King Vidor Articles

"Sound and Silents" is the title of a four-film series — part of the wider "Birds Eye View Film Festival" celebrating women filmmakers — to be held at London’s bfi Southbank and the Barbican from March 6-10. The four screening silent films are: King Vidor’s The Patsy (1928), starring Marion Davies; Sidney Franklin’s Her Sister from Paris (1925), starring Constance Talmadge and Ronald Colman (right); [...]

A couple of recommendations for Turner Classic Movies viewers on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 20. Wild Oranges (1924) is an early King Vidor effort featuring Virginia Valli, a popular leading lady of the 1920s. In this drama set on an island off the Florida coast, Valli plays a young woman whose quiet life with her grandfather is disturbed following the appearance of an evil [...]

The Fall of the House of Usher (top); John Gilbert, Eleanor Boardman in Bardelys the Magnificent (middle); Douglas Fairbanks, Lupe Velez in The Gaucho (bottom) Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, and Lillian Gish are only a few of the superstars to be found at the 14th San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which will take place July 10-12 at the Castro Theatre. Among those scheduled to provide [...]

Cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff, one of the early masters of color cinematography, has died. He was 94. Cardiff’s work as a cinematographer was quite eclectic, ranging from his partnership with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the British-made Black Narcissus (1945) and The Red Shoes (1948) to prestigious international productions such as John Huston’s The African Queen (1951) and King Vidor’s War and Peace [...]