What a magical place Buster Keaton’s mind must have been. Most people might be tempted to regard a chair as merely a chair, or an automobile as simply an automobile. Keaton looked at them and beheld endless comic possibilities. And not only possibilities for the objects themselves, but also for the … [Read more...] about Buster’s Mechanized Mayhem
Pour Don Carlos
In 1920, when Musidora, beloved worldwide as the villainous Irma Vep, announced her plans to adapt the popular novel Pour Don Carlos and play its heroine Allegria, she took pains to assure her fans that she would deliver the thrills they’d come to expect. “I promise you that Allegria will kill at … [Read more...] about Pour Don Carlos
The Cheat
On December 13, 1915, The Cheat, produced at the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, directed by acclaimed theater director Cecil B. DeMille, and starring Fannie Ward, renowned actress from the London and New York stages, made its debut in the United States. Depicting an interracial relationship … [Read more...] about The Cheat
Show People
1928 was a frightening year for the film industry. The first feature with synchronized dialogue, The Jazz Singer, had premiered the previous October, casting doubt on the ability of silent films to endure as an art form. Stars feared for their careers while studio bosses worried about their bottom … [Read more...] about Show People
The Toll of the Sea
The greatest depiction of a woman crying on the silver screen is one you’ve likely never seen. You may be tempted to call up the image of Renée Jeanne Falconetti’s stoic tears in The Passion of Joan of Arc, or the mesmeric power of the saline streams down Anna Karina’s face in Vivre Sa Vie. Both … [Read more...] about The Toll of the Sea
Forbidden Paradise
It's nothing short of scandalous how poorly treated Ernst Lubitsch’s American silent period has been. Fortunately that has begun to change with the Museum of Modern Art’s recent restorations of Rosita (1923) and Forbidden Paradise (1924), the fourth film he made in Hollywood. Lubitsch came to … [Read more...] about Forbidden Paradise
A Billion-Dollar Cast
This historical reprint was published in conjunction with the screening of Foolish Wives at SFSFF 2022. Erich von Stroheim, clad in the bemedaled uniform of His Grace, Count Sergius Karamzin, and with the California sunshine bringing beads of uncountly perspiration to his brow, stood on a bench … [Read more...] about A Billion-Dollar Cast
Lady Windermere’s Fan
Ernst Lubitsch never discussed what let to his audacious decision to adapt Oscar Wilde’s famously talky stage play Lady Windermere’s Fan as a silent film in 1925. Personally, I would like to think it was a gift to Irene Rich, the actress whose sublime performance as the tolerant queen to a … [Read more...] about Lady Windermere’s Fan