A Journey Through Cinema History

[sabotai]

It's official, I've run out of movies to watch. Well, not really, but it's come to the point that I'm going to just start over from the very beginning.

My quest is to watch the classics (and not so classics, and some anti-classics) in order of the year that they were released, starting with the dawn of film.

The first movies were made by Eadweard Muybridge in the mid 1880s. His technique was really just a series of photographs that gave a loose appearence of motion. You could say that these movies had a frame rate of 1 frame per second. Among the first movies were of naked women performaing various acts like walking up stairs, putting a vase on the floor and hopping on one foot. Brilliant!

It wasn't until the early 1890s when Edison (or W.K.L. Dickson who worked in Edison's lab) created the kinetoscope that creating movies became practical and profitable. In 1893, Edison built the world's first mvoie studio called The Black Maria. In this studio, W.K.L.Dickson would direct many short films, mostly lasting about 5 or 6 seconds.

These films included a woman performing a belly-dance, Sandow ("The World's Strong Man") posing, Annie Duke demostrating her sharpshooting, various comedy routines, Native Americans performaing dances, boxing matches, etc.

In fact, one of the earliest "scandels" was the fact that boxing was illegal in most states, including New Jersey where the Black Maria was location. The film of Jim Corbett vs. Peter Courtney was documented proof that Edison staged a boxing match. However, he simply claimed that it wasn't really a boxing match and it was just a demostration. Because of Edison's popularity, he got away with it. The first "Hollwood Star" to escape the law.

As you can see, the entire movie industry is founded on the stuff that people complain are happening "now". Sex, violence, people inside the industry breaking laws and the authorites allowing them to get away with it. The early success of the industry was founded on these things. :)

In France, the movie inustry was taking off as well, in a similar mold (shooting shorts). Inspired by Edison's work, the Lumiere Brothers built their own version of the kinetoscope. They called it the cinematographe. Over the next few years, many other people would create their own offshoots of the kinetoscope, but none of them caught on.

It took a magician to really take movies from simply filming people doing various acts to the use of special effects. His name was George Melies, a magician from France. He had seen a demostration of the Lumeire Brothers and wanted to buy one of their cameras, but they refused. So, he had to build his own, a variation of a different camera and projector and created Europe's first movie studio in 1897. He would go on to create over 500 shorts films in this studio that he would show in his magic theater. Very few of the films have survived, unfortunately.

In the early 1900s, a director in the US named Edward S. Porter, and the French magician George Melies, would start creating longer stories. The public was growing bored with the shorts and wanted more in ways of story telling, and both Porter and Melies predicted that it would happen. Exhibitors in the US would oftan take shorts and put them together to try and tell a story. So Porter decided to do that from the start, and in France, Melies did the same.

And that is where our journey begins...

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/JackandtheBeanstalk1.jpg

Jack And The Beastalk (1902)
Director: Edward S. Porter
Length: 10 Minutes

One of the very first films that told a story, Porter took the well known story of Jack and the Beanstalk. It's a simple retelling fo the story, and very straightforward. Jack sells his donkey for some magic beans. His mother, in a fit of rage, throws the beans on the ground. Overnight, they grow into a giant beanstalk that Jack climbs. There, he finds a house where there lived a giant. (spoiler warning!) He then grabs the goose that lays the golden eggs, climbs down the stalk and chops it down, killing the giant as it falls to the ground.

Historical Rating. This is how I try and do my best to rate the movie for its historical importance, influence, how good it is releative to the rest of films at the time and how enteratining it is.
Entertainment Rating - This is where I just simply rate the movie on how entertaining I found it, regardless of age, importance, etc.

Historical Rating - 7/10
Enteratinment Rating - 4/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/atriptothemoon1.jpg http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/atriptothemoon2.jpg

A Trip To The Moon (1902)
Directed By: Goerge Melies
Length: 16 minutes

George Melies' most popular film, and his crowning acheivement. A Trip To The Moon was not successful at first, since a lot of distributors did not want to pay Meleis' asking price, which seemed very high compared the price for the 1 minute long shorts. However, after Melies gave a free screening of it at a carnival, the popularity of the film took off and became a huge success. Unfortunately, Melies could not reproduce the popularity of A Trip To The Moon, and by 1913, his studio was bankrupt.

The film starts off with a group of astronomers gathered to plan a trip to the moon. It's very slow at first, but once they start building the ship ("bullet"), it starts to take off. The 16 minutes watching this film seemed faster than the 10 for Jack And The Beanstalk. The film is filled with special effects that only the magician could conjure in his head. A great film that does hold up a bit after more than a century as the world's first Science Fiction movie.

Historical Rating: 9/10
Entertainment Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/TheGreatTrainRobbery2.jpg http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/TheGreatTrainRobbery1.jpg

The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Directed By: Edward S. Porter
Length: 12 minutes

The nation's first blockbuster. This film is essencially what started america cinema as it grabbed headlines. This was the first film that was shot out of order and edited afterwards for practical reasons.

This was the first western that started a few cliches that lasted for quite a long time, such as making someone dance while shooting the ground at their feet. While not big on the special effects innovations like Melies' A Trip To The Moon, it was the start of many filming technicque innovations such as, as I said, shooting out of order and editing the film in proper sequence, filming on location rather than in a studio, camera movement rather than having the camera stationary, and several other post-production techniques.

Historical Rating: 10/10
Entertainment Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

If you were to look at a history or timeline of cinema, you would think there were no films made between 1903 and 1915's Birth Of A Nation. With good reason.

After watching several 1904-1907 films, there really isn't a memorable film at all. Here's a rundown of a few of the notable ones.

The Kleptomaniac (1905)
Directed by: Edward S. Porter
Lenth: 12 minutes

It's a parallel story of two women caught stealing. One woman is wealthy and steals a piece of cloth from a store. The other woman is poor and steal bread to feed her family. They are both caught and are put in front of a judge. The poor woman is found guilty and sent to jail, despite a plea from her daughter, while the wealthy woman is let go because of her social standing. The film ends with Lady Justice holding up her scales, with a loaf of bread on on end.

This is about the time when films with social meanings start to come out.

Historical Rating: 5/10
Entertainment Rating 3/10

-----------------------

Coney Island At Night (1905)
Length: 5 minutes

One of the first, non-short documentaries. Until now, there were films of the aftermatch of the San Francisco earthquake and the hurracane in Galviston, TX. But they were short, mostly just 15-30 seconds. This is the first one lasting several minutes. This was also a time when not everyone had electricity, so it must have been quite the sight to see Coney Island all lit up when in many parts of the country, electricity was still pretty rare.

Historical Rating: 6/10
Entertainment Rating: 2/10

-----------------------

The White Caps (1905)
Directed By: Edward S. Porter
Length: 12 minutes

The White Caps is a movie about a group of vigilanties called, unsurprisingly, The White Caps. They enforced a sort of moral law. The story is about a man who beats his wife, and then she runs away and the White Caps find out. They grab the guy at his home, but he escapes. What follows is the hunt for the man, his capture and then he gets tarred and feathers. The last scene is of the White Caps parading him down the street.

Historical Rating: 4/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

-----------------------

The "Teddy" Bears (1907)
Directed By: Edward S. Porter
Length: 12 minutes

This is a retelling of the story of Goldilocks And The Three Bears. What makes this noteworthy is that it includes an extended stop-motion animation scene, definately one of the first scenes of stop-motion animation.

Historical Rating: 6/10
Entertainment Rating: 3/10

[Abe Sargent]

I'm reading

[thealmighty]

Sab, where do you go to rent/buy/whatever these old films?

[sabotai]

Sab, where do you go to rent/buy/whatever these old films?

Netflix. Most of the Porter films, and the ones before made for Edison, I watched off a documentary series: "Edison: Invention Of The Movies" (4 DVDs). And then there's a DVD called "Melies The Magician" which is a documentary about him that has a few of his movies on it (including A Trip To The Moon). "Landmarks Of Early Film" is another DVD I have out, but most of what is on there is on the Edison DVDs.

Two more DVDs that I should get in the middle of the week are "Biograph Shorts" which is 2 DVDs of D.W. Griffith's short movies that he made for the American Biograph Co. (a competitor of Edison's company).

[Groundhog]

Very interesting read Sab, and it's certainly got me interested in tracking some of these down.

The oldest movie I've ever seen is 1920's Der Golem, which is FANTASTIC.

[sabotai]

I never heard of Der Golem, and Netflix doesn't have it (either of them. Looks like one from 1915 and one from 1920). Looks like I can buy it though, but I decided before I did this not to get carried away and start buying the DVDs that Netflix didn't have yet. That would cost a small fortune. :D

[Groundhog]

I bought the Kino version (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006JMQH/sr=8-2/qid=1154391851/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-9625160-0929532?ie=UTF8), which was of the 1920's release. It's a horror movie, but as you'd expect it's not very scary today. The sets are amazing though, with one Amazon reviewer nailing it perfectly by saying they are Tim Burton-esque. Also has some very nice special effects for 1920 and is a good story to boot, with a classic final scene.

But yeah, it's easy to get carried away and start blowing wads of cash on movies like these. After I saw Der Golem I bought quite a few releases from the 20s and 30s which cost me some cash, but Der Golem stands as my favourite, even over Metropolis. But I'm probably alone in thinking that. :D

[tanglewood]

Der Golem is an absolute classic, I love German Expressionist film as a whole. However, nothing tops Metropolis for me.

Reading and enjoying this so far. The Great Train Robbery is a very interesting film to watch, so much innovation and so many firsts that are now integral to the film process.

[Swaggs]

Interesting idea.

I will be following and looking forward to seeing you progress through history.

[Lorena]

Very interesting dynasty, I'll be following.

[sabotai]

Several more shorts...(and the reason I stopped posting pics is because, as I said, these are not memorable or really all that noteworthy so I can't find pics of them online and I can't get my DVD software to take screen caps)

The Rivals (1907)
Director: Edward S. Porter
Length: 12 minutes

A simple story of men competing over a woman. Each scene was one man pulling a prank or a scheme to sabotage the guy the woman was with and take her from him. Each scheme got progressingly more and more complexe, not to mention, absurd. Kind of funny, put I never actually laughed. The funniest thing was the womna going off with the sabotaur each and every time. In the end, she marries on of them, and the other 2 congradulate them.

Historical Rating: 2/10
Entertainment Rating: 3/10

-------------------------

The Little Girl Who Did Not Believe In Santa Claus (1908)
Director: Edward S. Porter
Length: 14 minutes

This first Santa film (that I know of) starts off simple enough. One boy, living in a nice home, beleives in Santa, and a girl, who lives with her mom in what can best be described as a shack, does not. So the boy has a plan (And after this, I don't want to hear ANYONE bitching about violence in movies again!). The boy takes a GUN, and ambushes Santa when he comes to his house. Ha takes Santa hostage, ties him up and forces him to go to the little girl's house. He then makes Santa leave the girl lots of toys and creates a Christmas Tree for the girl as well. They leave, and right after they do, the little girl wakes up and finds the toys and tree. The last scene is of Santa carrying the boy back to bed. I guess that's a sign that Santa let the boy ambush him with a handgun and take him hostage. *shrug* It made it entertaining, though! :D

Historical Rating: 3/10
Entertaining Rating: 4/10

-------------------------

Rescued From An Eagles Nest (1908)
Director: Edward S. Porter
Length: 8 minutes

A short tale of a child that gets kidnapped by an eagle and taken to its nest. The mother finds the child missing and gets the father. The father and his tree-chopping down buddies find the nest on the side of a small cliff and lower the father down. An epic, 10 second battle between father and eagle ensues, in which the father kills the eagle. He then takes his son to safety.

Historical Rating: 2/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

-------------------------

New York Today (1910)
Length: 7 minutes

Another documentary. It was pretty neat to see places like Times Square and Central Park 100 years ago.

Historical Rating: 2/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10


Porter basically created a system of expressions and motions to help tell his stories. But as stories became more complex, his way of director was seen as old-fashioned. Porter mainly told well known stories and simple stories. But when you have to pump out several movies at a time, you run out of ideas and well known stories. Porter is pretty much phased out around this time, as best as I can tell. He simply didn't adapt well to new on-screen techniques that helped to advance a story. There was more than one time when I was watching one of these shorts where a few minutes in I just thought "What the hell is going on!?"

I'll pick this up later when my next batch of Netflix gets here. Probably won't get it updated until late this weekend since I'll be gone all day Friday.

[sabotai]

w00t!

I found The Golem on Netflix. Didn't see it before since they have it as just "Golem" (I searched for "The Golem" and "Der Golem" and didn't find it). So that movie goes on the list!

[sabotai]

My last shorts update before I get to the first full length film, The Bith Of A Nation.

Those Awful Hats
Length: 3 Minutes

This seemed to be the first "please be considerate at the movie theater" film. The simple plot if that women keep entering the movie theater wearing a larger, more absurd hat than the one before. Finally, the movie theater erupts into a large confrontation. The end has text on the screen asking the ladies to please remove their hats when they enter a movie theater.

Historical Rating: 3/10
Entertainment Rating: 2/10

----------------

The Sealed Room (1909)
Director: D.W.Griffith
Length: 11 minutes

The king's wife is a tramp! The king catches his wife in a room with another man. She is sitting in a chair while the man is sitting on the floor with his head in her lap. She seems to be feeding him some kind of food. The king quickly assembles a few bricklayers and seals the door. The two lovers panic as the king laughs. Then end.

Historical Rating: 4/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

-------------

The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913)
Directed By: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron
Length: 30 minutes

As with the last jump in length of film (The 2-3 minute shorts to the films like A Trip To The Moon and The Great Train Robbery), the jump in production value is also very noticable.

This movie shows a tribe of native americans battling against a town. By today's standards, the way the Inidans are shown would be extremely offensive. However, I'm trying to judge the film based on its point in history. The film shows the Indians performing a ritual, and then a few of them go to the town. Getting there, they try and kidnap a few dogs (to eat them) but the girl who owns the dogs takes them back. As the Indians are struggling with the girl, a man shoots them and she gets away. One of the Indians dies, the son of the Chief. The Indians get ready for battle and attack the town. The battle rages on for quite awhile until help comes and saves the town.

The battle scenes were pretty impressive for its day. And, having seen the first half of The Birth Of A Nation so far (will be watching the second half tonight), the battle scenes in this movie were actually better than the Civil War battles in The Birth Of A Nation (although, the be fair, this movie's climax was the battle, while the battles in The Birth Of A Nation are just used to advance the story and timeline of events and aren't that important to the movie.)

Historical Rating: 5/10
Entertainment Rating: 5/10

[Swaggs]

I'm still enjoying this dynasty. You should pimp it a bit on the main board, as I'm sure a lot of folks are missing out on it.

Also, just wanted to say that this plot sounds like one of the horrendous ones that I put together when I was playing the Movies :) :
The king's wife is a tramp! The king catches his wife in a room with another man. She is sitting in a chair while the man is sitting on the floor with his head in her lap. She seems to be feeding him some kind of food. The king quickly assembles a few bricklayers and seals the door. The two lovers panic as the king laughs. Then end.

[sabotai]

I'm still enjoying this dynasty. You should pimp it a bit on the main board, as I'm sure a lot of folks are missing out on it.

If they can't bother to check the dynasty forum, they deserve to miss out. ;)

(I may pimp it some....)

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/birthofnation.jpg http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/birthofnation2.jpg

The Birth Of A Nation (1915)
Director: D. W. Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Robert Harron
Length: 187 minutes

Honors
#44 on AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies" list (1996)

While not the first feature length film (A film over an hour long), as Griffith had made one for The Biograph Company after he was inspired by an Italian film called Cabiria that was two hours in length. After seeing Cabiria, he was convinced that feature-length films were commercially viable. The Biograph Company disagreed, and Griffith left over it, and all of the company's top actors and actresses left with him. He created his own production company and created partnerships to fund this movie.

First off, to get this out of the way since it must be said, the film is based on two novels/plays by Thomas F. Dixon Jr (The Clansman and The Leopard's Spots) and is extremely racist. All but 2 black characters are portrayed in a very negative light. (The 2 black characters that are not shown negatively are 2 black servents who stayed faithful and loyal to their sourthern masters after the war). The film celebrates the KKK as heros and protectors of the south. The NAACP protested the film when it was released, and the film was banned in a few cities. Even today, the KKK uses this film for recruitment purposes.

D.W.Griffith was the son of a conferderate soldier and raised in the south. To go off on a tangent, I was friends with a foreign exchange student when I was in high school. He came over from Egypt when we were in our junior years. He didn't like jews. At first, I was like "eh...what?", but as I thought about it, could I really blame a 16 year old Egyptian arab for not liking jews considering the enviroment he was raised in? That would be pretty unfair to him. We ended up going to the same college together, and as the years went by, he became noticably less prejudice against jews. Unfortunately, I lost touch with him after we graduated from college. The point of this is to demonstrate how I feel toward's Griffith's blatent racism in this film. I can't really blame someone for being racist in 1915 considering the enviroment he was raised in, and lived in in his adult life. It wasn't until after the film's release, and the backlash Griffith suffered for it, that he realized how racist it really was.

Here is Roger Ebert's final paragraph in his review of The Birth Of A Nation:

"As slavery is the great sin of America, so "The Birth of a Nation" is Griffith's sin, for which he tried to atone all the rest of his life. So instinctive were the prejudices he was raised with as a 19th century Southerner that the offenses in his film actually had to be explained to him. To his credit, his next film, "Intolerance," was an attempt at apology. He also once edited a version of the film that cut out all of the Klan material, but that is not the answer. If we are to see this film, we must see it all, and deal with it all."


The film is, without a doubt, a technical masterpiece. Just as the other instances before, the length of movie increased, and so did the production value with it. The film cost $110,000 to make, an astronomical sum for the time, but it's easy to see where the money went. Griffith used several innovative shots such as the full screen close up, high angle panoramic long shots, panning and moving camera shots and nighttime photography. He also used cross-cutting (cutting between multiple scenes to build suspense). He also had costumes specifically made for the film to match the fashion of the Civil War era, the first time this was done. He spared no expense to make this movie as historically accurate as he could. He even brought on West Point engineers as advisors to the battle scenes (and they also provided artillery for him to use).

The movie is broken up into two parts, and I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible. It follows the lives of two families, one in the north and one in the south. Both families suffer tragedy during the Civil War. In fact, this film is also very much an "anti-war" film. It shows the Civil Wat as a great sin and a black mark in American history. It is displayed as the death of state's rights and the creation of a federal nation, hence the title "The Birth Of A Nation".

The second part of the film is the Reconstruction story. It shows the south as oppressed and the northern whites and freed slaves as their oppressors. By today's standards, the story would probably be seen as cliche. It's basically the story of the oppressed fighting and revolting against their oppressors and the treachery of one side of the oppressors against the other, followed by atonement by some of the oppressors to the oppressed. (That's a lot of oppressing going on in there). You could easily put this in a sci-fi setting, and replace and whites, blacks and mulatto with Humans, Klingons and Romulans or put it in an medival setting and replace races with kingdoms and/or bloodlines.

Imagine paying $36 dollars to see a movie. That's how much it cost to see The Birth Of A Nation ($2 in 1915). It quickly became extremely popular and remained the most profitable movie made for decades. It grossed $10 million in its first run and had pulled in $18 million by the time 'talkies' came into existance (the film was rereleased several times over the next few decades).

To ignore this film's importance and place in history would be a crime. This film created the movie industry as we know it. Before Birth Of A Nation, studios would not make and release long films because they thought they would hurt the eyes of the viewers. They were mass production factories, pumping out as many short films as they possible could, not taking much time or money to really develop a quality film. It was quantity over quality. When this became a huge success, the feature-length film was born, and so was the movie industry.

Historical Rating: 10/10
Entertainment Rating: 6/10


Question to those following: Do you care if I post spoilers? I doubt anyone is going to view most of the filsm I post about, so if you don't really care, I'll give a more detailed explaination of the plot and story. If I do post spoilers, feel free to request that I don't for certain movies you are interested in watching at some point. I'll post a list of movies I'll be watching soon every once in awhile to keep you guys posted on what movies are coming up soon.

[Raven Hawk]

Reading and don't mind if you post spoilers. If I see in the title that it's something I might actually watch, I'll skip it until I've actually watched it. This is a fun little dynasty to read through.

[sabotai]

Upcoming Movies

Carmen (1915)
The Cheat (1915)
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)
Intoloerance (1916)
Broken Blossoms (1918)
Outside The Law (1920)
Der Golem (1920)
Way Out East (1920)
The Mark Of Zorro (1920)

Lost Films or Films Not on DVD
(these are movies that are on my list, but I can't watch because they have not made it to DVD yet, or they have been lost)

The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)
Cleopatra (1917)
Mickey (1918)
Tarzan Of The Apes (1918)
Within Our Gates (1920)

[Buccaneer]

Very well done. Please post spoilers.

I can't wait until you get to Nosferatu and something on Max Schreck, perhaps the greatest of all pre-talkies.

[thealmighty]

Spoilers won't be a problem for me.

[tanglewood]

Very well done. Please post spoilers.

I can't wait until you get to Nosferatu and something on Max Schreck, perhaps the greatest of all pre-talkies.

Hey Bucc, what was it like to see the first talkies?

[Swaggs]

Spoilers are fine with me.

[Groundhog]

Yeah, I don't think spoilers are a major problem. I'll do as RH says, and just not read the review if I plan on catching the film.

[sachmo71]

If you can't avoid spoliers without explaining the film the way you want to, then I think it would be fine.

[molson]

I think the statute of limitations on "spoilers" is about 80 years, so you should be good.

Great read, you've encouraged me to diversify my Netlifx queue.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/carmen.jpg

Carmen (1915)
Directed By: Cecil B. DeMille
Starring: Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid, Pedro de Corboda
Length: 59 minutes

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Passions"

Based on an opera by the same na,e this is the story of a woman who helps a band of smugglers. A new guard shows up to guard a hole in the city wall. His name is Don Jose. The smugglers try to bribe him, but he will have none of it, so they get a woman, Carmen, to seduce him so they can get their smuggled goods into the city.

She does a bit too good of a job at it, and Don Jose becomes obsessed with Carmen, ultimately getting into an arguement with a fellow guard and killing him. The smugglers help Don Jose flee, but he follows Carmen and her lover to the city of Seville. There, he confronts Carmen, tells her that she belongs to him, and as they struggle, he pulls a knife and kills her. Immeditately filled with grief over what he had just done, he kills himself.

The move was ok. Nothing all that great or technically impressive. The only reason the movie ended up on my list was because it came on the same DVD as the next movie I watched, The Cheat. The two most notable things, maybe the only notable things, is the director and that Charlie Chaplin spoofed it.

Historical Rating: 2/10
Entertainment Rating: 3/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Thecheat1.jpg

The Cheat
Directed by: Cecil B. DeMille
Starring: Fannie Ward, Jack Dean, Sessue Hayakawa
Length: 59 minutes

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies"
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills"

There once was a man named Richard Hardy (played by Jack Dean) who had a wife, Edith Hardy (played by Fannie Ward) who would spend and spend and spend some more. Richard Hardy had all of his money in stock investments, and could not afford his wife's spending habits. He kept assuring her that his stock would pay off soon.

She was also the treasurer of a Red Cross charity. She recieved a stock tip from a friend, and took the money from the charity and put it in the stock. Oops, the stock fell through and the charity's $10,000 was gone. She asked Haka Arakau, another friend of her's, for a loan. He'd give it....for a price. Her body. She agreed.

Her husband's stock hit the next day and she tried to pay the money back, but Mr. Arakau wouldn't accept and wanted his prize. She fought back, and he branded her on the shoulder. She fights him off, grabs his gun and shoots him. After she runs away, her husband shows up just before the cops. He takes the blame for the shooting.

He is put on trial for the shooting. Even after finding out why she was there, he still wanted to take the blame and told her to not say anything. As the verdict of guilty is read, she loses it, stands in front of the court and shows the branding and says she shot him. The court erupts into a brawl, for some odd reason. Mr. Hardy's verdict is overturned and he and his wife leave the courtroom.

What the fuck. Maybe there was a different code of chivalry back then, but why did he take the blame if her telling the truth meant no trial, for either of them?

Ok, I did not like the plot, especially at the end, as I kind of found the characters way too unbelievably 2 dimensional. However, story telling in these silent films has gotten quite good. With only showing bits and pieces of the conversation (text of the screen), you can still easily follow along. The use of music, camera and lighting techniques and body language really goes a long way in keeping the audience informed as to what is happening. Earlier films (the shorts), I had no clue what was going on a lot of the time, but am having no trouble following now. Maybe I've gotten a bit used to them, but I think that movie making had become an art form by this time. I give this a bit of a high historical rating, since apparently some people in the AFI like it. But I didn't really enjoy the movie that much.

Historical Rating: 5/10
Entertainment Rating: 2/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/twentyleagues.jpg

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)
Director: Stuart Parton
Starring: Matt Moore, Dan Hanlon, Jane Gail, Allen Holubar
Length: 101 Minutes

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies"

Adapted from the novel by Jules Verne, this was the first movie to use filming from underwater. Part of the movie felt like it was just a demostration of this new technique.This was the second time Jules Verne's novel was made into a film. The first was in 1907 by George Melies.

The story is the basic story of revenge. Captain Nemo builds a submarine, called Nautilus, to rule the ocean and seek revenge on the world. I never read the original novel, but reading over the plot of the novel on wikipedia shows that the film makers of this movie changed quite a bit from the novel. As best as I can tell, most movie makers tried to stay as faithful to the original play/novel as possible. This might be the first time a movie deviated a lot from the original source.

The movie introduces a whole new story arc involving an island, a hot-air baloon crew and a "wild girl". Also, in the movie, Captain Nemo is made to be a former Prince from India and his revenge is directed at once person, instead of "civilization" as a whole.

The most redeeming quality of the film are the underwater shots. They didn't go very far, but they did get some video of schools of fish, sharks, and all kinds of coral. Neat, but overall the movie wasn't all that good. I suspect it was a nominee for the 100 movies list on the underwater photography alone.

Historical Rating: 5/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/intolerance1.jpg

Intolerance (1916)
Director: D.W. Griffth
Starring: Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Elmer Clifton, Alfred Paget, Seena Owen
Length: 178 Minutes

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies"
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills"

D.W. Griffth's follow up to The Birth Of A Nation, he created this film as an answer to the controversy that Borth caused. He originally was creating a shorter film about the Progressive Era labor unrest and strikes. He added three seperate story lines taking place in different time periods and wrapped them around a single theme.

The modern story is about a man who scrapes by after losing his job. He ends up marrying a girl, but is framed for a crime by a local "mob boss" for whom he did work for, but quit. While in jail, his wife gives birth to their child, but then the child is taken away by a group of over-zealous women who think they know better than everyone else and that their perceptions are always spot on (DYFS anyone?). They get a warrent to take her baby away. The mob boss promises to get her baby back, after he takes an interest in her. Her husband is released from jail, but when the mob boss' wife kills the mob boss, the husband is found with the gun (the boss' wife threw the gun into the room and the husband picked it up) and is taken back to jail and sentanced to death. The mob boss' wife confesses and the man is saved at the last second.

The second story line is that of Jesus and his batryal and crucifixion. It was pretty much worthless as there were only 3 or 4 scenes for this story line and took up a toal of 10 minutes, if that. It felt tacted on.

The third story line is that of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre during the reigh of Cathrine de Mecini and her son Charles IX of France. Another pretty worthless storyline as it took up maybe 15 minutes, if that. This storyline felt tacted on as well and only served, along with the previous storyline, as a distraction from the modern story and the 4th story, the fall of Babylon. I continually forgot about these two story lines as the Modern and Babylon stories dominated in length.

The 4th story, and best story IMO, was the Babylon story. It is the story of a Mountain Girl who is sent to the Babylonian Courts by her brother for being "incorrigable". King Belshazzar gives her freedom from the "marriage market" (she was sentanced there by the court to be sold to a good husband). Later, she is sentanced to death for fighting a priest, but the King pardons her when she pleads that the only reason she attacked the priest was because he said bad things about the king. The Mountain Girl learns of a plot by the High Priest to betray the king, but the king is hesitant to believe her. His hesitation causes the downfall of Babylon as the Persian armies enter the great city when the gates are left open.

Two huge battles are fought during the Babylon story. The sets built for the Babylon story were enormous, the largest built for a movie. They featured thousands of extras, cavarly and war elephants for the battles, large props, etc. Part of the set for the Babylon story stood in Hollywood for many years.

The movie cuts between storylines as the movie progresses, the first time a movie was present in a non-linear/hybrid way. Intolerance was not a commercial success, most likely due in large part to this. Audiences were not used to seeing a movie this way and were probably confused through some of it.

The Babylong story was very entertaining, while the Modern story was just okay. As I said before, the Judean and French storylines were pretty worthless and only served as a distraction due to them being very short compared to the other two. Recent archeaologist finds at the time had spurred interest in Babylonian times, and I wonder if it would have been more profitable had Griffith released the Modern story and Babylon stories as seperate movies. The budget is unknown, but best estimates place it at $2 million ($33 million today), an astronomical sum for the time. It was a flop at the box office, and caused Griffith's studio to go bankrupt. This result might be part of the reason why it would be awhile before a studio put that much money into making a movie again.

The historical rating is high, despite it being a flop, as many people do consider it a masterpiece and one of the best silent films ever made. The entertainment rating suffers due to 3 of the 4 storylines not being that good. Rating them seperately, I'd give the Babylon story an 8, the Modern story a 5 and the two storylines that were so short, I already have forgotten what they were about, 2 each.

Historical Rating: 8/10
Entertainment Raiting: 6/10

[Router Help]

I hope the MPAA doesn't sue me for posting a movie here, but here is a copy of the oldest surviving movie. It's name is Roundhay Garden Scene, and it was directed in 1888 by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince.

http://www.jaylark.com/rgs.gif

IMDB Page: Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0392728/)

[Abe Sargent]

nice movie!

[Buccaneer]

That was great to see. Actual footage of real people of the 1880s!

[sabotai]

Nice find, Router!

[tanglewood]

What is that guy in the coat on the right doing? SOme kind of jig it looks like to me.

[KWhit]

That was great to see. Actual footage of real people of the 1880s!

That must bring back a lot of memories for you.

[Butter]

Those "Bucc is old" jokes never get tired.

[SFL Cat]

Bucc: damnit, they didn't respect my privacy even back then....

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/BrokenBlossoms.jpg

Broken Blossoms (1919)
Directed By: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp
Length: 90 min

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Passions"

We jump up to 1919 from 1916's Intolerance. One reason, I suspect, would be because of World War I effecting the nation. Another would be that a lot of movies still haven't made their way to DVD from this time (and we'll see this again in the mid 1920s). Not to mention a lot of movies from this time just have not survived.

Today, the language in the movie would be seen as quite offensive. Cheng Huan (played by Richard Barthelmess) is a Buddhist from China who leaves for London to spread the word of Buddhism. As a white actor trying to portray a chinese character, he spends most of the film with his eyes mostly shut. He looks like he's asleep for most of the film. His character is also called "The Yellow Man" and "Chink" in the text shown on the screen. But, during this time, there was only one actor (Sessue Hayakawa) of East-Asian decent that played leading roles in films. The rest were played by whites.

Lillian Gish plays Lucy, the daughter of an abusive father and boxer named Battling Burrows. He routinely beats Lucy when he had been drinking causing Lucy to live most of her life in fear of her father. Cheng Huan, after arriving in London, becomes a shopkeeper and opium addict. He admires Lucy's beauty from afar until one day he finds her outside his shop, passed out after wandering around after another beating from her father. Huan takes her inside his shop and cares for her.

And, of course, they fall in love (but no touching!) Lucy's father finds out where she is and takes her back home by force. She runs into a closet but her father grabs and axe and chops the door (The Shining!) She screams for her life, but her dad gets to her, pulls her out and beats her to death. Huan shows up shortly after, finds Lucy dead and shoots Battle Burrows to death. He then goes back to his show, and can not live without her, and kills himself.

While a lot of the language, and the portrayal of a chinese man by Bethelmess, would be considered pretty offensive by today's standards, this was one of the first, if not the first, on screen inter-racial love stories. It was a film, that Roger Ebert says, "helped nudge a xenophobic nation toward racial tolerance."

Historical Rating: 7/10
Entertainment Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/OutsidetheLaw.jpg

Outside The Law (1920)
Directed By: Tod Browning
Starring: Priscilla Dean, Wheeler Oakman, Lon Chaney
Length: 75 min

Lon Chaney played two roles in this film. The one pictured above (Ah Wing) and as the main bad guy, mobster 'Black' Mike Sylva. He was a pioneer of make up in movies, but we'll get to that in later films (namely, the monster/horror films he starred in).

Molly Madden (Priscilla Dean) and her father were once crooks who went straight with the help of Ah Wing (Lon Chaney), a teacher of Confucius philosophy. However, 'Black' Mike Sylva (Lon Chaney) frames Molly's father of a crime, and he is sent to prison. Sylva's framing of Molly's father is known only to Dapper Bill Ballard (Wheeler Oakman) who then turn to set up Molly.

However, Molly and Dapper Bill turn the tables on Sylva and make off with a fortune in jewelry and go into hiding. Sylva tries to track down the two theives as Ah Wing makes a deal with the chief of police that the charges will be dropped if Molly and Dapper Bill return the jewels. Ah Wing correctly predicts the two will have a change of heart, thanks to a little boy that melts their hearts, but it happens a bit too late as Sylva finds them. A back and forth struggle of words and actions between the three ensue. In the end, Sylva's framing of Molly's father is revealed, while Molly and Dapper Bill are let go.

A good crime thriller that painfully drags in the middle. The whole story arc with the kid is just....well, something that people who love kids will probably eat up. I felt like vomiting.

Lon Chaney, of course, steals the show in his role of 'Black' Mike Sylva, as I'm sure he stole the show in most movies he did. In the era of Silent film, it seems like every actor either overacts or underacts, does things way too slowly or way too fast, and just generally comes off as odd and boring as they do their best to act their lines. To me, making 'odd' boring is a sin! Lon Chaney seemed to find just the right level of behavior acting and just the right pace. I would say, admittedly based on this one performance, he is so far the best actor I've seen on my journey, followed closely by Lillian Gish.

The historic rating of Outside The Law is hurt by the fact that it doesn't seem to be remembered much at all. It didn't make its way as a nominee for any of AFI's lists, there aren't any reviews of the film by modern critics (like those I've been able to find of Ebert on Nation, Intolerance and Blossoms). And, I could only find one pic on the internet from the movie, and that was of the supporting character that Chaney played. It would seem that the only real historic merit it has is that it has Lon Chaney in it! Entertainment wise, it would score higher if it wasn't for the middle. Great beginning, good ending, horrible in between.

Historical Rating: 4/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/DerGolem.jpg

Der Golem (How He Came Into the World) (1920)
Directed by: Carl Boese
Starring: Paul Wegener, Albert Steinruck, Lyda Salmonova
Length: 85 min

One of the first, if not the first, monster movie that would go on to be the prototype of many other monster films, namely Frankenstein.

In the city of Prague, the jewish ghetto is being evicted. The city just wants all of the jews gone. Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) creates a man made out of clay, called Golem (Paul Wegener), and he comes alive when the Rabbi places an amulet on the creature's chest. The Rabbi created the clay made man to protect the jewish community, and after displaying the Golem's ability to the queen, she decides to reverse her order to evict the jews.

