African-Americans were not allowed to serve as pilots in the United States Armed Forces until 1940, but that didn’t stop Richard Norman from making a black fighter pilot the hero of The Flying Ace. In this 1926 film, Captain Billy Stokes returns home victorious after World War I to resume his … [Read more...] about The Flying Ace
Flesh and the Devil
You can read the program essay for our 2015 screening of Flesh and the Devil here Reflecting on a career that included 26 years at MGM and six Academy Award nominations, director Clarence Brown summed up the studio system under which he both thrived and bristled: “In those days we didn’t just … [Read more...] about Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil
You can read the program essay for our 2007 screening of Flesh and the Devil here Flesh and the Devil is one of the very best examples of the palpable romantic eroticism that can often be found in silent films. A huge hit in its own day, it is still remarkably sexy and entertaining, a great … [Read more...] about Flesh and the Devil
The First Born
A sexually provocative melodrama of upper-class decadence with surprisingly sophisticated stylistic flourishes, The First Born is the collaboration of two key players in the British film industry of the 1920s and ’30s whose work has largely fallen into obscurity, Miles Mander and Alma … [Read more...] about The First Born
Filibus
“No other crime thriller compares to Filibus!” trumpeted a double-page ad in the April 1915 edition of Italian film magazine La Vita Cinematografica. For once, studio PR was no exaggeration. Filibus, which follows the exploits of a futuristic female super-villain who pounces on her prey from a … [Read more...] about Filibus
Faust
Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, known forever to gods and mortals as F.W. Murnau, is a towering figure in cinema’s pantheon. Unfortunately, Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), and Sunrise (1927)—the masterpiece he made upon his arrival in Hollywood—have come to overshadow the rest of the director’s … [Read more...] about Faust
The Farmer’s Wife
A widowed landowner decides to marry again. With the aid of his faithful housekeeper he draws up a list of all the eligible women in the neighborhood, and goes wooing each in turn, with disastrous results. A romantic comedy in a rural setting is about as far as you can get from a typical … [Read more...] about The Farmer’s Wife
Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema
“Old black-and-white movies” is a phrase that trips easily off the tongue but, like many common beliefs about silent cinema, it is inaccurate. Color has accompanied motion pictures since the beginning with some of the earliest public screenings featuring hand-colored films in their programs. Because … [Read more...] about Fantasia of Color in Early Cinema