Essay

You can read the program essay for our 2008 screening of The Man Who Laughs here At one point in King of Jazz—Universal’s all talking! all singing! all dancing! extravaganza of 1930—an unbelievably young Bing Crosby asks the Rhythm Boys “Just what kind of production is this?” “A Super-Super … [Read more...] about The Man Who Laughs

What’s immediately striking about Terje Vigen, released in the U.S. as A Man There Was, is the power of its imagery. Stripped to its bare essence, the film is a visual encomium to the sea, or rather, to a Romantic understanding of the sea’s might as wedded to man’s emotional state. Based on a poem … [Read more...] about A Man There Was

Between 1909 and 1914, the Italian film industry produced an average of 500 films per year. In contrast to the self-made moguls of American studios, Italian production companies were headed by cultivated members of the aristocracy, who made films based on historical, biblical, or mythological … [Read more...] about Maciste all’inferno

The phenomenon known as Maciste was first introduced in the film Cabiria (1914), the most famous of all the early Italian epics. This immensely popular blockbuster was nearly upstaged by one character, Maciste the Nubian slave, portrayed by Bartolomeo Pagano. Maciste proved so popular and … [Read more...] about Maciste

Male and Female, based on Sir James M. Barrie’s comedy of manners The Admirable Crichton, is notable as one of the biggest hits for two Hollywood film legends—the first superstar, Gloria Swanson, and director Cecil B. DeMille. Swanson entered films in 1914 at the age of 15 after a chance visit to … [Read more...] about Male and Female

Made at the end of the silent era, Lucky Star was released in both silent and part-talking versions, although only the silent version survives today. Advertisements for the film touted "Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell together again in their first talking picture." Known as "America’s Favorite … [Read more...] about Lucky Star

German director Ernst Lubitsch is best remembered for his sleek, insinuating American comedies of the 1920s and ’30s. In those films, he demonstrates his “Lubitsch Touch,” that lighter-than-a-soufflé comedy style that remains fresh even 80 years later. But the Lubitsch who made his fame in Germany … [Read more...] about The Loves of Pharaoh

Some pleasures of silent film are less cerebral than others. And I must admit, I love a good movie orgy. Give me women tabletop-dancing in short skirts, give me lurid shots of slavering men, have them pass around enough prop liquor to give all the extras cirrhosis. G.W. Pabst’s The Love of Jeanne … [Read more...] about The Love of Jeanne Ney