Ernst Lubitsch’s marriage movies are sophisticated, witty, and timeless, and one of the best is his 1924 film, The Marriage Circle. It takes place in Vienna, “the city of laughter and light romance,” and it begins with an unexpected focus: a man has a hole in the toe of his sock. It’s a very … [Read more...] about The Marriage Circle
Woman’s Place in Photoplay Production
This historical reprint was published in conjunction with the screening of the Woman with a Movie Camera program at A Day of Silents 2019 It has long been a source of wonder to me that many women have not seized upon the wonderful opportunities offered to them by the motion picture art to make … [Read more...] about Woman’s Place in Photoplay Production
Woman with a Movie Camera: The Films of Alice Guy Blaché
When she died in 1968 at ninety-five years old, Alice Guy Blaché believed that all but a handful of her titles were lost. In a career that began at the beginning of movies, Guy had written, produced, and/or directed about a thousand, including one hundred sound films long before talkies. After a … [Read more...] about Woman with a Movie Camera: The Films of Alice Guy Blaché
History of a Location: Canyon de Chelly
This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of Redskin at A Day of Silents 2019 Ages before Douglas Fairbanks scrambled up its sheers to rescue a woman in 1917’s A Modern Musketeer and Richard Dix’s Wing Foot left its fertile valley to attend a white man’s college in 1929’s … [Read more...] about History of a Location: Canyon de Chelly
Redskin
One of Paramount’s last silent films, released in February 1929, is this spectacularly photographed tale of a Navajo caught between two cultures. By the late 1920s, debate about the relationship of Native Americans to the dominant society was reaching a turning point, as reflected in a … [Read more...] about Redskin
What Arbuckle Says…
This historical reprint was published in conjunction with the program of Roscoe Arbuckle short films—Fatty + Buster—at A Day of Silents 2019 “I make up my own plays. I don’t write them. I make them up as I go along. By the time I’m through I have about 15,000 feet of film—and all I need is 2,000 … [Read more...] about What Arbuckle Says…
Fatty + Buster: The Comique World of Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton
Good Night, Nurse (1918), The Cook (1918), and The Garage (1919) Three shorts directed by and starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle with featured player Buster Keaton One of the most consequential chance meetings in cinema history occurred on a rainy day in March 1917 in New York City. Or so goes … [Read more...] about Fatty + Buster: The Comique World of Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton