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D.W. Griffith in California

Los Angeles Filmforum will present "D.W. Griffith in California," on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7:30 pm. at the Echo Park Film Center. At the screening, film scholar Tom Gunning will discuss D. W. Griffith and his early Californian films.
Six of those Griffith productions will be screened: Man’s Genesis (1912, 17 min); The New Dress (1911, 17 min.); The Massacre (1914, 20 min); The Unchanging Sea  (below right, 1910, 14 min.); The Sands of Dee (1912, 17 min); and The Female of the Species (1912, 17 min).
All in 16mm, with live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick.
Among the early stars featured in those shorts are Blanche Sweet, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Arthur Johnson, Wilfred Lucas, and, [...]

M’LISS – Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan

M’Liss (1918)
Direction: Marshall Neilan
Screenplay: Frances Marion; from Bret Harte’s story
Cast: Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Tully Marshall, Charles Ogle, Monte Blue, Winifred Greenwood
 

Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan in M’Liss
 

Directed by Marshall Neilan and written by Frances Marion – two frequent Mary Pickford collaborators — M’Liss is one of Pickford’s very best films. In this comedy-drama, Pickford plays a spirited and unruly mountain girl, that’s the M’Liss of the title, who falls in love with the new schoolteacher (Thomas Meighan) — who is later falsely accused of murder.
Pickford, by then already a superstar, gives a sterling performance; she is ably supported by (future star) Thomas Meighan as the schoolteacher, as well as a fine collection of character actors including [...]

Cinesation 2009

Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan in M’Liss

Cinesation 2009 is currently taking place at the Lincoln Theater in Massilion, Ohio. The four-day festival, which ends on Sunday, will screen a number of hard-to-find titles, including:

James Cruze’s 1925 political-historical Western The Pony Express, starring Betty Compson, Ricardo Cortez, Wallace Beery, and George Bancroft in a tale of powerlust and media manipulation. Hey, sounds like life in the early 21st century? Well, that’s a mere coincidence, as The Pony Express is set in mid-19th-century California, a time when Sen. Glen (Al Hart) and his Knights of the Golden Circle scheme to have the state secede from Union, annex another chunk of Mexico, and form a new empire.
The 1918 Mary Pickford vehicle M’Liss, in [...]

Phil Hall Interview II

Mary Pickford, one of the first major independent producers, and screenwriter Frances Marion

Phil Hall Interview: Part I
The History of Independent Cinema. I’m assuming that refers to US-made films. Even so, that’s a lot of ground to cover. What sort of parameters did you have to use in order to condense that very long and very diverse history into one volume?
Clearly, I could not accommodate every independent film into the book. I decided to focus primarily on films and creative artists that made a significant contribution to the commercial and/or artistic development of film production and distribution. That helped to eliminate many obscure films and filmmakers from coverage.
There are two genres that were not pursued in depth. I opted not [...]

Latino Images in Film: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Warner Baxter on TCM

Turner Classic Movies‘ series "Race in Hollywood: Latino Images in Film" kicks off this evening.
So what if "Latino" isn’t a race? So what if it isn’t even an ethnic or a cultural group, but merely a US-made sociopolitical construct? I’d say that what matters here are the films themselves — all Hollywood productions. And hopefully some of the introductions, provided by Robert Osborne and UCLA professor of film and media studies Chon A. Noriega, will be illuminating.
Tonight, TCM watchers will be able to catch Hollywood’s foremost couple of the 1920s, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, playing Spanish-speaking characters (by way of English-language intertitles) in, respectively, the D. W. Griffith-directed early short Ramona [...]

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 – 1919

Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess in Broken Blossoms
FILM
Broken Blossoms
d, scr: D. W. Griffith
Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
d: Robert Wiene; scr: Carl Mayer, Hans Janowitz
The Hoodlum
d: Sidney Franklin; scr: Frances Marion
 
CHECK THESE OUT
The False Faces
d, scr: Irvin Willat
The Sentimental Bloke
d: Raymond Longford; scr: Raymond Longford and (possibly) Lottie Lyell
 
ACTOR
Richard Barthelmess
Broken Blossoms
Werner Krauss
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Thomas Meighan
Male and Female
Arthur Tauchert
The Sentimental Bloke
 
ACTRESS
Lillian Gish
Broken Blossoms
Lillian Gish
The Greatest Question
Mary Johnson
Herr Arnes pengar / Sir Arne’s Treasure
Mary Pickford
Heart o’ the Hills
Mary Pickford
The Hoodlum
Gloria Swanson
Male and Female
 
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Lon Chaney
Victory
Conrad Veidt
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Josephine Crowell
The Greatest Question
Lila Lee
Male and Female
Clarine Seymour
The Girl Who Stayed at Home
 
CINEMATOGRAPHY
G. W. Bitzer
Broken Blossoms
G. W. Bitzer
The Greatest Question
René [...]

Best Films – 1917

A Romance of the Redwoods. Clip posted by hwbanger
 
FILM
A Romance of the Redwoods
d: Cecil B. DeMille; scr: Jeanie Macpherson
 
ACTOR
Elliott Dexter
A Romance of the Redwoods
Douglas Fairbanks
Reaching for the Moon
 
ACTRESS
Pauline Frederick
To Love That Lives
Mary Pickford
A Romance of the Redwoods
 
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
ZaSu Pitts
The Little Princess
 
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Victor Fleming, Harry Thorpe
The Man from Painted Post
George Hill
Polly of the Circus
Walter Stradling
The Little Princess
Alvin Wyckoff
Joan the Woman
Alvyn Wyckoff
A Romance of the Redwoods
Alvin Wyckoff
The Woman God Forgot
 
"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 [...]

