This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of The Red Mark at SFSFF 2024 Frank Capra famously defined his aspiration as a Hollywood director to be just not another name in the opening credits but “the name above the title.” An even more rarified position was the director who … [Read more...] about James Cruze: The Signature Above the Title
The Red Mark
The 1920s and 1930s saw a fascination with the French state’s masculine extremes, with films exploring the romanticized French Foreign Legion and the notorious penal colony of Devil’s Island. Both attracted society’s cast-offs. Adventurers and men on the run seeking escape and anonymity were offered … [Read more...] about The Red Mark
The Devious Path
Underrated and all but forgotten by film historians, G.W. Pabst’s The Devious Path is, on the surface, a story of marital crisis and sexual mores in Weimar Germany. Released in 1928, it is also a prime example of a post-Expressionist film that eschews distorted sets, demonic characters, and … [Read more...] about The Devious Path
The Phantom Carriage
There are constants in the work of Victor Sjöström, a major figure in film history both behind and in front of the camera. One is the seeming always present sense of death. Sometimes, death might come in the form of disease or a sudden, violent mishap; or sometimes, a character in a film might … [Read more...] about The Phantom Carriage
The Kid Brother
To characterize Harold Lloyd as a perfectionist is to traffic in understatement. When he took up bowling, he wasn’t satisfied until he rolled a perfect “300” game. He brought that same determination to the feature-length films he made in the 1920s. He previewed them to see where the laughs were (and … [Read more...] about The Kid Brother
The Guy in the Gorilla Suit
This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of The Gorilla at SFSFF 2024 From acting to stunt work to selling hot dogs outside a studio gate, there was more than one way to make a living in Hollywood. So Charles Gemora reasoned: why not carve out his own super-specialized niche? … [Read more...] about The Guy in the Gorilla Suit
The Gorilla
Thrills and chills mixed with comedy has been a cinematic staple since movies began—even before, as optical toys and magic lantern shows used ghostly specters and apparitions to startle and amuse their audiences. The first person to use macabre imagery for comic effect in a wholesale way with films … [Read more...] about The Gorilla
The Joker
Not all heroes wear capes. But when they do, few perfect the ensemble with a jester’s hat trimmed in jingle bells. Still, Peter Carstairs, the debonair savior of distressed damsels played here by Henry Edwards in a pan-European production from 1928, dresses up as a court fool to carouse in Riviera … [Read more...] about The Joker