Starring the German Mary Pickford, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Doll movie is a satirical fantasy featuring inventive art direction and jabs at the Catholic Church.
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Amazing Tales from the Archives: SFSFF spotlights unusual movie audio system, pioneering female documentarian and memorably inventive comedy fantasies.
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Remarkable women’s suffrage movie Mothers of Men dismisses the notion that the female right to vote would destroy American families and society.
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The first feature (co-)directed by Alf Sjöberg, The Strongest is a visually splendid Arctic adventure. On the downside, the narrative moves at glacial speed.
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Fritz Lang’s two-part semi-historical epic tragedy Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Kriemhild’s Revenge is a cinematic masterpiece.
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Films such as those seen in the British Film Institute’s compilation Around China with a Movie Camera offer a magical window into the past.
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Featuring modernistic sets and costumes, L’Inhumaine mixes sex melodrama, revenge thriller and science fiction. Marcel L’Herbier directed.
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Long thought lost Chinese blockbuster The Cave of the Silken Web
remains intriguing due to its focus on fierce women with supernatural powers. -
Frank Capra’s first all-talkie, The Donovan Affair is now a silent once again. In-house actors were thus needed to voice Jack Holt, Agnes Ayres et al.
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SFSFF’s ‘Avant-Garde Paris’ movies Ménilmontant and the wholly abstract Emak-Bakia were offered to those willing to take a chance.
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Ivor Novello and Fay Compton star in Basil Dean’s romantic drama Autumn Crocus, featuring a wistful glimpse into middle-aged longing.
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The San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s ‘A Night at the Cinema in 1914’ was the second best thing to a time machine. World War I and Charles Chaplin featured.
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1 hour of pure fluff, Midnight Madness doesn’t in any way whatsoever do justice to its titillating title. Clive Brook and Jacqueline Logan star.
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In the social/family drama Song of the Fishermen, filmmaker Cai Chusheng portrays the dehumanizing results of China’s stratified class system.
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Topics at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s Amazing Tales from the Archives included Fred Ott’s seminal ‘sneeze face’ and the technological Charles Chaplin.
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The Canadian with Thomas Meighan. The Canadian (1926) movie review: ‘The Canadian’: Thomas Meighan faces adversities in The Land of Promise Thomas Meighan is The Star of William Beaudine’s The…
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Swampland race relations: Old indie mixes reactionary ideas about interracial love with vengeance and voodoo in tragic actress’ final little-seen film.
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The Goose Woman with Louise Dresser and Jack Pickford. At the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Clarence Brown-directed 1925 Universal release The Goose Woman was introduced by author…
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Huckleberry Finn movie: Lewis Sargent toplines sentimental William Desmond Taylor effort. Huckleberry Finn Movie: Sentimental Fare Directed by Eventual Murder Victim Directed by William Desmond Taylor, Huckleberry Finn stars a…
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Blood and Sand with Rudolph Valentino and Nita Naldi Bullfighting has never appealed to me, so I approached Fred Niblo’s Blood and Sand with caution. Now that I’ve seen it,…
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Beulah Bondi, Victor Moore, Make Way for Tomorrow The main conflict in Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow revolves around an elderly couple, Barkley and Lucy Cooper (Victor Moore and…
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The Beast with a Million Eyes: Hardly truth in advertising as Roger Corman’s micro-budget sci-fi thriller is no “monster movie.” ‘The Beast with a Million Eyes’: Alien invasion movie predates…
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Monique van Vooren, Joe Dallesandro, Flesh for Frankenstein The first time I saw Flesh for Frankenstein was during its theatrical release in 1973, when it was titled, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.…
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Directed by schlock-master William Castle (House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler), Shanks is a little-known curiosity piece, telling the story (written by Ranald Graham) of Malcolm Shanks, a deaf-mute puppeteer who leaves his abusive…
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Boom! movie: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton critical and box office disaster is rediscovered and receives some belated cult classic appreciation.
San Francisco Silent Film Festival highlights include hand-tinted color fantasies by Segundo de Chomón and Louis Feuillade in the days before Technicolor.
Abandoned in post-production and long-forgotten, Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day is a rare early movie about the lives of black people anywhere.
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival program ‘Amazing Tales from the Archives’ discussed the discovery of the 1916 Sherlock Holmes.
Karin Swanström and Hjalmar Bergman’s The Girl in Tails shows that women must fight and scandalize in order to remove the weight of social oppression.
Antarctic exploration with Sir Ernest Shackleton. The Loves of Pharaoh (1922) movie review: Antarctic exploration ‘epic’: ‘South’ It was surprising to see the large crowd waiting to get into the…
The Sadist with Arch Hall Jr. Say what you will about Arch Hall Jr. (and I know many people have), but he gives an outstanding performance in James Landis’ The Sadist…
The Love of Jeanne Ney with Uno Henning and Edith Jehanne. G.W. Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne Ney / Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney is a real mystery. And I mean…