“When you’re in New York, you’re in the whole world. There’s nothing you can’t find in New York,” Allan Dwan told interviewer Joe Adamson in 1979. “I always had a great respect for it. It’s a dirty place, it’s this and that, but it’s the place.” East Side, West Side was Dwan’s valedictory ode to … [Read more...] about East Side, West Side
The Opportunist
Like most filmmakers of his time, Mykola Shpykovskyi did not attend film school. He was born in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine, and studied in Odesa, where he earned a law degree in 1917. Despite this unlikely start to a film career, he eventually became a respected colleague of upstart Soviet filmmakers, … [Read more...] about The Opportunist
The Sea Hawk
What connection could there possibly have been between Rafael Sabatini and Buster Keaton? Sabatini was hailed as a brilliant writer of popular fare and, for the adaptation of his 1915 novel about a 16th century English nobleman who takes on a new identity as a fearsome corsair, Buster Keaton loaned … [Read more...] about The Sea Hawk
The Lady
The 1920s was a time of great upheaval with people shaken and shattered by the Great War trying to forget and move on. Excess was the byword of the day, and women especially were experimenting with free love, free-flowing booze, and more economic freedom as the workforce absorbed them in large … [Read more...] about The Lady
Oh! What a Nurse!
Recently, the mystery surrounding the biological father of Sydney Chaplin, Charlie’s older half-brother, has been solved. Researcher Barry Anthony has finally identified the apocryphal Sidney John Hawke, wealthy London businessman, as just this individual, lending credence to Sydney’s perpetual … [Read more...] about Oh! What a Nurse!
Dancing Mothers
Preceded by THE PILL POUNDER (1923, d. Gregory La Cava, 14 mins) starring Charlie Murray and Clara Bow) No matter what they may say, there is such a thing as an overnight star—or close to it—but that wasn’t Clara Bow. When the legendary B.P. Schulberg made a deal that included an associate … [Read more...] about Dancing Mothers
Amazing Tales from the Archives 2024
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CICERO SIMP? While making The Garden of Allah in France, the company’s stills photographer, Henry Lachman, determined to gain a foothold in the industry, gathered some of those working on the Rex Ingram production, then shooting on the Riviera, to make a series of comedy … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2024
The Black Pirate
“This is in. It has Doug,” trumpeted Film Daily in March 1926, “its pirates are as terrible as anyone ever pictured and it is the finest specimen of the all-color feature yet produced.” Which is pretty much all you needed to know to get you to the box office to see The Black Pirate: a star (the … [Read more...] about The Black Pirate