You can read the program essay for our 2016 screening of Les Deux Timides here A talented batch of new directors redefined the French film scene in the 1920s. Artists like Jean Gremillon, Jean Renoir and Luis Bunuel combined avant-garde and commercial film techniques during the post-war years. In … [Read more...] about Les Deux Timides
Les Deux Timides
You can read the program essay for our 2008 screening of Les Deux Timides here René Clair’s final film of the silent era was not the film he’d planned to make. When Films Albatros renewed Clair’s contract in 1927 after the success of The Italian Straw Hat, the director began work on a realist … [Read more...] about Les Deux Timides
Léon Beaulieu’s Pocket Cinematograph
This feature was published in conjunction with the Amazing Tales from the Archives presentation by Thierry Lecointe and Robert Byrne at SFSFF 2019 LOST FILMS OF GEORGES MÉLIÈS DISCOVERED IN FIN DE SIÈCLE FLIPBOOKS From peep shows to gifs, moving images have proliferated as novelties inside … [Read more...] about Léon Beaulieu’s Pocket Cinematograph
Legong: Dance of the Virgins
Legong: Dance of the Virgins was shot on location in the village of Ubud in Bali, Indonesia, between May and August 1933, and featured an all-Balinese cast. Directed by Henry de la Falaise, whose full name was Henri Marquis Le Bailly de la Falaise de la Coudraye, Legong was one of two films produced … [Read more...] about Legong: Dance of the Virgins
Laurel and Hardy – Three Shorts
THE FINISHING TOUCH Cast Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Edgar Kennedy (Policeman), Dorothy Coburn (Nurse), Sam Lufkin (House owner) Production Hal Roach Studios, 1928 Director Clyde A. Bruckman Producer Hal Roach Titles H. M. Walker Photography George Stevens Supervisor Leo McCarey Editor Richard … [Read more...] about Laurel and Hardy – Three Shorts
The Last Warning
Something like a postmodern riff on the entire idea of German Expressionism, Paul Leni’s The Last Warning (1929) was the final film for the illustrious Leni who died eight months after its release of blood poisoning at the age of forty-four. Today he’s a neglected figure, even among silent-film … [Read more...] about The Last Warning
The Last Man on Earth
When looking back on the silent films released by Fox Film Corporation, we tend to gravitate toward the early efforts of directors who went on to long and prominent careers: John Ford (The Iron Horse, Four Sons), Frank Borzage (7th Heaven, Street Angel), Howard Hawks (Fazil, A Girl in Every Port), … [Read more...] about The Last Man on Earth
The Last Laugh
The now-forgotten expression “clothes maketh the man” dates to the Middle Ages, but it seems to echo loudest from the early twentieth century when office jobs multiplied in new skyscrapers and country folk migrated to the cities by the tens of thousands. It could have been coined to describe the … [Read more...] about The Last Laugh