Legendary Broadway actor John Barrymore also enjoyed an impressive, rewarding and enduring - yet vastly undervalued - movie career in the 1920s and 1930s.
Lillian Gish: The Birth of a Nation actress enmeshed in Bowling Green University controversy. Should Lillian Gish be labeled a racist because at age 21 she had one of the…
“Movies” or…? Quo Vadis: One of the first feature films ever made, Enrico Guazzoni’s Italian epic came out in 1913, going on to become a global sensation. Should American “moving…
Antihero Ricardo Cortez in Symphony of Six Million, with Irene Dunne. Directed by Gregory La Cava, this 1932 family/romantic melodrama may have been one of Cortez’s favorite among his own…
“Latin Lover” Ricardo Cortez, who went on to play a series of all-American scoundrels and criminals, in addition to similar unsavory types of other nationalities. Although never as big a…
Ricardo Cortez biography The Magnificent Heel: The Life and Films of Ricardo Cortez. Dan Van Neste’s book covers the life and career of Paramount’s “Latin Lover” threat to a recalcitrant…
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.
One of cinema’s early comediennes, Dorothy Devore: between 1918 and 1930, the Ft. Worth-born actress was seen in nearly 100 movies, both features and shorts. Among them were Salvation Sue,…
Comedy actress Alice Howell on the cover of film historian Anthony Slide’s latest book: Pioneering funky-haired performer “could have been Chaplin” – or at the very least another Louise Fazenda.…
Remarkable women’s suffrage movie Mothers of Men dismisses the notion that the female right to vote would destroy American families and society.
San Francisco Silent Film Festival highlights include hand-tinted color fantasies by Segundo de Chomón and Louis Feuillade in the days before Technicolor.
Fritz Lang’s two-part semi-historical epic tragedy Die Nibelungen: Siegfried and Kriemhild’s Revenge is a cinematic masterpiece.
Ernst Lubitsch movies: Subtle, sophisticated ‘Touch’ all but gone from contemporary filmmaking. Ernst Lubitsch movies: The forgotten, passé ‘Touch’ Ernst Lubitsch and William Cameron Menzies were Turner Classic Movies’ “stars”…
L’Inhumaine: Marcel L’Herbier mixes sex melodrama with science fiction and Fernand Léger sets plus an early peek into Modern China.
Kitty Gordon: Silent film star with the ‘most beautiful’ and most heavily insured back. Rediscovering a long-forgotten silent film star: Kitty Gordon It seems almost unthinkable that there are still…
Greta Garbo movies: The Kiss was her final silent film. Greta Garbo movies: Rare silent era star on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner…
Pioneering woman director Lois Weber movie ‘Shoes,’ with Mary MacLaren. Pioneering woman director Lois Weber socially conscious drama ‘Shoes’ screening In February 2015, National Film Registry titles will be showcased…
First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings in ‘The Last Command.’ First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings, first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM First Best Actor…
Charles Chaplin in ‘A Film Johnnie’ (1914). ‘A Night at the Cinema in 1914’: From The Great War to Charles Chaplin and Pearl White Imagine, if you will, that you…
Jack Huston. Jack Huston cast in Ben-Hur remake: Boardwalk Empire actor to follow in the footsteps of Ramon Novarro & Charlton Heston Jack Huston, best known for playing World War…
Midnight Madness movie with Clive Brook and Jacqueline Logan. ‘Midnight Madness’ movie lacks both ‘midnight’ & ‘madness’ Screened at the 2014 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Midnight Madness has a…
Godzilla 1954 a.k.a. Gojira, with Takashi Shimura and Momoko Kôchi. Somewhat surprisingly, Ishirô Honda’s monster movie tackles the sociocultural upheavals in post-World War II Japan, as the young daughter (Kôchi)…
Lupita Tovar in Santa: Mexican actress is best remembered for her appearance in the 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula. Lupita Tovar turns 103: Actress starred in Spanish-language ‘Dracula’ & in…
Alfred Hitchcock silent films’ Unesco honor: Ivor Novello in The Lodger. Alfred Hitchcock silent films added to Unesco UK Memory of the World Register The nine Alfred Hitchcock silent films…
Ben-Hur 1925 with Ramon Novarro: The chariot race. ‘Ben-Hur’ 1925: Fast & furious epic Los Angeles screening Directed by Fred Niblo and starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 Ben-Hur, a.k.a. Ben-Hur:…
How to be a Latin Lover: Ricardo Cortez, formerly known as Jacob Krantz from a working-class family of Austrian/Hungarian immigrants that had settled in New York City, succeeded in restyling…
Amazing Tales from the Archives: SFSFF spotlights unusual movie audio system, pioneering female documentarian and memorably inventive comedy fantasies.
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.
Ben-Hur movie: Ramon Novarro starred in the silent version, at the time the most expensive film production and the biggest worldwide blockbuster in history. ‘Ben-Hur’ movie: Semi-biblical epic starring Ramon…
African-American film ‘Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day’ with Williams (in blackface) and Odessa Warren Grey: Early 20th century rarity.* Rare, early 20th-century African-American film among San Francisco Silent…
Sherlock Holmes with William Gillette. Sherlock Holmes movie found at Cinémathèque Française Sherlock Holmes, a long-thought-lost 1916 feature starring stage performer and playwright William Gillette in the title role, has…
Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews as the flying-umbrella-carrying, brat-rearing title character. As the Walt Disney Studios’ Saving Mr. Banks adds about 2,000 North American theaters, the U.S. Library of Congress…