In 1941 W.C. Fields made his final feature film, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Critic James Agee, in his review for Time magazine, called him “one of the funniest men on earth” and went on to proclaim, “the great comedian can play straight better and more firmly than anyone in the business.” … [Read more...] about So’s Your Old Man
Song of the Fishermen
Wang Renmei’s star was rising fast. Her first film appearance in 1931 had ended up on the cutting room floor. But within the next two years she triumphed in two films: Wild Rose (1932) and The Morning of a Metropolis (1933). Her next film turned out to be a motion picture with international … [Read more...] about Song of the Fishermen
The Son of the Sheik
In the 1920s Bedouin chieftains prowled the movie screens much as vampires do today. “There are more sheiks here than in the Sahara,” complained a Photoplay reporter in 1923. Perhaps the craze for the desert romance was fed by Lowell Thomas who exhibited footage of the dashing World War I exploits … [Read more...] about The Son of the Sheik
The Solax Films of Alice Guy Blaché
THE DETECTIVE AND HIS DOG (1912) MATRIMONY’S SPEED LIMIT (1913) FALLING LEAVES (1912) THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1913) In 1894 a young secretary entered the Comptoir Général de Photographie in Paris with a glowing reference for her skills in shorthand and the latest clerical gadget, the … [Read more...] about The Solax Films of Alice Guy Blaché
Soft Shoes
There’s an easygoing, friendly manner to actor Harry Carey. His smile, the wrinkle around his eyes, to say nothing of that aura of quiet inner strength, reminds one of John Wayne at his best—only Harry Carey was projecting those qualities from the screen when Wayne was still in high school. Carey … [Read more...] about Soft Shoes
So This is Paris
By the early 1920s, German director Ernst Lubitsch had established a reputation as a master of two genres—grand historical epics and sparkling comedies. American audiences happily paid to see his films as well, and superstar Mary Pickford, eager to leave behind little girl roles for sophisticated … [Read more...] about So This is Paris
Snow White
Hindsight is a two-edged sword. On one hand, it can give us a useful perspective on historical events; on the other, it can saddle us with preconceptions that make those events difficult to understand or appreciate. To the first-time viewer, the 1916 Famous Players version of Snow White can be a … [Read more...] about Snow White
The Smiling Madame Beudet
The time has come, I believe, to listen in silence to our own song, to try to express our own personal vision, to define our own sensibility, to make our own way. Let us learn to look, let us learn to see, let us learn to feel. —Germaine Dulac, Let Us Have Faith (1919) Germaine Dulac didn’t … [Read more...] about The Smiling Madame Beudet