Jack Huston cast in Ben-Hur remake? Huston to follow in the hugely successful footsteps of Ramon Novarro and Charlton Heston.
Silent Movies
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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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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.
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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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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)…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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:…
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Gay Movie Scenes: Paul America in Andy Warhol’s My Hustler. Controversial Gay Movie Scenes at LACMA: Andy Warhol & Gus Van Sant + Jean Genet Whether or not you find…
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D.W. Griffith Father of Film, controversial figure. To say that the movies wouldn’t be what they are today without D.W. Griffith is probably inaccurate. I mean, someone – or “someones”…
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Marred by a middling second half, William Beaudine’s The Canadian is notable for its inhospitable setting and as a star vehicle for Thomas Meighan.
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With its focus on digital technologies and the restoration of a 1964 Best Picture Oscar nominee, this year’s Amazing Tales from the Archives weren’t all that great.
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The landmark Antarctic expedition of explorer Ernest Shackleton is depicted in beautiful and harrowing detail in the 1919 documentary South.
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Gabriel Garko will play Rudolph Valentino (a.k.a. Rodolfo Valentino in places like Italy and Brazil) in a two-part Italian TV movie. To be directed by Alessio Inturri for Mediaset, the…
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Clara Bow, Mantrap: The Silent Era’s “It Girl.” What do Andrei Tarkovsky, Edward G. Robinson, Clara Bow, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Audrey Hepburn have in common? Easy. They’ll all be…
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Oscar curse? Two-time Best Actress Luise Rainer remembers In Mason Wiley and Damien Bona’s Inside Oscar, Luise Rainer is quoted as saying the following about winning back-to-back Best Actress Academy…
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Jean Dujardin. Jean Dujardin made film-award history after he won the 2012 Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as a fading silent film matinee idol in Michel Hazanavicius’ The…
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Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo in The Artist Jean Dujardin can’t win ’em all. For his (in my humble opinion brilliant) performance as a fading silent film star in Michel…
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Michel Hazanavicius and wife Bérénice Bejo: Making Golden Globes history. Michel Hazanavicius and wife Bérénice Bejo: ‘The Artist’ achieves unique Golden Globes feat Michel Hazanavicius and wife Bérénice Bejo accept…
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Norma Shearer in ‘His Secretary’: Women Screenwriters in Old Hollywood Women screenwriters kept busy during silent era Frederica Sagor Maas, who had a handful of screenwriting credits in the 1920s,…
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Several short films directed by film pioneer Georges Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley in Martin Scorsese’s well-received Hugo, will be featured throughout January 2012 at the Niles Essanay Silent Film…
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Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady with Anthony Head. The most curious thing about Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist winning the New York Film Critics Circle’s Best Film and Best Director…
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Ramon Novarro: MGM star circa 1923. Ramon Novarro death: Silent film star brutally killed on Halloween eve 1968 Ramon Novarro, the original (and most effective) Ben-Hur, Greta Garbo’s leading man…
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Barbara Kent, a minor leading lady during the transition from silent to sound movies, died Oct. 13 in Palm Desert, in Southern California. A resident of the local Marrakesh Country…
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.
The SFSFF’s Amazing Tales from the Archives featured two fascinating topics: Finding Douglas Fairbanks’ The Half-Breed and early movie sound technology.
Fay Wray. Fay Wray movies Actress Fay Wray, best remembered for playing the love interest in the 1933 interspecies romance classic King Kong, would have turned 105 on Sep. 15.…
Ernst Lubitsch’s last German film The Loves of Pharaoh disappoints as an epic. Future Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings stars.
Mary Pickford Building: The Lot a.k.a. Pickford-Fairbanks Studios Los Angeles just got uglier. Despite protests, the Mary Pickford Building on West Hollywood’s The Lot has been destroyed by its current…
Meryl Streep Oscar Ad Controversy “It’s been TWENTY-NINE YEARS SINCE MERYL STREEP WON AN OSCAR. And she certainly deserves to win for her performance in The Iron Lady,” reads a…
The Negro Soldier poster. Produced by Frank Capra and directed by Stuart Heisler, the 1944 documentary feature The Negro Soldier was one of numerous propaganda films commissioned by the United…