You can read the program essay for our 2019 screening of Shiraz: A Romance of India here Movies took root in India in much the same way as they did in many European countries: from the sensation caused by the Lumière brothers, whose actualités were shown in Bombay on July 7, 1896, just six months … [Read more...] about Shiraz: A Romance of India
Male and Female
Male and Female, based on Sir James M. Barrie’s comedy of manners The Admirable Crichton, is notable as one of the biggest hits for two Hollywood film legends—the first superstar, Gloria Swanson, and director Cecil B. DeMille. Swanson entered films in 1914 at the age of 15 after a chance visit to … [Read more...] about Male and Female
Lost Films, 1907–1928
AMERICAN VENUS (1926) Coming Attraction Preview (Library of Congress) Louise Brooks plays a supporting role in this comedy about the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, which also stars Fay Lanphier, Miss America 1925. Two-strip Technicolor was used in some sequences. SHORE … [Read more...] about Lost Films, 1907–1928
Hell’s Heroes
July 1, 2002, marks the 100th birthday of William Wyler (1902–1981), whom Bette Davis called her greatest director: “It was he who helped me realize my full potential as an actress.” Laurence Olivier claimed that Wyler taught him the art of screen acting and, more than anyone, persuaded him that … [Read more...] about Hell’s Heroes
Girl Shy
Most people are familiar with the famous photograph of a bespectacled young man hanging precariously from the hands of a giant clock high above a city street. But how many are familiar with the comedian in the photo? Few modern moviegoers have had the chance to enjoy Harold Lloyd’s distinctively … [Read more...] about Girl Shy
Captain January
A decade before Shirley Temple there was Baby Peggy, one of the biggest child stars of the silent era. Born Peggy-Jean Montgomery in 1918, she began her film career entirely by chance at just 19 months old. Her father Jack Montgomery, a former cowboy and horse trainer, moved his family to Los … [Read more...] about Captain January
The Blot
In 1908, the newly married Lois Weber, a woman steeped in Victorian mores, gave up the stage to play the good wife to Phillips Smalley, an actor traveling with the same theater company where the young couple had met one year earlier. Unaccustomed to sitting idle, she soon began a new career writing … [Read more...] about The Blot