Program preceded by the orphan film Madison News Reel (c.1932) presented with CHESS FEVER USSR, 1925 • Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nikolai Shpikovsky Cast Vladimir Fogel (the Hero), Anna Zemtsova (the Heroine) Editor Vsevolod Pudovkin Scenario Nikolai … [Read more...] about The Nail in the Boot
My Best Girl
On June 21, 1928, less than a year after the release of her final silent film, My Best Girl, Mary Pickford walked into Charles Bock’s salon in New York City for a haircut. The Girl with the Golden Curls needed a change. So, at her request, Bock clipped 12 long ringlets from perhaps the most famous … [Read more...] about My Best Girl
The Musical Mind of Guenter Buchwald
In 2018, Guenter Buchwald celebrates his fortieth anniversary as a film accompanist. Since 1978, this acclaimed composer, conductor, musical director, and multi-instrumentalist has played for some three thousand films, making him both a pioneer and a veteran. He has performed as a solo artist, as … [Read more...] about The Musical Mind of Guenter Buchwald
Mr. Fix-It
When production began early in 1918 on Mr. Fix-It, the world was in the grip of the Great War, the fires of revolution were burning in Russia and Mexico, and modernism was turning the art world upside down. France and Germany, two centers of world cinema, were devastated, and, while Hollywood was … [Read more...] about Mr. Fix-It
Mothers of Men
In the first two decades of the twentieth century, the issue of voting rights for American women was widely debated across the nation. Five states, including California, granted women the right to vote in the early 1910s, several more states held referenda on the issue, and Congress debated women’s … [Read more...] about Mothers of Men
Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness
Tired of the “detective stories, royal dramas, Indian hunts, and Oriental fables” glutting German movie houses in the early 1920s, writer Bela Balázs called to replace them with the “heroic legends” of revolutionary struggle “whose tempestuous movement, monumental visuals, surprising entanglements … … [Read more...] about Mother Krause’s Journey to Happiness
Miss Lulu Bett
In February of 1920, Wisconsin author Zona Gale published her sixth novel Miss Lulu Bett to great acclaim and popularity. Critics praised the book’s naturalistic dialogue, its critique of small-town conformity, and its relevance. At a time when the women’s suffrage amendment was marching toward its … [Read more...] about Miss Lulu Bett
Mikaël
When Mikaël was released in the United States in 1926, the New York Daily News wondered if “the censors were too unsophisticated to know what it was all about.” Many viewers, the critic speculated, “could watch the entire unreeling of this film without discerning its ‘psychological’ theme.” The New … [Read more...] about Mikaël