1920s

  • Ewald André Dupont – Das alte Gesetz AKA This Ancient Law [+extras] (1923)

    1921-1930DramaEwald André DupontGermanySilent

    Baruch Mayr, son of an orthodox rabbi from a poor shtetl in Galizia, decides to break with the family tradition and leave the shtetl to become an actor. Due to this behaviour his father bans him from his family. Baruch, who joined a small burlesque troupe is discovered by an Austrian Erzherzogin (archdutchess) who introduces him to the director of the most important Theater in Vienna, the Burgtheater. Baruch receives a contract there and becomes more and more an assimilated jew. Read More »

  • Paul Leni – The Last Warning (1928)

    1921-1930HorrorPaul LeniSilentUSA

    IMDb wrote:
    A producer decides to reopen a theater, that had been closed five years previously when one of the actors was murdered during a performance, by staging a production of the same play with the remaining members of the original cast.Read More »

  • Teuvo Puro – Noidan kirot AKA The Curses of the Witch (1927)

    Horror1921-1930FinlandSilentTeuvo Puro

    A customized rip of this 1927 silent classic from the Suomi-Filmi studio. Often referred to as the first Finnish horror film, though the 1923 historical drama made at the same studio, Rautakylän vanha parooni (“The Old Baron of Rautakylä”), can also be classified as Gothic horror. What is more, the horror elements in The Curses of the Witch are few and far between, but all the more effective for that: the interposed image of a raving Lapp witch, the ominous owl foreboding the nerve-wracking and fateful boat ride, and the strange furry demon that appears on the hero’s bedside after it are as unforgettable as anything the best of Swedish or Danish horror films of the time had to offer. Read More »

  • Bertolt Brecht & Erich Engel – Mysterien eines Frisiersalons AKA Mysteries of a Barbershop (1923)

    1921-1930Bertolt BrechtComedyErich EngelGermanySilentWeimar Republic cinema

    Karl Valentin plays a journeyman in a barber shop who prefers to stay in bed than to take care of his (already heavily bearded) customers. When he’s at work, he removes boils with hammer, chisel and pincers, turns long-haired men into skin-heads and chops off people’s heads.Read More »

  • Rasmus Breistein – Brudeferden i Hardanger AKA Bridal Procession In Hardanger (1926)

    1921-1930NorwayRasmus BreisteinRomanceScandinavian Silent CinemaSilent

    This is the 25FPS version with modern orchestral score.

    Quote:
    A true classic of Norwegian cinema, Rasmus Breistein’s Bridal Procession in Hardanger (1926) is not only a high point of the nation’s body of silent film, but also stands as a vital piece in their visual and cultural history. Stunningly shot on location on the fjords of western Norway, the film recreates a rural idyll of 19th century Scandinavian life to tell a compelling melodrama of young love, marriage, class division, and the lure of emigration to brighter lands of new promise.Read More »

  • Ewald André Dupont – Piccadilly [+ Extras] (1929)

    1921-1930DramaEwald André DupontSilentUnited Kingdom

    The star attraction of the Piccadilly Club is the dancing team of Mabel and Vic. Victor is infatuated with Mabel, but she rejects his advances, since she is in love with Valentine Wilmot, the club’s owner. One night, as Mabel and Vic perform their act, there is a disruption caused by a customer who is unhappy about a dirty plate. When Wilmot goes back to the kitchen to investigate, he finds several employees in the scullery watching Shosho, one of the dishwashers, dancing on a table. That night, Wilmot fires both Shosho and Victor. But the club’s sagging fortunes soon lead him to re-evaluate Shosho’s talent.Read More »

  • Kenji Mizoguchi & Seiichi Ina – Asahi wa kagayaku AKA The Rising Sun is Shining [Reedited version] (1929)

    1921-1930DocumentaryJapanKenji MizoguchiSeiichi InaSilent

    Partially lost film. Exactly it is said only 1/4 are extant.

    Original story is like the following (translated from the accompanying booklet):

    After finishing university, Hayafusa (Eiji Nakano) and Kusaka (Hiroyoshi Murata) enter Osaka Asahi Shimbun Co. Akizuki (Heitarô Hirai), the president of some company, who is from the same province with them, does not pleased of their entrance because he dislikes newspaper, however, his daughter Asako (Ranko Sawa) prays their future successes. At the office of Shinzaki (Shin Minobe), that are located at the same building with Akizuki, dubious foreigners have frequented, Hayafusa and Kusaka can obtain Shinzaki’s encrypted telegram with the help of elevator operator Kurie (Takako Irie). When Aurora, steamship round the world meets with a disaster off the coast of Sumoto, they goes there as reporters.Read More »

  • Kenji Mizoguchi – Furusato no uta aka The Song of Home (1925)

    1921-1930DramaJapanKenji MizoguchiSilent

    From David Williams entry on Mizoguchi in World Film Directors:
    The first of his pictures still extant, Furusato no uta (The Song of Home), is a studio assignment remote from Mizoguchi’s personal concerns, lauding traditional rural values over those of the wicked city, although it contains some montage experiments in the manner of Minoru Murata. The script by Ryunosuke Shimizu won a Ministry of Education award.Read More »

  • Man Ray – Le retour à la raison AKA Return to Reason (1923)

    1921-1930ArthouseExperimentalFranceMan Ray

    More a work in experimental Dadaism than a film, «Le Retour à la raison» was the first film to be made by the celebrated surrealist artist, Man Ray. The American-born artist made the film soon after he moved to Paris in the early 1920s to found the Dada movement.
    The film is very short (three minutes in length) but includes some astonishing and evocative images. The early segments of the film iillustrates a technique which Man Ray pioneered in static photography, the rayograph (or photogramme). Here, an object is placed between a light source and photo-sensitive film, in contrast to traditional photography where photographic film captures light reflected off an object. Read More »

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