Essay

“The thing that makes Talmadge a star is the look in her eyes,” MGM studio head and star-maker Louis B. Mayer once said of actress Norma Talmadge. One of the most popular stars of the silents, her career ended after two poorly received talkies, and she is nearly forgotten today. If Talmadge is … [Read more...] about The Woman Disputed

“A gorgeous portrayal of the lives and loves of big outdoorsmen and big-eyed senoritas in the days when a beaver’s pelt was the people’s currency.” That’s how Paramount promoted Victor Fleming’s Wolf Song in 1929—and for once there was truth in advertising. Fleming based his shoot at the just-opened … [Read more...] about Wolf Song

You can read the program essay for our 2016 screening of Within Our Gates here “I have always tried to make my photoplays present the truth, to lay before the Race a cross-section of its own life, to view the Colored heart from close range. It is only by presenting those portions of the Race … [Read more...] about Within Our Gates

You can read the program essay for our 2001 screening of Within Our Gates here Wiithin Our Gates is the earliest surviving feature film by an African American, a distinction that can make it seem merely some historic curiosity. Instead, the film remains dramatically gripping and socially … [Read more...] about Within Our Gates

A Special Presentation by John Canemaker By 1910, live-action short films and hand-colored magic lantern slides ruled the movie screen, but animation, maybe not so surprisingly, was in eclipse. Expensive and time-consuming, cartoon work was not terribly well suited to the hectic pace of the … [Read more...] about Winsor McCay: His Life and Art

You can read the program essay for our 2012 screening of Wings here Wings is best known today as the winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture—the only silent film so honored. However, there were actually two Best Picture awards presented in 1927: a “Best Production” award for “the most … [Read more...] about Wings

You can read the program essay for our 1999 screening of Wings here There had been other great war films before Wings. With the popular success of two of them, The Big Parade (MGM, 1925) and What Price Glory? (Fox, 1926), Paramount set out to make a war film of its own. Each of those earlier … [Read more...] about Wings

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s release in 1928 of The Wind marked the end of an era. It was the final silent major motion picture released by MGM, the final silent film by one of the era’s great directors, Victor Sjöström, and the final silent film for of one its greatest stars, Lillian Gish. It was also a … [Read more...] about The Wind