Don Druker, Chicago Reader wrote:
One of D.W. Griffith’s most beautiful films, a 1919 tale of the chaste love of a Chinese man (Richard Barthelmess) for the frail daughter (Lillian Gish) of a loutish boxer. It perfectly fuses all the elements of Griffith’s style: tender drama played off against scenes of violence; a rich, operatic sense of character and emotion; and a dreamlike acting style, given particular force by the subtlety of Gish’s performance and the strength of Barthelmess’s.Read More »
Silent
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D.W. Griffith – Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)
1911-1920D.W. GriffithDramaSilentUSA -
Ernst Lubitsch – Kohlhiesels Töchter AKA Kohlhiesel’s Daughters (1920)
Comedy1911-1920Ernst LubitschGermanySilentSomewhere in Southern Bavaria Xaver wants to marry Gretel, but her father Kohlhiesel wants his elder daughter Liesel to marry first. The problem is, nobody wants to marry her, because she’s too brutal. Seppel suggests, that he should marry Liesel first, get rid of her and then he can marry Gretel…Read More »
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Dorota Kedzierzawska – Koniec swiata AKA The End of the World (1988)
1981-1990ArthouseDorota KedzierzawskaDramaPolandSynopsis
Study of two lonely old people who have been married for many years, their relationship having atrophied into a silent war. This wordless struggle has become their way of life, yet underneath it all there is still tenderness and love between them.
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Yasujirô Ozu – Wasei kenka tomodachi (1929)
Comedy1921-1930JapanShort FilmYasujiro Ozu
A more than pleasant, funny and touching short(ened) burlesque comedy of young Y. Ozu.
Two friends provide shelter to an orphan girl they have accidentally knocked down.Read More » -
Hanns Schwarz – Die Wunderbare Lüge der Nina Petrowna AKA The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna (1929)
Drama1921-1930GermanyHanns SchwarzSilentWeimar Republic cinema
Imdb:
Extraordinary Soap Opera
12 August 2009 | by GManfred (Ramsey, NJ)I am not a fan of Soaps. Too often they are predictable and boring and descend into bathos -‘Womens’ Pictures’. But this picture was so spectacular in all respects that I was taken aback by its sheer accomplishment. Critic Kenneth Tynan said that one must ‘suspend one’s disbelief’ to take part in the movie experience. If that is the case, this picture became real; it was not a play on the screen performed by mere actors.
The story is familiar but the production is not. Direction is skillful and the photography is perfect. The picture moves quickly and the acting is superb. Francis Lederer was good, Brigitte Helm was even better, and Warwick Ward, who plays Col. Beranoff, spit and polish and bent on revenge, was outstanding. He was the glue that held the cast together and was a riveting presence whenever he was on screen.Read More »
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Roland Lethem – Le Vampire de la cinémathèque (1971)
1971-1980BelgiumExperimentalRoland Lethem

Quote:
The 1001 transformations of a woman into a witch and vice versa.Boris Lehman wrote:
When Roland Lethem says, referring to Le Vampire de la Cinémathèque (1971), a tribute to Joseph Plateau, the brilliant inventor of the phenakistoscope, that ‘you have to let yourself be sucked dry by the film’, most viewers immediately close their eyes, shout their disapproval, break their seats and leave the theatre furious and frustrated. They cannot see because they are not free, and as Philippe Bordier said, ‘because they have shit in their eyes’.Read More » -
Enrico Guazzoni – Agrippina (1911)
1911-1920Enrico GuazzoniEpicItalySilentSummary:
After the death of Claudius, Agrippina announced Nero the heir to the throne, which leads to despair of the true heir – Brittanicus.
Not daring to oppose Agrippina, Senators declare Nero the emperor.
Agrippina is against of an affair of Nero and Poppaea.
Agrippina threaten Nero that if he neglect his wife Octavius, she will give the throne to Brittanicus.
The threats of Agrippina had their effect. Brittanicus is poisoned.
Perversity of Nero is insatiable and he gives his trusted man, Anicetus a terrible order.
Agrippina is looking for salvation, but the indomitable hatred of Emperor Nero decides the fate of Agrippina…Read More » -
Yasujiro Ozu – Otona No Miru Ehon – Umarete Wa Mita Keredo AKA I Was Born, But… (1932)
1931-1940ComedyJapanSilentYasujiro Ozu

Otona no miru ehon – Umarete wa mita keredo / 大人の見る繪本 生れてはみたけれど
PLOT: Two young brothers become the leaders of a gang of kids in their neighborhood. Ozu’s charming film is a social satire that draws from the antics of childhood as well as the tragedy of maturity.Read More »
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Victor Sjöström – The Scarlet Letter (1926)
Drama1921-1930SilentUSAVictor Sjöström

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne is punished for playing on the Sabbath day; but kindly minister Arthur Dimmesdale takes pity on her. The two fall in love, but their relationship cannot be: Hester is already married to Roger Prynne, a physician who has been missing seven years. Dimmesdale has to go away to England; when he returns, he finds Hester pregnant with their child, and the focus of the town’s censure. In a humiliating public ceremony, she is forced to don the scarlet letter A – for adultery – and wear it the rest of her life. Dimmesdale is encouraged by the church fathers to demand of Hester the person with whom she sinned.Read More »