However, Rabbi Loew loses control of the Golem for some astrological reason and it starts to go crazy. Rabbi Loew quickly takes the amulet, however, and all is saved. That is, until Rabbi Loew's assistent, who is in love with the rabbi's daughter (played by Lyda Salmonova), catches the rabbi's hussy daughter being all hussy with another man. The assistant reactivates Golem and leads it to kill the rabbi's daughter's lover. Much insanity ensues. The Golem leaves the city to find children playing, one of them gives Golem a flower (I think). A scene that would be duplicated in countless Frankenstein movies.

Some of the scenes are very Tim Burton-esque, or should I saw Tim Burton's scenes are very German Expressionistic. Not scary by today's standards, but I can imagine the audience in 1920 sitting in the theater, and being scared out of their wits at seeing Paul Wegener's eyes open really wide as he slowly turns towards Albert Steinruck with his hands out. Definitely a different style of filmmaking from that of american film makers of the time. The sets are very interesting, and were definitely left an impression on Tim Burton (or left an impression on someone who influenced Burton). Some of the scenes reminded my of Bettlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, expecially the building architecture.

Unfortunately, as far as historic rating goes, Der Golem (the third or a series of Golem movies and only surviving film of the series) is oftan overshadowed by a film I will get to soon called The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Almost anything that mentions German films from the early 1920s reference Dr. Caligari, along with Metropolis. But, it gets a little bump up as it's obvious that a lot of monster films and film makers were influenced by this series.

This film was pretty entertaining to me, despite the slow pace. Not only were the sets interesting, but the style and techniques were as well. An example would be that so far in movies I have seen on my journey, every fade out meant the scene was over. Every single one. But, in Der Golem, there is a scene where a quick fade out is used when the character covers up one light source, and then quickly fades in when he opens a different light source (the door) and then fades out quickly again as the door is shut. A fade out and then fade in during the same scene. Definitely an interesting scene and one that immediately stuck out as I watched the film, as many more scenes would jump out at me as I watched the movie. A must see for horror movie fans (for historical purposes) and for those who are interested in film making (for technique and style purposes) .

Historical Rating: 6/10
Entertainment Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Note: Horror, fantasy, sci-fi, etc. These movies will be rated a bit higher in entertainment than a lot of other movies. They are the genres that I prefer, along with crime/mob movies as well as historical epics.

Romance movies (love stories), musicals, movies that try and teach/preach a moral or political message (if I pick up on it), I will tend not to like these movies. Just keep that in mind when looking at the entertainment ratings.

[sabotai]

Upcoming Movies

Way Down East (1920)
The Mark of Zorro (1920)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
The Sheik (1921)
The Kid (1921)
The Three Musketeers (1921)
Shadows (1922)
Robin Hood (1922)
Oliver Twist (1922)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Safety Last (1923)
Our Hospitality (1923)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

Lost Films or Films Not on DVD
(these are movies that are on my list, but I can't watch because they have not made it to DVD yet, or they have been lost)

Within Our Gates (1920)
The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1921)
Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (1922)
Scarmouche (1923)
La Roue (1923)

[Groundhog]

Yay, thanks for keeping this going, it's a very entertaining read. Glad to see you enjoyed Der Golem, too!

[Buccaneer]

Nosferatu (1922)

Thank you! Look forward to your review.

[Pumpy Tudors]

This is like reliving the film history class I took in college about 5 years ago. We watched (at least pieces of) many of these films, and I thought it was fascinating. Is The Battleship Potemkin on your list? That film is worth watching for the Odessa Steps scene alone.

Also, I'm interested in your upcoming review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I thought that it was rather interesting, although I found it to be difficult to follow at times. I can't wait to see what someone else thinks of it.

[sabotai]

Yes, Battleship Potemkin is on the list as is Strike, Sergei Eisenstein's first movie.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/MarkOfZorro.jpg

The Mark Of Zorro (1920)
Directed By: Fred Niblo
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte, Noah Beery
Length: 90 min

Honors
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills"

It didn't take long for Zorro to be made for film. Based on the 1919 story, "The Curse of Capistrano", The Mark of Zorro is the tale of corruption in Mexico-owned California in the early 19th century and a masked hero who shows up to save the people.

Fairbanks plays Don Diego, the son of a wealthy land owner, but in a mask, he goes by the name of Zorro. The film starts off with, what I consider, the best scene. In a tavern, Captain Juan Ramon speaks of wanting to meet Zorro when Don Diego shows up. Ramon continues grandstanding while Diego just sits backs. He leaves, and a minute later, Zorro shows up and makes a fool of Ramon. As they fight, Zorro is just playing with him and I even laughed at some of the stunts Zorro pulls on Ramon.

Back to civilian life, Don Diego's parents try to set him up with a woman (Lolita) but he's clumsy, doesn't know what to say and makes me seem like Don Juan. But, when he shows up as Zorro, he completely wins her over with his confidence and romantic talk. Uh oh, Captain Juan Ramon has his eyes set on Lolita as well.

Zorro wins over some of the soldiers, and when Lolita's family is jailed, they resque them. Zorro takes a different route (heads back to his home) to throw off the pursuit. Ramon shows up at Diego's house, but they find Lolita there. Knowing the ruse is up, Diego pulls out his sword and fights. Everyone knows he is Zorro by the way he fights. He wins, of course, and all is right with the world. Well, California at least.

Fairbanks does a good job as the flashy swashbuckler, and he started the swashbuckler adventure genre of movies. However, by todays standards...well, he kind of looks like Bob Newhart. Can you imagine Bob Newhart playing the role of Zorro? I can, now. Other than Fairbanks not looking the part (by today's standards), it was a pretty entertaining adventure movie. Very high historic marks for being the movie that launches Fairbanks career as one of the film stars in history that would become synomonous with swashbuckler adventures, and for launching, in general, a genre that was almost completely dead in American entertainment. But, a few marks against it as it doesn't seem to be remembered as well as some of Fairbank's other swashbuckler movies.

For entertainment, it hurts because the fighting scenes almost look chaotic. Fairbanks was an accomplished fencer, and the fights probably were choreographed, but they looked neither choreographed, or worse, real. It reminded me of when I was a kid and me and my friends would pretend to swordfight. The action sequences really just don't hold up. Unfortunately, not much from this era really does hold up after almost a century, but action sequences seem to be the worse. But there is one thing that does hold up, though. Comedy is comedy, and as I said before, some of the comedic stunts that Zorro pulls on his opponents did get a few laughs out of me.

Historical Rating: 7/10
Entertainment Rating: 6/10

Hollywood Historical Notes:

Douglas Fairbanks met Mary Pickford in 1916 and began an affair with her (they were both married). Mary Pickford was a famous actress who we have not seen on my journey, unfortunately, due to The Poor Little Rich Girl not being on DVD. In 1919, Fairbanks was divorced by his wife. But his career was taking off and he, Pickford and Charlie Chaplin formed United Artist so that they could control their work instead of the studios. In March 1920, Pickford divorced her first husband and quickly married Fairbanks. They were nervous about the public's reation, but it was positive. The public loved that the hero married the sweethart and they were the first "Hollywood Marriage" (and like the modern Hollywood marriage, it didn't last, although it did last a bit longer than the normal modern Hollywood couple). Later that year, The Mark Of Zorro was one of United Artist's first releases.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/WayOutEast.jpg

Way Down East (1920)
Directed By: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh
Length: 145 min

Honors
#71 - AFI's "100 Years...100 Passions"
Nominated AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills"

I wonder if Griffith ever put Lillian Gish into a role where her character doesn't suffer through much of the film. It always seems like she's crying or running for her life.

Gish plays Anna, a naive country girl that goes to the city to be with her wealthy aunt. While there, she meets Lennox Sanderson, a womanizer. He convinces Anna to marry him and keep it a secret. She heads back home and her secret meetings happen less and less. When she becomes pregnent, he tells her that they weren't actually married, that he had tricked her, and he left. Anna's mother dies soon after, and Anna moves into a room at an inn. While there, she gives birth and cares for her baby, but it becomes sick and dies. The woman running the inn finds out that she doesn't have a husband and kicks her out.

Anna finds her way to a farm and, after some hesitation, they take her and give her work to do (The farm is owned by Squire Bartlett). As it happens, a boy on the farm falls for Anna when he sees her, but he (David) is already arranged to be married to a woman named Kate. Kate draws the attraction of a scientist and her neighbor. Who is her neighbor? Why, it's Lennox of course! One day Lennox and Anna cross paths at he tells her that she has to leave but she refuses. Lennox reminds her that once they find out about her past, they will kick her out.

Well, what do you know! One of Squire Bartlett's children is in town one day when she runs into the woman innkeeper that booted Anna. She sees Anna outside of a window and tells the Bartlett child about her past. She informs Squire Bartlett of what happened. After some investigating, Squire Bartlett finds out the truth about Anna

During the middle of winter, during a terrible blizzard at night, Bartlett does what anyone would do. He kicked out of the house right then and there. But, before Anna goes running off, she reveals that Lennox tricked her and that he was the father of the baby. All hell breaks loose as Anna runs off and David runs off after her.

Where it gets the AFI nomination for Thrills is the scene that follows. She passes out on some ice that happens to be on a river. The ice breaks loose and she is sent down the river while David jumps between large pieces of ice on the river to make a daring rescue right before she was about to go down a waterfall. I was actually quite impressed with this scene. Even though during this time there was still a lot of inconsistency between shots, I was impressed that it tooked as good as it did (even though in some shots, you could easily tell the waterfall was only a few feet high.)

In the end, everything is forgiven, David marries Anna, Kate marries her scientist, and in the comedic relief portion, the Bartlett child that ratted Anna out marries some dead beat from the town. At this point, one of the first man on man kisses to be on screen happened (for a completely comedic purpose). The dead beat goes to kiss his wife, but she is distracted, bends down and he kisses another dude.

The film would become one of the most popular silent films made, taking in over five million dollars at the box office.

I have noticed that something that has become all too common in silent films is not common in a D.W. Griffith film. The pace of some of these silent films are really slow, to the point of painful boredom, and I'm talking about movies that are only 90 minutes or less. However, Griffith shows why he is considered the best silent film director in these movies. This movie was nearly two and half hours, yet it never dragged down. It kept a nice, steady pace throughout the movie. But, one thing I am getting a bit tired of is seeing Lillian Gish play the same basic character. The damsel in distress, the depressed, wounded girl. This was the third time where I see her play this through the entire film. However, looking at my list, we will get to see miss Lillian Gish with director D.W. Griffth one more time.

For historical rating, it's rated high. Voted as one of the top romantic movies in cinema history, an impressive chase/rescue scene at the end and the 5th biggest grossing silent movie.

For entertainment, well, it is a romance movie. And a long one, too. While the pace was good, the story was mildly interesting, it was filled with too many coincidences for my tastes. Coincidences just don't sit well with me. The Bartlett's neighbor just happens to be Lennox Sanderson. The woman innkeeper just happens to go to that town, on that day, and see Anna for that minute, and..and...and it just keeps going on. I don't like stories that rely too much on extreme coincidences, and this one did.

Historical Rating: 8/10
Entertainment Rating: 4/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/CabinetCaligari.jpg

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Directed By: Robert Wiene
Starring: Lil Dagover, Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Fredrich Feher
Length: 71 min

A twist ending! I love it!

The movie starts off with a man named Francis (Fredrich Feher) telling another person how he and his wife had gotten engaged.

Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) shows up at a carnival to display is somnabulist (sleepwalker), Cesare (Conrad Veidt). Cesare has been sleeping for 24 years and awakens at the command of Dr. Caligari to answer questions about anything. One person, a friend of Francis' and a "competitor" to win the hand of the one they both love, asks when will he die, and Cesare answers, in a horror-like fashion, that the man will ide at dawn tomorrow. And then it happens.

The police suspect Dr. Caligari, but he escapes when the police are inspecting the cabinet that Cesare live in, basically, and find a dummy. Cesare was not in the box, as he was trying to murder the woman Francis was in love with. The attempted murder is foiled. Francis goes to a hospital to ask if any of them know a Dr. Caligari, and finds out that Dr. Caligari is the head of the hospital! Francis, along with several employees of the hospital, break into his office one night and find his journal, proving that he is the man who was at the carnival. They capture him, put him in a straightjacket.

Then it cuts back to Francis telling the man about his wife, and we find out that Francis is actually locked away in the insane asylum, along with is "wife", Cesare, and other people who appeared in his story. Dr. Caligari is still the head of the hospital and is attacked by Francis. They lock Francis away as the movie ends. But as the movie fades out, Dr. Caligari puts on his glasses and looks the way he did in Francis' story. We are left not knowing if any part of Francis' story was true, but in what will become tradition for horror mivies, we get a "The End?" ending instead of a "The End." ending.

A very satisfying twist ending that didn't feel cheap at all. The opening of the movie gives hints at the twist ending to come, as the characters say wierd things and act unusual.

The German Expressionism in this film is far more noticable than in Der Golem. Every set was twisted and surreal. It's clear that this film influenced Tim Burton not only in set design, but Edward Scissorhands has a bit more than a passing similarity in appearance to Caligari's somnabulist Cesare, and for that same movie, the structure is the same. Start off with the main protagonist telling a story to someone else, playing out the story, and then coming back at the end.

For historical rating, this film is mentioned far more than Der Golem, and is talked about as the beginning of the horror genre. I'm not even sure if you could overstate the amount of influence this movie had over the entire genre (as well as other genres) for the entire history of film. It even influenced music artists like Rob Zombie (the music video for "Living Dead Girl") and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (the music video for "Otherside"). Somone even adapted the movie as an opera.

As far as entertainment goes, this is so far my favorite silent film. It was suspenseful, the pace was good, it was unpredictable and smart. I don't think I ever thought "Now, why the hell are you doing that!? You idiot!!" during the movie, like I do in a lot of horror movies. I enjoyed this one a lot and it will probably make it onto my list of DVDs to buy.

Historical Rating: 9/10
Entertainment Rating: 8/10

[Buccaneer]

Excellent writeups on the last two despite being challenging.

[sachmo71]

I also loved The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. I watched it for a class on the Weimar Republic.

[sabotai]

An updated List of movies to 1923 as I've added 4 more.

Upcoming Movies

The Last of the Mohicans (1920)*
The Sheik (1921)
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)**
Orphans of the Storm (1921)***
The Kid (1921)
Through The Back Door (1921) **
The Three Musketeers (1921)
Shadows (1922)
Robin Hood (1922)
Oliver Twist (1922)
Tess of the Storm Country (1922)**
Nosferatu (1922)
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Safety Last (1923)
Our Hospitality (1923)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

* - I've actually watched this one already. Look for the review tomorrow!

** - Added because I wanted to throw some Mary Pickford movies into it, seeing as how she was a big star and one of her movies, aside from one not on DVD, doesn't appear on my list until 1926.

*** - Added because I've become a fan of Lillian Gish, and this was the last movie she did with director D.W. Griffith

Lost Films or Films Not on DVD
(these are movies that are on my list, but I can't watch because they have not made it to DVD yet, or they have been lost)

Within Our Gates (1920)
The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse (1921)
Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (1922)
Scarmouche (1923)
La Roue (1923)

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/lotm.jpg

The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
Directed By: Maurice Tourneur, Clarence Brown
Starring: Wallace Beery, Barbera Bedford, Alan Roscoe, Lillian Hall
Length: 73 min.

It's not going to be easy for a movie to follow up a great movie like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This film is regarded well, but I did not like it much and it may have to do with it being watched after watching a movie I loved.

The Monro sisters, along with Major Duncan Heyward and psalmist David Gamut, are being led to Fort William Henry by an indian guide, Magua. They get lost and Magua disappears when they come across a scout named Hawkeye and his indian friends, Uncas and Chingackgook. Cora Monro is immediately drawn towards Uncas.

Magua was setting up an ambush but coming across Hawkeye and his Mohican friends ruined it. However, they are still in trouble as they seek a cave for hiding. Magua and his party end up fidning them and taking the Munros, Heyward and Gamut prisoner. Another battle ensues as Hawkeye and the Mohicans try to free them.

They eventually end up in a "trial"-like situation where the cheif sets the young, blonde haired Monro free, but the dark-haired Cora Monro is sent off with Magua. Uncas follows them. Cora finds an edge of a cliff and threatens to jump if Magua does not let her go, so they play the waiting game as Magua sits and waits for Cora to fall asleep. A long time passes, and just as Uncas reaches them, Cora wakes up as Magua tries to grab her and jumps. Magua and Uncas fight, and Magua wins by killing Uncas. Hawkeye returns the favor, and shoots Magua dead. After this, a long funeral scene ends the movie.

The film was, in a word, boring. There's not much more to say than that. The acting was bad, the directing was decent, however. The ending just didn't make much sense. Uncas says he's going to follow them to Magua and Cora as they are leaving the village, yet she still jumps instead of waiting for rescue. And the funeral scene...just end the damn movie already!

Historically it's rated decent. It's preserved in the Library of Congress, and is one of the more highly regarded adaptations of the book. Having not read the book, I do not know how faithful the adaptation was.

Entertainment, again, boring. I just couldn't really get into the movie. Some of the fighting scenes were hard to follow. The pace was up and down like crazy. Sometimes it would go a long time before anything really happened, and then you're smacked with a lot of hard to follow action. A bad rating on this type of movie is pretty bad coming from me, as this is one of the types of movies I generally enjoy.

Historical Rating: 5/10
Entertainment Rating: 3/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Sheik.jpg

The Sheik (1921)
Directed By: George Melford
Starring: Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres, Adolphe Menjou
Length: 80 Min.

Honors
#80 - AFI's "100 Years...100 Passions"

A romance movie........anyway....

The Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan (Rudolph Valentino) meets a white woman, Lady Diana Mayo (Agnes Ayres) and is attracted to her. So when she leaves the safety of the city by herself, he kidnaps her and takes her as his wife. She fights him at first, but over time she ends up falling in love with him.

However, she hides it. The Sheik decides to free her after his friend, Raoul St. Hubert (Adolphe Menjou) talks him into letting her go. Before that can happen, Lady Diana is kidnapped by a rival sheik. Ahmed rescues her, but is critically injured. As Diani is nursing Ahmed back to health, she learns from Hubert that the Sheik is actually European and was adopted by the former sheik. When the Sheik had recovered, Lady Diana stays with him.

The film got mixed reviews from critics. It also changed things up from the novel it was based on. For instance, in the novel Lady Diana is raped by the Sheik, but they left that out of the movie entirely.

The movie did do extremely well with the female audience, and as a result, Valentino became one of film's first sex symbol. Obviously, the film is historically important as it spawned several spoofs and launched Valentino's career. Entertainment....well, I don't like romance movies very much, and I didn't really like this one either.

Historical Rating: 6/10
Entertainment Rating: 2/10

[sabotai]

I didn't get much movie watching done in the last month. I have watched 5 more and need to write those up.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/LittleLordF2.jpg

Liitle Lord Fauntleroy (1921)
Directed By: Alfred E. Green
Starring: Mary Pickford, Claude Gillingwater, Joseph J. Dowling
Length: 112 min.

Mary Pickford, a 29 year old woman, plays a boy, as in a child.

This movie seems to sum up everything that Pickford hated about her image. She got stuck playing children characters, and her image was so cemented in the role of "America's Sweetheart" that the public responded very negatively anytime she would play a part that was adult or sexual in any way.

In Little Lord Fauntleroy, The son of the Earl of Dorincourt (Claude Gillingwater) marries a commoner, and the Earl believes his son's wife was just marring him for his money. They have a child, Cedric (Mary Pickford). Cedric's father dies shortly after he is born and the Earl cuts off all contact until the Earl's other son dies, leaving Cedric as the only heir.

Cedric and his mother (also played by Mary Pickford) are invited to the Earl's estate as the Earl tries and gets to know his grandson. As the relationship grows, a woman shows up with a children claiming it to be the rightful heir. Their deception is exposed and the Earl, Cedric and Cedric's mother all become one big happy family.

Aside from watching Mary Pickford play the role of a boy, the movie itself wasn't really all that good, and it hardly ever gets referenced aside her other movies.

Entertainment Rating: 3/10
Historical Rating: 2/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/The_Kid.jpg

The Kid (1921)
Directed By: Charlie Chaplan
Starring: Charlie Chaplan, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan
Length: 68 min

Honors
AFI's "100 Years...100 Movies" Nominee
AFI's "100 Years...100 Laughs" Nominee

Chaplan directs and stars, as always, as The Tramp. In this movie, The Tramp finds an abandoned child in an alley. After a few comical tries to leave the baby with someone else, he ends up keeping the child and raising him. 5 years later, the kid (played by Jackie Coogan) is The Tramp's partner in crime. The Tramp is a winder replacer/fixer (it would seem) and Coogan goes around smashing windows so they have to get their windows fixed.

One day the kid gets sick and a doctor is called. The doctor finds out that the kid isn't actuall The Tramp's child, so the police come to take him away. The Tramp chases after and is able to rescue the kid, but it's only temporary. The kid is reunited with his birth mother, a woman who has made it big as an actress since abandoning her child. The movie ends happily as the woman reunites the kid with The Tramp at her house.

The movie itself was good, but I guess I was expecting a bit more, considering Chaplan's reputation and fame. This film lauched Jackie Coogan's career as Hollywood's first child actor at the age of 7. Coogan's finanaces from being a child actor star was the inspiration behind the California Child Actor's Bill, a Bill that stated parents of child actors must put 15% of the actor's income into a trust. Coogan's mother and step-father took Coogan's estimated $4 million that he earned. Coogan sued, but only received $126,000.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[Groundhog]

Good to see this back!

[Buccaneer]

I'm a little confused about the Mary Pickford roles. She plays a child - was it trick photography? If she also played the mother, was split screens used?

[Groundhog]

I'm a little confused about the Mary Pickford roles. She plays a child - was it trick photography? If she also played the mother, was split screens used?

From the screenshot it looks like she might be standing in front of a screen with the mother footage on it, ala Journey to the Center of the Earth and countless other old sci fi movies that involved massive monsters.

[sabotai]

I'm a little confused about the Mary Pickford roles. She plays a child - was it trick photography? If she also played the mother, was split screens used?

Back then, they way they did effects along these lines was through double/multiple exposure of the film. They would film the actor doing one thing, rewind the film, and then rerecord over the film.

I found this on imdb's site:


In scene in which Little Lord Fauntleroy meets Dearest (both parts being played by Mary Pickford (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0681933/)) the kiss-on-the-cheek cut took 15 hours to film and lasts 3 seconds on-screen due to the complexity of the multiple exposures. To ensure stability between takes, the camera used by cinematographer Charles Rosher (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003546/) was weighted down to the tune of close to a ton.
As for when she was on screen with other actors, a lot of the time, it was close enough to only see from the waist up. I'd imagine that she was standing on a lower platform than everyone else. Just speculation though, since the DVD didn't have a "Making Of" featurette on the DVD. :)

[ntndeacon]

I think I saw that TCM had Scaramouche on the other day. Idon't know what year that version was, but you might want to see if TCM will be showing it.

[ntndeacon]

I guess it was the 1952 version. never mind :)

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/ThreeMusketeers.jpg

The Three Musketeers (1921)
Directed By: Fred Niblo
Starring: Douglad Fairbanks, Leon Bary, George Siegmann, Eugene Pilete
Length: 119 min.

I'm sure everyone knows the story of The Three Musketeers, so I won't bore with a retelling of that story. Quick plot summery: D'Artagnan (Douglad Fairbanks) travels to Paris to join the Musketeers. He's refused, but taken under the wings of Artho (Leon Bary), Pathos (George Siegmann) and Aramis (Eugene Pilete). Much action ensues.

The film is very action packed, with D'Artagnan picking fights with just about anyone. The stunts are pretty impressive, and the stunt where Fairbanks handsprings with one hand with a sword in the other is considered one of the best stunts of the silent film era.

Where the film fails, for me, is the character of D'Artagnan himself. The Three Musketeers is one of the many books I wish I had read, would like to read, but have not gotten around to it. I can't speak as to whether or not the character is a faithful interpretation. What I can say is that the D'Artagnan in this film is whiney and childish. I just could not, for the life of me, cheer on this character. The character simply wasn't likeable at all.

While the film had some nice fight scenes, I just could not get into it.

For the stunts and fight scenes that are ranked very high for the silent film era, it gets a decent Historical Rating, but as far as Entertainment Rating goes, it gets hurt a lot by the frequently annoying personality of many of the characters.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/backdoor.jpg

Through The Back Door (1921)
Directed By: Alfred E. Green
Starring: Mary Pickford, Gertrude Astor, Wilfred Lucas, Helen Raymond
Length: 89 min.

Jeanne (Mary Pickford) is left with a maid as a child when her mother marries a wealthy man. Years pass before her mother shows up to get her, but the maid had grown so attached to the little girl that she tells the mother that the child had recently died.

When the child becomes a teenager, Germany invades her country, and the maid sends her off to America to find her real mother. When she gets there, with 2 orphan Belgian children, her mother lives in a mansion with many servents. She is repeatedly denied access to her mother, and is hired as a maid, claiming the orphans as her own.

As time goes on, and her chances at teller her mother who she is are thwarted, she learns of a plot against her mother and step-father.

I found the movie to be much better than the previous Pickford movie I had seen (Little Lord Fauntleroy). First off, Pickford actually plays a woman (teenage girl) in this film. I found the plot to be a little quicker and more involved than in Fauntleroy. There's just more going on and it doesn't drag.

Still, the movie's drawback for me is one of personal preference. I find plots that rely on repeated occurances to be annoying. I mean, she's trying to hand her mother a letter this whole time, and then she tries and leave it for her on her nightstand, the mother accidently knocks it on the floor. There's just too many coincidences going on. Pickford's character is not assertive at all in trying to get her mother the information that shows her who she is. That causes a lot of these situations and I found myself rolling my eyes a few times.

Annoying plot devises aside, it was a pretty decent movie. Low Historical Rating since, much like Little Lord Fauntleroy, the movie isn't referenced much at all. (Also, for the image above, I could not find a pic of the movie, so I had to go with movie poster.)

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 3/10

[Izulde]

I hated The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to be perfectly honest. It was one of the most boring movies I'd ever watched, but that's just me. I do understand its historical and stylistic significances, though.

Love this dynasty, by the way. :)

[ntndeacon]

Agreed Izulde. This is a great dynasty.

[sabotai]

I hated The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to be perfectly honest. It was one of the most boring movies I'd ever watched, but that's just me. I do understand its historical and stylistic significances, though.

Love this dynasty, by the way. :)

Dr. Caligari is definitely a movie you'll either love or hate. There's not much middle ground to work with. It's kind of like Abstrat Art (which I don't like, btw. :) ), it either connects with the viewer or it doesn't.

It's also a movie where the ending is either a good payoff or it just flops for the viewer (along the same lines as movies like The Sixth Sense, 12 Monkeys or Memento. In those kinds of movies, the ending either lifts the whole movie up or makes it fall flat on its face, depending on the viewer).

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Orphans2.jpg

Orphans Of The Storm (1921)
Directed By: D.W. Griffith
Starring: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut, Frank Losee
Length: 150 min

Griffith's last movie starring Lillian Gish (along with her sister, Dorothy Gish)

Henriette (Lillian Gish) and Louise (Dorothy Gish) are orphans who are raised together as sisters. Louise goes blind and Henriette promies to take care of her. They make a trip to Paris in search of a cure for Louise's blindness. Along the way, an aristocrat takes an interest in Henriette, but she refuses. Apon reaching Paris, the aristocrat kidnaps Henriette, leaving Louise alone.

Louise is taken in by a begger, who imprisons her and forces her to beg on the streets. Meanwhile, Henriette is saved by a kind aristocrat named Chevalier de Vaudrey (Joseph Schildkraut). She falls in love with him, and he helps her to find her sister. She says she can not be with him until she finds her sister.

The movie is set in the same time period as the French Revolution, so unlike a movie like Through The Back Door, that has to rely on coincidence, forced situations and weak chacters to keep it moving, this film had a lot of external conflict to keep the sisters apart.

I said in a previous review that it seems like Lillian Gish plays the same part over and over again, and the same thing goes for this film. The tortured woman who expierences bad moment after bad moment, until the end where everything works out. Same exact character here.

While I have appriciated Griffith's movies, one of the reasons I haven't enjoyed them as much is because they seem to follow the same basic formula. Lillian Gish plays a woman with "baggage". In this movie, it's her lost, blind sister. In Way Down East, it was having an illegitimate child. In Broken Blossoms, it was her father. She ends up falling in love, in some form, with a man who, at first, can't or won't accept her baggage (mostly because of social conventions). But, in the end, after the climax that the external force of the movie has built up, all is well.

Each movie puts its own twist on the basic premise. In Broken Blossoms, for instance, it had a trajic ending. In Way Down East, instead of the climatic conflict being between people, it was a person against nature. And in this movie, her baggage is wanted (her blind sister), instead of unwanted.

However, having said all of that, and after seeing the same basic plot a couple of times, I would have to say that this one is my favorite. It had lots of action, a constantly changing backdrop (the French Revolution), and interesting characters. I still wouldn't give this a very high Entertainment Rating, but higher than the previous Griffith/Gish movies. However, its Historical Rating suffers as it is not remembered nearly as well as a movie like Way Down East, or any of Griffith's other masterpieces.

I haven't given many of Griffth's movies high marks, but I'm really appriciative of his work. While I won't feel the urge to watch any of his movies again (maybe the Babylon story in Intolerance), I do admire his work. He was definitely a visionary when it came to directing. He may have been formulatic when it came to writing, but his ability to direct and innovate with camera angles, at the very least, make the films easy to watch.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/shadows.jpg

Shadows (1922)
Directed by: Tom Forman
Starring: Harrison Ford, Marguerite De La Motte, Lon Chaney
Length: 70 min.

Unlike Richard Barthelmess's portrayal or a Chinese man in Broken Blossoms, Lon Chaney's use of make up actually makes him look Chinese.

Yen Sin (Lon Chaney) finds himself in a small community, named Urkay, on the beach after a terrible storm destroys his ship. In the same storm, Sympathy Gibbs (Marguerite De La Motte) loses her husband. Yen Sin decides to stay in town, even though he is labeled a heathen by the communtiy.

Shortly after, a new pastor comes to town, John Malden (Harrison Ford). He soon falls in love with Sympathy and they wed. The two become friends with Yen Sin, with the pastor quoting the Bible to Yen Sin in an attempt to convert Yen Sin, none of which succeed. Yen Sin also befreinds some of the children in the community.

Soon after the wedding, while Sympathy was pregnent, John had to leave to attend a conference. He receives a telegram that his wife gave birth, but on the same night, receives a letter from Sympathy's husband, who everyone thought had died. He doesn't want to cause trouble, but the husband will keep quiet only if the pastor pays him off. He does so, but continues to get demands for money from her husband.

This also puts a strain in his marriage. Her husband is still alive, and so he doesn't allow himself to be with Sympathy.

Much like with Outside The Law, it seems like the only reason to mention on watch the film is because it displays the talents of Lon Chaney. It was a more enjoyable movie, even if the "twist" ending was obvious.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 3/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/robinhood.jpg

Robin Hood (1922)
Directed By: Allan Dwan
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Enid Bennett, Sam de Grasse, Wallace Beery
Length: 127 min

The first adaptation of Robin Hood.

This film focuses much more on the corruption of Prince John and his followers than the other Robin Hood films I have seen. In fact, "Robin Hood" doesn't show up until more than halfway through the film.

The movie starts off with the Earl of Huntingdon (Douglas Fairbanks) beating Sir Guy of Gisbourne in a joust. King Richard the Lion-Heart (Wallace Beery) is so impressed, he befriends Huntingdon and takes him along as his second in command to fight the crusades. The King leaves his brother, Prince John (Sam de Grasse) to rule his country. He ends up sending the country into poverty because of his power-tripping corruption. He and his followers live it up in the castle while the country starves.

Maid Marian (Enid Bennett) gets word to Huntingdon about the corruption and he plans to leave. However, Richard has him imprisoned for desertion. Huntingdon escapses, returns to England and takes on the name of Robin Hood.

This was the first film that had a Hollywood premiere. It was also one of the most expensive movies made, according to imdb.com it costs $1.5 million to make. They built an entire medieval town for the scenes in Nottingham. Also according to imdb.com, the movie grossed $2.5 million.

In this movie, Robin Hood's antagonist is Prince John, unlike many of the other films, or legends that Robin Hood is based on, where the antagonist is the Sheriff of Nottingham. One thing I didn't like about the film is that, as previously mentioned, "Robin Hood" is in less than half the movie. When I watch a Robin Hood movie, I like watching him fight the Sheriff's men, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, etc. But for the first half of the movie, it was essentially setting up Robin Hood's introduction. It spent way too much time getting Richard out of the country and getting John into power.

Another thing I didn't like was that characters like Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett were nothing more than extras. They were hardly used at all in the story. They were just kind of introduced, and that was it. The only exception was the character of Little John, who was the Earl of Huntingdon's squire before becoming Robin Hood. There was hardly any character developement, outside of Robin Hood. A largely boring film for the first 75-80 minutes, and then it ends just as it's getting good.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

Upcoming Movies

Beyond The Rocks (1922) - Romance
Nanook of the North (1922) - Documentary
Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922) - Foreign Documentary (Sweden)
Oliver Twist (1922) - Drama
Tess of the Storm Country (1922) - Drama
Nosferatu (1922) - Foreign Horror (German)
The Shock (1923) - Crime Drama
The Ten Commandments (1923) - Epic Drama
Safety Last (1923) - Comedy
Our Hospitality (1923) - Comedy
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - Drama
The Last Laugh (1924) - Foreign Drama (German)
The Navigator (1924) - Comedy
Thief of Bagdad (1924) - Adventure
Mikael (1924) - Foreign Drama/Romance (German)
Aelita (1924) - Foreign Adventure/Sci-Fi (Russia)
Wizard of Oz (1925) - Fantasy
The Lost World (1925) - Fantasy
Strike (Strachka) (1925) - Foreign Drama (Russia)
Ben-Hur (1925) - Epic Drama
Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925) - Adventure
The Eagle (1925) - Adventure/Romance/Comedy
Seven Chances (1925) - Comedy
The Gold Rush (1925) - Comedy
Battleship Potemkin (1925) - Foreign Drama (Russia)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Horror
The Freshman (1925) - Comedy

Lost Films or Films Not on DVD
(these are movies that are on my list, but I can't watch because they have not made it to DVD yet, or they have been lost)

Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler (1922)
Scarmouche (1923)
La Roue (1923)
Greed (1924)

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/beyondrocks.jpg

Beyond The Rocks (1922)
Directed By: Sam Wood
Starring: Rudolph Valentino, Gloria Swanson
Length: 81 min

This film had been lost until April 2003 when a copy was found in a private collection in the Netherlands.

This romance was based on a 1906 novel written by Elinor Glyn.

The plot has become a well known storyline to me. A poor, attractive girl named Theodora (Gloria Swanson) marries a wealthy man. She does it not out of love, but to help her sick father. He can not afford medical attention, but with the rich man's money, she can help her dad. She basically gets forced into the marriage by her greedy sisters.

On the honeymoon, however, she meets Lord Hector Bracondale (Rudolph Valentino). They fall in love, but do not allow the relationship to flourish. As time goes on, they can not help it. They must see each other, but know it is wrong.

