Quote:
Das Notizbuch des Mr Pim is structured around competing and contradictory narratives. While notes taken during an interview with a right-wing journalist – a convenient device in a silent film – tell of economic and cultural decline, of the very great damage that the empowerment of the workers has done to ‘das schone alte Wien’ [beautiful old Vienna], this account and its nostalgia for ‘das goldene Wienerherz’ [the golden heart of Vienna] are repeatedly juxtaposed with images of capitalist exploitation, militarism, extreme poverty and grim living conditions in the pre-1918 period. The charges against the Socialist administration are then refuted, almost point by point, as Phyllis and her fiance show their visitor (who, like that other American archetype, Homer Simpson, hails from Springfield, USA!) around the new Vienna, notably taking him to Karl-Marx-Hof in order to disprove the claim that the showpiece of the municipal housebuilding programme is already in need of repair…….Read More »
Silent
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Frank Ward Rossak – Das Notizbuch des Mr. Pim (1930)
Frank Ward Rossak1921-1930AustriaPoliticsSilent -
Julien Duvivier – Au bonheur des dames (1930)
1921-1930DramaFranceJulien DuvivierSilent

Denise, an orphaned girl, moves to Paris where she hopes to find work at her uncle’s store. But the glamorous department store ‘Aux Bonheur des Dames’ across the street crunches all the little businesses around. She finds a position there.Read More »
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Julien Duvivier – Le mystère de la tour Eiffel (1928)
1921-1930ArchitectureDramaFranceJulien DuvivierSilentOne of two circus twins is cheated of an inheritance by his double, who sets himself up in a chateau.Only to be threatened by a sinister black hooded sect. Rollicking adventures follow, culminating with a big chase on the Eiffel Tower.Read More »
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Shôzô Makino – Chûkon giretsu – Jitsuroku Chûshingura AKA Chushingura: The Truth (1928)
Drama1921-1930JapanShôzô MakinoSilent

Lord Asano Takumi-no-Kami Naganori was charged with receiving a group of envoys from the Imperial Court in Kyoto. He was young and slightly inexperienced, so he was given the task of instructing Lord Asano in the customs of the ceremony.Read More »
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Louis Feuillade – Le gendarme est sans culotte (1914)
1911-1920ComedyFranceLouis FeuilladeSilentIMDB wrote:
Le Gendarme est sans Culotte (or, “The Policeman is Without Trousers”) concerns a dim-witted cop named Foezel, who is played by Marcel Lévesque, best remembered as Mazamette in the great crime serial Les Vampires. Lévesque, whose comic relief character practically stole the show in that series, also starred in his own short comedies. To my way of thinking he suggests a Gallic version of Jimmy Finlayson, Laurel & Hardy’s familiar nemesis, not only in appearance but in his vigorous, over the top performance style. […]Read More » -
Julien Duvivier – La divine croisière AKA The Heavenly Crusade (1929)
1921-1930FranceJulien DuvivierSilent

A wealthy man sends his crew sailing on an old tub ;The men realize there’s money to be made with the alcohol they transport.The ship sinks but the shipowner’s daughter, who is in love with the captain of the missing boat, go in search of the lost crew survivors with a handful of sailor men.God Himself intervenes and “shows the way” across the “way of gold” .Read More »
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August Blom – Den hvide slavehandel AKA The White Slave Trade (1910)
1901-1910August BlomDenmarkDramaScandinavian Silent CinemaSilentQuote:
Anna, a young girl from a poor but honest household, is offered an attractive position as a lady’s companion in London. Her childhood friend is worried, but she goes anyway. To Anna’s horror, the “distinguished house” turns out to be a brothel and her first customer soon awaits her. She manages to smuggle a letter for her parents out of the country, but what she doesn’t know is that her childhood friend Georg is already on his way to save her. Will Anna ever escape the white slave trade?Read More » -
John Ford – Four Sons (1928)
Drama1921-1930John FordSilentUSAA family saga in which three sons of a Bavarian widow go to war for Germany and the fourth goes to America, Germany’s eventual opponent. One of John Ford’s most important silent films, made very much under the influence of his Fox studio mate, F.W. Murnau.Read More »
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Gustav Trautschold – Ilse und ihre drei Freier AKA Ilse and Her Three Suitors (1913)
1911-1920ComedyGermanyGustav TrautscholdSilentIlse/Elza (Alice Hechy) is into a local painter but her father wants her to marry Count van Trutwitz or some American.
Two of her friends pretend to be these would-be suitors with intentionally disastrous consequences.Read More »





