When they made The Unknown in 1927, star Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning were among the biggest names in Hollywood. Joan Crawford was a starlet on the rise, striving for recognition. The Unknown gave it to her, and the following year she got her breakout starring role. Crawford would have … [Read more...] about The Unknown
The Unholy Three
The Unholy Three is the third film by Tod Browning starring Lon Chaney, as well as their first together at MGM and the start of their collaboration as purveyors of the tragic and the bizarre. The two could not have been more different. Chaney was a model of American “bootstraps” discipline—hard work … [Read more...] about The Unholy Three
Underworld
Josef von Sternberg was at the height of his fame in the 1930s, thanks largely to the seven lushly stylized films he directed starring Marlene Dietrich, among them the iconic The Blue Angel (1930). Eventually, critics on both sides of the Atlantic would debate the merits of Sternberg’s loving … [Read more...] about Underworld
Underground
A dot of light appears in the corner of the black screen, swelling and growing. Soon it’s large enough to be identified: it’s a subterranean train station and it’s not moving, we are, perched with the camera at the front of a train, rushing toward the lit platform from the darkness of a … [Read more...] about Underground
Under the Lantern
A study in passion and compassion, filmmaker Gerhard Lamprecht was a prolific pillar of mainstream German cinema from the 1920s through the 1950s. His unique ability to sustain a career before, during, and after the Third Reich can be attributed to an exceptional talent for telling lucid, rousing … [Read more...] about Under the Lantern
Two Days
Soviet silent-era cinema usually conjures images of the perspective-bending stylistics of its most famous maker, Sergei Eisenstein, whose startling camera angles, extreme close-ups, and breakneck rhythms have come to define the entire epoch. But among the Soviet films that survive today several were … [Read more...] about Two Days
A Tribute to David Shepard
In Memoriam: Film Preservationist David Shepard (1940–2017) In January 2017, we lost one of our own, David Shepard, beloved champion of silent and classic film. Shepard began at the wee age of twelve renting Kodascope prints to run at home in his newly acquired Bell and Howell projector. When … [Read more...] about A Tribute to David Shepard
Trappola
After World War II, Rome became a center of international film production, not only as the hub of the Italian film industry, but also by attracting moviemakers from around the world as a cost-effective and picturesque location for increasingly spectacular international productions. But long before … [Read more...] about Trappola