Charles Chaplin’s ZEPPED Found
In the Chicago Tribune, Michael Phillips reports that a long-thought lost Charles Chaplin film has been accidentally found after a film collector made an eBay bid on a nitrate film canister.
Phillips explains that "the footage turned out to be the obscure Chaplin short [Zepped], a World War I propaganda effort designed to buck up British morale, combining stop-motion animation and outtakes and unused alternate shots from films Chaplin made for both Keystone and Essanay studios.
"The hybrid, over which Chaplin apparently exercised no creative control, includes a shot or two from His New Job, the short film Chaplin made for the Chicago-based Essanay during his 23-day residency here in late 1914 and early 1915."
by Andre Soares | November 11, 2009
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Tags: Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, Essanay, Shorts, Silent Films, Zepped
Charles Chaplin’s THE CIRCUS, ALADDIN, EASY RIDER Screenings
Among the upcoming screenings in the November film series of the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Va., are vehicles for just about everyone, from Charles Chaplin to Dennis Hopper; from Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland to Robin Williams‘ voice.
I’ve never seen Disney’s Aladdin, though I know it was a big hit when it came out. Robin Williams was particularly praised for his voice work as the Genie — some even went as far as to demand that the Academy come up with Oscars for best voice performance.
No one came up with that demand when Charles Chaplin’s The Circus was released, perhaps because the film has no audible dialogue. I’m not a big [...]
by Andre Soares | November 9, 2009
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Tags: Aladdin, Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider, Love Finds Andy Hardy, Mickey Rooney, Packard Campus, Peter Fonda, Robin Williams, The Circus
Penélope Cruz, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gael García Bernal Sign Polanski Petition
Actor Gael García Bernal, Academy Award-winning actress Penélope Cruz, veteran director Mario Monicelli, veteran screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr, and Academy Award-winning filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Ethan Coen are a few of the latest additions to the list of signatories demanding freedom for filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently being held by Swiss authorities.
Among the other new signatories of the petition organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) are:
Author Ariel Dorfman; actor-screenwriter Buck Henry; composer Vangelis; actors Sylvia Kristel and Anne Consigny; filmmakers Fatih Akin, Juan Antonio Bayona, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Alain Berliner, Guillermo del Toro, Michel Deville, Sam Gabarski, Diane Kurys, Tonie Marshall, Brett Ratner, and Jerry Schatzberg; World Cinema Foundation director Kent [...]
by Andre Soares | September 30, 2009
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Tags: Bernardo Bertolucci, Charles Chaplin, Gael Garcia Bernal, Penélope Cruz, Politics, Roman Polanski, Roman Polanski Petition, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, SACD, Samantha Geimer, Sex
Best Films – 1940
Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath
FILM
The Blue Bird
d: Walter Lang; scr: Ernest Pascal
The Grapes of Wrath
d: John Ford; scr: Nunnally Johnson
Kitty Foyle
d: Sam Wood; scr: Dalton Trumbo
The Letter
d: William Wyler; scr: Howard Koch
The Mark of Zorro
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: John Tainton Foote, Garrett Fort, Bess Meredyth
Pinocchio
d: Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen; scr: Ted Sears, Otto Englander and others
Pride and Prejudice
d: Robert Z. Leonard; scr: Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin
Rebecca
d: Alfred Hitchcock; scr: Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison
Waterloo Bridge
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: S.N. Behrman, Hans Rameau, George Froeschel
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday
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Busman’s Honeymoon / Haunted Honeymoon
d: Arthur B. Woods; scr: Monckton Hoffe, Angus MacPhail, Harold Goldman
His Girl Friday
d: Howard Hawks; scr: Charles Lederer
The Long Voyage Home
d: John [...]
by Andre Soares | April 4, 2009
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Tags: Aldous Huxley, Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Newman, Anita Loos, Basil Rathbone, Bella Spewack, Bess Meredyth, Best Films, Bette Davis, Busman's Honeymoon, Cary Grant, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Chaplin, Charles Lederer, Classic Movies, Constance Cummings, Edna May Oliver, Ernest Haller, Florence Bates, Frieda Inescort, George Barnes, Ginger Rogers, Greer Garson, Henry Fonda, Herbert Marshall, Herbert Stothart, His Girl Friday, Howard Hawks, Howard Koch, Irene Dunne, Irving Pichel, Jack Oakie, James Stephenson, Jane Darwell, Jane Murfin, Joan Crawford, Joan Fontaine, Joan Harrison, Joel McCrea, John Ford, Judith Anderson, Karl Freund, Kitty Foyle, Laurence Olivier, Leo McCarey, Marjorie Main, Mary Boland, Max Steiner, Melville Cooper, Mervyn LeRoy, Micheline Presle, Nunnally Johnson, Pinocchio, Pride and Prejudice, Ray Rennahan, Rebecca, Robert E. Sherwood, Robert Montgomery, Robert Z. Leonard, Rosalind Russell, Rouben Mamoulian, Roy Webb, Sam Spewack, Sam Wood, Susan and God, The Blue Bird, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, The Letter, The Long Voyage Home, The Man I Married, The Mark of Zorro, The Philadelphia Story, Tyrone Power, Virginia City, Vivien Leigh, Walter Lang, Waterloo Bridge, William Wyler
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
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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 [...]