And that's essentially the film. Scene after scene of them being together, but knowing they shouldn't. It was, to me, in a word: boring. Seriously, it was just flat out boring. I usually don't go for romances, but this movie was just a constant flow of scenes where they get close, pull away, get close, pull away, get close, pull away....enough already.

At least it was short...

Entertainment Rating: 2/10
Historical Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/nanook.jpg

Nanook Of The North (1922)
Directed By: Robert J. Flaherty
Starring: Nanook and his much family
Length: 79 min

Credited as being the first feature length documentary, Flahery's "Nanook Of The North" follows Nanook, an eskimo of the Inuit tribe, and his family as they live their lives. We see Nanook trading, hunting, fishing, building an igloo after a long day's travel, etc.

The film is criticized, however, because many of the scenes, if not all, are staged. TO be honest, I don't see how you could do a documentary any other way back then. It's not like they had cameras and microphones that were easily moved around and could be left recording. They had equipment that required them to set up and shoot for relatively short periods of time. For instance, the interior igloo shots were not actually inside of an igloo. The Inuits built a 3-walled igloo because they had to. The camera was buliky and would not capture any images inside an actual igloo.

Also criticised because Flaherty encouraged Nanook and others to hunt with spears instead of guns (although what they were hunter were actual wild animals). Flaherty wanted to capture what it was like for the Inuits without European influence.

While these actions (staging scenes) have become unethical in documentary work, during his time, with this subject matter, I simply can't see how he could have done it without re-enacting scenes.

Nanook died in 1922 when he was caught in a snowstorm while out hunting. His death was reported in newspapers around the world. The film was a huge success for Flaherty, who went on to make several more documentaries.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[Doudon]

Just started following this dynasty over the holidays. Nice job! Very interesting, please keep it coming.

[sabotai]

Just started following this dynasty over the holidays. Nice job! Very interesting, please keep it coming.

Thanks. I took a bit of a break (longer than I thought I would) to catch up on more current movies I had wanted to see (plus, you can watch silent movies for only so long before you cry out for someone to actually say something ;). I'll be getting this back on track soon.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/haxan.jpg

Haxan: Witchcraft Through The Ages (1922)
Directed By: Benjamin Christensen
Starring: Meran Pederson, Elith Pio, Clara Pontoppidan, John Anderson
Length: 87 min

Now this was one wierd movie.

This documentary starts off with the director, Benjamin Christensen, showing several illustrations of witchcraft and explaining them (he even points to parts of the illustrations with a pencil). After that introduction, most of the rest of the movie is a dramatization of what happened with a person was accused of witchcraft in medival times.

The film is made to show the absurdity of witchcraft, what witches were accused of doing, and the injustice of the investigations and trials. The end of the documentary describes "hysteria" and how the symtpoms of hysteria are similar to some of the traits of witchcraft. Since then, hysteria has been rejected as a mental condition, but back then it was accepted.

The dramatization of Medival Europe is a weird movie by itself. The scenes and chracters are way, WAY over the top. Certainly done on purpose to add to the absurdity of witchcraft charges and beleifs during the time.

Pretty entertaining, thanks to the over-the-topness of the dramatizations. Historically, it ranks as one of the earliest documentaries films, and it's also thought of as an insiration for horrors movies as well. (see the article in the Jan/Feb issue of Rue Morgue).

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/otwist.jpg

Oliver Twist (1922)
Directed By: Frank Lloyd
Starring: Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney, George Seigmann
Length: 74min

A very good movie that showcased Jackie Coogan's acting ability.

Oliver Twist (Jackie Coogan) is born into a workhouse when his mother dies giving birth to him. Oliver is appreticed to an undertaker, but is sent back to the workhouse and eventually ends up in the service of a band of thieves led by Fagin (Lon Cheney).

A pretty short movie, almost too short for an adaptation of Dickens' novel. The movie seems like it fast forwards through the story. Because of that, the movie never gets boring, but sometimes you want at least a bit more out of the scenes.

The acting is top-notch. Jackie Coogan does a great job or portraying Oliver. His acting, both in his body movement and timing, is extremely well done. And of course, Lon Chaney's use of make-up captures the character of Fagin. Chaney's stance, always hunched over, and his movement, both walking and with his arms, brings the creepy character to life.

In most movies I have seen, usually there might be 1 good acting performance surrounded by bad acting, but in this movie even the supporting actors and actresses do a fine job.

I really enjoyed this movie, even though I would have liked several of the scenes to last a bit longer. Needed more Fagin, for one. Historically, it suffers a bit. The AFI didn't even nomiate the movie for its list of the 100 best movies, but it did gross over $2 million and is usually listed as on of Jackie Coogan's best films.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

Upcoming Movies

These are in no particular order. I'll be watching them in order by year, but I'll watch them in any order within the year.

1922 (2 Left)
Tess of the Storm Country - Drama
Nosferatu - Horror / German

1923 (8 Movies)
The Shock - Crime Drama
The Ten Commandments - Epic Drama
Safety Last - Comedy
Our Hospitality - Comedy
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Drama / Horror
Salome - Drama
Why Worry? - Comedy
A Woman of Paris - Drama

1924 (9 Movies)
The Last Laugh - Drama / German
The Navigator - Comedy
Thief of Bagdad - Adventure
Mikael - Drama / Romance / German
Aelita - Adventure / Sci-Fi / Russia
Girl Shy - Comedy
The Last Laugh - Drama / German
The Marriage Circle - Comedy
Sherlock, Jr. - Comedy

1925 (11 Movies)
Tumbleweeds - Western
Wizard of Oz - Fantasy
The Lost World - Fantasy
Strike (Strachka) - Drama / Russia
Ben-Hur - Epic Drama
Don Q, Son of Zorro - Adventure
Seven Chances - Comedy
The Gold Rush - Comedy
Battleship Potemkin - Drama / Russia
The Phantom of the Opera - Drama / Horror
The Freshman - Comedy

1925 was originally up to 15 movies, but I'm making an effort to keep it under 10 movies per year so that it's actually possible to do this. I still may cut another movie or two from 1925 to get it down a bit, but I don't see anymore I can cut. The comedies I have listed are considered classics, Tumbleweeds is, I think, the first Western I've had a chance to see, Wizard of Oz and The Lost World are musts, Strike and Battleship Potemkim are musts, Phantom of the Opera is considered one of Lon Chaney's best pictures, so that's a must, Ben-Hur is considered a classic and is a must. I may chop off Don Q to get it to 10 movies (my soft limit), but that's a bit unique in that's it's, I think, the first sequal I get to watch (after watching the original).

Lost Films, Not on DVD or Cut

1923
The Covered Wagon - No DVD
The Daring Years - No DVD, Lost Film
Souls For Sale - No DVD

The Covered Wagon would have been the first Western I would have seen, but alas, no DVD for that so I'll have to settle for 1925's Tumbleweeds.

1924
Ballet Mécanique - Can't get
Greed - "Lost Film", No DVD
He Who Gets Slapped - No DVD
The Iron Horse - Western - Not on Netflix
Janice Meredith - Romantic Comedy - No DVD
Monsieur Beacaire - Romance - No DVD
Peter Pan - Action / Fantasy - Not on Netflix
The Sea Hawk Swashbuckler - No DVD

A couple of movies here I'm disappointed I can't watch. Greed is considered a lost film, even though there is a version you can watch. It was originally 10 hours long. It was shortened considerably and the cut out portions were destroyed. The final, stripped down version was a flop and was destroyed by critics.

From what I've read about Peter Pan, I'm going to be missing out. Netflix does not have the DVD, but there is a DVD out of the movie (on Amazon for $27). Oh well, nothing I can do about that, except buy it, which I'm not going to do.

1925
The Plastic Age - Romantic Comedy - Cut
Go West - Comedy - Cut
The Eagle - Adventure/Romance/Comedy - Cut
The Unholy Three - Crime / Drama* - Cut

The Big Parade - War / Romance - No DVD
The Heartbreaker - Comedy - No DVD
The Merry Widow - Romance - No DVD
The Monster - Comedy / Horror - No DVD
The Pleasure Garden - Crime Drama - No DVD
Thou Shalt Honor Thy Wife - Comedy / Danish - No DVD
Wolf Blood - Horror - No DVD

Go West is a Buster Keaton comedy. I cut it off the list since I also have Seven Chances for 1925, which is considered a much better Buster Keaton comedy. The Unholy Three is up on YouTube, so when I get to 1925, I might add it back to my list since it would be very easy for me to find the time to watch it (since I could watch it in parts, and not have to worry about Netflix turnaround).

The Big Parade is a highly prasied film, and it's not on DVD. A bit disappointed since it's a movie that takes place during WWI, something I have yet to be able to see.

Wolf Blood and The Monster both sounded like interesting movies. Wolf Blood may have been the first movie to show werewolves.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, The Pleasure Garden was Alfred Hitchcock's first movie that he directed. Shame I don't get to see it. It looks like The Lodger, released in 1927, will be the first Hitchcok movie I will get to see.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/tessofStormCountry.jpg

Tess of Storm Country (1922)
Directed By: John S. Robertson
Starring: Mary Pickford, Lloyd Hughes, Gloria Hope, Forrest Robinson
Length: 118 Minutes

This movie was a remake of a 1914 movie also starring Mary Pickford and directed by our old friend Edwin S. Porter (which was based on a novel).

The story is of a community of squatters, and in particular a father named Orn Skinner (Forrest Robinson) and his daughter, Tess Skinner (Mary Pickford). A rich family that lives on a hill overlooking a lake owns all of the land. I don't know what "squatter laws" were back then, but he was unable to evict the people, mostly fisherman and their families, off of his land.

The father of the rich family, Elias Graves, on the hill tries to get them evicted, but one of his sons, Frederick Graves (Lloyd Hughes) defends the squatters to the point where his father decides to cut him off. One more problem, Frederick is in love with Tess. However, he's not the only one. Ben Letts, one of the squatters, also fancies Tess.

Elias Graves and his daughter's fiancee come up with a plan. Useing nets to is illegal, even though using nets is the only way for the squatters to fish enough to feed their family and earn money. Elias and the police go through the squatters 'town' and confinscate all of the nets. All of them, except the one Tess manages to hide.

One night, Orn Skinner, Ben Letts and few other squatters take the net to fish. Ben Letts also brings along Orn's rifle. Elias, his daughter's fiancee and the police show up. Ben Letts shoots and kills Elias' soon to be son-in-law. Orn is charged with the crime, since he is the one found near the body and it was Orn's gun. It also presents another problem. Elias' daughter is pregnant. A chld out of wedlock. *gasp*

She has the child, and Tess offers to take the kid, to save Elias' daughter the embarrisment of having a kid out of wedlock. During the climatic ending, Frederick finds the child and is shocked, SHOCKED, to find Tess has a child and doesn't want to have anything to do with her.

I'm trying to figure out something to analogize how out-of-wedlock childbirth is portrayed in movies back then, but I can't think of anything. Maybe it would be like finding out the chick you are in love with is actually a dude. That's how the people react to a character they think had a child out of wedlock.

Anyway, jumping to the end, it has the typical happy ending. The father is found out to be innocent when the police discover it was Ben Letts who committed the murder. Frederick and Tess live happily ever after Why no spoilers for this last part? Because I forgot what happened. I watched this a month ago, and I honestly can't remember exactly how the ending occured, in what ordered, etc. This was a pretty...forgetable movie, although looking at the Mary Pickford movies I've rated in the past, it was a my favorite Mary Pickford movie, but still not all that good.

Not that I'm saying there is something wrong with Mary Pickford herself. She was a very talented actress. I just haven't found much to like about her movies. They all seem to be the same general theme, she plays the same character type....they're just boring.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/nosferatu2.jpg

Nosferatu (1922)
Directed By: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroder
Length: 94 min

The makers of this film could not get the rights from Bram Stoker's estate (Bram Stoker's widow), so they just changed the names and places and we have outselves a movie.

Count Orlok (Max Schreck) buys a home in a village far away. Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) travles to Orlok's home in the Carpathian Mountains. One of the coolest scenes in the movie happens here, when Hutter is dropped off far from his destination by the local "taxi". A mysterious coach rides up to him, lets him board, and then takes off. The coach moves at an unnatural speed and travels through a forrest of white trees (the video's color was inverted).

The first half of the film is based heavily on the novel. Essentially the way they get Orlok to the destination is axactly the same. When he meets Hutter, he sees a picture of his lover and immediately falls for her. She also starts to act really weird.

Count Orlok leavs his castle for the town of Wisborg while Hutter is trapped in the castle. However, Hutter manages to escape through a window, but is hurt when he falls. He wakes up in a hospital and leaves to warn the town.

Meanwhile, a new plague has broken out right after Count Orlok's arrival. Hutter manages to make it back to town and tries to protect his wife, but when he leaves to find help after she faints, Orlok makes his move.

I was very disappointed in the ending. Orlok just simply forgot that the sun was about to rise? He doesn't keep track of the time. Anyway, after he feeds on Hutter's wife, he steps back into the sunlight of the recently risen sun and is destroyed. Hutter's wife is dead (that's kinda cool).

This was the first movie on my list where I have already seen the movie. However, that was over 10 years ago when I watched in a high school German class. I liked it back then, I loved it now (despite the ending, but I've grown used to these "dumb-dumb" endings, where the villian just suddenly acts like a "dumb-dumb" and is defeated.).

I don't think I could describe the creepiness of this movie effectively. Unlike over German movies I have seen to this point (the early German Expressionist films featuring twisted, surreal enviroments), this one goes another direction. It's big. As it, BIG. The doorways are huge, the buildings are huge, the windows are huge. Everything was purposely made large, but it was also shot largely "on location". The castle scenes at Count Orlok's castle were shot at an actual castle , for just one example. The DVD had a slide show of the on location scenes.

And of course, the scenes only showing Orlok's shadow were very nicely done. Almost a testiment about how America was always about mass producing the same cookie-cutter plots while you have to go to the "indie" scene (which was nonexistant in America at the time, and I'm not sure you could call these German films "indie", but I think they had a diffrent business structure from the American studios) to get the real innovation.

Max Schrek made me shiver. Well not shiver, but the before mentioned shiver down my spine was no joke. When Hutter opens a door after suspecting Orlok is a vampire, there is Count Orlok, staring at him.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

For those wondering why this disapears for bit here and there, here's why. I started the Tess review at 8pm. It's now 10pm. Although I do take a break for a few minutes here and there to check forums and stuff, most of that time is spent finding pix and formatting them, looking up info, writing out the plot, etc. It takes too long. I'm going to have to change how I write them up to make them faster. The reviews lag far behind the movies I watch (I'm halfway through '23 right now).

[sabotai]

Movie Rankings

Nothing special, I just multiply the Entertainment Rating by 2, add the Historical Rating, and that's it.

The Shorts Top 5 (1902 - 1913)
1. The Great Train Robbery (1903) - 25
2. A Trip To The Moon (1902) - 24
3. Jack and The Beanstalk (1902) - 15
4. The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913) - 15
5. The "Teddy" Bears (1907) - 12

The Early Features Top 5 (1915 - 1919)
1. The Birth of a Nation (1915) - 22
2. Intolerance (1916) - 20
3. Broken Blossoms (1919) - 17
4. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1917) - 13
5. The Cheat (1915) - 9

Top 5 Movies of 1920
1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - 25
2. Der Golem - 20
3. The Mark of Zorro - 19
4. Way Down East - 16
5. Outside The Law - 12

Top 5 Movies of 1921
1. The Kid - 22
2. Orphans of the Storm - 17
3. The Three Musketeers - 14
4. Through The Back Door - 13
5. The Sheik - 10

Top 5 Movies of 1922
1. Nosferatu - 25
2. Oliver Twist - 20
3. Nanook of the North - 19
4. Robin Hood - 18
5. Haxen: Witchcraft Through The Ages - 18

[Buccaneer]

sab, thank you for finally doing Nosferatu. I had been patiently waiting for your review of what I believe is the creepiest movie ever made. Very well done!

[sabotai]

Thanks Buc. Sorry for the wait, but yeah, Nosferatu is very creepy. I don't think any American horror movie I've seen really matches that "creepiness" factor.

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/TheShock.jpg

The Shock (1923)
Directed by: Lambert Hillyer
Starring: Lon Chaney, Virginia Valli, Jack Mower
Length: 96 minutes

A cripple is ordered by his mob boss to go to a quiet town and expose a banker they have been blackmailing. While there, he ends up falling for the banker's daughter, a woman who is already attached to another man.

I usually spend time while writing these up to look up information on the movie, the actors, etc. to see what is worth talking about. With this movie, I'll only say one thing. It had some pretty good scenes involving a collapsing building when a bomb blows up.

Other than that, this movie was bad. I did not like it at all. As Forest Gump says "And that's all I have to say about that."

Entertainment Rating: 2/10
Historical Rating: 1/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/SafetyLast.jpg

Safety Last! (1923)
Directed By: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother
Length: 73 min

Premiere Magazine's 50 Greatest Comedis of All Time List (unranked list)
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

A naive boy (Harold Lloyd) moves to the city to make his fortune while leaving his girl (Mildred Davis - also Harold Lloyd's wife in real life) behind. When he gets there, he ends up just working in a department store, barely able to afford rent and food but keeps writing to his girlfriend about how great he is doing. She decides to show up one day and surprise him, and he tries to keep up his act of being successful. Hilarity ensues.

And boy does it. This movie had me laughing almost the entire way through.

The final scene, where Harodl Lloyd climbs up the department store, were inspired by Bill Strother who was a real-life "human-fly" (someone who cimbed buildings). The building he climbs up was un a hill, to exaggerate the height of Lloyd as he hanged from the building, but the danger was there. Lloyd later said that he had matresses below on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor as he went up the building, and he had a stuntman for the long distant shots. Still. had he fall, there was a good chance that even if he survived, his career would be over.

But that was comedy back then. People did their own stunts, and they were dangerous. (For instance, in Our Hospitality (a movie I'll be reviewing soon), Buster Keaton hangs on a branch at the top of a waterfall)

Harold Lloyd is oftan thought of as third after Chaplin and Keaton. That is partly because he was in possession of his films through the decades, and he did not release them. He kept them preserved, but he did not rerelease them like Chaplin's and Keaton's films were. Which makes it all more surprising that the most recognizable image from silent comedy is that of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock high on top of a building.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Hunchback.jpg

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Directed By: Wallace Worsley
Starring: Lon Chaney, Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Kate Lester
Length: 133 min.

Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions

This was the first film adaption of Victor Hugo's novel, and was Universal's biggest hit of the silent era, grossing over $3 million. Lon Chaney, once again, demostrates his special ability with make-up and costume as he deforms his face and body into Quasimodo.

I'm sure everyone is quite familiar with the plot. Quasimodo lives inside of Notre Dame and is ordered by Jehen to kidnap the gypsy Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth miller), but she is saved by Captain Phoebus (Norma Kerry). As Quasimodo's punishment is being carried out, Esmeralda shows him pity.

Captain Phoebus then gets attacke dwith Esmeralda being framed. After she is convicted, Quasimodo and Captain Phoebus plan to rescue her, as well as the gypies.

Lon Chaney as Quasimodo was actually quite comical. His bahaivor, especially while he rang the bells of Notre Dame, just looked weird and funny. I've never been a fan of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, as this was kind of a chore to sit through, although the ending was shot pretty well.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Why Worry? (1923)<object height="300" width="365">
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Directed By: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Rolston, John Aasen
Length: 60 min

Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

This was the first of Lloyd's to star Jobyna Rolston, who would go on to star with lloyd in several of his movies as a replacement for his former leading lady, Mildred Davis, after she retired when she married Harold Lloyd. Rolston may not be the hottest actress ever, but I'm starting to grow an appreciation for the appearance and mannerisms of women from Bucc's time. She was quite adorable in this movie.

The film is about a wealthy businessman who is a hypocondriac. He travels with is nurse (Jobyna Rolston) to a far off pacific island*. While there, a revolution takes place. At first, Lloyd is oblivious to the revolution, causing several hilarious situation. After helping out a giant (John Aasen), the giant serve Lloyd in helping to end the revolution just so that Lloyd can get some peace and quiet.

The film is funny, although not nearly as much as Safety Last!. This was the first film for John Aasen when he was discovered as a replacement for Cardiff Giant who died shortly after filming started for Why Worry?. He would go on to have a small career in Hollywood playing giants.

* - Orignally set in Mexico, the film was accused of unfairly stereotyping Mexicans, so Lloyd changed the location to an island in the Pacific. However, it's quite clear that the movie was meant to be set in Mexico, so much so that is where I thought it was set until I read about it on Wikipedia.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

Salome (1923)
Directed by: Charles Bryant
Starring: Alla Nazimova, Mitchell Lewis
Length: 74 min.

I only watched the first 20 minutes of this movie, and it was horrible. It's oftan called the first "art film". Minimal sets, over-the-top movements, people just acting flat out weird.

Which i can and have liked in movies before. But after 20 minutes, nothing had happened! Just a few comments about "paying attention" to Salome and that was it. "Nathing had happened" is a phrase people like to throw around when they don't like a plot or find it boring, but I mean it in an absolute literal way. Nothing happened!

After 20 minutes, I turned it off.

Entertainment Rating: 1/10
Historical Rating: 4/10 (Simply for it being the first "art film")

[sabotai]

The Ten Commandments (1923)

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Directed by: Cecil B. DaMille
Starring: Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Richard Dix, Rod La Rocque
Length: 136 min

I had been wanting to see this movie for awhile. The 1956 Charleton Heston "The Ten Commandments" was one of my favorite movies growing up, and it still is. Maybe that's why I was so let down.....no, that wasn't the reason.

The reason was because the Moses story, where the plagues infect Egypt and he leads his people out of slavery to receive the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, all happens in the first 40 minutes of the movie. This wasn't one movie, it was two. For an epic, that's cheating.

The first 40 minutes were fine, but when the film STARTS right after the 9th plague, I got suspicious. And then when Moses parted the Red Sea a half hour into the movie, and was receiving the Ten Commandments at the 35 minute mark while his follows had a massive orgy, I was confused as to how the rest of the 100 minutes of movie would be filled.

That's when a modern times story began, and where the movie started to seriously suck. It was a morality play about the importance of the Ten Commandments in everyone's life. And that would be fine if everyone weren't such an insanely and comically over the top, one-dimension, cardboard cut-out character and the plot wasn't extremely predictable.

Getting back to the biblical story, the effects were nice. As can be seen in the clip above, I was a bit impressed with the parting of the Red Sea, considering it was 1923. Yeah, after the sea is split, it looks like two jello molds with a bit of water pouring over the sides, but like I said, 1923. It wasn't how pretty the effect is, it's about how resourceful it is.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

Our Hospitality (1923)

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Directed by: John G. Blystone, Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge, Joe Roberts
Length: 74 min

Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

The first Buster Keaton movie on my journey, and it won't be my last.

Keaton's deadpan expression did not cease to make me laugh throughout the film. Everytime he blankly stared off into space as he was figuring something out, or when he would quickly look out of the corner of his eye, got to me. He pulls that off to perfection.

Our Hospitality is a movie about a rivalry between two families, to the point that they murder each other. Willie McKay (Buster Keaton) is taken by his mother, when he is one, away when her husband dies. He gorws up not knowing about the fued, but when he finds out about land in a far away town, he hops on a train and heads there.

When he arrives, the Canfield family finds him, and they spend the rest of the film trying to kill him, without their sister, Virginia (Natalie Talmadge), finding out since she had befriended Willie.

An absolutely hilarious movie. A bit of a hit to the Historical Rating, however, since it is not one of Keaton's more popular films.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

A Woman of Paris (1923)

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Directed by: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Edna Purviance, Carl Miller, Adolphe Menjou
Length: 84 min

Kinema Junpo Award for Best Artistic Film (1925)

"What ever happened to that Marie St. Clair?"

Charlie Chaplin's drama about a man and woman who become seperated, only to meet again years later.

I didn't see much that seperated this from most other romantic dramas of the time. It was well acted, and had a good pace, but it was pretty much the typcial romantic drama. One person was poor, the other wasn't, and they wanted to be together but various forces kept them apart, most importantly, another man.

But then the ending happens, and it kind of took me off guard. It didn't have a happy ending. In fact, the ending felt oddly modern. This was one of the first, if not the first, movie I've seen on my journey that didn't have the happy-ending conclusion. The poor man dies. He brought a gun, supposedly to shoot and kill the rich playboy that had his love wrapped around his finger, but then turns the gun on himself and commits suicide right there at the resturant they were at. After that, the woman finally leaves the playboy and ends up spending her time at an orphanage with the poor man's mother.

The ending really did it for me. It took the traditional movie plot for the time and turned it completely on its head.

The public did not receive the film well. They expected to see a Charlie Chaplin comedy, and did not get one (they didn't have TV commercials or movie trailers at the time). Chaplin did his best to make sure people knew this was a drama and he did not appear in the movie, but it turned out to be a flop. It did receive much deserved critical praise, though.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

And that ends 1923. Let's see how it turned out.

Top 5 Movies of 1923
1. Safety Last! - 24
2. Our Hospitaliry - 23
3. A Woman of Paris - 21
4. Why Worry? - 19
5. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - 17

A pretty good year. First year I've had with 3 20+ rated movies. But it also had 2 of the worst movies on my entire journey (The Shock and Salome). A very up and down year.

Here are the upcoming films for 1924

1924 (8 Movies)
The Last Laugh - Drama / German
The Navigator - Comedy
Thief of Bagdad - Adventure
Mikael - Drama / Romance / German
Aelita - Adventure / Sci-Fi / Russia
Girl Shy - Comedy
The Marriage Circle - Comedy
Sherlock, Jr. - Comedy

[sabotai]

Sherlock Jr (1924)

<object width="325" height="250"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/k1pvu1fOxCU"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/k1pvu1fOxCU" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="325" height="250"></embed></object>

Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Ward Krane
Length: 44 min

#62 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

A really short movie, on the line of being a movie and a "short". But, it's a classic.

In this movie, Keaton plays a movie projectionist that falls for a girl who he does not think he has a chance with. He also thinks of himself as an amatuer detective. He also competes with another man for the woman's love. When the other man sets him up for stealing the woman's father's watch, the family turns him away.

He then goes into a daydream-sequence while at work. In his dream, he is a world class detective called Sherlock Jr.

This movie definetly is a classic and was hilarious. As with Keaton's previous movie, I was laughing almost throughout the enitre movie. I am quickly becoming a huge fan of Buster Keaton.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

The Last Laugh (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/lastlaugh.jpg

Directed by F.W. Murnau
Starring Emil Jennings, Maly Delschaft, Max Hiller
Length: 77 min.
Genre: Drama

A very interesting film, not for its basic plot, but for the way it was filmed.

In the Last Laugh, an aging hotel doorman get demoted to working in the restroom when the manager sees he can no longer physically do the job of a doorman (carrying heavy suitcases), but he is so ashamed of it that he hides it from his family. He steals a uniform, wears it to and from work while changing before he gets to the hotel and after he leaves.

What's interesting about the film is that it's shot entirely without story cards. Murnau does such a great job of telling the story without the cards that I didn't even realize there weren't any until about 20 minutes into it. About the only part of the film I didn't like was the ending, which was forced on Murnau by the movie studio financing the film. Imagine that....

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

The Thief of Bagdad (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/tofbagdad.jpg

Directed by Raoul Walsh
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Julanne Johnston, Brandon Hurst
Length: 155 min
Genre: Adventure / Fantasy

Kinema Junpo Awards (Tokyo, Japan): Winner Best Entertaining Film
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills

One of Fairbanks' most famous roles. He plays the unnamde Thief of Bagdad.

The movie starts with essentially an exhibition of the thief's talents. However, once he catches site of the Princess (Julanne Johnston) while robbing the royal palace, he becomes obsessed with her. The Caliph (Brandon Hurst) brings princes to his palace to marry his daughter to one of them. The Thief disguises himself as one of the princes and is determined to win the Princess' hand, no matter what it takes.

A pretty good adventure film, especially for the day. What sets this move apart from Fairbanks' previous movies is the use of special effects. Magic carpet rides, underwater fighting, riding a winged horse, etc. A lot of special effects went into this movie, and they are pretty stunning for the day.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Mikael (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/mikael.jpg

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Walter Slezak, Benjamin Christensen, Max Auzinger, Nora Gregor
Length: 86 min
Genre: Drama / German
Based On: Mikael by Herman Bang (1902 Novel)

Mikael (Walter Slezak) is a male model for the artist Zoret (Benjamin Christensen). Zoret is in love with his model and Mikael allows the relationship to continue as long as he is getting paid. However, when Zoret agrees to paint a portrait of Princess Lucia Zamikoff (Nora Gregor), Mikael falls in love with her and she falls for him.

Mikael sells the gifts Zoret had given him to help pay for the expensive gifts he gets for the princess, and when he runs out of those, he starts stealing from him. Zoret, still in love with his male model, ignores and lies about the thefts to others.

The thing that stood out most in the film, aside from Benjamin Christensen looking exactly like Craig T. Nelson, were the constant editing goofs. You have to get used to them when viewing films from before the 1920s, but by 1924, most filmmakers had gotten quite good at editing. Had this movie been released in say, 1919 or 1920, the editing would have been almost to the standard, but for 1924, it was bad. At several times in the movie, a character would be standing, a change in camera angle and they are sitting, another cut and they are standing again. While this happens from time to time in movies from '24, it happened just a bit too much in this one. It really was a distraction.

Aside for that, the movie was ok. Nothing special, the story was ok, the acting was ok. Gets a bit of help in the Historical rating since it's considered a landmark for gay cinema.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/aelita.jpg

Directed by Yakov Protazanov
Starring: Yuliya Solntseva, Igor Ilyinsky, Nikolai Tsereteli
Length: 111 min.
Genre: Sci-Fi / Russian
Based on Aelita by Aleksei Tolstoi (1922 Novel)

One of the first full-length science fiction movies, if not the first.

Mars is ruled by a totalitarian government. Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva), daughter of the ruler, becomes obsessed with viewing Earth when the technology to see into the lives of everyday earthlings from Mars is developed. A signal is sent and reaches Earth. Los (Nikolai Tsereteli) and his partner Spiridinov pick up the signal and start building a rocket ship to go to Mars.

While this is happening, Los' wife gets too close to a man who rents a room from them for Los' liking and his personal life becomes one filled with anger and jealousy until one night, he snaps and kills his wife. Meanwhile, Spiridinov has left so Los assumes his identity, although one amatuer sleuth, Kravtsov (Igor Ilyinsky), is onto him.

The film was actually quite good. The sets for Mars were typical "pointy" designs that are seen in most sci-fi movies (the set designer was Sergei Kozlovsky), which may mean this film was the origin of the art design for many, many sci-fi films. You could have lifted the sets off this movie and put them in any 50s and 60s sci-fi movie and you wouldn't tell the difference.

The movie was met with mixed reviews in Russia when it was released. Some didn't like that it deviated a lot from Tolstoi's novel, including Tolstoi himself. The movie was a great success, though. So much so that Aelita became a comman name for newborn girls.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[Neon_Chaos]

http://www.irregardlessproductions.com/SafetyLast.jpg

Safety Last! (1923)
Directed By: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother
Length: 73 min

Premiere Magazine's 50 Greatest Comedis of All Time List (unranked list)
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

A naive boy (Harold Lloyd) moves to the city to make his fortune while leaving his girl (Mildred Davis - also Harold Lloyd's wife in real life) behind. When he gets there, he ends up just working in a department store, barely able to afford rent and food but keeps writing to his girlfriend about how great he is doing. She decides to show up one day and surprise him, and he tries to keep up his act of being successful. Hilarity ensues.

And boy does it. This movie had me laughing almost the entire way through.

The final scene, where Harodl Lloyd climbs up the department store, were inspired by Bill Strother who was a real-life "human-fly" (someone who cimbed buildings). The building he climbs up was un a hill, to exaggerate the height of Lloyd as he hanged from the building, but the danger was there. Lloyd later said that he had matresses below on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor as he went up the building, and he had a stuntman for the long distant shots. Still. had he fall, there was a good chance that even if he survived, his career would be over.

But that was comedy back then. People did their own stunts, and they were dangerous. (For instance, in Our Hospitality (a movie I'll be reviewing soon), Buster Keaton hangs on a branch at the top of a waterfall)

Harold Lloyd is oftan thought of as third after Chaplin and Keaton. That is partly because he was in possession of his films through the decades, and he did not release them. He kept them preserved, but he did not rerelease them like Chaplin's and Keaton's films were. Which makes it all more surprising that the most recognizable image from silent comedy is that of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock high on top of a building.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

As a side note, Buster Keaton is one of Jackie Chan's main inspirations.

[sabotai]

Girl Shy (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/girlshy.jpg

Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Rolston
Length: 82 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based On: Original Screenplay by Sam Taylor, Harold Lloyd, Tim Whelan and Ted Wilde

Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

In this comedy, Harodl Lloyd plays a tailor with a dream of becoming a writer. He writes a book called "The Secrets of Making Love", a guide to the many different kinds of men and women. The guide is played out in dream sequences, most of which was extremely funny.

While writing this book, Lloyd meet Jobyna Rolston and falls in love with her, and she falls for him. The problem is she already about to marry someone else.

Lloyd sends his book off to a publisher and it becomes a hit at the publsiher's office...as a comedy. The women who work there laugh at the book and then at Lloyd when he comes in to see about the progress of the book. At first it is rejected and Lloyd walks away humiliated, but the publisher decides to release the book as a comedy. Now that he's a success, he races off to stop the girl's wedding.

This movie was very funny. The 'dream' sequences that showed excerts of the book, the scene on the train where he helps to smuggle a dog on, and the final scene where he races to stop the wedding are all pretty funny. Marked down the historical rating a bit since this seems to be one of Lloyd's lesser remembered films.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

The Navigator (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/navigator.jpg

Directed by Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire
Length: 59 min
Genre: Comedy
Based On: Original Screenplay by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez and Joseph Mitchell

#81 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

Buster Keaton decides that it's time for him to wed, so he asks his neighbor played by Kathryn McGuire to marry him. She rejects him immediately and Keaton returns home. He decides to go to Hawaii anyway, the place he planned for their Honeymoon. He ends up boarding the wrong boat. The boat he does board just happens to be owned by his neighbor's father.

And it just so happens that this woman goes onto the ship to look for her father, who was kidnapped. Both wake up the next morning as the only two people on the ship, which had been sent adrift. For awhile, they can't find anyone or each other on the ship, but eventually find each other and must fend for themselves.

The scenes in which they are looking for others, and the ones in which they try and feed themselves, are hilarious. The two play rish, spoiled people and they pull off the inability to take care of themselves to perfection. Definitely my favorite Buster Keaton movie so far. Each one I watch seems better than the next, but much like Lloyd's recent entry on my journey, I knock the Historical rating down a notch due to other movies being rated much higher historically.

I simply can't get enough of Keaton's deadpan expression.

Entertainment Rating: 9/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

The Marriage Circle (1924)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/marriagecircle.jpg

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring: Marie Prevost, Adolphe Menjou, Florence Vidor, Monte Blue
Length: 85 min.
Genre: Romatic Comedy
Based On: The play "Nur ein Traum" (Only A Dream) written by Lothar Schmidt, adapted by Paul Bern

Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
Nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions

Our last stop in 1924 was a movie that made it onto my list at the last minute due to Adolphe Menjou's participation. After watching A Woman Of Paris, and finding out that Menjou became a star in large part because of that movie, I wanted to add another movie to the list that featured him. And so I added The Marriage Circle to my list. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much.

