The 1910s were Danish cinema’s Golden Age. In this decade Denmark produced an explosion of erotic melodramas for international export, the first films written by Carl Theodor Dreyer, and movies featuring cinema’s first superstar, Asta Nielsen. The first Danish film to make an international splash … [Read more...] about Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages
Harbor Drift
The worldwide call for the proletariat to lose its collective chains was answered not just by the Russian people. The German communists, too, shed blood on their country’s streets and scaffolds, mostly the highly politicized vanguard, fighting for ideals and bread on behalf of workers too deeply … [Read more...] about Harbor Drift
Handheld History
This interview with BFI Curator Edward Anderson was published in conjunction with the screening of the program Around China with a Movie Camera at A Day of Silents 2015 Around China with a Movie Camera contains such a wide variety of footage. How unlikely is it that these kinds of films … [Read more...] about Handheld History
The Half-Breed
“Lo, the poor Indian,” wrote Alexander Pope in 1733, “whose untutor’d mind/sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.” Thus begins the poet’s famous contribution to the 17th century notion of the Noble Savage, a creature of the European enlightenment who is at once inferior and superior to the … [Read more...] about The Half-Breed
Half-an-Hour with Houdini: The Expert of Extrication
This historical piece was reprinted in conjunction with the screening of The Grim Game at A Day of Silents 2015. It originally appeared in the March 20, 1920, edition of The Picture Show, which began publication in May 1919. “Danger does not mean anything to me; I was just born without the … [Read more...] about Half-an-Hour with Houdini: The Expert of Extrication
Hal Roach: King of Comedy, 1924 – 1929
FAST COMPANY (1924) Directed by Robert F. McGowan, Charles Parrot (Charley Chase, uncredited) Cast Mickey Daniels, Walter Wilkinson, Allen “Farina” Hoskins, Jack Davis, Jackie Condon, Joe Cobb, Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, Mary Kornman Production Hal E. Roach Studios JUST A GOOD GUY … [Read more...] about Hal Roach: King of Comedy, 1924 – 1929
The Grim Game
An inspired, indefatigable, and shameless self-promoter and, not coincidentally, one of the most famous people in the world in the early decades of the twentieth century, Harry Houdini was a natural for the movies. Both he and the new medium trafficked in illusions. Sometimes that worked in … [Read more...] about The Grim Game
Gribiche
Article condensed from the notes accompanying Flicker Alley’s release of French Masterworks: Russian Émigrés in Paris (1923–1929). Belgian-born director Jacques Feyder became an overnight sensation with L’Atlantide, his film of Pierre Benoit’s postwar escapist bestseller about the mythical … [Read more...] about Gribiche