After the critical and commercial success of The Lodger (1926), Gainsborough Pictures were keen to reunite director Alfred Hitchcock and star Ivor Novello. A convenient vehicle suggested itself in the stage play Down Hill, written by Novello with Constance Collier, under the combined alias David … [Read more...] about Downhill
The Donovan Affair
A Movie and Live Theater Event produced by Bruce Goldstein and performed by the Gower Gulch Players Frank Capra’s 1929 comedy whodunit The Donovan Affair was his very first all-talking picture. (His previous film, The Younger Generation, was a “part-talkie,” with alternating reels of silence and … [Read more...] about The Donovan Affair
The Doll
Deliciously weird for 1919 or any other year, Ernst Lubitsch’s Die Puppe (The Doll) declares its intent to please from the first shot. An appealing twenty-seven-year-old Lubitsch himself is the first person to appear, as he refuses to look his own camera in the eye. Instead, from a toy box he busily … [Read more...] about The Doll
Doctor Jack
Generally considered to be one of the greatest comedians of the silent era and certainly one of its biggest box-office draws, Harold Lloyd was also one of the most prolific. He appeared in more than 165 shorts between 1915 and 1921, and, from 1921 to 1928, he produced and starred in eleven … [Read more...] about Doctor Jack
The Docks of New York
Who knew that Josef von Sternberg had a heart? His critical reputation—elevated to legendary status thanks to his 1930s collaborations with Marlene Dietrich—was founded on a sensual visual sensibility that, when given free rein, veered into decadent fetishism. When people discuss von Sternberg’s … [Read more...] about The Docks of New York
Different from the Others
Divisions always appear sharper in an election year, and this has been one for the history books. Among other stress points, the politicized atmosphere underlined how gay rights have found increasing popular (as well as legal) progressive embrace on the one hand, and ever-more-vehement conservative … [Read more...] about Different from the Others
Diary of a Lost Girl
“At the Eden Hotel, where I lived in Berlin,” recalled Louise Brooks in her memoir Lulu in Hollywood, “the café bar was lined with the higher-priced trollops. The economy girls walked the street outside. On the corner stood the girls in boots, advertising flagellation. Actors’ agents pimped for the … [Read more...] about Diary of a Lost Girl
Destiny
It’s estimated there were 525,000 war widows in Germany the year before Fritz Lang made Destiny (Der müde Tod) in 1921. In each of those households there was an empty place at the dinner table, just as there were hundreds of thousands of empty places in the homes of parents, siblings, and lovers. … [Read more...] about Destiny