Mizzi (Marie Prevost) is married to Josef Stock (Adolphe Menjou), but the marriage has soured and is now completely love-less. He best friend, Charlotte (Florence Vidro) had just gotten married to a doctor, Franz Braun (Monte Blue). Mizzi becomes taken with Franz and moves in for the kill.

Franz is quite taken with Mizzi at first as well. The two start an affair (kissing during that time would probably equate sex in our's). Josef, however, has hired a private detective to follow Mizzi. He's hoping she has an affair because he wants out of the marriage. One other wrench thrown in is that Franz's partner is in love with Franz's new wife, Charlotte.

What follows is a pretty funny comedy. Adolphe Menjou, after a good dramatic performance in A Woman Of Paris, delivers with a very good comedic performance in this movie. He seems to be able to do both very well, and I'll have to see about adding more his movies to my list (looking at his list of movies in imdb.com, it seems he was workhorse starring in a lot of movies).

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

1924 In Review

Clearly the best year to date. Most years have 2 or 3 20+ total rated movies, this year had 7 (out of 8). Perhaps it is the sign of the times. Since movies had really started taking off in the early 20's, it makes sense that with so many more movies being made, the several I would choose for this year would be better than in previous years (since the sample size would be so much larger). Also, again with movies becoming so popular, moviemakes got better at writing movie scenes and directing them, so the quality of movies got so much better.

Or maybe it was just a really great year for movies and in 1925, things come back down. Maybe I just happened to pick (Netflix just happened to have) the kinds of movies I would enjoy for this year. Maybe I need to get tougher in my reviews. Time will tell.

The Movies of 1924
The Navigator - 25
Sherlock, Jr - 24
Aelita - 22
The Last Laugh - 21
Thief of Bagdad - 21
The Marriage Circle - 21
Girl Shy - 20
Mikael - 14

1925 (11 Movies)
Tumbleweeds - Western
Wizard of Oz - Fantasy
The Lost World - Fantasy
Strike (Strachka) - Drama / Russia
Ben-Hur - Epic Drama
Don Q, Son of Zorro - Adventure
Seven Chances - Comedy
The Gold Rush - Comedy
Battleship Potemkin - Drama / Russia
The Phantom of the Opera - Drama / Horror
The Freshman - Comedy

EDIT: Just saw that it's been almost a year since I started this. 7 more days. Technically it probably has been more than year since I watched several DVDs before I started. But either way, I made it through roughly 45 years of film over the last year. The journey started in 1883. The first 20 years were overviewed briefly in my first post (can't say too much about movies that only last several seconds each). Then the next 25 years took us from movies that lasted several minutes, including the classic "The Great Train Robbery" and "A Trip To The Moon", to the dawn of the feature length movie in the mid 1910s.

I'm about to watch the 1925 version of The Wizard Of Oz. Hopefully by this time next year, I'll be reviewing the 1939 version. The journey has been a slow one over the last several months. Sometimes it takes a bit of work to get through a silent movie. Here and there, I've taken some long breaks. I suspect it'll pick up more when I get to the dawn of sound, and I won't feel the need to take as many breaks and not take them for quite so long.

[thealmighty]

Take all the breaks you want. It brings a grin to my face whenever I open the Dynasty section and see you have made another entry.

Keep at it.

[Buccaneer]

Keep up the great work, I am a huge fan of this thread.

[sabotai]

Thanks guys, it's nice to know there are some people reading this and I'm not wasting my time. :D

Time to get back to it (review of Wizard Of Oz coming up shortly)

[sabotai]

Wizard of Oz (1925)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/wizardoz1925.jpg

Directed by: :Larry Semon
Starring: Larry Semon, Olivar Hardy, Dorothy Dwan, Josef Swickard
Length: 72 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based on: L. Frank Baum's novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", adapted by Larry Semon, Leon Lee, Frank Joslyn Baum

You may have looked at the genre label just now, and went "waaa?". I'll get to it, first a bit of history.

Larry Semon was a huge star. He was a comedian that made a lot of popular short films (I'd love to also add comedic short films to my journey, like Laural and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Our Gang, etc. but that would just be too much. Maybe someday in the distant future, I'll do a spin off - Sab's Journey through short comedy! Anyway...). Stan Laural joined up with Larry Semon at the start of his career, and it looked like he would end up joining Semon and making a great duo, but he actually left Semon's group early on. Later, Oliver Hardy would join Semon's troupe, and became an important member of it.

Larry Semon was wildly successful, was very wealthy because of it, and this film ruined his career, and to a large extent, his life. He would die penniless at the age of 39 in 1928 (although there is some speculation that he faked his death). In truth, he had left his studio, Vitagraph, two years before this film was released, and his career was dieing down since then. However, this movie finished him off.

The movie is one slapstick comedic stunt after another. Semon took the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, used some of the characters, and some of the situations, but for the most part, this movie had hardly any resemblance to the novel.

Larry Semon plays a farmhand on the farm that is owned by Dorothy's uncle, as does Oliver Hardy and another actor, a black man who is credited with the name G. Howe Black (now that's funny!). One of the criticisms of the movie today is the racism. Maybe I've gotten used to it because of the silent movies I have watched, but I didn't really see it. I mean, I can see how it would be racist today (a black man eating watermellon), but for the time, there isn't anything here that isn't in just about every other film of the time, and even by today's standards, I don't see all that much to get offended at.

As I said, the movie is one stunt after another, the same joke over and over again, and it's a pretty unfunny joke. When they get to the land of Oz, it's a basic monarchy. It's not a magical land. The ruler, Kruel, is corrupt and evil. The good guy, Prince Kynd, is looking for the rightful ruler of Oz, and Kruel is trying to stop the discovery of the real ruler, Queen....wait for it.....Dorothy. Yes, Dorothy is really the ruler of Oz. She was taken to Kansas and left on the doorstep of her "uncle" and "aunt".

The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodsman and The Cowardly Lion are not in the movie. What happens is that the 3 farmhands, who were taken with Dorothy to Oz by a tornado, dress up as these characters. Larry Semon dresses up as a Scarcrow and Oliver Hardy dresses up as the Tin Woodsman in an effert to fool Kruel. Later, the black farmhand dresses up as a lion (see, he's cowardly and then he dresses up as a lion...the cowardly lion). So, that's how the scarecrow, tin woodsman, and cowardly lion are worked in.

All in all, I can see why this movie ruined Larry Semon's career. It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. He took a kid's fantasy story (a wildly popular story) and turned it into a terrible slapstick comedy. Imagine if someone took Harry Potter, played one of the supporting characters and turned himself into the main focus of the movie, and threw out just about everything and made it into a slapstick comedy. I don't think it would go over very well, and neither did this movie.

Entertainment Rating: 2/10
Historical Rating: 2/10

[sabotai]

It's been way too long since I've updated this. In the last almost 3 months, I've only watched a handful of movies from my list. Got a little sidetracked as I watched through Battlestar Gallactica season 1, before that I caught up on some more recent releases. And generally, I've been playing a lot more games as I got back into WoW, EU3, and with the recent release of Half Life 2: Episode Two, I went back and replayed Half Life, Half Life 2 and HL2: Episode One.

Anyway, enough excuses. Time to get this back on track. The next several reviews will not have pictures with them. Sorry for that, but I really want to get caught up with these. Maybe I'll edit some in later.

[molson]

Well, if it's any motivation at all, I love this thread, and it's really inspired me to dig some of this stuff up over the last year.

[sabotai]

Tumbleweeds (1925)

Directed by: King Baggot
Starring: William S. Hart, Barbara Bedford, J. Gordon Russell
Length: 78 min.
Genre: Western
Based on: Story by Hal G. Evarts, adaption by C. Gardner Sullivan

William S Hart's last movie. He is considered the first western movie star.

Don Carver (William S. Hart) is a drifter, aka tumbleweed, who hates the idea of settling down and starting a family. That is, until he meets Molly Lassiter (Barbera Bedford). After seeing her for the first time, he falls in love with her (they fell in love so easy back then...), and suddenly decides that he likes the idea fo settling down. But it won't be that easy as someone else has his eyes on Molly as well.

The government opens up the Cherokee Strip for homesteaders, but every one has to register and wait for the appointed date until they can make any claims on the land. Those who do not, called Sooners, will be arrested. Carver gets hired to clear out some leftover cattle drivers from the land the day before people will be allowed to make claims. Perfect timing for him to get framed as a Sooner.

The next morning, they fire the gun and the race for land grabs is on. Some pretty good action in this scene. Some describe as some of the best action scenes ever filmed (I don't know about that...).

The movie had a lot more in common with the typical romance movie from the time with a little comedy thrown in than what you imagine as a western. It really felt like a romance film set in the "old west" (which wasn't all that old in 1925).

Hart always insisted that his movies feature realistic sets and props, since Hollywood's version of the "old west" was more of a charictature of the "old west" at the time. I haven't been able to watch any other westerns, so I don't have a reference to compare the sets and props, but the movie definitely had a very "gritty" feel to it.

All in all, I don't like it that much, mainly because of how it wasn't really a western, as I said, but a romance movie set in the late 1800s west. Historically an important film, but not one I would recommend to anyone except for people interested in movie history.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

The Lost World (1925)

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Directed by: Harry O. Hoyt
Starring: Bessie Love, Lewis Stone, Wallace Berry, Lloyd Hughes
Length: 106 min.
Genre: Adventure / Fantasy
Based On: "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle (1912 Novel)

Willis O'Brian obviously did not invent stop-motion animation, but the techniques and items he created made him the most well known pioneer of stop motion. He created ball socket armatures and crated materials to use as skin. A film he worked on in 1916 called Nippy's Nightmare was the first movie to have scenes with live actors and stop motion at the same time.

Willis O'Brian's creative use of stop-motion is pretty much the only reason to see this movie.

Professor Challenger has claimed to have found real dinosaurs deep in the Amazon, and will take anyone who will go to see them. The last time he went, one of his men was left behind, so a newspaper pays for the expedition for the exclusive to the story, both of the dinosaurs and of the rescue of the missing man.

As they head to the plateau where the man was last seen, a brontosaurus knocks down a tree they used as a bridge, trapping them. From there, they continue to look for the lost man while having to dodge encounters with the dinosaurs.

The movie switches between following the explorers and a showcase of O'Brian's claymation. The claymation scenes are very interesting. For one of the first uses of the technique in a feature length film, I was pretty impressed. It actually makes me wonder why stop-motion looks the way it does in movies from the 70s and 80s. With how it looks in a 1925 movie, you'd think it would have progressed a lot more, but some of the stop-motion I've seen in movies that are relatively recent didn't look really all that much better than in this movie.

Entertainment wise, the movie was "bleh". I pretty much hated all of the characters. But I would definitely recommend this for those who want to see what cutting edge special effects were like in 1925.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[Buccaneer]

Glad to see a new one.

[sabotai]

Seven Chances (1925)

Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, T. Roy Barnes, Ruth Dwyer
Length: 56 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based on: A Play written by David Belasco (Adapted by Roi Cooper Mergue)

This plot will sound familiar to some people as it was remade not too long ago.

A man (Buster Keaton) is in love, but is then told that he must marry by 7 pm on a certain date (in this movie, it happens to be today) to inherent a fortune. He proposes to his love (Ruth Dwyer) and she accepts. However, in a moment of miscommunication, she thinks he is only marrying her to get his money, and she backs out.

The race is on a the man and his business partner (T. Roy Barnes) try and find him a bride. A series of hilarious scenes occur as Keaton is repeatedly turned down as he proposes to every woman he can meet.

His partner gets the bright idea to put it in the afternoon edition of the newspaper. A horde of women, all dressed in wedding dresses, go looking for the man. He gets word that his love has decided to marry him afterall, so he must get back to her and marry her while evading groups of wanna-be brides.

A very good Keaton flick, but not his best. It had a lot of laugh out loud moments, but it just felt like it missed something. For those wondering the earlier reference, this movie was remade in 1999 as "The Bachelor" starring Chris O'Donnell and Renee Zellweger.

A must see for Keaton fans, but I still like The Navigator as my favorite Keaton comedy. And for a bit of trivia, this was Keaton's least favorite of his movies.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

The Freshman (1925)

Directed by: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston
Length: 76 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based on: Original Screenplay by Sam Taylor, John Grey, Tim Whelan, Ted Wilde

#79 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs

Harold Lamb (Harold Lloyd) is going off to college, but unfortunately for him, his only training for college life was seeing a recent movie comedy.

Lamb arrives at college mimicing a short dance down by a comedy in a college comedy whenever he meets someone new. His silly antics immediately make him a target and everyone on campus makes fun of him as they pretend to treat him as one of the popular kids. He continuously finds himself in bad situations as he's egged on by his "friends".

As he tries to be the big man on campus, a girl (Jobyna Ralston) that works at the boarding house where Lamb is staying falls for him. Lamb is oblivious to this. He gets the idea to go out for the football team, where the coach makes him the tackling dummy for the day as a goof. He felt bad about not letting Lamb on the team after he withstood all of that punishment, so he lets him on the team as the waterboy, but doesn't tell him and lets him think he is a researve player.

The night of a big dance that Lamb is hosting, he has a suit made for himself, but it isn't quite finished in time. The proceeding scene is one of the funnier scenes I've seen in a comedy. His suit keeps falling apart while the tailor, in hiding, keeps trying to fix it. Lamb keeps retreating to get his suit fixed, but once one thing is fixed, two or three more pieces fall off.

He finds out that he is nothing but the college fool, and is determined to make everyone think he's not just a joke. When the coach runs out of players in the last football game, Lamb gets sent in and after nearly costing his team the game a few times, scores the game winning touchdown.

This is by far my favorite Lloyd movie to date. Harold Lloyd felt this movie was a much more character-centric movie than his previous films, so to help himself get into character, it was filmed in sequence. All of the scenes were very funny, and it got better as the movie went on. I know movies hardly present a sport realisticly, but just watching the football scenes in this movie does show just how far football has evolved from 1925.

Harold Lloyd had wanted to do a football movie for awhile, but this movie, his most successful on the 1920s, started off a wave of college movies that last into the 30s.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

Stachka (1925)
English: Strike

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(The entire movie on google video, for anyone wanting to watch it)

Directed By: Sergei M. Eisenstein
Starring: Grigori Aleksandrov, Aleksandr Antonov, Yudif Glizer
Length: 82 min
Genre: Drama / Propaganda
Based On: Original Screenplay by Grigori Aleksandrov, Sergei M Eisnstein, Ilya Kravchuvsky, Valeryan Pletnyov

A soviet propanda film set during the rule of the Czars. The story is about a factory strike that occurs after the rich owners of the factory bring in spies to look over the workers. One worker gets falsely accused of stealing, and hangs himself on the grounds. That is the last straw for the workers, and they strike. Revolt would probably be a better for for it.

During the beginning, the workers and their families are happy about the strike. They have grown tired of the repressive owners and the terrible work conditions. Time drags on, however, and the owners simply reject every offer made by the workers who are trying to negotiate down some of the owners unreasonable demands.

Familes starve and are broken apart. The rich owners, however, stay rich. There is one scene that shows four of the very fat owners sitting around a table, indulging themselves on very expensive food and drink.

The owners grow tired of the strike and the military is aclled in. The striking workers are slaughtered. During this scene, Eisenstein also showed footage of cattle being slaughtered, pretty much throwing that metophor in your face.

I thought the movie was quite good, even if it was pretty absurd, but seeing how it was a propaganda film, of course it was absurd. This was Eisenstein's second film, and it showed he was a visionary in terms of cinematography.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

Bronenosets Potyomkim (1925)
English: The Battleship Potemkin

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(enitre movie)

Directed By: Sergei M Eisenstein
Starring: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barsky, Grigori Aleksandrov
Length: 75 min
Genre: Drama / Propaganda
Based On: Original Screenplay by Sergei M Eisenstein and Nina Agadzhanova

Based on the true story, The Battleship Potemkin is a dramatized version of a mutiny that occured in 1905.

The first part of the film shows the crew being served ortten and maggot infested meat. The troops refused to eat it and this makes their commanding officer angry. When the commanding officer tries to punish the crew, they mutiny. This sparks rebellous activity on land as well.

The people of Odessa rise up with the sailors, and the Czarist military is sent in. The Odessa Steps sequence is one of the most famous scenes in cinama history. The scene shows the milatry slaughtering the people of Odessa as they protest. At one point, a mother is shot, and a baby carriage with her baby inside starts rolling down the steps. Many films, including The Outsiders, have paid homage and/or spoofed this scene.

This movie, and the same goes for Stachka, is very violent. This movie was also banned at times in many nations, including in the Soviet Union itself. However it wasn't long before it was accepted. It was even names the greatest movie ever made at the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925)

Directd By: Donald Crisp
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Astor, Jack McDonald
Length: 111 min.
Genre: Adventure / Romance
Based On: The novel "Don Q's Love Story" by Kate and Hesketh Pritchard (Adapted by Jack Cunningham)

Douglas Fairbanks plays both Zorro and Cesar (Zorro's son) in this sequal to his 1920 movie "The Mark of Zorro".

It is a standard love story. Cesar falls for a woman, Dolores de Muro (Mary Astor), and has to compete with another man for her. It is clear that Dolores chooses Cesar over her other admirer, Don Sebastian (played by Donald Crisp). Dolores' father(Jack McDonald), a general, would lover for her daughter to marry Cesar.

However, Don Sebastian ends up killing a friend of Cesar's. When Cesar is found standing over the body, he is framed for the murder. Dolores' father gives Cesar a dagger and offers him a chance to take the honorable way out (hint: he means suicide). Cesar pretends to stab himself and falls off the balconey into the water below.

Cesar hides out in the ruins of a family castle, using the name Don Q. His enemies track him there, as does Zorro, and there is a battle sequence featuring both Cesar and Zorro fighting and defeating the enemies. Cesar ends up with Dolores, and they do the super happy ending.

The movie featured the usual Douglas Fairbanks swordplay, which is always nice, but the movie didn't really bring anything new to the table. It was, what has become, a pretty standard and formulatic adventure-romance.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 4/10

[sabotai]

Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ (1925)

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Directed By: Fred Niblo
Starring: Ramon Novarro, Francis Bushman, May McAvoy
Length: 143 min.
Genre: Adventure / Drama / Religious
Based On: The Novel "Ben Hur: A Tale Of The Christ" by Lew Wallace (Adapted by June Mathis)

[Taken directly from Wikipedia]

Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jew and boyhood friend of the powerful Roman, Messala. When an accident leads to Ben-Hur's arrest, Messala, who has become corrupt and arrogant, makes sure Ben-Hur and his family are jailed and separated.

Ben-Hur is sent to work in the galley of a Roman warship. Along the way he unknowingly encounters Christ, the carpenter's son who offers him water. Once aboard ship, his attitude of defiance and strength impresses a Roman admiral, Quintus Arrius, who allows him to remain unchained. This actually works in the Admiral's favor because when his ship is attacked and sunk by pirates, Ben-Hur saves him from drowning.

Arrius then treats Ben-Hur as a son and over the years, the young man grows strong and becomes a victorious chariot racer. This eventually leads to a climactic showdown with Messala in a chariot race, in which Ben-Hur is the victor.

Ben-Hur is eventually reunited with his mother and sister, who are suffering from leprosy but are miraculously cured by Christ.

[End Wikipedia theft]

The film features a few scenes filmed in Technicolor, the birth of Christ being one of them. It was the first time I had gotten to see Technicolor on my journey. The Ten Commandments filmed the exodus scene in technicolor, however the scene was hand-tinted frames on the version I saw. There had been a few movies filmed entirely in Technicolor prior to Ben-Hur, but the process was expensive and not feasible to use in the enitre movie due to its already massive budget. The Black Pirate, a 1926 movie, is the fourth full-length movie shot entirely in Technicolor on my list (the first one I will get to on my journey).

The film was the most expensive silent movie made, and despite its huge box office success, it did not end up in the black. Unfortunately, they didn't have DVD and TV money to fall back on back then.

Part of the reason for the cost was the chariot race. They used over 2 dozen cameras to film the race (one of the assistant directors of the race was William Wyler, the man who directed the 1959 version of Ben Hur), and they shot over 200,000 feet of film. They only used 750 feet of film for this very long sequence, so that should tell you just how much they had to edit.

The movie was good, and it was really neat watching some of the first uses of Technicolor. The only downside was that it left some characters alone for long stretches of time (namely, Ben Hur's mother and sister) that it was really difficult telling what was going on when they suddenly appeared on screen. Other than that, I really enjoyed this film.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

The Gold Rush (1925)

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(Entire movie - It's been in the public domain since 1953)

Directed By: Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Georgia Hale
Length: 96 min
Genre: Comedy
Base On: Original Screenplay by Charles Chaplin

The Tramp (Charles Chaplin) heads to Alaska to participate in the gold rush.

Here is a detailed plot summery: http://www.filmsite.org/gold.html

This movie was hilarious. One scene, in which a cabin is sliding acrossed the ice, and doors are opening and shutting, and the Tramp and the other 2 men in the scene keeps getting kicked out of the cabin, fall back into the cabin, over and over, had me rolling. The film also included the infamous "roll dance".

The only real downside is that I watched a rerelease of the movie that had Chaplin narrating the movie, instead of the original silent movie. You'd think a narrated movie would be easier to watch than a silent movie...but not really. The timing of the set ups between narration and what was on screen seemed off. I thought it was more dstracting than anything.

Entertainment Rating: 9/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)


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Directed By: Rupert Julian
Starring: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry
Length: 93 min.
Genre: Horror / Romance
Base On: The Novel "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux

Lon Chaney plays the gruesome Phantom of the Opera. Once again, he does an outstanding job at not only acting, but at the make up. The studio thought so highly of Chanet's work on his makeup, they didn't show it during the trailer. They simply referenced it as something the crowd would not believe.

Plot summery at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_%281925_film%29

Mary Philbin, I thought, was terrible. She vastly overacted in every scene she was in. Every time they showed her, especially close up, it was a terribly over-acted expression and body movement.

Unfortunately, on the version I saw, it did not have the technicolor sequence in it. Other than that and Philbin's terrible acting, I actually enjoyed this movie. It wasn't "great", but it was enjoyable and I thought I was really not going to like it. Historically, it is probably Chaney's most well-known, at least most reference, movie. We've all seen the Phantom's unmasking a dozen times throughout our lives in various commericals, movies, TV shows, etc.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

1925 Year In Review

Another up year as I had several 20+ rated movies. It started out slow, including one of the worst movies I've ever seen in the 1925 version of the Wizard of Oz, and a lackluster introduction to the Western genre with Tumblweeds. I thought it was going to be a down year, or show that 1924 was a fluke, however, once we got to the big budget movies, the innovative foreign movies and the classic comedies, the year was saved.

The advances in technology can be seen clearly. The addition of Technicolor sequences in big budget movies like Phantom of the Opera and Ben-Hur showed that it wouldn't be long until movies being made entirely in color would become the standard (unfortunately, a little thing called the Great Depression would get in the way of that).

Not just color, but in set design, the technology that controls the sets, the attention to detail, etc. have been drastically improving over the years, as has the innovation and determination to create the scenes the directors wanted. I know they have spent a ton of money on sets in the past, going back to Intolerance (1916), but just a couple of years prior to 1925, there's no way the movie studio pays such an enormous amount of movey to film that chariot race in Ben-Hur, but the movies were taking off and were big bucks.

Movies of 1925
1. The Gold Rush - 28
2. Bronenosets Potyomkim (The Battleship Potemkin) - 25
3. The Freshman - 25
4. Ben-Hur - 23
5. The Phantom of the Opera - 23
6. Stachka (Strike) - 22
7. Seven Chances - 20
8. The Lost World - 18
9. Tumbleweeds - 14
10. Don Q, Son of Zorro - 12
11. Wizard of Oz - 6

1926 Movies (Updated List - Subject to Change)
*Faust - German / Horror
*The Adventures of Prince Achmed - German / Animated
Battling Butler - Buster Keaton Comedy
The Black Pirate - Douglas Fairbanks Swashbuckler
Flesh of the Devil - Drama starring Greta Garbo
The Sea Beast - Moby Dick adaptation starring John Barrymore
The Son of the Shiek - Sequal to The Shiek starring Rudolph Valentino
Sparrows - Drama starring Mary Pickford
The Temptress - Drama / Romance starring Greta Garbo
Mat (Mother) - Russian film about the 1905 revolution

* - The only two movies that are absolute to make the list (I already have them sitting on my desk from Netflix). Faust is a must and The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the first full-length animated movie, so that's a must.

I'll probably cut one of the Garbo movies and maybe Son of the Shiek if I find other movies I would rather see (I'll keep at least one Garbo movie since I have not seen anything with her in it yet). The only other movie I consider a "must" would be The Black Pirate, since it's the first chance I'll get to see a movie shot entirely in Technicolor (2-Tone, but still). The Sea Beast looks like it gets terrible ratings, so that might go too. So far all I have done was go through the list on Wikipedia of 1926 movies and see which ones were on Netflix. I'll probably find a few more and update the list soon.

[sabotai]

I was sick for most of January, and then I was the Best Man in a wedding near the beginning of February so I had that to deal with. Finally am able to get back to this.

Sparrows (1926)

Directed by: William Beaudine
Starring: Mary Pickford, Roy Stewart, Gustav von Seyffertitz
Length: 84 min.
Genre: Drama

Mary Pickford, at age 32, plays a teenager named Molly that is living with nearly a dozen other children on a "baby farm" in the swamps. The farm is own by Mr. Grimes (Gustav van Seyffertitz). The children are worked all day. Whenever someone comes to the farm, Molly takes the children and hides.

Eventually, Molly leads the children on a daring excape through the swamps. At the same time, the police catch on to Mr. Grimes and the chase is on.

This movie has been highly rated by several websites, but I found the movie very boring. The pace is slow and it seems like, until the end chase scenes, that the movie simply repeats. The children work, the dhildren hide, over and over until they finally try to escape.

And, of course, at age 32, Mary Pickford doesn't pull off the young teenager look anymore. She had tried to get the studio to stop putting her in these roles for several years, but the studio insisted because she was "America's Sweetheart" and they were too worried about how the public would handle it if they put her in adult roles and romantic situations. This would be her last role playing a child.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

The Temptress (1926)

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(8 minute excerpt)

Directed by: Fred Niblo
Starring: Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno, Roy D'Arcy
Length: 106 min.
Genre: Drama / Romance
Based On: The novel "La Tierra de Todos" by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Manuel Robledo (Antonio Moreno) meets Elena (Greta Garbo) at a party and they fall in love (as that sort of thing happened easily back then). The next day, he finds out she is already married to someone he knows. At a dinner party later that night, it is learned that she was having an affair with a wealthy man named Fontenoy, who has gone broke spending his fortune on Elana.

Robledo returns to Argentina to finish the dam he was building. Elena and her husband show up, trying to escape the social criticism. While there, they get involved in a fight between Robledo and a local bandit named Manos Duras (Roy D'Arcy) and Elena's husband is killed. Elana returns to France. Several years later, Robledo completes his dam and returns to France with his fiance. He sees Elena and follows her, only to find that she has become a drunk.

The movie moved at a nice pace, after the beginning. The dinner party scene was long because it included a sequence that was shot under the table that showed men and women playing "footsy". I guess it was to show the people having fun and how they were carefree, but it caused me to feel that the movie stalled on the starting line.

After that, they get the movie to Argentina and that's when it picks up. From then on, it's a good tale of men all falling for the same woman and all scheming for time with her, except for Robledo who wants her to go away, the man who she wants to spend all of her time with.

I generally don't like romantic movies, and I'm getting tired of the silent romantic movie formula, but Greta Garbo is a fantastic actress and this movie deviated from that formula a bit. This was the first film of hers I got to see and I can say that now I am actually looking forward to her other movie from 1926, Flesh of the Devil, which seems to be the more highly regarded movie.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achemd
English: The Adventures of Prince Achmed

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(2 minute scene - Edit: Didn't realize it was in German. There are several clips up on YouTube if you want to see more.)

Directed by: Lotte Reiniger
Length: 81 min
Genre: Adventure / Animation
Based On: Several tales from "Arabian Nights"

Plot From imdb: A wicked sorcerer tricks Prince Achmed into riding a magical flying horse. The heroic prince is able to subdue the magical horse, which he uses to fly off to many adventures. While travelling, he falls in love with the beautiful Princess Peri Banu, and must defeat an army of demons to win her heart.

This is the earliest surviving animated feature film. There were two before it, but they are considered lost. Reiniger used silouette animation, which is the earliest form of the same animation style used in the early South Park episodes (which I'm sure is now done completely on computer).

As for the movie itself, it is presented like a children's movie. The plot is basic, yet fast moving. The silouettes are all distinctive so it's easy to follow who is one screen. A very enjoyable film.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Faust (1926)

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(Intro - first 3 minutes)

Directed by: F.W.Murnau
Starring: Goste Ekman, Emil Jennings, Camille Horn
Length: 106 min.
Genre: Fantasy / Horror
Based on: Faust by Goethe (but also draws from other versions of the Faust legend)

Mephisto (Emil Jennings) makes a bet with an angel that he can corrupt Faust's (Goste Ekman) soul, and if he wins, the domain of Earth will be his. Faust's village is hit by the plague, and Faust searches for an answer. Mephisto, shows up and offers to give him the power of the devil for one day so that he can help his people. Faust agrees, but when Faust tries to cure a woman wearing a cross, he can not get close to her. The villagers recognize that he is a servant of Satan now, and chase after him.

Mephisto then gives Faust youth, and takes him away from the village. Faust agrees to make the deal he made permanent to keep his youth. He falls for a girl, Gretchen (Camille Horn), and begins an affair with her. However, Mephisto frames Faust for the murder of Gretchen's brother, and Faust flees. Gretchen gives birth to Faust's child, but being as she had an affair out of wedlock, she is shunned by everyone, even when she is trying to find a place warm for her baby in the cold winter. When the child dies, she is put to the stake for murder.

Faust goes to her as she is being taken to the stake for execution, but Mephisto takes Faust's youth away. Faust runs to Gretchen as the fire is lit, and despite his old age, she recognizes him. When Mephisto goes back to the angel, he is informed that he lost the bet since Faust was stil capable of love.

The special effects in this movie were incredible (for the time, of course). They didn't come cheap, though, as the movie cost about 2 million marks to make, and the movie only made half of that back. However, the film did cement F.W.Murnau's career, as well as Emil Jennings. This would be Murnau's last film in Germany. Murnau was signed by Fox shortly before the release of Faust, and would go on to direct Sunrise (1927) which would be the start to his short career in Hollywood (he was killed in an car accident in 1931).

Emil Jennings also went to the US. He starred in The Last Command (1928), a lost film, and acted in the US until 1930. He returned to Germany, and continued acting until the mid 1940s.

Entertainment Rating: 9/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

The Sea Beast (1926)

Directed by: Millard Webb
Starring: John Barrymore, Dolores Costello, George O'Hara
Length: 133 minutes
Genre: Adventure
Based on: The novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Captain Ahab (John Barrymore) and his half brother Derek (George O'Hara) compete for the affection of Esther (Dolores Costello), but it's no contest. Esther is completely in love with Ahab. Derek, bitter and jealous, pushes Ahab overboard while they hunt for the elusive white whale. Ahab loses a leg as a result, and returns home depressed and worried that Esther will leave him.

However, Esther, initially shocked, still loves Ahab, but Derek uses the situation to convince Ahab that Esther is ashamed to be around him. He also lies to Ahab, saying that he and Esther are now in love. Ahab lets Derek go, and becomes bitter. Unaware of his half brother's plot, he puts the full blame on the white whale.

The movie was good at times, and downright terrible at others. Part of the reason was the soundtrack. The makers of the DVD release put a modern sounding music score to it, and it was very distracting. It had rock music playing during the action sequences. Sounds good in theory, but really distracting. You are watching a move from the 1920s with music that the world won't know until decades later. Just didn't fit well.

The quality of the film was also pretty bad. Much of it was overexposed, making the white almost blinding. A few times, there is a letter held up to the camera to read, but it is impossible to read. You can't even see the writing. At times, you can't see what is going on in the background until the scene fades out.

There were also times when there are just too many title cards. The best movies are able to convey emotion and even dialogue through mannerisms and facial expressions. And this one did a fine job of that. The acting was fine and it didn't need the occasional bombardment of title cards.

Also, this was the first movie that John Barrymore and Dolores Costello worked on together, but they were lovers off the screen. John Barrymore fired the actress originally hired to play Esther so that he could put Dolores in the role. They would marry in 1928 and have 2 kids, one of them being John Drew Barrymore, Drew Barrymore's father.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[Buccaneer]

I need to catch up for I hadn't realized you had some updates the past few months. Glad to see this!

[sabotai]

The Black Pirate (1926)

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Directed by: Albert Parker
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Billie Dove, Donald Crisp
Length: 88 min
Genre: Adventure

A son (Douglas Fairbanks) vows vengence for his father's death. He joins the pirates that murdered his father and works his way into favor with everyone onboard and is refered to as the "Black Pirate". When the pirates take a ship, along with a young woman names Isobel (Billie Dove), he convinces the crew that they should ask for ransom (instead of giving her to one of the pirates). The pirate who was to get the girl is upset about this, and sabotages the ship set to get the ransom.

The Black Pirate tries to save Isobel but is caught. He walks the plank, but manages to escape with the help of one of the pirates and swims to shore. He returns with a group of armed men and saves the day.

This was the 3rd movie filmed entirely in two-tone technicolor (Toll of the Sea (1922) and Wanderer of the Wasteland (1924) were the first two), although it had been used several times before (Ben-Hur and Phantom of the Opera used it for a few scenes). Also known as "Process 2", it would only be used once more to film an entire movie due to the technical problems associated with it. To film in Process 2, you needed two cameras, and afterwards, the two film strips were cemented together. This would cause problems with the focus of the film and would cause the film to cup irregularly causing damage to the film.

The film was not treated kindly by some reviewers of the day, claiming the film to simply be a bunch of colorful pirates and an assortment of stunts. The story was as present as many other silent movies, but Fairbanks knew what his audience wanted, and he gave them a lot of his trademark stunts, including one of his most well-known stunts, sticking a dagger into the sail of the ship and riding it down.

It was a fun film to watch, and a bit weird. All these years, I always thought sound came before color, but that really wasn't the case, although they only were a few years apart. Of course, color film would remain quite an expensive luxery and was treated, as in this case, as more of an experiment. This would be Fairbanks' only color movie.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

Son of the Sheik (1926)

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Directed by: George Fitzmaurice
Starring: Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky, George Fawcett
Length: 68 min
Genre: Romance / Drama
Based on: The novel "The Sons of the Sheik" by Edith Maude Hill
Sequel to The Sheik (1922)

The Sheik's son, Ahmed (Valentino played both sons, the Sheik and his son) is just as rebelous as he was, and goes off and falls in love with a gypsie girl named Yasmine (Vilma Banky). The gypies that the girl is with ambush Ahmed, but Ahmed's servant saves him. Ahmed was led to beleive that Yasmine played a role in his kidnapping, so he takes her captive. It's implied that Ahmed rapes the woman (as shown above), but is obviously not shown. If you remember back to 1921, it was a controversy for the film to not include the rape scene from the novel, since the filmmakers were not sure how it would be received by the public. They included a form of that scene in this movie, and of the reviews from the day that I read, it wasn't mentioned.

