O MIMI SAN – Sessue Hayakawa, Mildred Harris

O Mimi San (1914)
Direction: Charles Miller
Screenplay: Thomas H. Ince (unconfirmed)
Cast: Sessue Hayakawa, Mildred Harris, Tsuru Aoki
 

O Mimi San is historically important as Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa’s first film. In it, Hayakawa plays a prince who goes to a retreat after an attempt on his life is made; once there he falls in love with a young woman (Mildred Harris, future wife of Charles Chaplin) but then finds himself torn between love and duty as a leader of his nation. Compounding matters, an arranged marriage (with Tsuru Aoki, Hayakawa’s own future wife) awaits him.
Directed by Charles Miller and allegedly written by Thomas H. Ince (a studio head best remembered for his "mysterious" death in 1924), O Mimi San [...]

Great Directors Series on Turner Classic Movies

Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, Oskar Werner in François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim

In June, Turner Classic Movies‘ month-long series "Great Directors" will be celebrating the efforts of 52 films directors, from past and present, from Hollywood and overseas (though, as to be expected, mostly Hollywood).
Among TCM’s "greats" are, inevitably, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, and John Ford, but also Jacques Tourneur, Mervyn LeRoy, and Budd Boetticher.
Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Carol Reed, and Ingmar Bergman are four of the non-Hollywood filmmakers who have been included in the series.
Each weekday of the "Great Directors" series will feature two directors — one during the day; the other at night.  The daytime lineup includes Victor Fleming (June [...]

UCLA’s Festival of Preservation: Fredric March, Edgar G. Ulmer

Next at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood:

On Wed., April 15, at 7:30 pm: Efraín Gutiérrez’s Run, Tecato, Run (1979), described as a real-life inspired tale that "depicts a junkie’s efforts to get off heroin in order to reclaim and raise his daughter." Actor-director Gutiérrez is expected to attend the screening.
On Fri., April 17, at 7:30 pm: Lester James Peries‘ Gamperaliya (1964), a "seminal" work in Sri Lankan cinema that has been compared to Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy. Gamperaliya tells the story of "a teacher and member of the new rising middle class, who falls in love with the daughter of his village’s leading aristocratic clan. Defensive positions are assumed and the girl’s parents [...]

Under Full Sail – Silent Cinema on the High Seas

Flicker Alley in association with the Blackhawk Film Collection has announced the release of "Under Full Sail – Silent Cinema on the High Seas," a new DVD release featuring, as per its press release, "five breathtaking films that preserve the romance, grandeur and allure of windjammers sailing open waters, exquisitely photographed in the style of the time."
The following information is from the Flicker Alley release:
The Yankee Clipper (1927), produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Rupert Julian, restored to the most complete version available since the film’s release, is a feature-length melodrama recreating the real-life race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China tea trade. The gorgeous production filmed at sea for six weeks aboard the 1856 [...]

Best Films – 1936

Sacha Guitry in The Story of a Cheat
FILM
Follow the Fleet
d: Mark Sandrich; scr: Dwight Taylor
Fury
d: Fritz Lang; scr: Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang
Libeled Lady
d: Jack Conway; scr: Maurine Watkins, Howard Emmett Rogers, George Oppenheimer
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
My Man Godfrey
d: Gregory La Cava; scr: Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch
Le Roman d’un tricheur / The Story of a Cheat
d, scr: Sacha Guitry
Show Boat
d: James Whale; scr: Oscar Hammerstein II
Theodora Goes Wild
d: Richard Boleslawsky; scr: Sidney Buchman
These Three
d: William Wyler; scr: Lillian Hellman
 

Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton in Dodsworth
CHECK THESE OUT
César
d, scr: Marcel Pagnol
Club de femmes
d, scr: Jacques Deval
Desire
d: Frank Borzage; scr: Edwin Justus Mayer, Waldemar Young, Samuel Hoffenstein
Dodsworth
d: William [...]

Best Films – 1926

Mary Pickford in Sparrows
FILM
Dancing Mothers
d: Herbert Brenon; scr: Forrest Halsey
Don Juan
d: Alan Crosland; scr: Bess Meredyth; titles: Walter Anthony, Maude Fulton
Kid Boots
d: Frank Tuttle; scr: Luther Reed, Tom Gibson; titles: George Marion Jr.
The Scarlet Letter
d: Victor Sjöström (aka Victor Seastrom); scr: Frances Marion
The Show
d: Tod Browning; scr: Waldemar Young; titles: Joseph W. Farnham
Sparrows
d: William Beaudine; scr: C. Gardner Sullivan; titles: George Marion Jr.
The Volga Boatman
d: Cecil B. DeMille; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
 
CHECK THESE OUT
You Never Know Women
d: William A. Wellman; scr: Benjamin Glazer
Old Ironsides
d: James Cruze; scr: Dorothy Arzner, Harry Carr, Walter Woods; titles: Rupert Hughes
Mare Nostrum
d: Rex Ingram; scr: Willis Goldbeck
Tell It to the Marines
d: George Hill; scr: Richard Schayer; titles: Joseph W. Farnham
 
ACTOR
John Barrymore
Don Juan
Eddie Cantor
Kid Boots
John Gilbert
The [...]

Best Films – 1918

FILM
Old Wives for New
d: Cecil B. DeMille; scr: Jeanie Macpherson
 
ACTOR
Elliott Dexter
Old Wives for New
 
ACTRESS
Ossi Oswalda
Ich möchte kein Mann sein / I Don’t Want to Be a Man
Mary Pickford
Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley
 
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Theodore Roberts
Old Wives for New
 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sylvia Ashton
Old Wives for New
Florence Vidor
Old Wives for New
 
CINEMATOGRAPHY
G. W. Bitzer
Hearts of the World
Walter Stradling
Stella Maris
Alvin Wyckoff
Old Wives for New
 
"Best Films of …" Annual List

1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955
1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975
1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985
1990 1991 1992 [...]

Best Films – 1915

In The Italian, George Beban plays an Italian immigrant whose dreams of riches in America quickly turn into a never-ending nightmare of poverty and despair.
 
FILM
The Italian
d: Reginald Barker; scr: Thomas H. Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan
Little Pal
d: James Kirkwood; scr: Marshall Neilan
 
CHECK THESE OUT
Carmen
d: Cecil B. DeMille; scr: William C. de Mille
 
ACTOR
George Beban
The Italian
 

Theda Bara in A Fool There Was
ACTRESS
Theda Bara
A Fool There Was
Geraldine Farrar
Carmen
Lillian Gish
Enoch Arden
Mary Pickford
Little Pal
 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Clara Williams
The Italian
 
"Best Films of …" Annual List

1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929
1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939
1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949
1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955
1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965
1970 [...]

Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Mae West, Cecil B. DeMille DVD Sets

Universal (owner of the Paramount films of the studio era) has announced the release of the following box sets:
On April 4, three "Glamour Collection" sets:
The Carole Lombard Glamour Collection:
Man of the World (1931), We’re Not Dressing (1934), Hands Across the Table (1935), The Princess Comes Across (1936), Love Before Breakfast (1936), and True Confession (1937).
The Mae West Glamour Collection:
Night After Night (1932), I’m No Angel (1933), Goin’ to Town (1935), Go West Young Man (1936), and My Little Chickadee (1940, above).
The Marlene Dietrich Glamour Collection:
Morocco (1930), Blonde Venus (1932), The Devil Is a Woman (1935), The Flame of New Orleans (1941), and Golden Earrings (1947).
On May 23:
The Cecil B. DeMille Collection:
The Sign of the [...]