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 [...]

Best Films – 1914

Giovanni Pastrone’s epic Cabiria is considered a landmark in motion picture history, inspiring the scope of D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916).
 
CHECK THESE OUT
Cabiria
d: Giovanni Pastrone; scr: Giovanni Pastrone, Gabriele D’Annunzio
The Wrath of the Gods
d: Reginald Barker; scr: William H. Clifford, Thomas H. Ince, C. Gardner Sullivan
 

Harold Lockwood, Mary Pickford in Tess of the Storm Country
ACTRESS
Mary Pickford
Tess of the Storm Country
 
SHORT FILM
The Battle at Elderbush Gulch
d: D.W. Griffith
 
"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 [...]

TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY – Mary Pickford

Tess of the Storm Country (1914)
Direction: Edwin S. Porter
Screenplay: B. P. Schulberg; from Grace Miller White’s novel
Cast: Mary Pickford, Harold Lockwood, Olive Carey (as Olive Golden), David Hartford, Louise Dunlap
 

 
Directed by Edwin S. Porter (of The Great Train Robbery fame), the 1914 version of Tess of the Storm Country is both technically primitive and thematically saccharine. However, this shamelessly manipulative melodrama about a bratty waif who manages to save her father from prison and to marry a rich, good-looking guy boasts a solid comic performance by Mary Pickford, at the time probably the most popular film performer in the world. Pickford is so good, in fact, that she succeeds in making the maudlin material at worst bearable [...]

Rudolph Valentino at the Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009

Mary Pickford in The Poor Little Rich Girl

Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009: Feb. 27
Saturday – Feb. 28, 2009
Morning – starts at 9 a.m.
Feature: The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) Mary Pickford (65 min.)
This is the feature film that put little Mary Pickford on the map as a star. She was known before, but this one put her name above the title and fans came to see her pictures after this no matter what the title was. It was also a role that typecast her forever as a child afterwards. Even when she was 33-years old, she was still playing little girls and was known as ‘America’s Sweetheart’. This delightful yet important story is about family and the importance of family. [...]

Douglas Fairbanks: The First King of Hollywood

Douglas Fairbanks in Wild and Woolly (top) and Don Q. Son of Zorro (bottom). Below right, Fairbanks can be seen in The Matrimaniac.

The exhibition "Douglas Fairbanks: The First King of Hollywood" will premiere on Saturday, January 24, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fourth Floor Gallery in Beverly Hills. Admission is free.
As per the Academy’s press release, the exhibition will focus on superstar Douglas Fairbanks’ "multifaceted life as a movie star, studio [co-]founder [that's United Artists], philanthropist and civic leader through film clips, movie posters, props, costumes, original documents and stunning photographic imagery. The exhibition spans from his earliest days in silent films through his transition into talkies, delves into [...]

Mary Pickford’s Oscars’ Sale Blocked

A Los Angeles jury has decided that the Oscar statuettes that once belonged to silent-screen superstar Mary Pickford (above) — one for best actress for the dreary 1929 melodrama Coquette; the other an Honorary Oscar handed to her in 1976 — cannot be sold.
Heirs to the estate of Pickford’s third husband and widower, Charles "Buddy" Rogers (by way of his widow, Beverly Rogers, who died in 2007), wanted to sell the Oscars and donate the proceeds to a charity organization. But charitable sale or not, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was determined to prevent it. Unless, that is, the statuettes were sold back to the Academy for the nominal fee of $1.
Since 1951, the Academy has required [...]

Honorary Oscars Bypass Women

Mary Pickford

At the 1936 Academy Awards ceremony, D. W. Griffith became the first individual to win an Honorary Award for his body of work. Seventy-one years and 77 (my count*) Honorary Oscar winners later, a mere eight women have been recognized for their cinematic oeuvre. The chosen 8 — 6 of them actresses, plus one actress-producer — are: Greta Garbo (at the 1955 ceremony), Lillian Gish (1971), actress-producer Mary Pickford (1976), editor Margaret Booth (1978), Barbara Stanwyck (1982), Myrna Loy (1991), Sophia Loren (1991), and Deborah Kerr (1994).
Considering the amount of female talent that has gone un-honored these past seven decades, I find it impossible not to believe that the Board of Governors of the Academy of [...]

San Sebastián 2006: Ernst Lubitsch Retrospective

One of the highlights of this year’s San Sebastián International Film Festival is a mouth-wateringly thorough Ernst Lubitsch Retrospective.
Besides the obligatory titles, such as the witty 1939 comedy of bright lights and Communism, Ninotchka, and the delightful 1934 version of The Merry Widow, the retrospective is also showcasing a large number of Lubitsch rarities (including a few fragments of mostly lost films), ranging from his earliest work in Germany — among them several Pola Negri vehicles and the gender-bending 1918 comedy Ich möchte kein Mann sein / I Don’t Want to Be a Man, starring the German Mary Pickford, Ossi Oswalda — to some of his little seen Hollywood films, such as the 1931 psychological drama Broken Lullaby / [...]

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