When the Sheik learns of his son's deeds, he travels to his camp and insist he let the girl go. He does, but later learns that she actually had no involvement in his kidnapping. He returns to the gypsies, this time he frees her from her father who had been trying to force her to marry one of his henchmen. A large fight scenes occurs with both The Sheik and his son fighting the band of gypies. It reminded me a lot of the Son of Zorro climax.

This would be Valentino's last film. Shortly before the film's release, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in NYC. He went into surgery for a perforated ulcer, which was successful. However, infection set in while he was recovering and died on August 23rd, 1926. 100,000 people showed up for his funeral.

The movie would become a huge hit, in part because of Valentino's death. Many of his movies were rereleased throughout the 20s and 30s. Many critics thought of this film as Valentino's best.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[oliegirl]

Sab, this is great! I hadn't seen it before but just read the whole thing and enjoyed every write up. The history in here is amazing! Please keep it up!

[sabotai]

Mat (1926)
English: Mother

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(first 10 minutes - the rest is on YouTube)

Directed by: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Starring: Vera Baranovskaya, Nikolai Batalov, Aleksandr Chistyakov
Length: 90 min
Genre: Drama / Propaganda
Based On: The novel "Mat" by Maxim Gorky (written in 1907)

A film about the 1905 revolution against Czarist rule. Niovna (Vera Baranovskaya) mourns over her husband when he is killed during a worker's strike. Her son, Pavel (Nikolai Batalov) has been involved with the revolutionaries, and the police come and investigate. They find nothing, but they are going to arrest him and, most likely, execute him. Niovna, trying to save her son's life, gives the officers what they want, hidden pamphlets and weapons. They take her son to prison anyway.

She marches along with the revolutionaries as they assault the prison to free their men. The guards open fire, but they continue on. Many of the prisoners are able to escape, but just as mother and son are reunited, the son is shot dead. The mother picks up the flag and stands, holding it in the air. The guards, now on horses as they chase down the fleeing revolters, cut the mother down as she stood with the flag.

Another propaganda film from Russia that is meant to make the masses hate the Czarist rule and be proud of those who brought revolution to their country. As a film, it was decent. Many critics put on the same level as Eisenstein, but I wouldn't go that far. It did have that trademark Russian montage sequence during the prison break scene, but other than that, I'd say Eisenstein was a superior filmmaker. During the downtime of the film, Eisenstein had a way of keeping me interested. During the downtimes of this film, I was pretty bored with it.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

Thanks olie!

[molson]

Sab, this is great! I hadn't seen it before but just read the whole thing and enjoyed every write up. The history in here is amazing! Please keep it up!

+1

Great stuff, keep it coming.

[sabotai]

Flesh and the Devil (1926)

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Directed by: Clarence Brown
Starring: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson
Length: 113 min
Genre: Drama / Romance
Based on: The play "The Undying Past" by Hermann Sundermann

Two childhood freinds, Leo (John Gilbert) and Ulrich (Lars Hanson), joined the military together and they head home on leave. Leo meets a woman at a party, Felicitas (Greta Garbo), and falls in love with her, as people back then had a habit of doing. While in her home, her husband (dun-dun DUN) enters. As it turns out, he's a powerful Count. He challenges Leo to a duel and Leo accepts and wins. To cover up the reason for the duel so that everyone involved could keep their honor, they make up a story about it being over words said during a card game.

The army punishes him by sending him to Africa for several years. Felicitas promises to wait for him. After three years in Africa, he is allowed to return. Apon returning, however, Leo finds that Felicitas has married Ulrich! (dun-dun-DUN!). Ulrich had no knowledge of their affair, which they eventually continue behind Ulrich's back. One night, Leo is caught with Felicitas by Ulrich while, after some angry words, Leo was strangling Felicitas. Felicitas tells Ulrich a lie, that Leo came there to kidnap her, and Ulrich then challenges Leo to a duel. Leo, to protect his friend from the truth, admits to Felicitas' lie and accepts the challenge.

When the duel starts, Leo refuses to protect himself and Ulrich demands that he raises his gun, which he half-heartedly does. Felicitas runs to them to get them to stop, but she falls through some ice and drowns. When this happens, it is like a veil had been lifted from their eyes and the two friends are friends once again.

Sound abusrd? It sure does. You see, Felicitas was the tempting flesh that caused men to sin (hence "Flesh and the Devil"). When she died, the desire for the men to sin vanished.

Ok, so the plot may not be as absurd as my brief writeup makes it seem (but there's no way to make it not sound absurd in brief summery form :) ), it is a romance film, and you know by now how I feel about them. The plot was fine, for the most part, and it just got crazy at the end.

That issues with plot aside, the film was very well done. A lot of the effects, camera angles, etc. were very impressive. From a filmmaking perspective, I really liked this film. It's obvious that Brown, and cinametographer William Daniels, weren't interested in just making another cookie-cutter romance film. They had innovation on their minds. And the acting of both Garbo and Gilbert was superb.

The movie was a massive success that made Greta Garbo one of the highest paid actresses at the time, and it was the beginning of Greta Garbo's relationship with John Gilbert. The passion between them in this movie was real, and they would go on to continue acting together into the 1930s. I'm actually interested in seeing how their relationship evolves in their films.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

Thanks molson.

The last review catches me up to today. I would have been done with 1926 today, but the DVD of Battling Butler came to me broken in the mail, so I have to wait on a replacement for that and then it's on to 1927 and the dawn of the talkies and the Oscars.

[sabotai]

Battling Butler (1926)

Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Sally O'Neil, Snitz Edwards
Length: 71 min
Genre: Comedy

Alfred Butler (Buster Keaton) grew up spoiled, so his father sends him off on a hunting and fishing trip to make a man out of him. He is sent, of course, with a butler (Snitz Edwards) to handles ever need Alfred has.

On the trip, he meets a mountain girl (Sally O'Neil) and falls in love. He also notices a prizefighter, Alfred "Battling" Butler has the same name as him and he wants it stopped. He sends his butler off to propose to the mountain girl for him, but the girl's father and brother don't accept weaklings in their family. The butler lies and says that he and the Alfred "Battling" Butler in the newspaper are the same.

"Battling" Butler is expected to lose, and the butler reasons that when he does, no one will hear of him again. Except he wins, and when Alfred returns from "his fight", the town throws a parade and Alfred is married to the girl right away. However, Alfred leaves at once to go train.

When his new wife appears, the butler asks the real Battling Butler to help cover, at which point the real Battling Butler leaves the camp to let Alfred fight his next fight as punishment for Alfred flirting with Battling's wife. The trainers do their best to get Alfred in shape. In the end, the real Battling Butler fights and wins, and then shows up in the locker to beat up Alfred. Alfred ends up going crazy and knocks out the real Battling Butler. He confesses to his wife that he lied, but she says she is glad he's not a real prizefighter.

Overall, not one of Keaton's better movies. The sparring sequence is absolutely hilarious, and you can find it on YouTube (the uploader disabled embedding or I would have put it on the post). However, the rest of the film was a bit dull. Some funny parts here and there, but not nearly as good as his other movies. I was going to rate it about a 5, maybe as low as 4, but I'd say the sparring scene pushes it to a 6.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

1926 Year in Review

A better overall year than 1925, that saw a couple of really, really bad movies, but the high points of 1926 were also lower than the high points of 1925. I wasn't really blown away with any movie except for Faust.

The year I experienced was lacking a couple of things. For one, comedies. Only a lackluster film from Keaton. Charlie Chaplin's career is winding down, and won't have another feature-length film until 1928 (The Circus), and after that, City Light (1931) and Modern Times (1936) are his next offerings.

Harold Lloyd did have a movie out in 1926 (For Heaven's Sake), but it is not available on Netflix (It may have been on one of the Collections, but I didn't see it). Lloyd will continue to make a movie a year for a bit, but once the "talkies" take over, Lloyd's career fades pretty quickly as well (He'll make a movie every 2 years from 1930 to 1938, and then he makes a movie in 1947 to end his career).

Chaplin will be gone soon, Lloyd will be less visible, but Keaton sticks around for quite some time. It's soon to be seen which comidians step up to fill the void left by Chaplin and Lloyd.

The other thing I noticed missing were the big budget Hollywood epics movies. No Ben-Hur, no Phatom of the Opera. I'm sure there were some, but they either have not gotten to DVD yet or they didn't survive. (Or, I did watch them, and they didn't stand out).

Movies of 1926
1. Faust - 27
2. Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed - 23
3. Flesh and the Devil - 23
4. Son of the Sheik - 23
5. The Black Pirate - 22
6. The Temptress - 21
7. Battling Butler - 18
8. Sparrows - 17
9. Mat - 16
10. The Sea Beast - 14

Movie list for 1927
Berlin: Die Symphonie der Großstadt - German documentary on the city of Berlin
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness - Documentary of a village in South East Asia
The General - Buster Keaton comedy
Xixiang ji - Chinese drama / romance
La Sirene des tropiques - Josephine Baker drama / romance
Metropolis - Fritz Lang's dystopian Sci-Fil / Thriller
The Jazz Singer - Al Jolson musical drama - first movie to contain some synchronized sound ("Part-Talkie")
The Lodger - Alfred Hitchcock crime drama
It - Clara Bow romance
My Best Girl - Mary Pickford romance
Cat and the Canary - Horror
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans - F.W.Murnau's first directing job in the US. Romance.
Wings - WWI war / romance movie (If I can find it)

[sabotai]

Metropolis (1927)

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Directed by: Fritz Lang
Starring: Alfred Abel, Gustav Frohlich, Rudolph Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm
Length: 153 min
Genre: Action / Dystopian Sci-Fi
Based on: Original Screenplay by Fritz Lang and, his wife, Thea von Harbou

Metropolis is as much of a movie as it is a work of art. Similar to Murnau's Nosferatu, Fritz's Expressionism is shown not with twisted set designs, but larger than life scenery. Everything in this movie is big. Doorways, staircases, machinary, it's all very large.

The movement of the workers at the M-Machine is probably the best example of how much of the movie is a choreographed dance, a moving work of art. It is also the best example of the overall theme of the story. Immediately after an accident occurs, new workers are rushed in to continue the work while the injured are carried off.

The main plot of Metroplis follows Freder (Gustav Frohlich), the son of the man who runs Metropolis, Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). Freder witnesses the accident at the M-Machine and is shocked by what he sees, and he also becomes infatuated with a woman preacher, Maria (Brigitte Helm). After witnessing the accident and the living conditions of the workers of Metroplis, Freder decides to help them.

The film had numerous cuts when it was released in the late 1920s. When originally released, it was 210 minutes long, but it was recut and the part the was cut out is thought to be lost. In the American version, it was recut and the main plot was mostly cut out because it was thought to be too controversial.

The film was also one of the most expensive movies made. It cost 7 million marks, which would be about $200 million today.

One of the best movies I have seen so far, but it just felt like it was missing something. I dunno, maybe I'm just partial to F.W. Murnau, or I need to watch a few more Fritz Lang movies to really appriciate his writing and directing, which I will certainly be doing.

Entertainment I give it a solid 8, mostly because of the lost parts of the film. Having to sit up and quickly read through several screens describing important pieces of plot is possibly the most jarring thing that can happen while watching a movie. Granted, it's the way it has to be, but nonetheless, it slammed the brakes on the pace of the movie and my enjoyment of the movie whenever it happened. Historical, 10 out of 10. Many people believe it is the best silent movie ever made. A lot of people also have it as the best German Expressionist film. It would also be impossible to measure the film's influence, which started the moment the film was released to the present day.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 10/10

[sabotai]

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/sunrise.jpg

Directed By: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Janet Gaynor, George O'Brien
Length: 95 Minutes
Genre: Romance / Drama
Based On: Die Reise nach Tilsit, A short story by Hermann Sundermann.

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png
1927-1928 Best Cinematography
1927-1928 Best Actress (Janet Gaynor - awarded for body of work, not just this movie)
1927-1928 Most Unique and Artistic Production (only year awarded)

1929 Kinema Junpo Award (Japan) for Best Foreign Language Film

#63 AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions

Murnau was hired by Fox to bring his German Expressionism to the US. He was given the ability to make whatever film he wanted, and he chose to make a film version of a german short story.

The tale is pretty simple. A man (George O'Brien) is having an affair on his wife (Janet Gaynor). He goes so far as to plan to kill her, but when he gets her to go on a boat with him, he can't go through with it. His wife flees at first, scared of what he almost did, but eventually forgives him.

They then spend the night in the city, enjoying everything it has to offer. They head home at the end of the night, but get caught in a storm. The boat sinks, and his wife is lost. The village organizes a search and eventually find her when the sun starts to rise.

The acting in the movie was pretty good, and Murnau did a wonderful job. Murnau was the master of telling a story with limited title cards, and Sunrise was no exception. There were very long sequences where there were no title cards.

He continued his brand of German Expressionism in this movie, and that was to make things big. The scenes in the city, most notably the fair, were particalurly very Murnau-like. He also experimented with special effects. There is a scene where they are embracing in a resturant, and the background becomes very dream-like, and then fades back to the resturnat surroundings.

He used the same technique earlier in the movie when the couple was walking acrossed the street. The cars and city around them faded to a field and then back to the city. While they were crossing the street, you could see cars passing by in front of the couple. Of course, they looked like flat cardboard cutouts passing in front of the couple, but it was still something new.

Overall, this film felt like it was state-of-the-art, and a bit experimental. Unfortunately, the movie was not a financial success, and Fox started to limit what Murnau could do. He would make 2 more movied for Fox (Four Devils (1928), which is lost, and City Girl (1930)). Murnau quit Fox after the filming of City Girl, and went on to film a movie with Robert Flahery (Nanook of the North) in Tahiti called Tabu.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[Swaggs]

This is a great thread.

You should consider starting a blog with this stuff.

[ntndeacon]

You are about to hit a movie I have actually seen. I look forward to see how you like Wings.

[sabotai]

Berlin: Die Symphonie der Großstadt (1927)
English: Berlin: Symphony of a Great City*

Directed by: Walter Ruttman
Length: 72 Minutes
Genre: Documentary / City Symphony


This documentary is about the city of Berlin and a day in the life of the citizens of Berlin. It is broken up into 5 acts. Act 1 shows the city awakening and of the factory workers heading to work. Act 2 shows children going to school, merchants opening their stores, etc. Act 3 is the general life of citizens through the day. Act 4 begins with the factory workers' lunch break and ends when they go home. Act 5 is all about the nightlife of Berlin.

It was a very interesting film, but only in that it was interesting to see what Berlin looked like in 1927, how people lived their day, what kind of entertainment they liked, etc. The film is basically an hour long montage set to music.

While it was great to see what Berlin was like in '27, the movie was much more of a music video than a documentary. Many long sequences of montages that didn't really show anything nearly put me to sleep.

It's a great film to watch to see what Berlin looked like over 80 years ago, but it's not a very entertaining film.

* - The title is "Great City" in the english release, but the title literally translates to "Big City". A Großstadt, by definition, is a city with more than 100,000 people.

Entertainment Rating: 4/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927)

Directed By: Merian C, Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Length: 69 Minutes
Genre: Docudrama

Nominated for 1927-1928 Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production


This docudrama is about Kru and his family in the nation of Siam (now Thailand). The film starts off by showing his family's daily life, but it is quickly interrupted when a leopard starts attacking his livestock. Kru sets up traps for the leopard, but it turns out that his farm is being attacked by several predators. He goes to the nearby village, recruits some men, and then set up many traps for the many intruders. The climax of the movie occurs when a group of elephants (called Chang in Siam), stampede on Kru's farm and the village.

Their previous movie was Grass, a documentary of a group of nomads in the Middle East. In this movie, though, they created a narrative involving Kru and his family (hence the genre "docudrama"). While the story was invented, the film makers were in real danger the entire time they were there, and some of the shots that they got of the animals were incredible.

However, the movie itself was underwhelming. At several points in the movie, it felt as though it was just repeating the same scenes over and over again. From a film making perspective, it was incredible. The narrative was just bland and uninteresting after awhile.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

Almost done with 1927. I've got 2 more movies to watch, The General, which I can watch online through Netflix, and Wings, which will be on TCM Sunday at midnight, so hopefully I don't forget. I'll probably do several write ups over the weekend and finish them up next week and then I can move forward to 1928.

[sabotai]

西廂記 (1927)
English: Romance of the Western Chamber

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Directed by: Minwei Li, Hou Yao
Starring: Cigang Ge, Chichang Hu
Length: 49 minutes
Genre: Romance / Action

Base on: Play by Yuan Dynasty playwright Wang Shifu


After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, there was a major push for modernization, which included film. Movie making in China started in 1919 or 1920, and by 1925, there were dozens of production companies in Shanghai.

The story is that of a couple who fall in love, but due to social status, with one being the daughter of the prime minister and the other a peasant, they could not be together. Lucky for them, a bandit shows up and demands the prime minister's daughter. The prime minister says he'll promise his daughter to anyone whoever can help get rid of the bandits. The peasant calls on the help of General White Horse, who helps to save the day.

Only being 49 minutes long, it only focused on the main plot of the play, and left out the subplots. The plot was boring, and for the most part, the same as every romance plot of every american romance film. However, unlike the american romance films, this film also featured a lot of action, which became a big part of Chinese cinema very quickly.

Historically, I don't think this film was very different than many other films. The big one, The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, was released in 1928. It was 27 hours long, and released as a series of 18 feature length movies from 1928 to 1931. The first part released in 1928 completely smashed box office records for China, completely sold out for weeks, and was the reason for a massive push for building and explanding the movie industry in China.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple is available anywhere.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 5/10

[sabotai]

La Sirene des tropiques (1927)
English: Siren of the Tropics

Directed by: Mario Nalpas, Henri Etievant
Starring: Josephine Baker, Pierre Batcheff, Regina Thomas
Length: 86 minutes
Genre: Drama / Romance

The first time Josephine Baker appears on my journey (and one of the only times), and this film from France shows that the French didn't have hangups about nudity even in the 1920s as Baker appears topless several times. Yes, of course that would be the first thing I point out!

Andre Berval (Pierre Batcheff) unfortunately is in love with the same woman his boss loves. In an effort to take his rival out of the picture, the boss sends Berval to Monte Puebla to explore for minerals. While there, Andre meets Papitou (Josaphine Baker), who falls for him. When Andre returns to Paris Papitou chases after him. However, she sees that Andre loves Denis (Regina Thomas), she stops pursueing him, but, due to her dancing ability, Papitou ends up becoming a star in show business.

Baker was born in St. Louis in 1906, but in the 1920s when she saw just how limited her oppurtinuties were because she was a black woman, she left the US for France where she became a star very quickly. She returned to the states in the mid 1930s to perform on Broadway, but bolted for Europe again when she saw that treatment towards black people had not changed.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

The Lodger (1927)

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Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Maria Ault, Ivor Novello, Arthur Chesney
Length: 75 min
Genre: Crime / Thriller

Hitchcock's third film, he considered this his first true film. The quality of the print was pretty bad, but still watchable. The above is the first part of the movie. The entire movie is on YouTube.

The story is that of a man who shows up and rents out a room from a family. A serial killer has been on the loose, and suspicions quickly turn to the mysterious lodger. When the police search his room and find evidence against him, he runs and a mob chases him.

The movie was pretty raw, but had a lot of Hitchcock-like elements to it, including a brief cameo as a reporter by Hitchcock. The film was almost not released, but after they brought someone in to edit it, they finally decided to release the movie. In the end, the outside editor recognized Hitchcock's talent, and only reduced the number of title cards and suggested reshooting a few minor scenes. The Lodger was a success, and Hitchcock started to make a name for himself.

Had this movie been shelved for good, Hitchcock's career may have been shelved as well.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[Buccaneer]

Two comments about The Lodger: I didn't realize that Hitchcock made a silent movie. And wasn't this movie remade with Michael Keaton?

[sabotai]

Two comments about The Lodger: I didn't realize that Hitchcock made a silent movie. And wasn't this movie remade with Michael Keaton?

I went through Keaton's movie list on imdb.com and didn't see anything. I does get remade several times, though.

I was shocked to see Hitchcock started so early as well. His first movie was made in 1925, so he started at the tail end of the silent era. He made a bunch of movies in '27 and '28, and made his first sound film in '29 (Blackmail).

[molson]

Great stuff as always.

There's a colorized version of Metropolis out there with an 80's heavy metal score. True film buffs hate it of course, but I thought it was really interesting. I don't think it ever came out on DVD though.

[Buccaneer]

I went through Keaton's movie list on imdb.com and didn't see anything. I does get remade several times, though.



Pacific Heights what I was thinking of.

[sabotai]

Wings (1927)

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Directed by: William A. Wellman
Starring: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow
Length: 141 minutes
Genre: War / Drama / Romance

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png

1927-1928 Best Picture, Production
1927-1928 Best Effects, Engineering Effects (Roy Pomeroy)


The movie cost over $2 million to make, a huge sum of money for the time, and you can see why when you watch it. Some of the shots and the effects are miles ahead of what I've seen in other movies.

In a rural town, Jack Powell (Buddy Rogers) and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) start off as rivals competing over the attention of a city girl (played by Jobyna Rolston, best known for starring opposite Harold Lloyd in many of his comedies). The city girl is in love with David, but doesn't know how to tell Jack. There is another girl, Mary Preston (Clara Bow) who is in love with Jack, but he doesn't know it, and she repeatedly has her heart broken when he turns his attention to the city girl.

Both Jack and David enter the military to become pilots. The are put in the same unit and fight constantly. It eventually turns from rivalry to friendship as they earn each other's respect. At this point, Gary Cooper shows up, playing the role of Cadet White for 1 scene. Cooper had been in over a dozen films at this point, but mostly as an uncredited extra. He started to get better roles , eve a few starring roles, but it was in this scene that he captured the attention of all of Hollywood. He quickly became a star.

The two friends head off to war, as does Mary Preston, who joins the war effort as a driver. While Mary is driving through Paris, she learns that Jack is there. When she finds him, he is completely smashed to the point that he doesn't recognize her and continues flirting with some French floozie. She changes into a dress and competes with the other girl and finally wins his attention, but he still doesn't realize it's Mary. She gets him back to his hotel room and as she's changing back into her uniform, a few MP officers walk in. She is forced to resign and heads home.

Soon after, Jack and David fight over a photo that the city girl had given to Jack. On the back of the photo, David sees a note that the girl wrote for David. He realizes the photo was meant for him and not Jack, but to protect Jack, he rips the photo up. Jack is enraged, and as the two fight, they are called to their planes. David gets shot down and Jack returns alone.

David survives the crash and starts to make his way back to the American base, but he has to avoid the Germans. Jack is fill with grief over David being shot down, and is determined to make the Germans pay. So, when David finds a German base and steals a plane to fly back to the US base with, you probably can tell what's going to happen.

Jack engages David without realize he's flying the German plane, and shoots him down. David crashes into a building and Jack lands his plane. When he reaches the German plane and looks inside the building, he sees the pilot has been placed on a table by some citizens, and realizes it's David.

Jack returns home and is greeted as a hero. David's mother forgives Jack for what happened and blames the war, and Jack is reunited with Mary. And yes, happy ending, Jack and Mary end up together.

In looking up information for Wings, I see references that the film's plot has been criticized. I think the plot for Wings was fine. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've watched a lot of cookie-cutter romances and cookie-cutter comedies (and plenty of them have been pretty good), but Wings didn't feel very cookie-cutter to me. It may not have had the best plot, or more than a simple plot, but it wasn't bad.

The effects were quite amazing. The director mounted cameras on planes, some pointing at the pilot, some away, during a re-enactment. They also attached smoke cannisters to some planes. They added flames in post-production. It was also obvious to me 2008 eyes that they extensively used models, but I can just imagine what it was like for someone in 1927 to see a shot of bombs being dropped from a plane onto a town and seeing buildings collapse and smoke billowing up when they hit. All from the a topdown viewpoint.

In fact, this was the first movie I've seen on this journey to use models so extensively. I remember watching a "making of" documentary on the first Star Wars film. They showed how they set up the models, shot them flying, and blew the up. They were essentially doing the same thing 50 years prior to Star Wars in this movie.

Clara Bow was the studio's biggest star at the time, but Rogers and Arlen were both just starting out at the time, and this movie made stars of them. The film's initial run lasted for 63 weeks. It was one of the most successful silent movies ever made.

Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 10/10

[sabotai]

It (1927)

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Directed by: Clarence G. Badger
Starring: Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin
Length: 77 Minutes
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Based On: The novel by Elinor Glyn

"It" being slang for sex appeal. After this movie, Clara Bow was known as "The It Girl".

Betty Lou (Clara Bow) is a sales girl who is in love with her boss, Cyrus (Antonio Moreno). Cyrus is already engaged, but Betty Lou keeps at it. However, just as it seems she has succeeded, Cyrus' friend Monty (William Austin) ends up killing her chances when he overhears her telling social workers that she is the mother of a child they've come to investigate. In reality, the child is her sister's child. Monty tells Cyrus about what he overheard. In the end, Betty Lou set Monty straight on what happened, and got him to help her get Cyrus back.

Everyone's performance was fine, especially William Austin in the role Monty. He plays the comedic relief part very well. The movie was pretty much the standard romantic comedy, though. But that wasn't really the goal of the movie, it was to show off Clara Bow, and she is certainly worthy of that.

In a way, though, this movie, which made her a star, may have set in motion her demise as an actress. She became known as "The It Girl", and rumors started to flow about her sex life, from famous actors to stories of group sex.

Paramount, who helped create her image by putting her in nothing but sex appeal roles, grew tired of her image. The studio fired her in 1931 (released her from her contract, same thing). She would make a few more movies FOX, but tired of dealing with the press and her own insecurity over her voice (thick Brooklyn accent) led her to leave the movies, get married and settle down.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

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Directed by: Paul Leni
Starring: Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, Forrest Stanley
Length: 82 min
Genre: Horror
Based On: The Play of the same name by John Willard

The film that basically started it for this kind of horror movie.

A wealthy man dies but leaves instructions that his will to not be read until 20 years after his death. After the 20 years is up, all of the man's relatives come to his mansion for the reading of his will. All are expecting something, but only one person ends up getting it all. However, he left a second note saying that should anything happen to the person who go everything, everything would go to someone named in an unopened envelope, to be opened should it be needed.

The throw a monkey wrench into it all, an insane inmate at the nearby prison escaped, and a cop has shown up looking for him, and he won't leave until he finds him.

Obviously, after that, hilarity ensues. And some horror, too. If you ever seen a horror movie in which a group of people have to spend the night in a creepy mansion, and many of them are distrustful of the others and/or afraid of a monster/ghost/psycho, the creative process that spawned it can probably trace its influences all the way back to this movie.

The director, Paul Leni, was one of the German Expressionist filmmakers. Unfortunately, I have not seen any of his german movies. The camera work and the sets were very German Expressionist-like. Paul Leni, like F.W.Murnau, would die way before his time, though. He died in 1929 from blood poisoning (Sepsis).

The movie was pretty entertaining. I didn't read much about the movie before I watched it, and was pleasantly surprised. A good suspenseful movie that kept me guessing the entire time.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

My Best Girl (1927)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/mybestgirl.jpg

Directed by: Sam Taylor
Starring: Mary Pickford, Charles "Buddy" Rogers
Length: 79 min
Genre: Romantic Comedy

In her mid 30s, the studio finally puts Mary Pickford in her first adult role.

Joseph Merril (Buddy Rogers) is the son of a wealthy owner of a chain of 5 and 10 cent stores. To prove to his father that he is ready for the real world, he takes a job as a stock boy under a false name, Joe Grant. There, he meets Maggie Johnson (Mary Pickford). Maggie soon develops a crush on Joseph.

He, too, begins to have feelings for Maggie, but there's just one little problem. He's already engaged. He continues this duel life, trying to find the right time to break off his engagement, but time and his family catch up to him, leading to a scene in a courthouse where Joseph punches someone over a comment about Maggie.

It becomes a scandal in the newspapers and Joseph's father plans a trip to Hawaii for his son. Joseph plans to take Maggie with him, bet his father beats him to Maggie's house and offers a bribe and convinces her that leaving Joseph is the best thing for him. When Joseph arrives, Maggie tries to put on a act that she didn't care about him, but she can't keep it up and eventually breaks down.

The budget for the movie was around $500,000 and the movie made over $1 million in its first run. The studio had worried that putting Mary Pickford in an adult, romantic role would not go over well with a public that was used to seeing her as "American's Sweetheart". They were worried over nothing as the film was a big success.

This was Mary Pickford's last silent movie. After a two year absence, she returned to star in the 1929 movie Coquette, in which she would win an Oscar for. Her last movie was Secrets in 1933.

Entertainment Rating: 6/10
Historical Rating: 7/10

[sabotai]

The General (1927)

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Directed by: Buster Keaton
Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender
Length: 103 min.
Genre: Comedy

#18 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs
#18 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary)
Nominee for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills

A showcase of dangerous stunts, a total disaster at the box office.

Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) is an engineer for the railroad company, and when he goes to enlist with the Confederate Army, he is rejected since they think his job is too important. A misunderstanding with his girlfriend's father and brother leads them to think he doesn't try to enlist, and his girlfriend, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), doesn't want to see him again until he is in a uniform.

Time passes, Johnnie keeps running the trains, and one day Annabelle is on the same train that Johnnie is running. A group of Union spies steal Johnnie's train, The General, with Annabelle still on it. She was in the luggage area. Johnnie chases after the train.

This is where the movie gets going. What follows is a long, very long, chase sequence as Johnnie chases the stolen train with another train. The Union spies keep trying to put obstacles in the way, and Johnnie keeps finding ways to deal with them.

The Union finally reach their destination. Johnnie sneaks into the house, rescues Annabelle, who he didn't even know was kidnapped. Shortly after, another long train chase sequence occurs, until Johnnie finally reaches the Confederate base. A battle takes place on a shallow river, after which Johnnie is enlisted as a Lieutenant, and he gets the girl.

What really makes this movie stand out are the stunts. They are absolutely unbelievable. Keaton swings from car to car, onto the train and off of it, and the shear amount of destruction is far and above anything I've seen in a comedy in the silent area. The budget for the movie was around $750,000, a huge sum of money, especially for a comedy which were (and still are) typically low budget productions.

The most memorable scene, one which many have probably seen before, is that of a train crossing a bridge that was sabotaged. The bridge collapses and the train plummets down into the river. No models were used for that scene. It was a real bridge, it was a real train, and thanks to Buster Keaton not telling the people playing the Union soldiers what to expect, the look of shock on their faces were real as well.

The only thing really missing from this movie was the comedy. There were some funny moments, mostly the interactions of Buster Keaton and Annabelle Lee during the second chase sequence. However, overall, the movie just wasn't all that funny. It felt more like a showcase of stunt work than a comedy.

The critics of the day basically felt the same (although they were much more harsh on the film that I am). The movie was slammed for Keaton being more of an acrobat and tumbler than a comedian. The movie completely flopped that led MGM to start restricting what the comedian could do.

Over the years, it has essentially been revived as it's been named very high on many Top Movie lists, including AFI's and Roger Ebert's lists. The film is certainly worthy of watching for the complex and exhilerating stunts, but truth be told, I didn't really laugh all that much. It was entertaining, just not all that funny.

It has recently been regarded as Keaton's best film. I respectfully disagree.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 9/10

[sabotai]

The Jazz Singer (1927)

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Directed by: Alan Crosland
Starring: Al Jolson, May McAvoy, Warner Oland
Length: 88 min.
Genre: Musical
Based On: The Play "Day of Atonement" by Samson Raphaelson

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png
1927-1928 Honorary Award
1927-1928 Nominated for Best Writing, Adaptation
1927-1928 Nominated for Best Effects, Engineering Effects


Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin' yet.

Jackie Rabinowitz (Al Jolson) grows up dreaming of being a jazz singer, but his father, Cantor Rabinowitz (Warner Oland), Eventually, Jackie refuses to follow in his father's footsteps and leaves home. He changes his name of Jack Robin and tries to make it as a jazz singer.

After performing a few songs at a caberat, he is introduced to Mary Dale (May McAvoy). She helps him get a job with her and he starts to make a name for himself. He ends up getting a gig on Broadway, and he heads to New York for the first time since he left home.

He visits his mother, sings a song for her, but his father interrupts and kicks Jack out of the house. Shortly before Jack is to perform on Broadway, his father takes ill. Torn between his faith and his dream, Jack eventually chooses to sing at his father's synagogue in his place and misses his first performance.

It would seem that the importance of this movie has been downplayed a bit. No, it was not the first movie with sychronized sound. That had been in several films for over a year. No, it wasn't even the first film with sychronized speech. The very first one was a short called A Plantation Act, starring Al Jolson.

However, it was the first feature length movie with sychronized speech, and while his speaking lines were improvised, Jolson's contract included him speaking lines in the movie, so the studio fulliy planned to have Jolson speak lines. Perhaps they were even counting on Jolson's love of improv to provide them the lines.

Al Jolson was the biggest star on Broadway in the 1920s, and having him sing in the first feature length movie with sychronized voice did more for the advancement of sound in film that any other singular event. Audiences could not get enough of hearing Jolson sing, and the Jazz Singer was one of the biggest movies of the year.

The transition from silent to sound movies would not be instant, and that was mostly from a technical standpoint. A lot of theaters were not equipped for it, and the art of movie making had advanced quite a bit with silent technology. Many movie makers could almost do anything with a camera by this time, but to use a camera and the sound recording equipment was like going back 20 years. The camera had to stay stationary. The freedom and artistry that silent movie makers had enjoyed was thrown out the window if they tried to use the new equipment.

It would take awhile for the technology to catch up to the art. However, Al Jolson the The Jazz Singer were the cause. The effect was that demand for sound became infinite, and the studios responded. In 1928, the first all sound movies were being released, and by 1929, most major studios were producing exclusively sound pictures.

And for a bit of triva. Warner Oland, who plays the father and has the last sychronized speech in the film, goes on to be best known as Charlie Chan.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 10/10

[mccollins]

I was hoping to see you review The Jazz Singer soon. I actually found the story moving. Faith and Father vs. Life and Passion and all that.

[sabotai]

1927 In Review

The very first Oscars have (almost) come and gone. There will still be a few from the 1927-1928 awards to see next year, and some from next year will be from the 1928-1929 awards.

We saw the very first Bext Picture winners in Wings and Sunrise. We also saw Al Jolson lead the revolution towards sound. A revolution that was swift enough that never again would a silent movie win the Oscar for Best Picture. It's also a revolution that killed more silent movie stars than it embraced, either by the star's rejection or by the public's.

For the most part, 1928 would still be a year of silent movies. A lot of US movies have soundtracks and sound effects, but most still do not have dialogue, and it would take most other countries a few years to either import or catch up to Hollywood in film technology.

Movies of 1927
1. Wings
1. Metropolis
3. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
4. The Jazz Singer
5. The General
6. The Cat and the Canary
7. The Lodger
7. My Best Girl
9. La Sirene des tropiques
10. It
10. Romance of the Western Chamber
10. Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness
13. Berlin: Die Symphonie der Großstadt


Movie List for 1928
The Circus - Charlie Chaplin Comedy
La Chute de la maison usher - French movie based on Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher"
The Crowd - Oscar Nominated Drama
Easy Virtue - Alfred Hitchcock Drama
Four Sons - John Ford WWI Drama
In Old Arizona - Western
Laugh, Clown, Laugh - Lon Chaney
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc - French movie about Joan of Arc
The Man Who Laughs - Paul Leni Horror
The Mysterious Lady - Greta Garbo romance
Speedy - Harold Lloyd comedy
Spione - Fritz Lang Thriller
Steamboat Bill, Jr. - Buster Keaton comedy
Street Angel - Oscar Winning Drama
Tempest - John Barrymore Drama
The Wind - Western starring Lillian Gish
A Woman of Affairs - Greta Garbo Drama

17 movies on the list for 1928. One reason for the increase in number of movies is that there are a lot of good ones out there now. I had a pretty tough time getting the list down to 17. Secondly, I now have TiVo, and several of the films above have been saved to my TiVo already. In fact, TCM had a Greta Garbo day today, so I have a lot of her films now saved to my TiVo (soon to be saved to my PC). Thirdly, a couple of the above are on YouTube.

