Synopsis:
Hopson, a prestigious scientist, studies the effect of snake venom to cure many diseases of mankind. His son enlists in the army when the Great War breaks out. A series of circumstances will lead the scientist to change his way of thinking about values and principles that until then he had as immovable.Read More »
Synopsis:
Lash of the Czar was one of several English-language titles for the Russian film Belyi Orel. The film was based on The Governor, a play by Leonid Andreyev. V.I. Kachalov plays the governor of a small Russian province who tries to treat the people under his authority with kindness and equanimity. But when a local factory goes on strike, the governor buckles under to pressure from the Czar and orders the wholesale slaughter of the strikers. He pays for this betrayal of his trust with his life — at the hands of a courageous Bolshevik spy. Anna Sten, who in 1934 was brought to the U.S. as Sam Goldwyn’s “answer” to Greta Garbo, appears as the governor’s wife. ~ Hal Erickson, RoviRead More »
Quote:
Can you find happiness in the big city? The young hat maker Natascha, who lives with her grandfather in a suburb covered in winter snow, has to commute by train from the village to Moscow to deliver her creations to the extravagant Irene’s hat shop. For the administration, Irene claims Natascha to be her subtenant in order to be able to have more living space. The clumsy railway official woos the lovely country girl with his ravishing smile. But she enters into a fictitious marriage with the provincial Ilya in order to get him a room in Moscow. With an apparently worthless lottery ticket, which Irene’s husband gives to Natascha, the entanglements become turbulent. Boris Barnet describes the contrasts between city and country and the new living conditions in Moscow in a stylish and socially critical way. Three great acting talents, Anna Stén, Iwan Kowal-Samborski and Vladimir Fogel, form the triangle of relationships. Originally ordered as a vehicle to advertise the State Lottery, the film made the studio rich and the natural talent director Boris Barnet famous as the founder of lyrical comedy.Read More »
Quote:
In the summer of 1924 Claude Friese-Greene, a pioneer of colour cinematography, set out from Cornwall with the aim of recording life on the road between Land’s End and John O’Groats. Entitled The Open Road, his remarkable travelogue was conceived as a series of shorts, 26 episodes in all, to be shown weekly at the cinema.
Claude’s experimental colour process failed to reach a large audience owing to heavy flicker and colour fringing. Following on from the BBC’s recent documentary The Lost World of Friese-Greene, the BFI National Archive has restored a special compilation of highlights from the journey, using digital intermediate technology to remove the technical defects of the original.Read More »
Synopsis:
The young Brazilian journalist Rex Ronney is gathering data for his book on Nordic alcohol smuggling and embarks on a boat trip to Estonia and Finland, where alcohol is prohibited. On the boat, he meets the booze king Kõlgis, whose confidence he wins. Kõlgis issues him a letter of recommendation and sends him to the smuggler Bratt in Tallinn, who is in the service of Mart Martens, who in turn is heavily indebted to Kõlgis. As a result, Betty Martens, his daughter, is compelled to get engaged with Kõlgis. In order to clear her father’s debts, Betty conducts the alcohol transports from Finland herself. When Rex Ronney shows up, it has consequences…Read More »
W.C. Fields headlines in this 1926 silent comedy classic, essentially a collection of some of Fields’ best routines stitched together with the thinnest of plots.
It’s the Old Army Game (1926)
Released: 11 Jul 1926 Rated: PASSED Runtime: 77 min
Director: A. Edward Sutherland Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Romance
Cast: W.C. Fields, Louise Brooks, Blanche Ring, William Gaxton Writers: J.P. McEvoy (play), W.C. Fields (play), William LeBaron (adaptation), Thomas J. Geraghty (scenario), J. Clarkson Miller (scenario), Ralph Spence (titles)
Plot: Druggist Elmer Prettywillie is sleeping. A woman rings the night bell only to buy a two-cent stamp. Then garbage collectors waken him. Next it’s firemen on a false alarm. And then a real fire.Read More »
Summary from the dafilms website:
The silent film shot in 1934 narrates in detail the severe process of eviction of the population and their fierce struggle against the swamp in Mengralian marshland of Georgia…
According to the legend the deity of the swamp Ujmuri drags down to its bosom anyone who dares come near. And the best of them are forced to marry her. Kavtar and Tsiru fell in love with each other and started their battle to dry up the swamp. Everyone who believes the legend is against it, including Tsiru’s father.Read More »
A world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn’t know they once belonged to a murderer.Read More »
EP.1 – IL DELITTO AL PONTE DE NEULLY
EP.2 – GIAN GIOVEDÌ’
EP.3 – LA FIGLIA DEL GHIGLIOTTINATO
EP.4 – GIUSTIZIA!
“Not many Italian silent films structured in episodes have survived, though a good many were made (see Monica Dall’Asta, “La diffusione dei film a episodi in Europa”, in Storia del cinema mondiale. Vol. 1: L’Europa. I. Miti, luoghi divi, Einaudi, 1999, p.309). Most of them were based on foreign models, particularly French, and some were direct reworkings. One such case is Il Fiacre n. 13, from the novel of the same title by Xavier Henri Aymon Perrin, Count of Montépin, a highly prolific and much-loved author whose books were vehicles for the depiction of social inequality, narrating stories of love, death, betrayal, blackmail, and redemption. Read More »