In 1926 Beatrice Lillie was a catch, and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio had sufficient line to reel her in. A hit on the British stage, the Toronto-born Lillie had been called “the Charlie Chaplin of London” and hailed for being able not only to “raise her eyebrow and get a laugh” but also “turn … [Read more...] about Exit Smiling
Erotikon
Czech cinema is nearly as old as cinema itself. Yet with one dramatic exception, it did not gain international attention until the Czech New Wave dazzled the world in the 1960s. The exception, 1933’s Ecstase (Ecstasy), was part of an earlier modernist movement encompassing art, literature, and film … [Read more...] about Erotikon
Erotikon
An elegant, cheeky comedy, Erotikon influenced Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923), Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game 1939), and much of the later work of Ernst Lubitsch. Its warmly erotic echoes could still be heard decades later in Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night (1955). … [Read more...] about Erotikon
The Epic of Everest
The idea of the filmmaker as a modern-day explorer is as old as cinema itself. As soon as the Lumière brothers introduced their lightweight motion picture cameras in 1895, operators began setting out around the globe to produce actuality films. Within 20 years, enterprising filmmakers like Herbert … [Read more...] about The Epic of Everest
Easy Virtue
In Picturegoer of July 1927 a photomontage advertises the coming attraction of Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of the recent stage play Easy Virtue with the caption; “Screening a Noel Coward play sounds rather difficult—Mr. Hitchcock has just done it!” In fact all of the trade reviews focused on the … [Read more...] about Easy Virtue
Earth
Oxford scholar Yuval Noah Harari popularized the idea that humans did not domesticate wheat, but rather, the grain tamed us. In his 2015 book Sapiens, he notes that wheat required backbreaking labor to plant and collect. Yet because it allowed for accumulation, evolutionary forces persuaded its … [Read more...] about Earth
The Dumb Girl of Portici
Even for those with little knowledge of ballet, the name of early twentieth century Russian dancer Anna Pavlova evokes gauzy images of the grace and elegance of that most romantic of arts. But posed photographs and brief filmed excerpts of Pavlova dancing, however lovely, give little evidence of the … [Read more...] about The Dumb Girl of Portici
The Dragon Painter
Sessue Hayakawa’s name is not uttered with the same nostalgic awe as are those of Gilbert and Valentino. Yet, in his day his cinematic presence made the ladies swoon as much as any other silent screen lover. The Japanese-born actor starred opposite many popular leading ladies, among them Florence … [Read more...] about The Dragon Painter