake.Read More »

Quote:
Tokyo Cinema Shokai, known for filming the damage caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake, produced propaganda films and various other filming jobs for government agencies, public organizations, and companies, but they also actively produced and sold educational feature films by inviting feature film directors. This film, which depicts the rehabilitation of a delinquent boy, can be considered a representative educational feature film from the company. Starring Natsukawa Shizue, who was a star in Nikkatsu’s contemporary feature films before she became a star, the film is supported by actors from the Shingeki Kyokai, led by director Hatanaka Ryoha, including Izawa Ranja, who left his mark on the history of new theater from the late Taisho to early Showa periods.Read More »

In late 19th century Vienna, Lena Smith, a naive peasant girl from Hungary, has a child by a corrupt young cavalry officer, and goes to work his house as a servant, hiding the truth from his unsympathetic father, while the son returns to his profligate ways. Robbed of her child first when he is a baby, and later when they are separated by the war, she suffers imprisonment, contempt, and shame in order to protect the child.Read More »

When Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean, she decides to leave for Paris on her own. After spending a year in the city as a mistress of the wealthy Pierre Revel, she is reunited with Jean by chance. This leaves her with the choice between a glamorous life in Paris, and the true love she left behind.Read More »

A beautiful showgirl, nicknamed ‘the Canary’, is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and soon ends up dead. But who killed ‘the Canary’. All the suspects who knew her had been used by her. The only witness to the crime was also killed. Only one man, debonair detective, Philo Vance, might be able to figure out who silenced ‘the Canary’.Read More »

Lights of Old Broadway
Essay by Matthew Kennedy
By 1924, Metro Pictures was ailing. Founded in 1915 it had major successes with child star Jackie Coogan, “Great Stone Face” Buster Keaton, and sensational Rudolph Valentino in Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921). But Metro lost Valentino to Paramount and was also in need of more theaters to better control exhibition. Goldwyn Pictures was in trouble, too, thanks to internecine fights between management and board. A merger could mitigate their respective business worries. When Metro and Goldwyn united on April 17, 1924, with the manipulative, canny, and robust Louis B. Mayer in charge, it became the nascent film empire Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer. Twenty-four-year-old “Boy Wonder” Irving Thalberg, formerly at Universal, was signed as supervisor of production.Read More »