The plan is to keep it to about 10 movies rented from Netflix, plus whatever I can record through TiVo or can find on YouTube. I plan on keeping my TiVo working overtime anytime they play a movie within several years of where I am. Right now I am recording every movie that is from 1928 to 1935, moving it to my PC and saving them on DVDs.

[Buccaneer]

Keep up the great work.

[ntndeacon]

I have adored this look at early cinema.

[sabotai]

Can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I updated this. I have not been in a movie watching mood for awhile. My Netflix account shows that I have not returned any DVDs since October 6th. Two movies I've really wanted to watch, Ironman and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, have been sitting on my desk for awhile. Finally got around to watching Ironman yesterday.

I will write up some reviews soon, though. I watched A Woman of Affairs and The Mysterious Lady awhile ago and should write them up before they completely fade from memory. I also watched Street Angel and today I watched Spione.

Another reason for the delay was that I wanted to watch the first couple of seasons of Heroes, The 4400 series and the final season of The Wire.

I'm now starting to get into the 1928 movies on my Netflix queue, so I'll be updating this more regularly soon.

[sabotai]

A Woman of Affairs (1928)

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Directed by: Clarence Brown
Starring: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
Length: 91 min.
Genre: Romance / Drama
Based on: "The Green Hat" novel written by Michael Arlen

The story of the movie is about childhood sweethearts who were kept from each other due to various circumstances. Diana (Greta Garbo) loved Neville (John Gilbert), and he loved her, but Neville's father didn't approve of the marriage and sent Neville to live in Egypt. Diana would eventually marry a man named David (his best friend, a drunk named Jeffry was played by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). When the cops come for David, he jumps to his death and Diana keeps secret why the cops were after him. Neville also marries, but he is constantly distracted by his love for Diana.

The book that the movie was based on, The Green Hat was a best seller and made Michael Arlen a star, but the censors refused to allow just about everything from the book. A lot of the plot had to be reworked, the sex and sexual topics like VD were removed, and the names of the characters and the title of the movie had to be changed. The censors really did a number on this movie and what came out of it was a pretty tame romance.

It had all of the usual elements of a Garbo/Gilbert romance. A lot of sexual tension between lovers who weren't allowed to love each other. Garbo being one of the top draws means the production of the movie was top notch and the performances were great. Expecially by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. who played a drunk. Having said that, I knew what was coming throughout the film. The film is so full of sexual tension that there is no tension. The audience knows what's going to happen. It's the same story in every movie with these two in it.

Entertainment Rating: 5/10
Historical Rating: 6/10

[sabotai]

The Mysterious Lady (1928)

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Directed by: Fred Niblo
Starring: Greta Garbo, Conrad Nagel
Length: 96 min.
Genre: Romance / Spy
Based on: "War in the Dark", novel by Ludwig Wolff

Tania (Greta Garbo) meets Karl (Conrad Nagel). They fall in love. The problem? Karl is an officer in the Austrian army and Tania is a Russian spy. She was sent to target Captain Karl von Raden, but she genuinely falls in love. However, she can't exactly just quit her job for him. She must carry out her mission.

Karl is informed that she is a spy and is given documents to transport. She follows him onto the train where he tells her that he knows she's a spy. She confesses and pleads with him to giver her a chance. He denies her and turns her away. That night, she steals the documents. Karl is court martialed and sent to prison for treason. He escapes to go get his revenge.

This movie was much better than A Women of Affairs, and to date, is my favorite Garbo movie. It was nice to see a Garbo movie where she didn't play a character that was born evil (like in Flesh and the Devil) or a simple romance where two people who couldn't be together due to one or both being married (Seriously, the 1920s LOVED their movies about affairs). Espionage is a far cooler reason to keep two lovers apart.

Entertainment Rating: 7/10
Historical Rating: 8/10

[sabotai]

Street Angel (1928)

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Directed by: Frank Borzage
Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farroll, Guido Trento
Length: 102 min.
Genre: Drama / Romance
Based on: "Christilinda", a novel by Monckton Hoffe

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png
1927-1298 Best Actress in a Lead Role - Janet Gaynor (for body of work)


Angela (Janet Gaynor) is a poor girl trying to take care of her mother. She goes so far to as attempt to become a prostitute and thief, but she is caught and sent to prison for 1 year. With the help of some circus folk, she escapes. She spend her time with the traveling circus until she falls in love with a painter, Gino (Charles Farroll).

They leave the circus so that Gino can attempt to become a well known painter, but they go to Naples, the city that Angela fled from. She does not tell Gino of her past, even when it catches up to her when a police officer, Neri (Guido Trento) recognizes her and sends her to a workhouse to serve her jail time. Gino is led to believe that Angela simply left him. She did not want him to know about her past.

Another so-so movie. It was really a rehash of a plot I've seen many times already. A typical "dirty secret" romance. Gaynor's performance is really the main reason to see this movie, and she is very convincing in her acting. I have yet to see an actress be able to show sadness or fear (and sometimes, both at the same time) as well as she did in Street Angel and in Sunrise. In fact, I'm having a hard time trying to think of an actress that has been able to act with her eyes as well as she did. Charles Farroll also did a good job in his role, but it's hard to stand out when next to Janet Gaynor.

Thankfully, Gaynor is one of the stars that successfully made the transition from silent to sound. She continued to act through the 30s, starring in several more movies with Charles Farroll.

My Rating: 6/10

[mccollins]

Ok, an update for me. I finally found the missing few I had left and finished both AFI lists. We had to add TCM to catch them, but youtube actually has quite a few of the hard to find ones.
Since then, I watched a few more old ones from "The A List: 100 Essential Films" and "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." (or whatver it's called.)

Here's some ratings:

The Man with a Movie Camera (3.7/4)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (3.0/4)
The African Queen (3.5/4)
Wuthering Heights (2.9/4)
Nosferatu (3.1/4)
Sunrise (3.8/4)

[sabotai]

With my other hobbies and commitments, I have not watched many movies these past few months. I had a stack of DVDs from Netflix sitting here since January and finally got through a few of them. Anyway, I've been steadily watching more movies lately, so time to fire this back up.

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928)
English: The Passion of Joan of Arc

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Directed By: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Starring: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain
Length: 110 minutes
Genre: Drama

One of the highest rated silent movies to come from France, I thought it was quite boring.

The first half of the movie is the trial of Joan of Arc (Maria Falconetti) and the second half is her confessing, taking back her confession and then being executed. I was so sick of seeing her cry for nearly two hours, I was happy to see her burn.

Ok, I'm being a bit harsh. Considering the time and place, the movie was pretty controversial. The clerigy grilled Joan to try to get he to conform to what the church said and to confess to her crimes, but Joan constantly replied with blasphemis statements. Maria Falconetti's performance is acclaimed, even today.

My biggest problem with the movie is that just about the entire film is done with close ups of the actors. Close up of a judge, close up of Joan, close up of another judge, close up of Joan. Close up of judge asking a question, close up of Joan crying and answering, close up of judge being shocked, close up of another judge being shocked, close up of Joan crying, close up of Judge asking another question, close up of Joan crying and answering, close up of shocked judge, over and over and over again for the first 30-40 minutes. And the movie takes 1-2 minute per question and response. Ask the question, show Joan crying for a good 10 seconds before answering, and then show shocked judges for 20-30 seconds, and then take 30 more seconds to ask another question. It was just so incredbily slow.

It started to pick up half way through when the trial finally ended, but by then I was so fatigued I just couldn't get into it. I absolutely hated the increibly slow pace of this film, and I'm apparently in the small minority here.

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.1/10 (8,853 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (26)

As you can see, I'm way off on this one. I'm changing the way I do ratings. Before, I rated purely on how entertained I was by the film and then tried to rate it on historical importance, the quality for its time period, etc. I figure why do that when other sources basically do that for me. So "My Rating" will just be how much I enjoyed the film and I'll throw in a few other ratings from other sources as comparison.

[sabotai]

La Chute de la Maison Usher (1928)
English: Fall of the House of Usher

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Directed By: Jean Epstein
Starring: Jean Debucourt, Marguerite Gance
Length: 63 min
Genre: Horror
Based On: "Fall of the House of Usher" Short Story by Edgar Allen Poe

Maybe it was just something about French film making. Like La Passion, this movie was very slow paced. The nice special effects did a good job of distracting me from the total nothing that was going on. Except for this film, the slow pace worked.

I won't explain the plot, since if you don't know it already you should be ashamed of yourself. One major difference, though, is that it's changed to a married couple rather than siblings.

The effects were pretty decent. As the movie goes along, everything just gets...weirder. The director did a really good job at setting the mood. Outside of the effects and the mood, though, the movie wasn't really all that good. The acting was nothing to write home about, pace felt slow, and it didn't really hold my attention. I nearly fell asleep while watching it.

My Rating: 5/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.3/10 (691 votes)

[sabotai]

Easy Virtue (1928)

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Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Isabel Jeans, Robin Irvine
Length: 79 min
Genre: Drama
Based on: Play "Easy Virtue" by Noel Coward

One of Alfred Hitchcock's last silent movies (the last one on our journey since the next one will be Blackmail, his first sound picture). I saw a lot of what would become Hitchcock in The Lodger, but I hardly saw any of that in this movie.

The film starts with Larita Filton (Isabel Jeans) being accused of loving someone else by her rich husband. There is a scandalous trial, the press covers it, and when it's over, she flees the area. She finds another man, John Whitaker (Robin Irvine), to marry her, but his family does not like her at all.

One day, the chance for his family to get rid of her comes when they learn of her true identity. They confront Larita and tell John. At first, they make plans for her to leave, but must hold off since there is a huge party being held. Larita decides to crash the party, however, and win back John's heart.

A pretty standard cut-and-paste drama. There was a bit of Hitchcock experimenting with camera shots, and for the Hitchcock fanatic, it's obviously a must see. But other than the draw of being a Hitchcock movie, there is nothing in this movie that stands out. Nothing stands out as being bad, but it's just an average film.

My Rating: 5/10
IMDB User Rating: 5.8/10 (695 votes)

[sabotai]

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

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Directed by: Paul Leni
Starring: Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin
Length: 110 min
Genre: Drama
Based on: Novel "The Man Who Laughs" by Victor Hugo

Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) is the son of a nobleman who has offended the king. The king kills the nobleman and has his surgeon carve a smile onto Gwynplaine's face. He is left behind by the gypsies he was left with and wanders around until he finds an abandoned blind child named Dea (Mary Philbin).

Years later, Gwynplaine and Dea perform plays for a public fascinated by Gwynplaine's disfigurement. Gwynplaine has also fallen in love with Dea, but will not allow himself to be with her. Queen Anna, the king's successor, is informed of Gwynplaine's lineage by her jester. The Queen arranges a marriage between a duchess and Gwynplaine and has Dea and the rest of Gwynplaine's friends banished. Gwynplaine escapes the castle, though, and flees the country with Dea. Happily ever after. The end.

A pretty good movie, but formulaic. The ending was changed to a happy ending, as is the usual case with movies made from tragedies. Gwynplaine, in case you can't tell from the picture above, was the inspiration for The Joker. Without this movie, The Joker might look very different today.

Universal wanted another "gothic drama" following the success of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera, and had originally wanted Lon Cheney for this movie, but he had signed a long term deal with MGM. The film's producer, Carl Laemmle, had connections to the German film industry, and recruited Paul Leni (The Cat and the Canary) and Conradr Veidt (played Cesare in The Cabinent of Dr. Caligari) for this movie.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB Rating: 8.0/10 (900 Votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (6 reviews)

[sabotai]

Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928)

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Directed by: Charles Reisner
Starring: Buster Keaton, Marion Byron, Ernest Torrence, Tom McGuire
Length: 71 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based On: Screenplay by Buster Keaton*

One of Buster Keaton's better movies, and what had become typical by this time, one the critics did not like. It also includes his most famous stunt which everyone surely has seen.

Willian Canfield Jr. (Buster Keaton) finishes college and goes to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming a steamboat captain. His father (Ernest Torrence), when he sees his son for the first time in a long time, is completely disappointed and sets out to turn his "fancy" son into a real man.

Shortly after arriving, William also runs into a woman he knew in college, Kitty King (Marion Byron). He is completely smitten with her, but she is the daughter of a rival steamboat caption, John James King (Tom McGuire). Hilarity ensues as William's father tries to turn his son into a man (from trying to dress him to him teaching him how to do various jobs on the ship) while also trying to keep him from seeing Kitty.

Kitty's father eventually uses his influence to get William's father's boat condemned. Sr. fights back and is arrested. William Jr. tries to bust out his father, but ultimately fails and ends up in the hospital. The weather turns back and a cyclone blows through the town. William leaves the hospital and fights the storm as he tries to be the hero.

During the cyclone sequence is when we see the stunt that Keaton is most famous for. He's standing in front of a house when the front of it falls forward. Keaton is (quite literally) saved when his body is missed by the facade because a window was open.

The film was panned by critics. Again. This would be his last independant film for United Artists. His run lasted from 1923 (Three Ages and Our Hospitality) to 1928 (Steamboat Bill Jr.). After this, he signs with MGM, and except for his first movie for them (The Cameraman), the studio did not let him have creative control. He would keep making movies in the '30s and '40s (and then make TV appearances in the '50s), but none of them would gain the (modern) popularity of his silent masterpieces.

My Rating: 9/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (14 reviews - 9.1/10)

* - Officially, Carl harbaurgh is listed as the writer, but he didn't do anything. Keaton did all the work.

[sabotai]

Four Sons (1928)

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Directed by: John Ford
Starring: Margaret Mann, James Hall, Charles Morton, Ralph Bushman, George Meeker
Length: 100 min.
Genre: Drama
Based on: "Grandma Bernle Learns Her Letters" by I. A. R. Wylie

One of, what has become, a flood of World War I movies. Throughout the 20s, it seemed like no one would touch the war, but I guess the movie moguls found out that war = ticket sales.

This movie is about the widow Mother Bernle, and her four son who semi-scatter throughout the world. Joseph moves to America, Franz joins the German army while Andreas and Johann both work near home. Andreas tends to the sheep while Johann works the forge.

When war breaks out, Andreas and Johann both join the war. Joseph marries in America and starts running his own store. Things start going bad for Mother Bernle when her sons start coming home dead, and when America joins the war and Joseph enlists for the Americans, Mother Bernle becomes "mother of a traitor".

When the war is over, and Mother Bernle has no reason to stay in her hometown, she moves to America to be with her only remaining son.

Yes, this was quite a downer of a movie. It also wasn't all that good. A very forgettable movie that didn't stand out in any way. One point of trivia would be that this was one of John Wayne's first movies. His 7th, to be exact. He appears as an uncredited extra. He only appears in 1 movie priot to the 1930 movie "The Big Trail" in which he appears in the credits, and that would be "Words and Magic". He appears in almost 20 movies before "The Big Trail" in which he is in extra/uncredited roles.

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 6.9 (151 votes)

[sabotai]

Speedy (1928)

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Directed by: Ted Wilde
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Ann Christy, Bert Woodruff
Length: 86 min
Genre: Comedy

A bit odd to watch a movie based on stopping technological progress...in the 1920s. The movie is about trying to save the last horse-drawn trolley in New York. It's actually a bit weird to think that the "subway" used to be horse-drawn trolleys....

Speedy (Harold Lloyd) can't seem to hold down a job. He starts off the movie as a soda jerk, but loses the job after a day. The reason is because he can't stop calling in to get the latest scores for the baseball game (yes...using the telephone to get the latest scores....one thing that watching silent movies has done for me is they have made me appreciate technology so much more....ok, back to the review). After spending the day with his girl at Coney Island, Speedy gets a job driving a cab.

Speeedy ends up picking up Babe Ruth in his cab. Ruth has a pretty lengthy cameo. Speedy nearly kills Ruth as he rushes him to the stadium for his game, but Ruth invites Speedy to watch the game. Ruth was actually a big fan of Lloyd's.

Speedy's girl's grandfather runs a horse-drawn trolley, and he is being pushed out by someone trying to take over all of the routes and eliminate the horse-drawn trolleys through a loophole in the contract. When his girl's grandfather is unable to run his route, it's up to Speedy to save the day! (which he, of course, does in the most hilarious way possible).

There were a few lulls in this movie, but overall, one of Lloyd's best. All of the major sequences were incredibly funny, from the opening scene of him being a soda jerk to the attampt to run the route to save his girl's grandfather's horse-drawn trolley. This ends up as one of my favorite Harold Lloyd films.

It also ends our journey through the silents of the comedian Harold Lloyd. After this, he would make a handful of talkie comedies, starting with 1929's "Welcome Danger". But the IMDB User Ratings for his talkie comedies are all a full point lower than the ratings for his silent comedies. Looks like the transition from silent to sound isn't too kind to Harold Lloyd.

My Rating: 9/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.8/10 (751 votes)

[larrymcg421]

Just wanted to let you know I'm reading your thread as well. Speedy is one of my favorite silent comedies. I just loved the whole spirit of the film. My favorite scene actually wasn't even a comedy scene, but when they're riding home in the back of the van, rearranging the furniture and imagining what their future life might be like.

[sabotai]

Spione (1928)
English: Spies

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/spione.jpg

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Starring: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Dyers
Length: 178 minutes
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Nation: Germany

Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) leads a double life. He is both a bank manager and the leader of a spy ring. Here is the plot summery from wikipedia:

"With the help of technology, informers and moles, Haghi leads a secret life as the head of an international spy ring. Haghi is confined to a wheelchair and bank director, a job that apparently makes him richer than Henry Ford, although he "pays significantly less in taxes". Haghi has safes burgled, secret documents stolen, diplomats assassinated and generally has the British Secret Service running around in circles. To counter this, the British assign their best agent, Number 326, to topple the diabolical king from his throne. Haghi is wise to this plan and assigns the beautiful Russian agent Sonja to seduce him. Sonja finds Number 326 so suave that she falls almost immediately in love with him and then things really get complicated. Featuring disappearing ink, bulletproof wallets, hidden microphones and more than one action-packed chase scene, Spies can be considered the granddad of the James Bond films. The heroes finally catch up to Haghi when they infiltrate a circus where he is pretending to be a clown called Nemo and he commits suicide. The circus-goers applaud his hara-kiri; they think it is all a big show."

I found the movie boring. At over 2 1/2 hours, it just drags out. In Metropolis, Lang's previous movie, kept moving at a nice pace with about the same running time. Spione, in between the sparse action, did practically nothing.

Aside from the pace, the movie was ok. It was very interesting to see the 1920's take on the gadgets that spies would use in a spy thriller. Micro- technology must have been really foreighn to the world of 1920 Germany though, since every gadget was massive and...pretty obvious. Still, an ok spy thriller that gets really boring in spots.

My Rating: 5/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.7/10 (621 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (9.3/10 - 6 reviews)

[sabotai]

In Old Arizona (1928)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/inoldarizona.jpg

Directed by: Irving Cummings
Starring: Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess
Length: 95 min
Genre: Western
Based on: The Caballero's Way by O. Henry (the Cisco Kid character from the story)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png
1930 Best Picture Nominee
1930 Best Cinematogrophy Nominee
1930 Best Director Nominee
1930 Best Writing Nominee
1930 Best Actor Winner - Warner Baxter

(Why would a 1928 movie be in the 1930 Oscars? Because in the 1930 Oscars, they gave out the award for movies released between 2 August 1928 and 31 July 1929. In Old Arizona premiered Dec 25th, 1928)

The Cisco Kid (Warner Baxter) is hunted by the sheriff Mickey Dunn (Edmund Lowe). In between the two is the Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess), love interest of The Cisco Kid, but who is always entertaining other men in his absence.

The sheriff would end up falling for Tonia, and she sues that to her advantage as she tries to set up The Cisco Kid so that she can collect the reward from the sheriff and move on - without her new lover the sheriff.

Eventually, The Cisco Kid learns of her unfaithfulness and pulls a double cross on her. He learns that the sheriff will be waiting to shoot him outside of Tonia's home, so he alters the message that he intercepted and sets it up so that the sheriff shoots Tonia. As The Cisco Kid leaves, he hears the shot.

This was the first all-talkie western and one of the first all-talkie movies. Baxter was great as the very charismatic Cisco Kid, and Dorothy Burgess did pretty well as the annoying and deceptive Tonia. A decent Sheriff vs. Outlaw western with some great acting, but too basic of a plot for my tastes.

Warner Baxter will return as The Cisco Kid a few more times in The Cisco Kid (1931) and Return of the Cisco Kid (1939).

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB Rating: 6.3/10 (150 votes)

[Buccaneer]

Great writeups, as usual.

[sabotai]

The Circus (1928)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/thecircus1928.jpg

Directed by: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy
Length: 71 min.
Genre: Comedy
Based on: Screenplay written by Charlie Chaplin

The Tramp Goes To The Circus!

The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) ends up being chased around by the cops after he's caught pick pocketing. He's chased into the tent where a performance is being given and the crowd, think it's part of the act, love the antics they see. The Ring Master (Al Ernest Garcia) hires the Tramp. However, he soon learns that the Tramp just is not funny. He makes him a janitor, and forces him in front of the crowd and waits for hilarity to ensue when the Tramp eventually messes up.

The Tramp also is in love with the Ring Master's daughter (Merna Kennedy). A tight-rope walker is hired, and she falls for him. The Tramp is heart broken when he finds this out and is unable to perform. When the tight-rope walker misses a day, The Tramp sees it as a chance to win her heart and goes on.

In the end, however, The Tramp realizes the Ring Master's daughter wants to be with the tight-rope walker, so he gets them together and they get married. The Circus leaves town, but The Tramp stays behind.

The making of the film took a long time. Chaplin's bitter divorce from his 2nd wife, a nervous breakdown and his studio batching fire all contributed to the movie taking over a year to make. It's estimated that it cost $900,000, but it also made $3.8 million, making it one of the highest grossing silent movies.

This was a funny movie, but not one of Chaplin's better comedies. I found The Gold Rush to be a lot funnier. Still, "not one of Chaplin's best" is still pretty damn funny.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.9/10 (4,723 votes)
Rotten Tomaotes: 100% (11 reviews, 8.6/10)

[larrymcg421]

I actually found myself liking The Circus more than any other Chaplin film I've seen yet. I think the opening chase sequence is incredibly funny, especially the mirror maze sequence. And it had an amazing ending, with an iconic final shot.

[sabotai]

I liked the opening too. Especially right after the mirror scene where Chaplin pretends to be one of the automatons. Once it got to the actual cricus part, though, it seemed to lose steam to me. All of the best stuff happened in the first 30 minutes.

[sabotai]

Tempest (1928)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Tempest.jpg

Directed by: Sam Taylor
Starring: John Barrymore, Camilla Horn, Louis Wolheim
Length: 111 min.
Genre: War Drama
Based on: Screenplay written by Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Oscar.png

1929 Oscar for Best Art Direction (William Cameron Menzies)


Ivan Markov (John Barrymore) is working his way up the ranks of the Russian army, the first peasant to do so in a long time. He makes Lieutenant but also falls for Princess Tamara (Camilla Horn), who is also the daughter of his commanding officer. He is not accepted into high society, and is especially not accepted by the Princess.

He gets drunk at a large party held at the Princess' residence. He wanders into her room and looks around. He eventually passes out on her bed. She finds him when she goes to bed and calls for help. Markov is taken away, stripped of rank, and thrown in prison.

The Red Terror saves Markov. He is released from prison and is reunited, in a manner of speaking, with the Princess and her father.

The movie itself is pretty forgettable. It didn't really do anything that hadn't been done before and the performances by everyone were average, except for Barrymore as he was locked in prison and losing his mind. That was pretty good, as was his performance after he was released when he was looking for revenge.

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.4/10 (71 votes)

[sabotai]

1928 in Review

The sound era is just about dead. We'll keep seeing silent movies pop up due to some's refusal to embrace sound (like Charlie Chaplin). Studios also were reluctant to put their top stars out there as they saw stars drop off like flies when the public rejected them in sound form.

I cut 1928 a bit short. I cut out Laugh, Clown, Laugh and The Crowd. Those I can find on YouTube, but not DVD. I tried to watch them, but sitting in a computer chair watching a movie is not a fun way to spend 2 hours. The problem of having some of the best movies from a year not being on DVD will soon be over though.

A Look At The Oscars

For the first few years of the Oscars, they award movies that were released from August of one year to the end of July of the next, so these lists will include movies from 2 years for a bit.

The 1929 Awards were for movies released from 1 August 1927 to 1 August 1928.

Best Picture, Production
Winner: Wings (My Rating: 8)
Nominee: 7th Heaven (Not Rated)
Nominee: The Racket (Not Rated)

Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production
Winner: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (My Rating: 8)
Nominee: Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (My Rating: 5)
Nominee: The Crowd (Not Rated)

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Winner: Emil Jennings for The Last Command and The Way Of The Flesh (Not Rated)
Nominee: Richard Barthelmess for The Noose (Not Rated)
Nominee: Richard Barthelmess for The Patent Leather Kid (Not Rated)

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Winner: Janet Gaynor for 7th heaven (NR), Street Angel (6), and Sunrise (8)
Nominee: Louise Dresser for A Ship Comes In (NR)
Nominee: Gloria Swanson for Sadie Thompson (NR)

Best Director, Comedy Picture
Winner: Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Nights (NR)
Nominee: Ted Wilde for Speedy (9)

Best Director, Dramatic Picture
Winner: Frank Borzage for 7th Heaven (NR)
Nominee: Herbert Brenon for Sorrell and Son (NR)
Nominee: King Vidor for The Crowd (NR)

Best Writing, Original Story
Winner: Ben Hecht for Underworld (NR)
Nominee: Lajos Biró for The Last Command (NR)

Best Writing, Adaptation
Winner: Benjamin Glazer for 7th Heaven (NR)
Nominee: Anthony Caldeway for Glorious Betsy (NR)
Nominee: Alfred A Cohn for The Jazz Singer (7)

Best Cinematography
Winner: Charles Rosher and Karl Strauss for Sunrise (8)
Nominee: George Barnes for Sadie Thompson (NR), The Devil Dancer (NR) and The Magic Flame (NR)

Best Art Direction
Winner: William Cameron Menzies for The Tempest (4) and The Dove (NR)
Nominee: Harry Oliver for 7th Heaven (NR)
Nominee: Richard Gliese for Sunrise (8)

Best Effects, Engineering Effects
Winner: Roy Pomeroy for Wings (8)
Nominee: Ralph Hammeras for The Private Life of Helen of Troy (NR)
Nominee: Nugent Slaughter for The Jazz Singer (7)

Honorary Awards
Charlie Chaplin - The Circus (7)
- For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus.
The Jazz Singer (7)
- For producing The Jazz Singer, the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry.

[sabotai]

Movies for 1929

Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box) (Germany - Drama)
Tagebuch einer Verlorenen (Diary of a Lost Girl) (Germany - Drama)
Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon) (Germany - Sci-Fi)
Prapancha Pash (A Throw of Dice) (India - Drama)
Le Capitaine Fracasse (Captain Fracasse) (France - Adventure)
Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man With A Camera) (Russia - Documentary)

6 Foreign movies including my first Indian movie and a highly regarded Russian documentary about urban life in Odessa and other soviet cities and also uses many experimental techniques.

Hallelujah (Musical)
The Love Parade (Musical)
The Broadway Melody (Musical)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (Musical)
The Vagabond Lover (Musical)

5 Musicals. Seems like once sound hit the movies, so did the musicals.

Queen Kelly (Drama)
The Divine Lady (Drama)
Piccadilly (Crime Drama)
The Iron Mask (Adventure)
The Kiss (Greta Garbo Romance)
Their Own Desire (Romance)
The Locked Door (Mystery)
The Cocoanuts (Marx Brothers Comedy)
The Taming of the Shrew (Comedy)
Spite Marriage (Buster Keaton Comedy)

[sterlingice]

Just ran across this thread. Amazing idea and great read. You have another follower :)

SI

[ColtCrazy]

Count me in as a late comer, but engrossed in this. Very entertaining. I stayed up late the other night and TMC or AMC (I can't remember) had some silent Chinese film on from the 20s. I found it strangely interesting and a solid story. I can understand how you can get into these older films. Keep it up, you tell the stories of these movies very well.

[sabotai]

Blackmail (1929)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/Blackmail.jpg

Directed by: Aldred Hitchcock
Starring: Anna Ondra, John Longdon, Donald Calthrop
Length: 84 min
Genre: Crime Drama
Based on: Play "Blackmail" written by Charles Bennett

Alfred Hitchcock's first talkie.

Alice White (Anna Ondra) gets into a fight with her boyfriend, Frank Webber (John Longdon) who works as a detective. She goes back to an apartment of an artist she had previously met and they flirt back and forth. Things turn ugly when he has had enough flirting and wants more. He tries to physcially force himself on her, and Alice grabs a knife and stabs him to death.

She panics, tries to erase all evidence that she was there, but not only did she leave a glove behind, a petty criminal called Tracy (Donald Calthrop) sees her. Frank is put on the case and finds the glove. He confronts Alice the next day, and shortly after, Tracy confronts both of them. Tracy tries to blackmail them, but things turn around on him when he is made the prime suspect.

The film started out production as a silent movie and was switched to a talkie. The awkwardness is very noticeable, especially at the beginning. Apparently, the studio wanted just the last reel in sound (they were influenced by The Jazz Singer, a mostly silent part-talkie). Hitchcock thought that was absurd and secretly filmed the whole thing in sound. Another point of trivia, Anna Ondra had a thick German accent, so they had Joan Barry speak her lines into a microphone as they filmed. That may have been the first ever "dub".

The sound-on-film equipment was bulky and not easily moved. The camera had to stay stationary in these early sound pictures. It seemed like Hitchcock experimented as best he could with what he had, but the technology just wasn't there. But some scenes are very "Hitchcock-esque", mainly the chase scenes where there are no talking (and so they would be using the easier-to-use silent equipment).

A good movie, though, despite the limitations of the technology. Definitely a transitional movie for Hitchcock as he continues to evolve into the director everyone knows about, and one that should be seen by any fan of his work.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB Rating: 7.0/10 (2,646 voites)
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% - 9 reviews (8 fresh, 1 rotten) - 6.7/10 average

This isn't on the above list. I forgot that this was on the same disc as Easy Virtue, so instead of renting the DVD twice, I watched it back when I had watched Easy Virtue. Consider it a bonus movie.

Lastly, thanks for the kind words and welcome aboard SI and Colt!

[sabotai]

The Cameraman (1928)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/cameraman.jpg

Directed by: Edward Segdwick
Starring: Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin
Length: 67 min
Genre: Comedy
Based On: Screenplay by Clyde Bruckman, Lew Lipton

Another bonus movie as this was on the same DVD as Spite Marriage.

The story begins with Buster (Buster Keaton), a tintype portrait photographer, on the streets of New York City. He ends up having someone agree to have their portrait done, and is struck by her beauty. Sally (Marceline Day) is followed by Buster to her place of work, MGM News. Buster trades in his tintype camera for a movie camera, an out of date but cheap movie camera, and tries to impress her by recording what he sees to sell to MGM News.

His first attempt is a disaster. He doesn't know how to use the camera and all of his footage is overexposed, backwards, double exposed...every mistake he could make, he made.

The next day, Sally feels sorry for him and passes a tip to him that something gib is going to happen in Chinatown. He goes and films a gang war, narrowly escaping death multiple times.

This was the first film that Buster Keaton did for MGM, and for the most part, it was a Buster Keaton film. However, MGM didn't like the final result even though it was well recieved by critics. Keaton thought the success of The Cameraman was proof that the studio should let him have more control of his films. MGM thought the opposite and would take complete control of everything. The result was that after several years, Keaton's reputation was destroyed.

He had joined MGM mainly because of his lifestyle....his wife's lifestyle. By now, Keaton's marriage was all but over, but the lifestyle of him and his wife was very expensive. MGM came promising money and he took it even though both Lloyd and Chaplin told him not too. All of the movies before this one were made independantly.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.3/10 (3005 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (8.8/10 - 12 reviews)

[sabotai]

Spite Marriage (1929)

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/spitemarriage.jpg

Directed by: Edward Sedgwick
Starring: Buster Keaton, Dorothy Sebastian, Edward Earle
Length: 80 min
Genre: Comedy
Written by: Screenplay by Lew Lipton

This is the movie where it all starts to fall apart.

Elmer (Buster Keaton) works as a dry cleaner, and is in love with a stage actress named Tribly Drew (Dorothy Sebastian). He even waits around and makes sure he passes her on the street as she leaves the theatre...and other kinda creepy things. When her boyfriend leaves her to marry a socialite, she gets even by grabbing Elmer during one of these "chance" encounters and marries him to get back at her boyfriend.

The movie was...ok. Some funny scenes included Buster trying to put his wife in bed since she passed out from drinking too much. The scene where Buster stands in for another actor on stage is pretty funny as well. But the movie, as a whole, was just not that good. To highlight how MGM didn;t know what it was doing, the funny seen with Buster putting his wife in bed was nearly cut by the studio. Buster fought hard to keep that scene in. One of his rare victories over the studio.

Keaton was also one of the few silent stars that embraced sound. He grew up on vaudeville and had a great voice. He didn't understand why the studio wanted to keep him in silent films. He'd finally get his wish to start being in sound pictures with the 1930 film "Free and Easy".

My Rating: 5 / 10
IMDB Rating: 7.3/10 (526 Votes)

[sabotai]

Die Büchse der Pandora (1929)
English: Pandora's Box

http://www.barkingsquirrelgames.com/panbox.jpg

Directed by: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Starring: Louise Brooks, Francis Lederer, Carl Goetz
Length: 133 min
Genre: Crime Drama
Nation: Germany
Based on the plays "Erdgeist" and "Die Büchse der Pandora" by Frank Wedekind

I tried searching to see if this was one of the first times Jack The Ripper makes an appearance in pop culture, but I couldn't find it.

Disaster seems to follow Lulu (Louise Brooks) around wherever she goes. Her sexuality brings out lust and animal like behavior by men. She marries a wealthy man, but he becomes insane and she accidentally shoots him. She is convicted of manslaughter, but with the help of her "pimp" and her dead husband's son, Alwa (Francis Ledere), who is in love with Lulu, she escapes.

They hide for awhile on an illegal gambling ship, but after she is nearly sold by the ship's owner to a wealthy Egyptian to help pay off the gambling debt that Alwa had built up. The three once again are able to flee, this time to London.

In London, Lulu meets her ultimate fate when, working as a prostitute, she crosses paths with Jack The Ripper.

I was pretty underwhelmed by the film based on all of the praise it gets. It was good, but not great. The actors played their roles well enough, but the story just seemed forced.

