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 [...]
by James Bazen | October 29, 2009
| Subscribe / Syndicate
Tags: Cecil B. DeMille, Charles Miller, Cinesation 2009, Classic Movies, Film Reviews, Mildred Harris, O Mimi San, Sessue Hayakawa, Silent Films, Thomas H. Ince, Tsuru Aoki
Thomas Meighan, THE LOST SQUADRON at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Via Thomas Gladysz’s article in the Los Angeles Examiner:
The Edison Theatre at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in the Northern California town of Fremont has been screening silent films and early talkies for quite some time. As Gladysz explains in his article, that area was home to the western studios of the Chicago-based Essanay film company, among whose stars at one point were Gloria Swanson; Charles Chaplin; matinee idol Francis X. Bushman (best remembered for his villain in the 1925 version of Ben-Hur); and company co-owner Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (the "ay" in Essanay; the "ess" was George K. Spoor), the first cowboy star.
The Niles Essanay Museum’s line-up for the rest of April [...]
by Andre Soares | April 15, 2009
| Subscribe / Syndicate
Tags: Broncho Billy Anderson, Classic Movies, Conrad in Quest of His Youth, Erich von Stroheim, Essanay, Frank Borzage, George Archainbaud, Joel McCrea, Kathlyn Williams, Margaret Loomis, Mary Astor, Mildred Harris, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Richard Dix, Shorts, Silent Films, The Lost Squadron, Thomas Gladysz, Thomas H. Ince, Thomas Meighan, William C. de Mille, William Desmond Taylor
THE ITALIAN d: Reginald Barker
The Italian (1915)
Direction: Reginald Barker
Screenplay: Thomas H. Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan
Cast: George Beban, Clara Williams, J. Frank Burke
George Beban (right) was a renowned stage and vaudeville star. Even though he never became a major film name, Beban appeared in nearly 20 films from the mid-1910s to the mid-1920s, almost invariably in the role of an Italian. His first feature film, in fact, was quite succinctly called The Italian.
Directed by the respected Reginald Barker (among whose credits is the 1916 William S. Hart vehicle The Aryan), The Italian depicts the plight of an Italian immigrant who arrives in the Land of Plenty only to find poverty, heartbreak, and death (no, not his own).
A not uncommon theme for the [...]
by Andre Soares | March 22, 2009
| Subscribe / Syndicate
Tags: C. Gardner Sullivan, Clara Williams, Classic Movies, Film Reviews, George Beban, Immigration, Reginald Barker, Silent Films, Socially Conscious Movies, The Italian, Thomas H. Ince
