Following some dodgy dealings, stockbroker Saccard is determined to pull himself out of the gutter and regain is reputation. He is of such ill repute that few, not even his own brother, want anything to do with him. Yet against all the odds he manages to establish a bank. Using straw men and secret knowledge of the course of the war, Saccard inflates the bank’s shares to feed his own sordid desire for speculation. Unfortunately, false success rarely endures. The preserved material is a fragment.Read More »
A young girl plays a series of pranks and soon has a crowd of angry villagers chasing after her.
Quote: Léontine is a specialist, who can destroy whole households in five minutes of film. Her chosen weapon may be water, fire or explosives. Here she uses string to topple everything and everyone. In 1910 Pathé set up the Comica studio in Nice, and Léontine was one of its first comedienne based series.Read More »
The Moving Picture World, 31 December 1910 wrote: At one time the Biograph Company had quite a reputation for sermons. Here is one which has much of the original flavor, representing a young man disobeying the wishes of his father, a minister, to become a preacher; sinking lower and lower until just as his father dies he kills a man in a saloon brawl, and but for the plea of a sister would have been taken to prison, even as his father died. Whatever may be thought of this type of picture individually, the power it exerts upon an audience cannot be questioned. Like the horrible examples graphically shown in the goody-goody Sunday school books these films possess a fascination which cannot be denied, yet perhaps few would care to acknowledge its influence. The dramatic attractiveness in this particular instance consists in reproducing a domestic scene, unhappily too common, in some of its aspects at least, in such a way that the events seem to be transpiring before the audience. It is a graphic and impressive illustration of the commandment to honor, which means obey, one’s parents.Read More »
“This Russian-made picture (distributed in the U.S. by Pathe) is typically gloomy. Prima donna Mary Mar (N.A. Lesienko) is surrounded by admirers. But a poet, Sergius (Ivan Mozukin) wants to be more to her and he proposes. So they marry, and she becomes involved in charity activities. On one of her rounds, she contracts smallpox and is quarantined. Even Sergius cannot enter the house. During her illness another opera star becomes the favorite in her stead. Mary’s face becomes horribly disfigured as a result of the smallpox and she has to auction off her belongings to pay her creditors. Finally Sergius returns. Mary is wearing a veil, and when he lifts it, he is disgusted by the sight of her. So she leaves him and becomes a beggar in the streets, while he goes to his studio and kills himself by drug overdose” by ~ Janiss Garza, RoviRead More »
Translated from German wikipedia wrote: The film was shot in the UFA-Union-Filmstudios, Berlin-Tempelhof. The sets were designed by Kurt Richter. Although the National Film Archive also has designs by Paul Leni for the film, his involvement cannot be confirmed due to rediscovered film credits. The same applies to Ossi Oswalda’s involvement as an actor, as stated by Hermann G. Weinberg in 1977. The 1,163-meter-long film was examined by the censors in July 1918. The premiere of the film, which was announced in the Lichtbild-Bühne as Der Fall Rosenblum,[4] was on September 20, 1918 at the U.T. Friedrichstraße in Berlin.Read More »
Quote: In Nerven, writer-director-producer Robert Reinert tried to capture the “nervous epidemic” caused by war and misery which “drives people mad”. This unique portrait of the life in 1919 Germany, filmed on location in Munich, describes the cases of different people from all levels of society: Factory owner Roloff who looses his mind in view of catastrophies and social disturbances, teacher John who is the hero of the masses and Marja who turns into a radical revolutionary. Using different fragments the Munich Film Museum could reconstruct this forgotten German classic which is a historic document and anticipates already elements of the Expressionist cinema of the 1920s.Read More »
Quote: Death’s bells toll in tune to the march of war. On top of devastating losses, espionage also cripples General Müller’s army. Young Lieutenant Charley is entrusted with the delivery of Dossier 15, a document of utmost importance to the war effort. After a dangerous journey through enemy territory, Adjutant Bertram betrays him – it turns out that he’s spying for the enemy. Bertram replaces Dossier 15 with a worthless piece of paper which leads to Charley’s arrest. Charley must escape to avoid execution and expose the spy.Read More »
A mysterious evildoer terrifies the French Riviera. That mysterious character, which is hidden under the personality of James Pearce, a diamond-maker, calls himself The Black X. This time, the Black X has noticed the rich jewels of a celebrated singer and, in the company of her henchmen, is preparing to carry out the great robbery.Read More »
An upperclass war widow marries again. The new husband is also an officer, and soon he has to go to the next war. At the outbreak, she’s the only one who does not cheer about it. And the terrors of war soon bring almost all of her friends and relatives, among them generals and high government officials to the same conclusion: War does not pay.Read More »