One piece of trivia is that while on the gambling ship, a woman named Countess Anna Geschwitz takes a liking to Lulu. It's thought that this is the first lesbian character in movie history. The movie was banned in several nations, including Germany from 1933-1945 (during the Thrid Reich). In France, the film the was heavily edited - they removed the Jack The Ripper scene, had her found not guilty at her trial, made the Countess her childhood friend and in the end, Lulu joins the Salvation Army.....I wonder if I can find that version to see just how butchered it was.

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB: 8/10 (3,042 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 91% (21/23 Fresh - 8.5/10 Rating)

[sabotai]

Prapancha Pash (1929)
English: A Throw of Dice

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Directed by: Franz Osten
Starring: Seeta Devi, Himansu Rai, Charu Roy
Length: 74 min
Genre: Drama
Nation: India
Based On: A story from the epic poem "The Mahabharata"

Two cousins rule their kingdoms, but one wants control of both. King Ranjit has a love of gambling, and King Sohan has a desire for Ranjit's lands. On top of that, they both fall for a woman named Sunita. Sunita falls for Ranjit.

Sohan schemes to get both. He gives Ranjit dice as a gift, but they are no ordinary dice. He convinces Ranjit to gamble for their kingdoms, and Sohan uses the trick dice to win. On a double or nothing kind of bet, Sohan again uses the trick dice to make Ranjit his slave.

A moral play about the dangers of gambling, obviously. The film was mostly produced and made by a German production company, but cinema had been a part of India since the Lumiere Brothers showed off their Cinématographe in Bombay in 1896.

This film is often compared to a Cecil B. Demille film because of the size of the movie. 10,000 extras, a thousand horses, and many elephants and tigers were used for the film. Not to mention the extravegant costumes.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB: 7.0/10 (54 votes)

[sabotai]

The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

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Directed by: Sam Taylor
Starring: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford
Length: 63 min
Genre: Comedy
Based On: William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew"

And so the beginning of the end for two of the most iconic figures of the silent era.

Katherine (Mary Pickford) is a well known....hate-filled bitch, to put it in modern terms. Her younger sister, however, is a perfectly fine lady that is unable to wed by her father's command until her older sister is married. Petruchio (Douglas Fairbanks) takes up the challenge of marrying Katherine.

The movie is 90% them fighting. It gets a bit funny near the end when Katherine starts turning the tables on Petruchio and starts agreeing with everything he says. But overall, not funny. A pretty bad movie.

The film was originally shot as a silent movie, and the sound effects and dialogue were added later. Why the two of them picked this junk to make their one and only dual venture is beyond me. In searching the web, I find a lot of people actually like the movie. For only being 60 minutes long, I had enough right around 15 minute mark, after what must have been Fairbanks' 40th or 41st from-the-belly laughing fit.

Which, in a way, is what I think they were trying to bring to audiences. For over a decade, people got to see Fairbanks laugh on screen. So much so that it became a part of his image. But they never got to hear it. Perhaps they had enough of it by the end of this movie too. Those who saw it anyway. The film was a massive flop. Both Fairbanks and Pickford only have a few years left. They are both gone from the movies by 1934. Which is a shame, because despite how bad this one film was, neither has a voice that is unsuitable for the "talkies".

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB: 7.2/10 (218 Votes)

[sabotai]

I've been stuck in 1929 for far too long. I'm going to make a series of quick reviews, since I have watched a good amount of my list, to catch me up.

[sabotai]

Tagenbuch einer Verlorenen (1929)
English Title: Diary of a Lost Girl

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Directed by: Georg Wilhelm Pabst
Starring: Louise Brooks, Fritz Rasp, André Roanne
Length: 104 min.
Genre: Drama

Plot Summery from Wikipedia

Louise Brooks plays Thymian Henning, the innocent and naive daughter of pharmacist Robert Henning (Josef Rovenský). Thymian is seduced by her father's assistant Meinert (Fritz Rasp) and gives birth to an illegitimate child. Meinert is revealed to be the father by an entry in Thymian's diary, and when she refuses to marry him she is forced to leave the baby with a midwife and sent to a strict reform school for wayward girls.

Rebelling against the school's rigid discipline, Thymian and her friend Erika (Edith Meinhard) escape with the help of her father's old friend, Count Osdorff (André Roanne), but they separate. Thymian's relief is short-lived—she discovers that her baby is dead—and after despondently wandering the streets, she re-unites with Erika, who is working in a brothel.

Thymian also becomes a prostitute, but profits from her misfortune by gaining control of her own life. When her father dies, she inherits a large amount of money, after gaining "respectability" by marrying Osdorff, but gives it all to her young half-sister who has been disinherited. Osdorff, who had been counting on the money because he himself had been disinherited by his uncle (Arnold Korff), kills himself. The uncle, grief-stricken, makes Thymian his heir. In a strange twist of fate, she becomes a director of the reform school where she herself was once held. When her old friend is brought in as an "especially difficult case" who "constantly turns away from the blessings of our home", Thymian denounces the school and its "blessings". Uncle Osdorff has the last word: "A little more love and no-one would be lost in this world."

Review

The same director-lead actress duo from Pandora's Box. I thought this was a better movie that their previous one. Another movie from the 1920s that really shows how unwed mothers were shunned by society, and even made to go into reform "schools". It's interesting how much culture and society has moved in less than 100 years. Today, children born out of wedlock is no big deal. Back then, it was the most scandalous thing a woman could do (according to the movies, anyway. :) ).

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.0 (1,148 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% Fresh (8.6 - 5 Reviews)

[sabotai]

Frau im Mond (1929)
English Title: Woman in the Moon

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Directed by: Fritz Lang
Starring: Klaus Pohl, Willy Fritsch, Gustav von Wangenheim
Length: 169 min
Genre: Science Fiction / Drama
Based On: "Die Frau im Mond" novel written by Thea von Harbou (Lang's wife)

Plot from Wikipedia

The film is a melodrama, with scientific speculation. Helius is an entrepreneur with an interest in space travel. He seeks out Professor Mannfeldt, a visionary who has written a treatise on the likelihood of finding gold on the moon, only to be ridiculed by his peers. Helius recognizes the value of Mannfeldt's work – but a gang of evil businessmen have also taken an interest in Mannfeldt's theories.

Meanwhile, Helius' assistant, Windegger, has announced his engagement to Helius' other assistant, the lovely Friede. This is disconcerting to Helius, who secretly loves Friede. He avoids their engagement party but is then mugged on the way home by henchmen of the evil businessmen, commanded by the creepy Mr. Turner. They steal the research of Prof. Mannfeldt and also burgle his home, taking other valuable material. They then present him with an ultimatum: they know he is planning a voyage to the moon. Either he includes them with the project or they will sabotage it and destroy his rocket. Reluctantly, Helius agrees to their terms.

So, the rocket team is assembled: Helius, Mannfeldt, Windegger, Friede and Turner (who is along to represent the interests of the evil businessmen). After the rocket blasts off, it is discovered that Gustav, a young boy who has befriended Helius and has a choice collection of science fiction comics, is aboard as a stowaway. During the journey, Windegger emerges as something of a coward and general wet blanket and the feelings of Helius toward Friede become known to her, creating a romantic triangle of sorts.

Once they get to the far side of the moon, Mannfeldt and Turner prove Mannnfeldt's theory that there is gold on the moon. They struggle in a cave and Mannfeldt falls to his death in a crevasse. Turner attempts to hijack the rocket and in the struggle he is shot and killed. Gunfire damages the oxygen tanks and they come to the grim realization that there is not enough oxygen for all to make the return trip. One person must remain on the moon (which, in this film, has a breathable atmosphere on its far side, per the theories of Peter Andreas Hansen, who is mentioned near the beginning of the film).

Helius and Windegger draw straws to see who must stay and Windegger loses. Seeing Windegger's self-centered anguish, Helius decides to drug him and take his place, letting Windegger return to earth with Friede. He makes Gustav his confidant and the new pilot for the ship. After the ship takes off for home, Helius discovers that Friede has decided to stay with him on the moon and they embrace passionately.

Review

It wouldn't be a Fritz Lang film if it didn't last forever. The first hour and a half drag on so slowly. Once they got to the moon, the film became pretty good, but it took way too long for them to get there. of course, this being 1929, a rocket launch to the moon made for some pretty suspenseful drama and excitement. For this Sci-Fi geek (yes, I said Sci-Fi ! Suck it nerds.) the build up to the rocket launch was pretty boring.

And of course, just about every bit of "science", they got wrong. But I won't hold that against the film.

A bit of trive from imdb.com: When the Nazis began working on war rockets, they decided the movie's rockets were too close to the truth. To preserve secrecy, they had the models destroyed and the film withdrawn from release.

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB Rating: 7.4 (671 Votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 2 Fresh, 1 Rotten

[sabotai]

Piccadilly (1929)

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Directed by: Ewald André Dupont
Starring: Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong, Jameson Thomas
Length: 92 min.
Genre: Drama / Romance

Plot from Wikipedia

Valentine Wilmot's London nightclub and restaurant, Piccadilly Circus, is a great success due to his star attraction, dancing partners Mabel (Gilda Gray) and Vic (Cyril Ritchard). One night, a dissatisfied diner (Charles Laughton) disrupts Mabel's solo with his loud complaint about a dirty plate. When Wilmot investigates, he finds Shosho (Anna May Wong) distracting the other dishwashers with her dancing. He fires her on the spot.

After the performance, Vic tries to persuade Mabel to become his partner offstage as well as on, and to go to Hollywood with him. She coldly rebuffs him, as she is romantically involved with Wilmot. That night, Wilmot summons Vic to his office. Before Wilmot can fire him, Vic quits.

That turns out to be disastrous for the nightclub. The customers had come to see Vic, not Mabel. Business drops off dramatically. In desperation, Wilmot hires Shosho to perform a Chinese dance. She insists that her boyfriend Jim play the accompanying music. Shosho is an instant sensation, earning a standing ovation after her first performance.

Both Mabel and Jim become jealous of the evident attraction between Shosho and Wilmot. Mabel breaks off her relationship with Wilmot.

One night, Shosho invites Wilmot to be the first to see her new rooms. Mabel has followed the couple and waits outside. After Wilmot leaves, she persuades Jim to let her in. She pleads with her romantic rival to give Wilmot up, saying he is too old for her, but Shosho replies that it is Mabel who is too old, and that she will keep him. When Mabel reaches into her purse for a handkerchief, Shosho sees a pistol inside and grabs a dagger used as a wall decoration. Frightened, Mabel picks up the gun, then faints.

The next day, the newspapers report that Shosho has been murdered. Wilmot is charged with the crime. During the ensuing trial, he admits that the pistol is his, but refuses to divulge what happened that night. Jim testifies that Wilmot was Shosho's only visitor. Things look bad. Then Mabel insists on telling her story. However, she can recall nothing after fainting until she found herself running in the streets. Realizing that either Mabel or Jim must be lying, the judge summons Jim. By then, however, Jim has shot himself at Shosho's mausoleum. As he lays dying, he confesses he killed Shosho.

Review

I first saw Anna May Wong in The Thief of Bagdad, but of course I didn't know it at the time. She had a minor role as a Mongol slave, but it caught the eye of critics at the time. However, in the US she couldn't get better than minor roles due to her race. She left for Europe where she started getting better roles. This was her last silent movie, which of course is a common theme in 1929. In 1930, she was lured back to the US with promises of better roles by Paramount Pictures. They sorta lived up to that promise.

The movie was pretty good, but not great. It was the standard love triangle plot that I usually find rather boring. The acting was good, though.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB Rating: 7.2 (455 Votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 90% (8.2 - 10 Reviews)

[sabotai]

Le Capitaine Fracasse (1929)


http://i.imgur.com/YMIGFjSm.jpg (https://imgur.com/YMIGFjS)

Directed by: Alberto Cavalcanti
Starring: Pierre Blanchar, Lien Deyers
Length: 92 min.
Genre: Adventure / Drama

Description from Netflix

In this recently recovered and restored swashbuckler, the titular character begins the story as down-and-out Baron de Solignac (Pierre Blanchar), who joins a theater troupe and assumes the name Captain Fracasse. When he isn't performing various feats of derring-do, he and his archrival, the dastardly Duke de Vallombreuse (future screen idol Charles Boyer), vie for the hand of the troupe's innocent leading lady, Isabella (Lien Deyers).

Review

Bad movie. That's about it. Nothing was done better than "average", a lot was done poorly.

My Rating: 3 / 10
IMDB Rating: 6.9 (79 Votes)
Average Netflix: 2.2 / 5 (1,426 Votes)

[sabotai]

Hallelujah (1929)

http://i.imgur.com/XtBeXNVm.jpg (https://imgur.com/XtBeXNV)

Directed by: King Vidor
Starring: Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney
Length: 100 min
Genre: Musical

Plot from Wikipedia (edited)

Sharecroppers Zeke (Daniel L. Haynes) and Spunk Johnson sell their part of the cotton crop for $100. Cheated out of the money by a woman named Chick (Nina Mae McKinney), in collusion with her gambling-hustler friend Hot Shot. Spunk is murdered in the ensuing brawl when Zeke struggled with Hot Shot over a gun. Zeke heads back home and reforms his life, becoming a minister.

Some time later he returns and preaches a rousing revival. Now engaged to a virtuous maiden named Missy (Victoria Spivey), he finds that Chick is still interested in him. She asks for baptism but is clearly not truly repentant. Tragically, Zeke throws away his new life for her.

The film then cuts to Zeke's new life; he is working at a log mill and is married to Chick, who is secretly cheating on him with her old flame, Hot Shot. When Chick and Hot Shot decide to cut and run just as Zeke finds out about the affair, Zeke follows after them. The carriage carrying both Hot Shot and Chick overturns, and Zeke catches up to them. Holding her in his arms, he watches Chick die as she apologizes to him for being unable to change her ways. Zeke then chases Hot Shot on foot. He stalks slowly through the woods and swamp while Hot Shot tries to run but continues to stumble until Zeke finally kills him.

Zeke spends some time in prison and is released on probation. The film ends with Zeke returning back to his family at the cotton crop after serving time in prison. His family is more than happy to welcome him back into the flock.

Review

The movie wasn't that bad, but I'm not much of a musical guy. The singing was pretty decent. Parts of the plot were absolutely absurd. Zeke released on probabtion for killing two people? And when he returned home, everything is forgiven? Just like that? Ok, I can see his mom and dad being happy to have him home, but why would Missy want him back? Twice he was seduced by Chick, once out of his money and the other out of his life. And she just takes him back?

I can count the number of musicals I've seen in my life on one hand. Maybe absurd plots are a part of them. But the acting was also pretty atrocious. Perhaps that's a part of musicals as well.

I guess I'll see. I've still got 4 more musicals to see in 1929 alone.


My Rating: 4 / 10
IMDB Rating: 7.1 / 10 (468 Votes)
Netflix Rating: 3.1 / 5 (2,076 Votes)

[sabotai]

And now I'm caught up. I'm about half way through 1929. Here are the rest:

Chelovek s kino-apparatom (Man With A Camera) (Russia - Documentary) - Netflix Watch It Now
The Love Parade (Musical)
The Broadway Melody (Musical)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (Musical) - Recorded from TCM
The Vagabond Lover (Musical) - Record from TCM
Queen Kelly (Drama)
The Divine Lady (Drama) - Recorded from TCM
The Iron Mask (Adventure)
The Kiss (Greta Garbo Romance) - Recorded from TCM
The Locked Door (Mystery) - Recorded from TCM
The Cocoanuts (Marx Brothers Comedy)

I had to cross "Their Own Desire" off. It's not on Netflix and I was sure I recorded it off TCM but I must have deleted it because I can't find it. I'll add it back in if it turns up.

As you can see, TCM has been a great help. Time to start watching these.

[sabotai]

Can't believe it's been almost a year since I updated this. I went to catch up on TV shows that made it to DVD, modern movies, etc. and just lost track of how much time had gone by.

Anyway, here's a quick list of reviews.

The Broadway Melody - The first "all-talkie" to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It's a story of two sisters that head to New York to become big stars. A love triangle emerges as the boyfriend of the older sister becomes infatuated with the younger. Not exactly "Best Picture material IMO. I think it scored points mainly for being "all-talkie" plus it had a technicolor scene (lost). One of those "Best Pictures" to win mainly for technological achievements rather than being the best movie. 5/10

The Hollywood Revue of 1929 - Remember those TV shows where they would have actors from a lot of different shows? They were basically commercials for upcoming shows and to highlight talent? I have vague memories of them....anyway, this was like them. Nothing but actors coming on, doing a song or a skit and then it was off to the next star. A TV Variety show before TV. And like variety shows on TV, this was pretty terrible. 2/10

The Vagabond Lover - In order to get a big star talent to hear their music, a band breaks into his home in the dead of night and start playing. However, the guy isn't home and the police come. Since the big talent was new to the area, no one knows what he looks like so the band leader, to avoid jail, says that he is, in fact, Mr. Big Shot. Hilarity ensues. Well, not much hilarity, but I did like some of the songs. It follows the standard case-of-mistaken-identity plot line with a predictable outcome. Maybe not predictable at the time, but movies are still following this standard plot outline. 6/10

The Locked Door - Another film that pretty much highlights the difference between now and then. A woman accepts a date with a man who ends up taking her to a "rum boat". Basically, a ship that heads into international waters so it can serve alcohol during prohibition. When the ship drifts into US waters, it's raided and a photo is taken of the woman with the guy. 18 months later, she's married to someone else and the douchebag starts dating her younger sister. She tries to protect her sister, but it would be a huge scandal if it got out that the two have a (brief) past. 7/10

The Cocoanuts - My first Marx Brothers film. It was actually a bit of a let down. I thought Harpo was hilarious in it, but not so much the others. Groucho runs a hotel in Florida, Zeppo assists him and Chico and Harpo are the bad guys looking to steal from the guests. Not all that funny IMO. Hoping they get better in the future. 5/10


Ok, that's it. Too long in 1929 and too ambitious with my movie list. (I always do that! Get into something and then go overboard with it. :) ) Looking back at previous posts, I've been in 1929 for a year and a half! I'm moving on to 1930. For now on, no more than 12 movies for a year, and I'll do my best to come under that. That should cover the major Academy Awards movies a some of the movies that aren't "Academy" material, but classics nonetheless.

[sabotai]

Films of 1930

Not sure if I could have gone overboard with 1930 films even if I wanted to. Slim pickings as many of the Oscar winning and nominated pictures aren't available on DVD yet.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Been waiting for this one)
Anna Christie (Greta Garbo drama)
Hell's Angels (Howard Hughes directed film of WWI)
Morocco (Romantic drama starring Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou)
L' Age d'or (French surrealist film)
Animal Crackers (Marx Brothers)
With Byrd At The South Pole (Documentary)
Zemlya (Soviet film by Dovzhenko)
The Big Trail (John Wayne Western - hist first starring role)
Murder! (Alfred Hitchcock)
City Girl (F.W. Murnau directed film)
Abraham Lincoln (D.W. Griffith directed)

[sabotai]

1929

Movie Rankings

I gave out a lot of 6s and 7s, and some of them deserved lower. Got to give a little more range there. No standouts either. No 8s or higher. Forget it, this year doesn't deserve rankings. Just a big old helping of "Meh".

Looking at the winners and nominees fro the 2nd Academy Awards, it was a drop off from the 1st. The First had movies like Wings and Sunrise. The winner for Best Picture in the 2nd Academy Awards was The Broadway Melody. Bleh. Bring on 1930.

[sterlingice]

Glad to see you getting back on this one

SI

[Young Drachma]

Just read into this for the first time and I have say it's a very impressive exercise. Too cool.

[sabotai]

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

http://i.imgur.com/fvkVaxvm.jpg (https://imgur.com/fvkVaxv)

Directed by: Lewis Milestone
Starring: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray
Length: 130 Minutes
Genre: War
Based On: The novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque

http://www.barking-squirrel.com/Oscar.png

1929-1930 Best Picture
1929-1930 Best Director
1929-1930 Nominated for Best Writing
1929-1930 Nominated for Best Cinematography

An anti-war movie that's very nor subtle with its anti-war message.

The movie is told from the German side in World War 1. It starts off with a classroom of high school students. The teacher is preaching about serving your country. He gets all of the kids worked up and they all march off to join the army. The training sequence of scenes reminded me a lot of Band of Brothers. The instructor is a strict disciplinarian and tries to make the recruits give up.

But just as quickly as they got there, they were sent to the front lines where the movie really begins. As the movie goes on, soldiers drop off one by one as they try to survive in the trenches and carry out missions. The film shows several scenes where soldiers are sitting, just waiting for the combat to begin again. Like I said, the movie doesn't pull any punches, and the soldiers who aren't killed seem to have their spirit killed. In the middle of the movie, there is even a philosophical discussion over the causes of war, and near the end one soldier returns to his old classroom to talk about the horrors he had scene, much to the dismay of the same teacher who convinced him to join in the first place.

All Quiet on the Western Front was way ahead of its time several areas. The themes, the content of the dialogue. Not so much in the acting and camera work as extreme close ups and exaggerated emoting is a constant in all post-silent movies. Although I don't mark these things against the movie, they still stand out to me regardless of how many silent and early talkies I watch.

The movie was received well in the US, but not so much in Europe. In Germany, they saw a lot of anti-Germany messages in the movie, and the Nazi's banned it when they came into power. The film was also banned in several other countries. However, not in Japan where it won the 1931 Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Film (Sound).

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.1 / 10 (26,810 votes)
Netflix Rating: 3.6 / 4 (302,110 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 97% critics, 85% audience

[sabotai]

Hell's Angels (1930)

http://i.imgur.com/stdkfv5m.jpg (https://imgur.com/stdkfv5)


Directed By: Howard Hughes, James Whale, Edmund Goulding
Starring: Ben Lyon, James Hall, Jean Harlow
Length: 127 minutes
Genre: War

1929-1930 Nominated for Best Cinematography

An almost opposite film from All Quiet..., Hell's Angels is a fun aviation movie set during WWI.

It's the story of two brothers who join the Royal Air Force and share a common interest, a woman named Helen (Jean Harlow). They are studying at Oxford, along with a German student and friend, when World War I breaks out and they join their respective nation's air force.

Roy (James Hall) is in love with Helen, but after he introduces her to his brother Monte (Ben Lyon), she targets Monte. Insert standard love triangle plot. And while Monte is brave with the women, he is a coward in combat and tries to get out of action when possible. Roy nearly wavers in his duty when he finds out Helen had been playing him, but in the end he joins in on an important mission and literally drags his brother along.

The climax of the movie is an epic air battle between British and German fighters after the British bomb a German supply yard. The battle lasts for quite some time and is very impressive for 1930.

The film took over 2 years to make. Part of the reason was Hughes' involvement causing the first directer to quite, but the major contributor was the arrival of sound. Hughes wanted to incorporate sound into his film, which required him to recast the female lead. He had a Norwegian actress, Greta Nissen, in the role of Helen, but she spoke with a Norwegian accent, so she got the boot.

The movie made twice as much as it cost and was a huge success for Hughes. It had its serious moments, including the ending, but for the most part, this was a fun movie with a hectic, adrenaline filled fighter combat climax that is a completely different movie from the seriousness of All Quiet on the Western Front. But they were both great movies.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.7 / 10 (2,339 votes)
Netflix Rating: 3.3 / 4 (35,976 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 90% critic, 56% Audience

[sabotai]

Morocco (1930)

http://i.imgur.com/V4E8cxLm.jpg (https://imgur.com/V4E8cxL)

Directed By: Josef von Sternberg
Starring: Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Manjou
Length: 91 minutes
Genre: Romance

4th Academy Awards
Nominated for Best Directer, Best Actress, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography

Won Best Foreign Language Film at the 1932 Kinema Junpo (Japan) Awards.


I found an old text file that had the ratings for several movies I watched but never wrote up for this dynasty. I'm going to finish out 1930 with the ratings for those movies and start this thing back up in 1931. I will be far more picky with the movies I watch, though. No more 15-20 movies per year.

I'm not going to write up any reviews because I did watch these movies 4-5 years ago. I barely remember them.

My Rating: 6 / 10

IMDB User Rating: 7.3 / 10 (3,588 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% critic (5 votes), 72% Audience (1,310 votes)

[sabotai]

The Big Trail (1930)

https://i.imgur.com/3dcgFelm.jpg

Directed By: Raoul Welsh
Starring: John Wayne, Marguerite Churchll, Tyrone Power Sr., El Brendel
Length: 122 minutes
Genre: Western

One thing I do remember from this movie was that the Native Americans were not portrayed in a racist way. I was honestly surprised by that. There were some aggressive groups, but also groups that Wayne's character interacted with as friends.

My Rating: 7 / 10

IMDB User Rating: 7.3 / 10 (2,313 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% critic (8 votes), 65% Audience (1,951 votes)

[sabotai]

City Girl (1930)

https://i.imgur.com/Gfb2Kpfm.jpg

Directed By: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan
Length: 89 Minutes
Genre: Drama

My Rating: 5 / 10

IMDB User Rating: 7.9 / 10 (1,791 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% critic (4/1 votes), 80% Audience (373 votes)

[sabotai]

Animal Crackers (1930)

https://i.imgur.com/JsqoMHQm.jpg

Directed By: Victor Heerman
Starring: The Marx Brothers, Lillian Roth, Margaret Dumont
Length: 97 Minutes
Genre: Comedy

I remember finding it funny, just...left me missing the silent film comedy of Lloyd, Keaton and Chaplin.

My Rating: 7 / 10

IMDB User Rating: 7.7 / 10 (10,260 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 96% critic (22/1 votes), 90% Audience (10,155 votes)

[sabotai]

And that closes out 1930. On to a year I was looking forward to and I finally got to it...1931, year of the monster movie. Dr Jekyll and My. Hyde, Dracula and Frankenstein all released in this year.

Moves for 1931

À nous la liberté (French musical comedy)
City Lights (Chaplin comedy)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Horror)
Dracula (Horror)
Frankenstein (Horror)
I Was Born, But… (Japanese drama)
Little Caesar (Crime Drama)
M (Crime drama)
Monkey Business (Marx Brothers comedy)
The Public Enemy (Crime Drama)

If I have time and feel like watching them, I have a few movies on the bench...

Kameradschaft (German drama)
The Maltese Falcon (Crime Drama)
Svengali (Horror)
The Champ (Drama)

[sabotai]

Dracula (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/orvQdJVm.jpg

Directed By: Tod Browning, Karl Freund
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan
Length: 85 minutes
Genre: Horror

It was actually kinda hard to take the film seriously as I kept remembering all of the scenes from Dracula Dead and Loving It. I'm probably going to have the same problem when I get to Frankenstein.

Bela Lugosi plays the perfect Dracula...well of course he does, everything about Dracula today is still modeled off his performance in this movie. But still, his portrayal of Dracula is fantastic.

In these early "talkies", a lot of the scenes are still acted like in the silent movie. A lot of emoting, over the the top movement, etc. In one early scene, Dracula goes in for the kill...very slowly. Arms out, the women slowly backing away....perfect for a silent movie, not so much in a sound version. It's interesting how adding sound to a movie makes it feel like it should be much more realistic. Probably similar to watching a play, ballet or musical on stage vs. a movie.

And the ending was very anti-climatic. Just a short chase scene and then it was over.

I mean, they just find Dracula laying in his coffin, open it a few times, create a stake out of the lid, Van Helsing drives the stake off-screen...

That's the negatives. The positives are that it was very well acted IMO (silent movie style performance aside), especially from Lugosi, and that, well, it's Dracula. And who doesn't love the story of Dracula?

My Rating: 7 / 10

IMDB User Rating: 7.6 / 10 (30,381 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 91% critic (41/4 votes), 82% Audience (44,039 votes)

[sabotai]

Been a few years. Going to try this again.

M (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/TLXv8QIm.jpg

Directed By: Fritz Lang
Starring: Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Gründgens
Length: 111 minutes
Genre: Crime Drama

National Board of Review: 1933 Best Foreign Film

A Jack The Ripper type serial killer is targeting children on the streets of Berlin, and the city's cops and civilians are losing their collective minds over it. People are openly accused on the streets merely from talking to children.

One of the sequences in this movie that really stood out was when a criminal organization was having a meeting over the killings (how they were bad for business) and the police were also holding their own meeting. Fritz Lang cut between the scenes as they happened. It's been a long time since I've watched a lot of these movies, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen two scenes jump back and forth like that.

From a "film study" perspective, the movie is great. This was Fritz Lang's first 'talkie' and he experimented with the new technology. Sounds off camera, having the killer whistle a tune to identify him, lots of new ideas thanks to the new sound technology of the day.

The negatives would be that, even for 1931, some of the acting is way over the top, and some of the set designs are hilariously cheap. There's one scene that takes place in a night club/bar I think. It's hard to tell just by looking at it because it's just one big empty room for the most part.

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.4/10 (113k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% critics (51), 94% Audience (35k)

[sabotai]

City Lights (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/Oi0JyDRm.jpg

Directed By: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
Length: 87 minutes
Genre: Romantic Comedy

Ah...a silent movie. I never thought I'd actually miss watching them, but I do. Especially after watching the first 'talkies'. Silent movie were never actually silent. They were filled with music, and in some cases sound effects, through the entire movie. Since the beginning of silent movies in the 1890s, it was expected that the movies would be shown with live music being played.

Ironically, it took the 'talkies' to appear before we actually got actual silence in movies. In many of these first sound pictures, there's a lot of silence in between dialog and what little sound effects were used. It's very off-putting. Watching one of these old movies with sound, you can just feel something is off.

Anyway...back to City Lights.

Rated by many as Chaplin's best movie, it's everything you'd expect from a Chaplin movie. The Tramp meets and falls for a blind flower girl. He also becomes friends with a suicidal, alcoholic millionaire who never remembers the Tramp when he's sober. They get into a lot drunken hijinks, much to the chagrin of the millionaire's butler.

My favorite scene in the movie was the boxing scene. The Tramp finds himself in need of money, gets recruited into a boxing match and has to fight someone who looks (and demonstrates that he's) much tougher than the Tramp. Hilarity ensues.

I really enjoyed the movie, but I'd say The Gold Rush still ranks as my favorite Chaplin movie.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.6/10 (127k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% critics (43-1), 96% Audience (26k votes)

[sabotai]

I was Born, but... gets bumped because it was released in 1932.

東京の合唱 (1931)
English Title: Tokyo Chorus

https://i.imgur.com/Arb9Ozfm.jpg

Directed By: Yasujirō Ozu
Starring: Tokihiko Okada, Emiko Yagumo
Length: 90 min.
Genre: Silent Drama / Comedy

The movie starts out with a group of children messing around during morning drills at school. The teacher making it clear every time he write a note in his notebook over bad behavior.

Flash forward to adulthood now. The biggest trouble maker of the group works for an insurance company and is married with 3 children. His oldest wants a bike and is promised it because his father will be getting his bonus at work. At work, one of the older employees is fired, just 1 year before he earns his pension, because he had a few life insurance policies cashed in shortly after they were taken out. Outraged, our main character goes into the manager's office and stands up for the employee. He ends up being fired, too.

Unable to buy his son a bike, his son acts out and is inconsolable. Tokyo is going through a economic slump and work is hard to find. His daughter even gets sick and has to be hospitalized for a brief time. The family resorts to selling some of their cloths to pay the bills. They did end up keeping their promise to their son, and found a way to buy him a bike.

The father ends up running into his old school teacher. He no longer teaches and instead owns a small restaurant. He offers our protagonist a job, and promises to help him find work as a teacher. The work is humiliating to our protagonist. He wants around the streets of Tokyo holding a banner and passing out flyers. Even worse, his wife sees him and is mortified (her being unaware that he's helping his old teacher). When our protagonist explains the situation to his wife later at home, she understands, and even offers to join him in helping his old teacher at the restaurant.

The movie ends with a bit of an open ended ending. The old teacher comes through, and finds our hero a job. The catch is that it's in a rural town far from Tokyo. They agree to take the job, but their facial expressions are very conflicted. It's hard to tell by the ending if they actually took the job or if they stays in Tokyo and continued to help out the old teacher.

I liked the movie, but I think my enjoyment was more about seeing a window into 1930s Tokyo than the movie itself. All of the professionals walked around in western style suits and hats, but when they weren't working, they wore traditional Japanese clothing. Most of the streets in Tokyo were still dirt roads. It looked like a weird fusion of modern (for the time) western culture and traditional Japanese culture.

Prior to watching this, I watched the 10 surviving minutes of a movie called "I Graduated, But..." which was released in 1929 (also directed by Ozu). In it, I could see a Harold Lloyd "Speedy" poster on the wall of the main character's house. He also wore a hat similar to that of Lloyd's.

In a little of 2 decades, Ozu will direct a movie called Tokyo Story (1953), which is regarded as one of the best Japanese movies ever made, and I'll be watching as many movies of his as I can until then to see how his style evolved. This particular movie (Tokyo Chorus) is known for being the first film of his where he used a low-angle camera frequently.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.4/10 (1k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 4 critics rated fresh, 81% of Audience (3.7 / 5 ; 454 votes)

[sabotai]

Frankenstein (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/wpHxmVBm.jpg

Directed By: James whale
Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Boris Karloff
Length: 80 min.
Genre: Horror

The first scene of this movie is Henry Frankenstein and his assistant Fritz digging up a grave. Scene 2 is them cutting down someone who was hanged. Scene 3 is of Fritz stealing a brain from a college. So, you know it's going to be a good movie.

I'm sure everyone knows the basic plot. "It's alive!", monster escapes, town hunts it down and kills him.

I enjoyed this one a bit more than Dracula. The acting was not silent-style acting. No over the top body language. The acting was more subtle, more suited for sound. Of course, the monster was over the top...but, you know, he's a monster. The actor, Boris Karloff, was also wearing 11 pound shoes (11 pounds each) to make him look taller.

This movie started Karloff's career as a movie-monster actor. He'll play Frankenstein's Monster several more times, Imhotep in 1932's The Mummy, as well as other. And along with him, Jack Pierce, the makeup artist behind Karloff's now iconic version of Frankenstein's monster. They go on to have a long lasting partnership in this genre.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.9/10 (54k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% critics (45), 87% of Audience (3.8 / 5 ; 41k votes)

[sabotai]

Kameradschaft (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/BQ3SMrO.jpg

Directed By: G. W. Pabst
Starring: Alexander Granach, Fritz Kampers, Daniel Mendaille, Ernst Busch, Elisabeth Wendt Gustav Püttjer
Length: 90 min.
Genre: Disaster Drama

This story is based on the real-life Courrières mine disaster in which 1,099 miners died. Rescue teams from both Paris and Germany contributed to the rescue attempts.

The movie takes place in 1930's Europe at a mine on the border of Germany and France. A few scenes show the tension between the French and German workers. There are many out of work miners as the world economy has taken a nose dive. Interesting how the world's economy has become a central point in movies from the US to Germany to Japan. I remember in Tokyo Chorus, Hoover was even mentioned by name.

A fire on the French side gets out of control and causes a collapse. German rescue workers show up to help with the rescue attempt. At one point, three miners break through the bars set up in the mine at the French-German border. They weren't going to help (I don't think...) but they end up helping an old miner and his injured grandson, who represents the child labor used in mines in those days.

The movie ends with two speeches about camaraderie (Kameradschaft) between the miners, one in French and one in German. The last scene is the recreation of the bars separating France and Germany in the mine.

As for my rating, this movie was dreadfully boring. Being a Disaster Drama movie, the effects and stunts were center stage, and despite my best efforts to get myself back into a 1930s mentality when watching these movies, the visuals didn't draw me in. Nice to see what state of the art visuals in German cinema were in 1931, but as far as how much I enjoyed watching the movie: I didn't.

