PILLARS OF SOCIETY – Henry B. Walthall – d: Raoul Walsh

Pillars of Society (1916)
Direction: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: From a novel by Henrik Ibsen
Cast: Henry B. Walthall, Mary Alden, Juanita Archer, George Beranger, Josephine Crowell, Olga Grey
 

Pillars of Society is a film about hypocrisy, having its basis on a story by Ibsen. The Birth of a Nation hero Henry B. Walthall (right) plays the son of a Norwegian shipping company; in his youth, he goes to Paris to study and has an affair with a married Bohemian actress. However, his brother-in-law is falsely accused of having said affair with the actress; he protects Walthall by accepting the blame and leaving for America.
Years later, the brother-in-law returns and demands that Walthall clear his name. Fearing that if the [...]

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 – 1928

Evelyn Brent, Emil Jannings in The Last Command
FILM
The Crowd
d: King Vidor; scr: King Vidor, James V. A. Weaver; titles: Joseph W. Farnham
The Docks of New York
d: Josef von Sternberg; scr: Jules Furthman; titles: Julian Johnson
The Last Command
d: Josef von Sternberg; scr: John F. Goodrich; titles: Herman J. Mankiewicz
Sadie Thompson
d & scr: Raoul Walsh; titles: C. Gardner Sullivan
Street Angel
d: Frank Borzage; scr: Marion Orth, Philip Klein & Henry Roberts Symonds; titles: H. H. Caldwell & Katherine Hilliker
The Wind
d: Victor Sjöström; scr: Frances Marion
 

L’Argent by Marcel L’Herbier
CHECK THESE OUT
L’Argent
d: Marcel L’Herbier; scr: Marcel L’Herbier & Arthur Bernède
The Patsy
d: King Vidor; scr: Agnes Christine Johnson; titles: Ralph Spence
Show People
d: King Vidor; scr: Laurence Stallings & Agnes Christine Johnson; titles: Ralph [...]

Douglas Fairbanks in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD Screening

A fully restored print of the 1924 silent-film version of The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fairbanks celebration in a special “Monday Nights with Oscar” presentation on Monday, December 15, at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
The Thief of Bagdad will be presented in conjunction with the publication of the Academy’s latest book, Douglas Fairbanks, by Jeffrey Vance, with Tony Maietta and photographic editor Robert Cushman. Vance and Maietta will take part in a book signing following the screening.
Directed by Raoul Walsh [...]

IN OLD ARIZONA – Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe

In Old Arizona (1928)
Direction: Raoul Walsh and Irving Cummings
Screenplay: Tom Barry; from O. Henry’s (aka William Sidney Porter) 1907 short story "The Caballero’s Way"
Cast: Edmund Lowe, Warner Baxter, Dorothy Burgess
 

 
TIRED IN THE SADDLE
What makes Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh’s In Old Arizona (barely) watchable decades after its highly successful initial release is its sheer bizarreness. Technically, the picture, billed as the first outdoor talkie, is of interest solely as a museum piece. Despite the use of the American Southwest’s wide-open spaces as background, In Old Arizona is really not that different from other static, slow-moving, and poorly acted films of the period. From a thematic standpoint, however, this racy Western is a must-see because of its in-your-face pre-Production Code sensibility, [...]

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; [...]

Best Films – 1943

Set in a 17th-century Danish village, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s masterful Vredens dag / Day of Wrath is a stark, but deeply felt indictment against religious fanaticism and intolerance. Moving performances by ingénue Lisbeth Modin and accused witch Anna Svierkier add a touch of humanity to the horrors shown on screen. It is not a coincidence that Vredens Dag was made in 1943, a time when Denmark was under Nazi occupation. The parallels — and the interconnectedness — between political and religious control are made quite clear in this harrowing masterwork.
 
FILM
Northern Pursuit
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Frank Gruber, Alvah Bessie
This Land Is Mine
d: Jean Renoir; scr: Dudley Nichols
Vredens dag / Day of Wrath
d: Carl Theodor Dreyer; scr: Carl Dreyer, [...]