by Andre Soares | April 3, 2009
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Tags: A Day in the Country, A Woman Rebels, Alice Brady, Allan Scott, Anthony Adverse, Archie Mayo, Arthur Treacher, Bartlett Cormack, Basil Rathbone, Bert Glennon, Best Films, Carole Lombard, Catherine Doucet, Cecil B. DeMille, César, Charles Chaplin, Charles Kenyon, Classic Movies, Claude Rains, Claude Renoir, Club de femmes, Delmer Daves, Desire, Dodsworth, Dorothy Fields, Double or Nothing, Douglas Dumbrille, Dwight Taylor, Edwin Justus Mayer, Elizabeth Risdon, Eric Hatch, Eugene Pallette, Follow the Fleet, Frank Borzage, Frank Capra, Fred Jackman, Fritz Lang, Fury, Gale Sondergaard, Gary Cooper, George Cukor, George J. Folsey, George Oppenheimer, George Stevens, Ginger Rogers, Gregg Toland, Gregory La Cava, H. B. Warner, Harold Lamb, Harold Rosson, Harriet Hilliard, Hattie McDaniel, Herbert Stothart, Howard Emmett Rogers, Howard Lindsay, Irene Dunne, Irving Berlin, Jack Conway, Jacques Deval, James Whale, Jean Arthur, Jean Bourgoin, Jean Renoir, Jerome Kern, John Barrymore, Joseph Kosma, Le Roman d'un tricheur, Leslie Howard, Libeled Lady, Lillian Hellman, Love Before Breakfast, Luise Rainer, Lynn Riggs, Marcel Pagnol, Marguerite Moreno, Mark Sandrich, Maurine Watkins, Melvyn Douglas, Miriam Hopkins, Mischa Auer, Modern Times, Morrie Ryskind, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, My Man Godfrey, Norma Shearer, Oliver T. Marsh, Oscar Hammerstein II, Partie de campagne, Paulette Goddard, Raimu, Ray June, Richard Boleslawsky, Robert de Grasse, Robert Riskin, Romeo and Juliet, Roy Mack, Rudolph Maté, Ruth Chatterton, Sacha Guitry, Samuel Hoffenstein, Show Boat, Sidney Buchman, Sidney Howard, Sol Polito, Spring Byington, Stowaway, Swing Time, Sylvia Sidney, Talbot Jennings, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Garden of Allah, The Great Ziegfeld, The Petrified Forest, The Plainsman, The Prisoner of Shark Island, The Story of a Cheat, Theodora Goes Wild, These Three, Tony Gaudio, W. Howard Greene, Waldemar Young, Walter Huston, William H. Daniels, William Powell, William Wyler
Best Films – 1923
I must admit that I’m not a fan of Charles Chaplin’s comedies. Heresies aside, I did very much enjoy Chaplin’s dramatic A Woman of Paris, an attempt to turn his frequent leading lady Edna Purviance into a star. The film was a box-office success (despite rumors to the contrary), but Purviance’s career never took off. That is unfortunate, as she gives a moving performance in this tale of lost love and single motherhood. She is with Carl Miller in the photo. Things are obviously not going very well for the couple, but Purviance is surely suffering in style.
FILM
Cameo Kirby
d: John Ford; scr: Robert N. Lee
Scaramouche
d: Rex Ingram; scr: Willis Goldbeck
The White Rose
d, scr: D. W. Griffith
A Woman of Paris
d, scr: [...]
by Andre Soares | April 2, 2009
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Tags: A Woman of Paris, Alice Terry, Best Films, Cameo Kirby, Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, D. W. Griffith, Edna Purviance, Eleanor Boardman, G. W. Bitzer, John F. Seitz, John Ford, John Gilbert, Karl Brown, Lewis Stone, Mae Marsh, Nita Naldi, Ramon Novarro, Rex Ingram, Scaramouche, Silent Films, Souls for Sale, The Covered Wagon, The Ten Commandments, The White Rose, Willis Goldbeck
Lost Pola Negri Film Found
The News/Polskie Radio reports that an early (and thus far unnamed) Pola Negri vehicle has been discovered at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia by the husband-and-wife team of Marek and Malgorzata Hendrykowski from Poznan University. Dating from the 1910s, the Polish production is a detective story set in Warsaw. The print has Italian subtitles and is said to be in good condition.
