Silent

Navy captain Avanti Planetaros is inspired by his astronomer-father to travel through outer space to reach other worlds. He becomes an aviator, and, along with the young scientist Dr. Krafft, the driving force behind the construction of a spaceship. Despite opposition from the mocking Professor Dubius, Planetaros gathers a crew of fearless men and takes off. During the long voyage, the crew becomes restless; a mutiny is narrowly avoided. Finally they reach Mars, and discover that the planet is inhabited by a people who have reached a higher stage of development, free of disease, sorrow, violence, covetousness, sexual urges, and the fear of death. Avanti falls in love with Marya, daughter of the Prince of Wisdom, the head of the Martians. Marya shares his feelings, and decides to return with him in order to bring the wisdom of the Martians to the backward Earthlings.Read More »

CinemaSerf, IMDB wrote:
Bruno Decarli (“Count Greven”) is quite good here, as the nobleman who likes to collect works of art. When in Java, he alights on a mystical totem and decides he has to have it – despite the objections of the local priest (Conrad Veidt) whom he swiftly despatches. That’s not the end of our holy man, however, as he haunts his killer with portents of impeding doom… Veidt looks superb as the spirit; his (heavily made up) facial features – always hugely effective – are lit with added poignancy and the direction from Robert Wiene builds a good degree of tension as the denouement, quite literally, looms.Read More »

Synopsis
In Gossette (1923), Dulac experimented with and designed a number of special lenses and prisms to produce a variety of effects and multiply the expressive means which translate the characters’ visions and mental states. She also reversed class and gender roles, as she made the female character Gossette come to the aid of Phillipe de Savières, falsely accused of murder, in order to save his name.Read More »

Quote:
Martha, a peasant woman expecting a child, experiences the fears typical of a woman in her condition. Encouraged by a neighbor, she decides to venture out into the world and join the working class fighting for a better future.Read More »

In a Villeville bustling with the upcoming jousting tournament, two men covet young Isabelle Ginori: François de Baynes, womanizer and overbearing leader of the Protestants, and Henri de Rogier, a Catholic nobleman and Isabelle’s beloved. Queen Catherine de Medicis is aware of the conflict opposing the two men, and commands that the adversaries fight in the Tournament according to the Rules of Divine Judgement; the champion will win Isabelle’s hand.Read More »

Quote:
I don’t have much patience with colleagues who dismiss Charlie Chaplin by saying that Buster Keaton was better (whatever that means). To the best of my knowledge, with the arguable exception of Dickens, no one else in the history of art has shown us in greater detail what it means to be poor, and certainly no one else in the history of movies has played to a more diverse audience or evolved more ambitiously from one feature to the next. The opening sequence in Chaplin’s second Depression masterpiece (1936), of the Tramp on the assembly line, is possibly his greatest slapstick encounter with the 20th century, and as Belgian filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne have brilliantly observed, the famous shot of his being run through machinery equates him with a strip of film. Still, there’s more hope here than in Chaplin’s preceding City Lights, perhaps because this time the Tramp has Paulette Goddard, another plucky urchin, to keep him company.Read More »

Wikipedia wrote:
Folly of Love (German: Unfug der Liebe) is a 1928 German silent comedy film directed by Robert Wiene and starring Maria Jacobini, Jack Trevor and Betty Astor. While several of Wiene’s previous films had met with mixed responses, Folly of Love was universally praised by critics. The film was made at the Marienfelde Studios of Terra Film. It was Wiene’s last silent film.Read More »

Paul Korner is a homosexual musician who falls in love with his protégé Kurt. Unfortunately, the two are seen walking hand in hand by the blackmailer Franz. Though Paul agrees to Franz’s demands at first, it gets out of hand and he ends up refusing to pay which has dire consequences for the lovers.Read More »

El Dorado is the fifth film directed by Marcel L’Herbier for Gaumont’s prestige collection ‘Pax’ which was characterised by high production quality. Its most striking aspect is the invention of new elements of the cinematographic language. L’Herbier uses distortions of the images to convey different messages or impressions: the faces of drinkers become distorted as they become drunk, Sibilla’s face becomes blurred as she thinks about her sick child, or photographs of the Alhambra are distorted to express the artistic vision of the painter intending to represent them.Read More »