Synopsis:
After her father’s death, Mary Rainey takes over the Rainey Circus (which operates twice daily, rain or shine) but runs into financial troubles. In one bit reminiscent of the Marx Brothers, the circus performers are up to some ridiculous antics at a dinner party with the family of Bud Conway, Mary’s beau. As times become worse and the performers go on strike, Mary must try to save the circus from rioting patrons.Read More »
Buster Keaton’s 1928 silent movie Steamboat Bill, Jr, now on rerelease, is most famous for that staggeringly clever and ambitious shot of the house front with the strategically positioned open window collapsing on top of our hero, leaving him unscathed. It is a sublime vision of innocence being protected by comically benign forces – famously pastiched by British artist and Oscar-winning film-maker Steve McQueen in his 1999 video piece Deadpan. Steamboat Bill, Jr is a Romeo-and-Juliet drama and also a gently tender story of a man coming to respect and love his son. Bill Sr (Ernest Torrence) is the captain of a tatty old pleasure boat who hasn’t seen his son since the boy was a baby. He’s hoping for a strapping lad to help out with the business.Read More »
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Set in the bleak aftermath and devastation of the World War I, a recently demobbed soldier, Timosh, returns to his hometown Kiev, after having survived a train wreck. His arrival coincides with a national celebration of Ukrainian freedom, but the festivities are not to last as a disenchanted.Read More »
Synopsis:
Greta Garbo is the misunderstood heroine of this silent classic based on the controversial novel THE GREEN HAT by Michael Arlen. Diana Merrick is a free-spirited and wealthy socialite who loses Neville (John Gilbert), her one true love, because of the disapproval of his stubborn father (Hobart Bosworth). Heartbroken, Diana reluctantly weds David (John Mack Brown), a longtime admirer and best friend of her brother, Jeffry (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.).Read More »
Plot: Lillie Sterling comes with her husband, John, on a business trip to Java, expecting a second honeymoon. On the ship, she witnesses Javanese Prince De Gace mercilessly whipping a servant and shrinks in horror from the sight. When John is befriended by the Prince, who is very attracted to Lillie, she tries to have little to do with him. During a conversation in their room, John is called away to answer a wire, and the Prince steals a kiss in his absence, for which she slaps him. So she is understandably upset when John accepts the Prince’s invitation to stay at his plantation in Java when he promised to arrange a tiger hunt. She tries to dissuade John from going, but John says he always wanted to shoot a tiger and she is being unreasonable.Read More »
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Hopelessly in love with a woman working at MGM Studios, a clumsy man attempts to become a motion picture cameraman to be close to the object of his desire.Read More »
A short silent documentary by Gerhard Lamprecht in which the director documented the most beautiful moments of his four week vacation to Sicily, Italy.Read More »
The Country Rat visits his friend, the Town Rat, but finds that life in the great metropolis is rather too hectic (and dangerous – there’s a live cat among all the puppet rats!)Read More »
This was Ford’s 46th film in 5 years. The film seems to be overly melodramatic, a young man in a wheelchair drags himself (in pouring rain) to the house of the man who stole money from the church donation drive. There’s also a woman walking through the rain who gets struck by lightning, a whipping, a fist fight or two, a wedding, an operation?Read More »