Born (Barbara) Apolonia Chalupiec in 1894 in Lipno, central Poland, Pola Negri began her show business career dancing with the Imperial Ballet in Warsaw, later enrolling in Poland’s Academy of Dramatic Arts. Following her stage debut in 1913, Negri rapidly ascended to the top of her profession, and by the late 1910s she had become a [...]
by Andre Soares | December 29, 2008
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Tags: Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, Ernst Lubitsch, Gloria Swanson, Gypsy Blood, Lesbian Interest, Mazurka, Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino, Silent Films, The Moon-Spinners
Marie Dressler II: Silent Films, Movie Stardom
Marie Dressler Interview: Part I
Marie Dressler was very popular in vaudeville at the turn of the 20th century. Did she try to become a silent-film star? She was in Tillie’s Punctured Romance with Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand in 1914, but she doesn’t seem to have quite caught on. Why not?
As told in the book, Marie was a huge star when Mack Sennett approached her to film a loose adaptation of her stage play Tillie’s Nightmare. The result, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, is quite important in film history. Released in 1914, it was the first feature-length comedy, Marie’s film debut, and an early example of Chaplin honing his skills and developing the Tramp.
The film was a big hit, but Marie [...]
by Andre Soares | February 23, 2008
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Tags: Anna Christie, Charles Chaplin, Classic Movies, Frances Marion, Interviews, Marie Dressler, Matthew Kennedy, Silent Films, The Callahans and the Murphys, Tillie's Punctured Romance
Best Films – 1947
Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar in Black Narcissus
FILM
Black Narcissus
d, scr: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cheyenne
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Alan Le May, Thames Williamson
Crossfire
d: Edward Dmytryk; scr: John Paxton
Down to Earth
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Edwin Blum, Don Hartman
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
d: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; scr: Philip Dunne
Life with Father
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Donald Ogden Stewart
Miracle on 34th Street
d, scr: George Seaton
Monsieur Vincent
d: Maurice Cloche; scr: Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Anouilh
Mourning Becomes Electra
d, scr: Dudley Nichols
Nicholas Nickleby
d: Alberto Cavalcanti; scr: John Dighton
The Perils of Pauline
d: George Marshall; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Frank Butler
CHECK THESE OUT
Body and Soul
d: Robert Rossen; scr: Abraham Polonsky
A Double Life
d: George Cukor; [...]
by Andre Soares | August 31, 2004
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Tags: A Double Life, Abraham Polonsky, Alan Le May, Alberto Cavalcanti, Alexander Hall, Allen Rivkin, Anne Revere, Aubrey Woods, Audrey Totter, Bernard Herrmann, Betty Hutton, Black Narcissus, Body and Soul, Brian Easdale, Carol Reed, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles B. Lang, Charles Bickford, Charles Chaplin, Cheyenne, Claudette Colbert, Crossfire, Curtis Bernhardt, David Farrar, Deborah Kerr, Dolores del Rio, Don Hartman, Donald Ogden Stewart, Down to Earth, Dudley Nichols, Edmund Gwenn, Edward Dmytryk, Edwin Blum, Elwood Bredell, Emeric Pressburger, Ethel Barrymore, F. L. Green, Frank Butler, Frank Davis, Gabriel Figueroa, Garson Kanin, Gene Tierney, Geoffrey Homes, George Barnes, George Cukor, George Marshall, George Seaton, Ginger Rogers, H. C. Potter, Harry Stradling, Heinz Roemheld, Henry Fonda, Irene Dunne, It Had to Be You, Jack Cardiff, Jacques Tourneur, James Mason, James Wong Howe, Jean Anouilh, Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Renoir, Joan Crawford, John Dighton, John Ford, John Paxton, Joseph A. Valentine, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Lady in the Lake, Laura Kerr, Life with Father, Lilli Palmer, Lloyd Gough, Lord Berners, Loretta Young, Marjorie Main, Martha Raye, Mary Merrall, Maureen O'Hara, Maurice Cloche, Max Steiner, May Hallatt, Michael Curtiz, Michael Hogan, Michael Powell, Miracle on 34th Street, Monsieur Vincent, Mourning Becomes Electra, Nicholas Nickleby, Odd Man Out, Out of the Past, P. J. Wolfson, Peverell Marley, Philip Dunne, Pierre Fresnay, Possessed, Pursued, R. C. Sheriff, Ranald MacDougall, Raoul Walsh, Rex Harrison, Richard Hageman, Ride the Pink Horse, Rita Hayworth, Robert Krasker, Robert Montgomery, Robert Rossen, Robert Ryan, Roland Culver, Ronald Colman, Ruth Gordon, Signe Hasso, Silvia Richards, Thames Williamson, The Egg and I, The Farmer's Daughter, The Fugitive, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Perils of Pauline, The Sea of Grass, The Unsuspected, The Woman on the Beach, Van Heflin, Vida Hope, William Alwyn, William Conrad, William Powell, William V. Skall