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.4/10 (925 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A, 83% of Audience (3.8 / 5 ; 181 votes)

[sabotai]

The Public Enemy (1931)

https://i.imgur.com/6nZ1np0m.jpg

Directed By: William A. Wellman
Starring: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell
Length: 83 min.
Genre: Crime Drama

1931 Best Writing, Original Story Nominee

Cagney's 4th film and first starring role. He was originally going to play a supporting role, while Edward Woods was cast as Tom Powers, the main character. The director thought Cagney fit the role better, so he switched them. And for over 80 years since, people have been doing their best Cagney impression while saying lines that end in ", see?"

This movie reminded me a lot of Goodfellas. Not in story or characters, but more in narrative style. It starts off showing how Tom Powers (James Cagney) started getting into organized crime as a child, teenager and then adult. It didn't glamorize gangsters. It was a pretty gritty, violent movie for the 1930s. At this point, the Hays Code had been written and published, but wasn't being enforced. That happens in a few years (1934).

The movie also shows how prohibition was a windfall for organized crime. The characters went from barely surviving to being flush with money. But with more money also came more violence.

I really liked this movie. But I also have an affinity for gangster movies. After all, The Godfather Part 1, The Godfather Part 2 and Goodfellas would easily make my Top 10 movies ever list. I'm never not in the mood for a good gangster flick.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.7/10 (15k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (28), 84% of Audience (3.9 / 5 ; 7k votes)

[sabotai]

And that will bring 1931 to a close. I tried to watch À nous la liberté but the video quality was very bad and I didn't feel like sitting through it.

1931 Movie Rankings
1. The Public Enemy - 8/10
2. City Lights - 8/10
3. Tokyo Chorus - 7/10
4. Frankenstein - 7/10
5. Dracula - 7/10
6. M - 6/10
7. Kameradschaft - 4/10

1932 Movie Watch List
Hell's House (Drama starring Bette Davis)
Freaks (Horror)
Scarface (Gangster)
Grand Hotel (Drama starring Greta Garbo and John Barrymore - Best Picture winner)
I Was Born, But... (Japanese Drama - directed by Ozu Yasujirō)
Movie Crazy (Harold Lloyd comedy)
The Most Dangerous Game (Horror)
I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (Crime Drama)
A Farewell To Arms (War Drama)
20,000 Years in Sing Sing (Crime Drama starring Tracy Spencer and Bette Davis)
Vampyr (Horror)
No Blood Relation (Japanese Drama - directed by Naruse Mikio)
White Zombie (Horror)
The Mummy (Horror)

I recently subscribed to a streaming service called Filmstruck. It has two collections and I signed up for both, Filmstruck's collection and The Criterion Channel. It's mainly what has allowed me to start this back up. Lots of old movies on it. Some movies I still do need to rent through Amazon, but not too many.

The one big downside to Filmstruck is that it actually still uses Flash Player (lol...) on its website.

They have a lot of Japanese movies. The three main directors of this time period were Ozu Yasujirō, Naruse Mikio and Mizoguchi Kenji and Filmstruck has many of their films, so expect to see a few Japanese movies every year. Mizoguchi's films on Filmstruck start up in 1936.

Kurosawa Akira starts up in 1943 as does Kinoshita Keisuke.

[thealmighty]

Since it's been 7 years since someone besides you posted in the thread (unless I skipped over one), I thought I would break the streak and say I love this dynasty. Thanks for the effort you put into it.

P.S.-Don't take any long breaks. Like Ice and Fire, I may be dead before we get anywhere near the end.

[sabotai]

Thanks for following.

As long as there isn't a massive exodus of old movies off streaming platforms, I'll keep doing this now. When the big shift from DVDs to streaming happened, older movies were left behind and for a good long while there were hardly any old movies available. Netflix still barely has any. Thankfully other streaming services have come along (finally!) to fill that market for the old movies.

Another reason was that I cut the cable cord. I used to record movies off TCM like crazy. When I got rid of cable, I lost that tactic, too.

And now streaming has caught up and then some. Not sure how many of the movies from Ozu, Naruse and Mizoguchi I would have gotten to see (not to mention foreign movies from other countries) had I still needed to rely on DVD rentals and TCM.

[sabotai]

White Zombie (1932)

https://i.imgur.com/dztUAEbl.png

Directed By: Victor Halperin
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazier
Length: 66 min.
Genre: Horror

The birth of the terrible B-horror movie. It was low budget, had terrible acting, terrible lighting, terrible camerawork, terrible editing, and the dialog was absurd. Bela Lugosi is the film's only redeemable quality.

Credited as being the first feature-length zombie movie, the zombies here were not rotting dead bodies, but living people more in a hypnotized state. Bela Lugosi plays a Haitian witch doctor with a group of zombies he controls.

The movie takes place in Haiti. Madeleine is set to marry one man, but a rich plantation owner wants her for himself. He enlists the help of Legendre (Bela Lugosi) and he says there's just one way to stop the wedding. The rich guy resists at first, but in the end poisons Madeleine and turns her into a lifeless zombie. The spell is finally broken when Legendre is killed and she reunites with her fiance.

If you like terrible B-movies, you might like this. Otherwise, holy shit was it fucking awful.

My Rating: 3/10
IMDB User Rating: 6.4/10 (7k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% (16-2), 57% of Audience (3.4 / 5 ; 7k votes)

[larrymcg421]

Really surprised at the low rating for M. I thought it was a masterpiece and by far the best movie of that year. Only City Lights was close.

FWIW, this was my top 10 for 1931:

1. M (Fritz Lang)
2. City Lights (Charles Chaplin)
3. Miracle Woman (Frank Capra)
4. The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch)
5. An American Tragedy (Josef Von Sternberg)
6. Dishonored (Josef von Sternberg)
7. Platinum Blonde (Frank Capra)
8. The Public Enemy (William Wellman)
9. Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy)
10. The Royal Bed (Lowell Sherman)

As for 1932, I would definitely recommend adding Trouble in Paradise to your watch list.

[sabotai]

I probably should have watched a few 'warm-up' 1930s movies before jumping into M. If I were still splitting my rating between "Entertainment" and "Historical", the later would have gotten a 9 or 10 for its influence and all of the editing and camerawork. I just didn't enjoy the movie that much.

As for Trouble in Paradise, I can't find it outside of buying the DVD. It doesn't even have a listing on justwatch.com

[sabotai]

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

https://i.imgur.com/pzClR2kl.jpg

Directed By: Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack
Starring: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong
Length: 62 min.
Genre: Adventure, Horror
Based On: "The Most Dangerous Game" short story by Richard Connell (1924)


Apparently I'm way off on this one. Critics love it, 100% on RT with 77% with fans, IMDB has it at 7.2. Personally, I thought the movie as awful.

The movie starts off with a world famous big game hunter on a ship with several other people. They are having an plot-obvious conversation on if the big game hunter would be willing to trade places with his prey. The ship wrecks and the big game hunter is the only survivor.

He makes his way to a large house. He meets a Russian Count named Zaroff who happens to love hunting and has read everything our hero has written on hunting. He also meets two other shipwreck survivors, a brother and sister. The sister warns the big game hunter that something weird is going on.

Our hero and the sister sneak around and find Zaroff's trophy room and it's filled human heads. Zaroff shows up with the brother, now dead as he had just been hunted. Zaroff tries to recruit the big game hunter to hunt with him, he refuses, and then Zaroff decides to hunt the hunter. Our hero ends up winning and escapes the island with the sister.

So yeah, like I said, I'm apparently way off on this one. I thought just about everything about this movie was bad. I'll give it credit for the acting. It wasn't filled with silent-era style acting like a lot of movies at this time. So it gets a point there. And it gets a point for some nice action scenes. However, I hated just about everything else in this movie. It was just barely over an hour long, and I was checking how much time was left before I even hit the 30 minute mark (27 minutes, to be exact). One of the worst movies ever going by my "How long did it take for me to check how much time was left" standard.

My Rating: 4/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.2/10 (8k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (16-0), 77% of Audience (3.6 / 5 ; 3k votes)

[sabotai]

20,000 Years In Sing-Sing (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/edeNHQhm.jpg (https://imgur.com/edeNHQh)

Directed By: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Louis Calhern
Length: 78 min.
Genre: Prison / Crime Drama

Tommy Connors (Spencer Tracy) is sent to Sing-Sing on robbery and assault His associate tells him he'll be taken care of while in prison, but the warden stops that before it gets started. Connors enters prison thinking he's going to own the place, but the warden's punishments work. Connors refuses to take part in an attempted jail break.

Meanwhile, his girlfriend Fay Wilson (Bette Davis) tries to keep the pressure up on Connors' associate Joe Finn to push for a new trial, but she ends up hurt in a car accident and isn't expected to live. The warden, now trusting Connors, allows him 1 day pass to go see her.

Turns out, the accident was no accident and Finn was responsible. Finn shows up, they get into a fight, and Fay shoots Finn. Connors takes the gun, flees, and eventually shows back up at the prison. He takes the fall for the shooting despite Fay's objections and is executed.

This movie was boring. It got going a little in the middle. Most of what I just described was Act 2. Acts 1 was the warden breaking Connors. The vast majority of Connors' antics are something you'd see in a high school drama. They were incredibly childish, and not at all menacing. He's a hardened criminal, but he's doing shit a punk in 9th grade would do.

Some nice action in the middle, like I said, and Act 3 was all waiting for his execution. 20 minutes of nothing happening, then he's dead.

My Rating: 3/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.1/10 (2k votes)

[sabotai]

生さぬ仲 (1932)
Nasanu naka
English Title: No Blood Relation

http://i.imgur.com/K3yKquum.png (https://imgur.com/K3yKquu)

Directed By: Naruse Mikio
Starring: Okada Yoshiko, Nara Shinyou, Tsukuba Yukiko
Length: 79 min.
Genre: Family Drama
Based On:

Naruse's oldest suvriving feature length film.

The film starts off with a purse snatching. What jumped out at me was the use of a "zoom in" on the title card of the word "Theif!". It was jarring, in a good way. And Naruse did this several times in the movie which was very effective.

Throughout the movie, Naruse used a lot of camera movement. A lot of "zoom ins" (cameras at the time could not zoom in, so the zoom in was really a use of a dolly to pull off the effect), along with panning, tracking shots, etc. Unfortunately, cameras being what they were back then, a lot of his camera movement (especially the zoom ins) meant a lot of out of focus shots as well. But I loved the experimenting he did on the movie with the camera, as well as the editing. I even saw a few overlays with the title cards. This journey has gone on for a long time, but I can't remember seeing a title card overlayed on top of a shot before. It was just a few times, a "Later that day" over video of a tree. Something like that.

As for the story, the movie is about a successful actress returning from Hollywood. She had left for America several years ago, leaving behind a husband and child. He had remarried, and the child had grown up thinking her step mother was her mother. And that was the explicitly stated (by one of the characters) theme of the movie: Giving birth to a child does not make you a mother, raising a child makes you a mother.

The actress, with the help of her criminal brother and his lackey, takes advantage of the family's financial struggle to get her former mother-in-law to bring the child to her home. The second part of the movie is the step-mother's attempt to get the child back.

The plot was very "meh", a few "well that was a hell of a coincidence" moments, and a very over the top happy ending. The actress leaves all her money to her child, the child goes back to her family and the actress, along with her brother and his lackey, head to America.

I loved the film from a "film study" perspective, but didn't enjoy the story much.

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB User Rating: 6.9/10 (253 votes)

[sabotai]

Movie Crazy (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/hyFavIWm.jpg (https://imgur.com/hyFavIW)

Directed By: Clyde Bruckman
Written By: Vincent Lawrence
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Constance Cummings, Kenneth Thomson
Length: 98 min.
Genre: Comedy

It has its moments, but not one of Lloyd's better movies.

Lloyd stars as a man who dreams of being in the movies. He sends in a letter along with a headshot (accidentally sent someone else's picture) and gets a reply to come audition in Hollywood.

When he arrives, he immediately gets into trouble as he's grabbed randomly to be an extra in a scene and ends up ruining every take. He meets the love interest of the film by trying to help her get the top of her car up in the rain. That goes horribly, and he's injured in the process. She brings him into her home to help him with his injury, and so begins their on and off romance. The main source of the conflict is that she has a role in a movie, and in full makeup, wig and speaking with an accent, Lloyd doesn't recognize her, so she tests him in various ways. He always fails them.

The end of the movie sees Lloyd fight another actor on the set of a movie (Lloyd is unaware that they are shooting a scene when the fight starts). This actor has also been harassing the love interest and threatening Lloyd throughout the movie. One of the heads of the studio sees the fight and thinks it's part of the shoot. He laughs nonstop and the movie ends with the studio head giving Lloyd a contract.

Some of the gags in the movie were hysterical. Some were not at all. And some could have been, but were ruined with how they were filmed.

For example, in the beginning of the movie, Lloyd gets the letter from Hollywood. In his excitement, he runs into his house and shouts about how he got a reply. He absentmindedly forgot to put the car in park. His father, who is upstairs and drawing a bath, runs downstairs to see what the commotion is about.

A minute later, they hear the car crash and look outside. His father scolds him for being careless and says he doesn't know where he gets it from. Cue water dripping down from the ceiling. Now, we all get the joke. We all know what happened. Just have the father realize what he did and have him run back upstairs.

But that's not what happens. They all look up. A full second or two of them looking up. A full 2 seconds long shot of water coming through the ceiling. A full 2 seconds long shot of the family again. A full 2 seconds long shot of the tub overflowing. WE GET IT. We got the joke 10 seconds ago!

And jumping to the end, the comedic fight scene went on for way too long. It had a few funny moments, but I was ready for the fight to be done a good minute before it finally ended. And in between a bad start to the movie and the way too long fight scene at the end, was a movie that was funny half the time and very much not the other half.

I'll give a shout out to the test screening sequence. That was hilarious and my favorite part of the movie.

My Rating: 5/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.2/10 (1k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A, 67% of Audience (3.7 / 5 ; 167 votes)

[sabotai]

Freaks (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/vdLrMAfm.jpg (https://imgur.com/vdLrMAf)

Directed By: Tod Browning
Written By: Willis Goldbeck, Leon Gordon
Starring: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Length: 62 min.
Genre: Drama, Horror

The movie is a tale of the personal relationships among the carnies of a circus act, mostly on the 'freaks'. One of the little people, Hans, is engaged to another little person, Frieda, but once a pretty trapeze artist starts flirting with him, he starts to fall for her. She is Cleopatra and is in a relationship with a circus strongman, Hercules. She toys with Hans and Hans pulls more and more away from Frieda.

Cleopatra learns that Hans is actually very wealthy, so she gets Hans to leave Frieda for her and they get married. She starts poisoning him at their wedding reception but ends up lashing out at the rest of the 'freaks' when they start singing "Google gobble, google gobble, we accept you, one of us".

The freaks, and eventually Hans, realize she's up to no good, catch her in the act of continuing to poison Hans, and chase her down as she tries to flee. That last part is when the "horror" shows up.

At first, I was disappointed in the movie. I had thought it was going to be much more of a horror movie than it was. I built the movie up in my head over the years to something it probably wasn't going to live up to. But after thinking about it for awhile, I think it was a really good movie. The pace was really good, the directing was good. An overall good movie.

Fun fact: The actor who played Hans was a member of the lollipop guild in the Wizard of Oz. Frieda was a villager of Munchkinland as well.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.2/10 (1k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A, 67% of Audience (3.7 / 5 ; 167 votes)

[sabotai]

A Farewell to Arms (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/kckJKlnm.jpg (https://imgur.com/kckJKln)

Directed By: Frank Borzage
Written By: Benjamin Glazer, Oliver H.P. Garrett
Starring: Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou
Length: 85 min.
Genre: Romance
Based On: the novel "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway

Academy Awards
Winner: Best Cinematography
Winner: Best Sound, Recording
Nominee: Best Picture
Nominee: Best Art Direction

Looks like the masses are with me on this one over the Academy and the critics. This movie was fucking terrible. A 6.6 in IMDB for a major movie isn't good, neither is 52% on RT.

Our "hero" Frederic Henry, played by Gary Cooper, is an ambulance driver from America and his "best friend" (I guess), Rinaldi, played by Adolphe Menjou (who was great as always), is an Italian doctor. The movie takes place in Italy during The Great War.

Rinaldi convinces Frederic to go out on a double date. Rinaldi's girl is named Catherine (Helen Hayes) and Rinaldi sets Frederic up with a woman named Helen. Well, our "hero" decides to be the world's worst wingman. Frederic and Catherine had run into eat other briefly the night before during an air raid. Frederic was drunk and creeped out Catherine. Now, even though she recognizes him as the guy that creeped her out the night before, decides to go fro a walk with Frederic because, as I said, Frederic is the world's worst wingman.

So, Frederic then rapes Catherine. I know, I know, 'it was a different time', but I'm pretty sure when a guy goes in for the kill, if the woman is saying "No, please, no", that was rape in any time. So he totally rapes her, and after the two of them fall in love.

Their relationship is against army regulations, so when he is sent back to the front, she is transferred to Milan on Rinaldi's suggestion. Soon after, Frederic is wounded in an attack and Renaldi sends him to Milan for treatment. Half the time, it seemed like Rinaldi was helping Frederic, the other half of the time he was getting the way trying to split them up.

When Frederic is sent back to the front after he recovered, the two lovers write each other often. However, neither of them receives the other's letters (Renaldi's interference again). Frederic then deserts the army to go find Catherine, while Catherine had gone to Switzerland to have his child (she had kept that little fact from him). When she finds out her letters were sent back unopened, she faints. She has the child stillborn and Frederic gets there just in time to watch her die...of something. The end.

Garbage. Total garbage of a movie.

My Rating: 2/10
IMDB User Rating: 6.6/10 (4k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 92% of Critics (12-1), 52% of Audience (3.2 / 5 ; 5k votes)

[molson]

I missed the dynasty comeback - I'll be following

[sabotai]

生れてはみたけれど (1932)
umarete wa mita keredo
English Title: I was Born, But...

http://i.imgur.com/WiWTqhZm.jpg (https://imgur.com/WiWTqhZ)

Directed By: Ozu Yasujirō
Written By: Fushimi Akira, Ozu Yasujirō
Starring: Saitō Tatsuo, Aoki Tomio, Sugawara Hideo
Length: 100 min.
Genre: Drama

Awards
1933 Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film of the Year

There are two types of movies that start off with a few strikes against them for me. The first is romantic movies. These, by far, seem most prone to 'paint by numbers' movie making. The same for it's offshoot, the romantic comedy.

The other type is a movie about kids. I don't find it especially entertaining to watch kids act like brats for an hour and half, so the movie better be exciting or funny (or both).

The story follows two young brothers, Keiji and Ryoichi. They have just moved into the Tokyo suburbs. The same neighborhood as their father's boss. The two brothers immediately get on the wrong side of a local bully, and to avoid him and his gang, they skip school. Their father follows them to the school the next day to make sure they go.

A local delivery boy who is older than the rest of them agrees to help the brothers. He threatens and humiliates the bully, and the two brothers become kings of the neighborhood. They immediately start acting like despots.

One of the neighborhood's kid, Taro, invites some of his friends, including the brothers, over to watch home movies. His father likes to make them at work and around the city. He also happens to be the brothers' father's boss. In the office videos, they see their dad acting like a clown and every one laughs. They realize their father is not an important person in the company and are humiliated.

At home, they start acting up and throwing tantrums. It was an epic meltdown. But the next morning after a failed hunger strike, they reconcile with their dad, and show signs that the hierarchy amongst the boys in the neighborhood was breaking down some and they all were just going to be friends.

Near the end, the father says to his wife (paraphrasing) "I wonder if they'll lead the same sorry lives as us." Only if they're lucky, considering what happens in Japan over the next 10-15 years.

Okay, so, I didn't enjoy the movie much. The kids were brats and the movie wasn't especially funny. There were some chuckles here and there, but not consistently funny. From a technical and artistic standpoint, it was definitely a "must watch" on any film study list. And I can see why people in general would love this movie. There's no head scratching from me for why this film is so highly rated, it's just not the type of movie I personally enjoy.

My Rating: 6/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.1/10 (4k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% of Critics (23-0), 90% of Audience (4.1 / 5 ; 1k votes)

[Izulde]

A Farewell To Arms is a great book, though. Admittedly the first time I read it, I hated it. Second time I read it, I thought it was pretty good. Third time I read it, I loved it (for fun undergrad, UArk grad, UNLV grad respectively). Hem's obscenely tight, layered prose gets lost in translation to film. Just how it is.

[sabotai]

The only Hemingway book I've read was The Old Man and the Sea. That was way back in high school and I remember liking it, but I can't remember many details about it now. I should add some of his books to my to-read list so I can learn from his prose to help with my own writing career that I'll get around to starting.

I just read the plot summery for the novel, and that sounded like a much better story then the movie I watched. Seems like they changed a lot of the middle and end in the movie.

[sabotai]

Grand Hotel (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/ral1ttxm.jpg (https://imgur.com/ral1ttx)

Directed By: Edmund Goulding
Written By: William A. Drake
Starring: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beary, Lionel Barrymore
Length: 112 min.
Genre: Drama
Based On: 1929 Novel "Menschen im Hotel" by Vicki Baum

Awards
Winner: 1932 Academy Award for Best Picture

"Grand Hotel. Always the same. People come. People go. Nothing ever happens."

The movie takes place at the Grand Hotel in Berlin, Germany, and included an all-star cast.

We follow the intertwined storylines of several characters, John Barrymore plays Baron von Geigern, a man who has follow on hard times and has debts to pay. Greta Garbo plays depressed and seemingly washed up ballet dancer Grusinskaya. Joan Crawford plays Flaemmchen, a stenographer hired by General Director Preysing (Wallace Beary), who owns a large company, to type letters and meeting notes for the week. Lionel Barrymore plays Otto Kringelein, a low-level accountant who works in Preysing's company who has been given just a short time to live, so he takes his life savings to blow it all by living the high life at the Grand Hotel.

All of the characters run into each other and interact, but the main plot gets going when the Baron breaks into Grusinskaya's hotel room to steal her pearls. She returns before he can make his escape and hides in her room. While there, he watches and listens to her and, wouldn't you know it, falls in love with her.

But her tour in Berlin is up, and she's off the Vienna soon. The Baron tries several schemes to make some money, even steal it, but they all fail. He insists on paying his own way even though Grusinskaya is wealthy and can easily afford to pay his way. The Baron at last tries to steal from General Director Preysing. He's caught in the act. He tries to talk his way out of it, but Preysing grabs the phone to call the police. The Baron walks towards the balcony and Preysing, overcome with rage, hits him with the phone, killing him.

Grusinskaya's manager and staff get her out of the hotel the next morning, managing to keep her from hearing about what happened to the Baron.

MGM went all out for this movie and it got them the Oscar. I liked the movie, but I wasn't blown away by it. One of the early scenes of the movie is a long take of various guests checking in. I thought that was incredibly well done. Well acted, well directed, overall good, enjoyable movie that gives a look into what the 1930s considered glamorous.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.6/10 (14k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 86% of Critics (31-5), 77% of Audience (3.8 / 5 ; 7k votes)

[sabotai]

Short programming update: The ratings and reviews for Hell's House look pretty bad, and I've seen enough bad movies for 1932. So I'm swapping it out in favor of Wooden Crosses, a highly regarded French WW1 movie. I'm also adding Where Now Are The Dreams of Youth?, the second movie done by Ozu Yasujirō in 1932.

So that leaves Wooden Crosses, Vampyr, Where Now Are The Dreams of Youth?, and I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang left.

I watched Scarface a few days ago, and I'll write up that review soon.

[larrymcg421]

I liked I Was Born But..., Movie Crazy, and Freaks much more than you did, but I'm glad you didn't like A Farewell to Arms. It's weird because I usually love Borzage movies (7th Heaven, Lucky Star, Man's Castle), but this one is terrible and I especially thought Helen Hayes was awful in it. There's another movie she did called The Sin of Madelon Claudet, which she won the Oscar for and she's probably even worse there.

[sabotai]

Scarface (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/Ur60uLQm.jpg (https://imgur.com/Ur60uLQ)

Directed By: Howard Hawks
Written By: Ben Hecht, Seton I. Miller, John lee Mahin, W.R. Burnett
Starring: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Osgood Perkins, Karen Morley
Length: 95 min.
Genre: Crime Drama / Gangster
Based On: 1929 Novel "Scarface" by Armitage Trail

This movie committed a terrible storytelling sin, but I'll get to that.

It's the 1920s, Chicago. The movie starts off with Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) assassinating "Big" Louis Costillo. He whistles a tune before he does it, a la the killer from M. This gives his boss, Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) control of the Chicago South Side with Tony as one of his top lieutenants.

The completely loose cannon Tony eventually starts shooting up places controlled by the Irish gangs. Johnny explicitly told him not to, but Tony does it anyway. This makes Tony, and Johnny's entire gang, a target for the Irish gangs run by O'Hara.

While this is going on, Tony also has his eyes set on Poppy (Karen Morley), Johnny's girlfriend, and makes several attempts to win her over. At one point, the two are openly flirting with each other in front of Johnny at a club.

Tony sends his best friend, Guino Rinaldo, to assassinate O'Hara, setting off an all out gang war. The Irish hit back with a drive by using Thompson sub-machine guns. Tony laughs as they fire. He can't believe they made a machine gun you can hold in your hands. They manage to get one and return to base with it. The movie has several scenes in a row that are nothing but violent gunfights and killings. They even recreate the Saint Valentine's Massacre during this sequence.

Johnny is not pleased at all with what is going on, and believes Tony is trying to take over his business. He arranges for Tony to be hit. Tony survives, makes it to Johnny's place with his friend Guino. As Johnny whistles his tune, Guino kills Johnny.

Johnny flees the city until things cool down. In that time, Guino gets into a relationship with Tony's sister Cesca (Ann Dvorack). As soon as Tony returns and sees this, he guns down Guino. The police are called and move to arrest Tony. In his apartment, Cesca comes to kill Tony but can't do it. She loses her mind and fights the police along with Tony. She gets shot, she dies. Tony acts like he's going to give himself up, but makes a run for it, and is gunned down as he flees his apartment building.

So what was the sin? The movie preached its theme, and you can mostly thank the censors for that. It starts off with a few title cards saying "Gang violence is out of control, we must demand the government do something". In the middle of the movie, some nameless character gives a monologue to several other nameless characters about what must be done to stop gang violence.

In just about every gangster type movie I've seen, whether it's The Public Enemy from 1931 to Goodfellas and Menace 2 Society in the 90s, they let the story speak to the horrors that gangs bring on communities. They don't need to explicitly state "hey guys...this is bad, k?". Theme should come through a story. It doesn't need to be explicitly starting on a billboard that you display to the audience in the middle of the movie.

After reading about many of the changes the censors were demanding, it's good that Howard Hughes who produced the movie told Hawkes to ignore them. However, some of the things the censors insisted on made it in, and it detracted from a good gangster movie that already did a damn good job of showing how awful and detrimental to your life the gang lifestyle was. This is something I'll never understand. I simply can't understand how anyone can watch Menace 2 Society, Scarface, Goodfellas, The Wire, The Shield, The Public Enemy.....and think that they glorify gangs. They do the exact opposite!

Okay, with that out of the way, I really did like the movie ignoring all of that bullshit, but it could have been a lot better.

I did think the acting was really good. It starting to feel like, after a few years of sound becoming the norm in America, that actors and directors are adjusting to the new normal in movie making. Actors emoting with their bodies in silent pictures works great...not so much with sound, and thankfully the movie industry learned that quickly.

Overall, good gangster movie. Could have been better, especially without all of the overt moralizing.

My Rating: 7/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.8/10 (21k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% of Critics (36-0), 86% of Audience (3.9 / 5 ; 25k votes)

[sabotai]

I liked I Was Born But..., Movie Crazy, and Freaks much more than you did, but I'm glad you didn't like A Farewell to Arms.

I knew we'd find one we agreed on eventually!

[Izulde]

I was starting to get excited, because I thought Gun Crazy was coming up soon, which is my favorite B/W movie not named Casablanca. Turns out it's not that 1930s like I thought, but 1950. Bah.

This is still my favorite dynasty thread of all time, though.

[sabotai]

1950s? No worries, I should get there in....19, 20 years tops.

[sabotai]

Short programming update again, scratch Where Now Are The Dreams of Youth? from the list. I didn't realize until I started watching it tonight that it's literally a silent movie. No music at all. I thought about still trying to watch it, but about 15 minutes in, I turned it off. I'll still watch it in spurts here and there (as I plan to for Ozu's other, earlier work that I haven't seen yet), but I'm not holding up the dynasty for it. Maybe I'll do something like a retrospective on those movies later.

All the rest of the movies have been watched. I'll give my reviews over the next few days. Spoiler Alert: We're ending 1932 on a high note.

[sabotai]

Vampyr (1932)

http://i.imgur.com/8KeEenbm.jpg (https://imgur.com/8KeEenb)

Directed By: Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written By: Carl Theodor Dreyer , Julian West
Starring: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Jan Hieronimko
Length: 73 min.
Genre: Horror

This movie was a sound/silent hybrid. Early on, much of the story is advanced through title cards, even though the movie has sound. This, funny enough, gave it a somewhat modern feel, as, like in a silent movie, there was music through most of the movie. The reason seems to be because the movie was being made in 3 languages, Dreyer kept the dialog to a minimum.

The eerie soundtrack, little dialog, and great use of shadows and visual effects made this a great mind-fuck movie.

While staying at an inn one night, Allan Gray is woken by an old man coming into his room. He leaves a package on the table and leaves. The note on the package says "To be opened upon my death". Gray follows the man, guided by shadows, to an old castle.

From there, all kinds of weird ship happens.

This movie was mostly panned by critics on release, and it seems Dreyer didn't direct another film until the 1940s. Maybe 1932 wasn't ready for Mindfuck Horror. I thought it was great.

The visual effects and camera work were top notch, as they usually were for directors from Europe. They had an eye for it the way movie makers from other parts of the world just hadn't developed yet. Although Dreyer's previous movie was The Passion of Joan of Arc, which I did not care for. At least, back in 2009 when I watched it. I wonder if my opinion on it would be different now...

One downside, at least from watching it on Filmstruck, is that the title cards are in German. It does show subtitles, but the subtitles are white, and the text on the title cards are white, so the subtitles are hard to read during the titlecards, downright impossible a few times. Fortunately for me, while I'm not fluent in German, I know enough that I got the gist of what each title card said.

A creepy, mind-fuck of a horror movie, great visual effects, one of the best movies on 1932.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.6/10 (12k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% of Critics (30-0), 82% of Audience (3.9 / 5 ; 6k votes)

[sabotai]

Les croix de bois (1932)
English Title: Wooden Crosses

http://i.imgur.com/WzyZ4gkm.jpg (https://imgur.com/WzyZ4gk)

Directed By: Raymond Bernard
Written By: Raymond Bernard
Starring: Pierre Blancher, Gabriel Gabrio, Charles Vanel
Length: 115 min.
Genre: War
Based On: The Novel "Les croix de bois" by Roland Dorgelès, published in 1919

France's take on an anti-war war movie. Their answer to "All Quiet on the Western Front".

In this movie, a young, idealistic soldier has joined up for the war, and he's really eager to get in on the fighting. The regiment he joins tells him, too bad, the fighting is just about over and the war will be done shortly. The movie begins in 1914 (que 'foreboding music')

The first main sequence occurs while the regiment is on the front line. They hear digging going on underneath them. German sappers. They know that the Germans will eventually plant a bomb, but there is no where for them to go. Their commanding officer tells them they have to stay put, and downplays the danger. In one scene, they start to panic when the sounds of digging stop. After a few tense moments, it starts up again.

Shortly after the regiment is relieved and are taken off the front line, there's an explosion. They made it out just in time...not so much for the men who replaced them,

The action really picks up halfway through the movie. A massive battle occurs and goes on for 10 days (and for the rest of the movie). The action scenes during the battle were incredible. Easily the best "battle scenes" of any of the war movies I've watched so far. John Ford and Howard Hawkes both would repurpose the battle shots in their movies.

At the end of the battle, everyone is dead, that young, eager soldier being the last to die (maybe...it was a bit ambiguous as to whether he died or not...but probably)

Two issues. The first half hour of the movie did drag quite a bit. It took its time getting going, as most war movies tend to do. But this was pretty boring for the first 30 minutes. Secondly, it got a bit over the top with the melodrama at times. One of the characters really milked their death scene.

But those two issues aside, the battle scenes were incredible, and overall this was up there with All Quiet on the Western Front and unfortunately this movie seems to have been largely forgotten.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 7.8/10 (944 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A, 91% of Audience (4.2 / 5 ; 335 votes)

[sabotai]

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

https://i.imgur.com/jeSfBCem.jpg

Directed By: Mervyn LeRoy
Written By: Howard J. Green, Brown Holmes
Starring: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis
Length: 93 min.
Genre: Crime / Prison Drama
Based On: The Autobiography "I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang" by Robert Elliot Burns

6th Academy Awards
Nominees for Best Picture, Best Actor (Paul Muni), and Best Sound, Recording

1932 National Board of Review
Winner: Best Film

(The 6th Academy Awards were given to films released from August 1st, 1932 to December 31, 1933, a 17 month period. After this, the Academy Wards would be given based on calendar year, Jan 1st to Dec 31)

At the end of World War 1 (still just called 'The World War' for obvious reasons) James Allen (Paul Muni) returns home, but his family and old boss are set on him picking up where he left off at his old job. The war changed James. He worked with the Corp of Engineers in the army and wanted to stuff like build bridges. He reluctantly takes up his old job, though, and almost immediately starts getting into trouble being late.

He leaves that job to go chase his dreams. But work is hard to come by and he ends up traveling the country in search of a steady job. He even tries to sell his war medals, but the pawn shop has a box full of them. He eventually gets into trouble with the law when he is forced to take part in a robbery. He runs when the cops show up but is quickly caught. The judge is merciless. He ran. He had the money in his pocket. Off to hard labor for 10 years.

I thought the movie was great. One part The Fugitive, one part Shawshank, meaning, half of the film is in prison, half is after his first escape. He escapes for several years, but someone turns him in and he voluntarily goes back when he's assured that he'll only need to serve 3 months and then receive a pardon. Surprise, the state goes back on its word and over a year later, Allen escapes a second time. This time, he stays in the shadows, only visiting the woman he loved once, telling her that he has to live the rest of his life on the run.

Muni was great, even better than in Scarface. The supporting cast (most of them) were great. Good action on the escape scenes. Overall, a great fugitive/prison movie.

My Rating: 8/10
IMDB User Rating: 8.1/10 (10k votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% of Critics (21-0), 91% of Audience (4.1 / 5 ; 3k votes)

[sabotai]

1932 was looking like a so-so year for me, but I finish off with three 8s in a row.

1932 Movie Rankings
1. I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang - 8/10
2. Vampyr - 8/10
3. Wooden Crosses - 8/10
4. Scarface - 7/10
5. Grand Hotel - 7/10
6. Freaks - 7/10
7. I Was Born, But... - 6/10
8. No Blood Relation - 6/10
9. Movie Crazy - 5/10
10. The Most Dangerous Game - 4/10
11. 20,000 Years in Sing-Sing - 3/10
12. White Zombie - 3/10
13. A Farewell to Arms - 2/10