Dimitri Kirsanoff’s masterpiece “Ménilmontant” opens with a furiously fast edited axe murder that somehow foreshadows “Battleship Potemkin”. It then resolves to be a moving drama about two sisters, one of them played by Nadia Sibirskaia who is probably the most talented silent film actress next to Lillian Gish. Kirsanoff tells his poetic story without intertitles and knows exactly that the facial expressions of his actors reveal everything we have to know about the emotional states of the characters.Read More »
Synopsis
Another of Reginald Denny’s money-spinning Universal vehicles, Fast and Furious casts Denny as “speed demon” Tom Brown. Fascinated with fast roadsters, Tom enjoys nothing more than “opening up” on the highway — at least, until he’s run off the road by another reckless driver. After emerging from the hospital, Tom discovers that he’s developed a mortal fear of automobiles — in fact, he jumps three feet in the air whenever he hears a honking horn. Naturally, the outcome of the plot hinges on Tom’s willingness to man the controls of a racing car for the sake of his sweetheart Ethel (Barbara Worth). All that prevents Fast and Furious from being a “perfect” Reginald Denny picture is a moment near the climax, when our jailed hero is released from his cell when his father bribes the guard: undoubtedly, Denny’s fans would have preferred that he figure a way out of his dilemma.
Hal EricksonRead More »
Quote: “An engineering graduate of Yale University, Theodore Case assisted Lee de Forest in developing sound-on-film called “Phonofilm.” Falling out with de Forest, Case and associate E.I. Sponable then built a laboratory behind Case’s family home in Auburn, New York, where they developed their own optical sound film system. Sold to William Fox, it was commercially exploited as “Movietone” with sensational results.” —David ShepardRead More »
Synopsis:
What is the perfect body – and how do you get it? People were already grappling with these questions 100 years ago. Wilhelm Prager’s and Nicholas Kaufmann’s documentary “Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit” (Ways to Strength and Beauty), filmed in 1925 for the UFA cultural department, first criticises modern society, which weakens and deforms the human body through industrial work and office activities. According to the motto “A healthy mind lives in a healthy body”, the didactically prepared educational film aims in six chapters at a re-appropriation of a physical ideal state according to the model of antiquity and propagates above all physical training for this purpose.Read More »
The film follows two mountain enthusiasts, battling through a glacier areain the Swiss mountains, the sublime beauty of the film is effectively staged.The attention will be paid equally to the contemplation of nature, such as theMountain sports on his then latest technical standard And it&’s also about a newform of natural experience thanks to the film and cinema technology that enablesa wide audience to look at then still little-known mountain tops for the first timeRead More »
Synopsis JEWELS is an early example of the visual fascination of dark Vienna. The film was released in 1930 as one of the last silent films under the powerful title SENSATION IM DIAMANTENCLUB. The screenplay was based on motifs from Hoffmann’s story ‘Das Fräulein von Scuderi’ (1819), which is considered the first crime story in German. Director Hans Brückner mixes some elements of the genre in his crime film, the palette ranges from classic ‘Whodunit’ to detective to elements of horror film, focuses on shadows, lighting effects, cross-fading according to German and drastic wrestling matches based on the American pattern. As a ‘modern’ script idea, the dissociative movement disorder, i.e. the psychological paralysis of a victim in shock, impresses a motif that will later prove to be indispensable for the horror repertoire. (Letterboxd)Read More »
Quote: Morning reveals New York harbor, the wharves, the Brooklyn Bridge. A ferry boat docks, disgorging its huddled mass. People move briskly along Wall St. or stroll more languorously through a cemetery. Ranks of skyscrapers extrude columns of smoke and steam. In plain view. Or framed, as through a balustrade. A crane promotes the city’s upward progress, as an ironworker balances on a high beam. A locomotive in a railway yard prepares to depart, while an arriving ocean liner jostles with attentive tugboats. Fading sunlight is reflected in the waters of the harbor… The imagery is interspersed with quotations from Walt Whitman, who is left unnamed.Read More »
David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by railroads. However, to make this dream a reality, a clear trail must be found through the Rocky Mountains. With his boy Davy (Winston Miller), David sets out to find such a path, but he’s ambushed by a tribe of Indians led by a white savage, Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick); while the boy manages to escape, David is killed. Years later, the adult Davy Brandon (George O’Brien) still believes in his father’s dream of a transcontinental railroad, and legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln has made it an official mandate. Davy is hired on as a railroad surveyor by Thomas Marsh (Will R. Walling), the father of his childhood sweetheart Miriam (Madge Bellamy). While Davy hopes to win Miriam’s heart as he helps to find the trail that led to his father’s death years ago, he’s disappointed to discover that Miriam is already married — and shocked to discover her husband is Peter Jesson, now working with the railroad as a civil engineer. As the Union Pacific crew presses on to their historic meeting at Promitory Point, Davy must find a way to earn Miriam’s love and uncover Peter’s murderous past.Read More »
