This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of No Man's Gold at SFSFF 2018 Not for nothing these popular, if often cheaply made, westerns were nicknamed Horse Operas, requiring of actors one paramount skill, ridership, or at least the ability to sit convincingly in the … [Read more...] about Tony the Wonder Horse
Tonka of the Gallows
The name Karl (Karel) Anton is unlikely to ring many bells, even for devoted cinephiles. Unlike his fellow Czech director Gustav Machatý, Anton’s prolific output over three countries and five decades has watered down his reputation, not helped by the general unavailability of most of his features. … [Read more...] about Tonka of the Gallows
Tol’able David
Tol’able David was released on the last day of 1921, on the eve of the year marking modernism’s breakthrough, the year of Joyce’s Ulysses and Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” Despite being a product of that most modern art, cinema, Tol’able David seems like an unspoiled fragment of pre-industrialized … [Read more...] about Tol’able David
Tokyo Chorus
“I was getting sick of failure,” recalled Yasujiro Ozu of his early career, “and decided to make a film in a nonchalant mood.” The result was the Depression-era comedy Tokyo Chorus (1931), already the young Japanese director’s 22nd film and the one that marks the beginning of his “mature style.” … [Read more...] about Tokyo Chorus
A Throw of Dice
India’s film industry, often referred to as Bollywood, has been a major player in world cinema since 1947 when it exponentially increased movie production with influential directors such as Bimal Roy and Mehboob Khan at the helm, creating a national cinema that came to define the Bollywood … [Read more...] about A Throw of Dice
The Three Musketeers
Fresh off the career-defining success playing the swashbuckling man-for-the-people in The Mark of Zorro (1920), Douglas Fairbanks set to work to bring his hero of heroes, d’Artagnan of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers, to the screen. More than any other character he portrayed, Fairbanks … [Read more...] about The Three Musketeers
Think Slow, Act Fast: Buster Keaton Shorts, 1920–21
ONE WEEK Cast Buster Keaton (The Groom), Sybil Seely (The Bride), Joe Roberts (Piano Mover) Production Buster Keaton Comedies 1920 Producer Joseph M. Schenck Direction/Scenario Edward F. Cline and Buster Keaton Photography Elgin Lessley THE SCARECROW Cast Buster Keaton (Farmhand), Sybil Seely … [Read more...] about Think Slow, Act Fast: Buster Keaton Shorts, 1920–21
The Thief of Bagdad
An epic fantasy-spectacle inspired by The Arabian Nights, The Thief of Bagdad is Douglas Fairbanks’s masterpiece. The superb visual design, spectacle, and special effects, along with his magnetic performance, all contribute to making it his greatest work. The film was not only his most ambitious … [Read more...] about The Thief of Bagdad