1910s

  • Maurice Tourneur – The Blue Bird (1918)

    1911-1920ClassicsFantasyMaurice TourneurUSA

    Quote:
    Wildly inventive and effortlessly enchanting, Maurice Tourneur’s legendary 1918 fantasy The Blue Bird combines spectacular costumes, lavish sets, ingenious camera effects and disarmingly naturalistic performances in a wholly original American silent film masterpiece. Tourneur’s extravagant vision anticipates the spellbinding German Expressionism of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, made the following year, while affectionately evoking the whimsical theatricality of Georges Méliès’s pioneering cinematic genius.Read More »

  • J. Searle Dawley – Frankenstein (1910)

    1901-1910HorrorJ. Searle DawleySilentThe Birth of CinemaUSA

    Frankenstein, a young medical student, trying to create the perfect human being, instead creates a misshapen monster. Made ill by what he has done, Frankenstein is comforted by his fiancée but on his wedding night he is visited by the monster. A fight ensues but the monster, seeing himself in a mirror, is horrified and runs away. He later returns, entering the new bride’s room, and finds her alone.Read More »

  • Emilio Ghione – I topi grigi (1918) (HD)

    1911-1920CrimeEmilio GhioneItalySilent

    Quote:
    I topi grigi, an eight-part serial produced by Tiber Film in Rome, is part of the complex saga of Za la Mort, an apache and outlaw who was the protagonist of 12 films, four serials, three novels and various theatrical shows created between 1914 and 1930 by Emilio Ghione (1879-1930).
    Thanks to his alter ego Za, Ghione would eventually become a genuinely popular star. On one hand he incarnated the role of fearless hero and was the emblem of muscular masculinity. On the other he was also a natural performer in the role of a dandy in several melodramas set in the salons of the decadent, contemporary nobility – a setting reflecting the D’Annunzio-inspired atmosphere of the period.Read More »

  • Josef Stein – Mikor a szolo erik AKA When the Grapes Ripen (1919)

    1911-1920HungaryJosef SteinRomanceSilent


    The cooper’s daughter, Zsuzsi, is getting wooed by Peter. Her father doesn’t want a word of it because Peter is an alcoholic. Peter vows never to drink again and thus wins the hand of Zsuzsi. Peter becomes a hard working man, earning the envy of the whole village. A conspiracy ensues, they get him drunk and his wife leaves him. So Peter gets into the service of the landlord…Read More »

  • Louis Feuillade – Le nain (1912)

    Drama1911-1920FranceLouis FeuilladeSilent

    Quote:
    The scenes of “Life as it is” resemble nothing of what has been done so far by the various film producers in the world. They are an attemp at realism carried for the first time to the screen as it was taken before to literature, theater and the arts.Read More »

  • Adolf Mérey – Simon Judit (1915)

    1911-1920Adolf MéreyDramaHungarySilent

    Judit kills her first child because the father left them. She returns to a previous suitor, Simon. Each year their child dies. The rabbi says this happens because she killed her first child and forbids her to kiss her baby till it gets married.Read More »

  • Roberto Roberti – L’ultima vittima AKA A Victim of Vengeance (1913)

    1911-1920DramaItalyRoberto RobertiSilent

    A VICTIM OF VENGEANCE

    Original lenght: 852 m

    Emma Vallona, an oriental dancer, is suffocated by debts due to her expensive life; so she does not hesitate to induce the Minister d’Angy to endorse a bill in her favour. While the Minister is gradually being overwhelmed by this scandal, which contributes to destroy his political career, she carefree moves to Spain under the false name of Madame d’Ambois. There she meets the Prince of Gébraléon, who asks her to marry him. She agrees but, just before the wedding, the Minister d’Angy reappears. Read More »

  • Otto Rippert – Die Pest in Florenz (1919)

    Drama1911-1920GermanyOtto Rippert

    Suddenly appearing in Florence, an evil seductress causes Cesare, the city’s ruler, and his son to both fall madly in love with her. The son, killing his father before an order to torture the woman can be carried out, then turns the city’s churches into dens of sexual debauchery. Acts of evil and corruption continue unabated until the arrival of Death, who brings with her a horrible plague which she is about to loose upon the city. Written by Doug SederbergRead More »

  • D.W. Griffith – True Heart Susie (1919)

    1911-1920D.W. GriffithRomanceSilentUSA

    True Heart Susie is one of D.W. Griffith’s “pastoral” films, wherein plot takes second
    place to characterization and romance. Lillian Gish plays Susie May Trueheart, who
    so loves local boy William Jenkins (Robert Harron) that she secretly finances his
    education.
    As it stands, the film’s dramatic and heart-tugging value has not diminished,
    not even after the passage of nearly eighty years.Read More »

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