"In an era devoted to escapism and the happy ending," writes film historian Kevin Brownlow, "Stroheim's obsession with realism must have seemed insane." The director abandoned the studio to shoot on the actual locations evoked in Frank Norris's novel McTeague, so that Greed, among many other things, … [Read more...] about Greed
The Great White Silence
When rescuers found the frozen bodies of three members of the 1910–1914 British Antarctic Expedition camped eleven miles from the nearest food depot, it had been almost a year since the explorers had died. Outside the tent, all that remained of the sledge they had man-hauled for the 850-mile journey … [Read more...] about The Great White Silence
The Great Cast Contest of 1915
"An Opportunity to Vote for All Your Favorites and Do Them All Justice" With that announcement, the editors of Motion Picture magazine launched a new popularity contest for actors. They asked readers to vote for the best performers in twelve categories, creating a dream cast of the best stars. The … [Read more...] about The Great Cast Contest of 1915
The Goose Woman
It could have been a lurid, “ripped from the headlines” melodrama from a studio known for its cheap genre films. Instead, The Goose Woman (1925) became one of Universal’s “Jewels,” a prestige production with a better than average script, an excellent cast and production values, and an up-and-coming … [Read more...] about The Goose Woman
Goona Goona: An Authentic Melodrama of the Isle of Bali
However neglected, perhaps correctly, the history of independent exploitation films is as long as any other varietal of film—the nudie, the sensational barnstormer, the adults-only “if you dare” faux-exposé have always been with us. How we might approach this kind of film, beyond any sort of … [Read more...] about Goona Goona: An Authentic Melodrama of the Isle of Bali
Good References
Good References, a 1920 “lost” film recently discovered in a Prague archive and restored by UCLA, is a classic example of the type of movie the silent film business learned was a sure-fire way to make money. Directed by R. William Neill, with a scenario by Dorothy Farnum from an E.J. Rath novel, … [Read more...] about Good References
The Good Bad Man
Made early in Douglas Fairbanks’s film career, The Good Bad Man is the fifth of his 12 feature-length films made for the Fine Arts division of the Triangle Film Corporation, and the second of ten collaborations between Fairbanks and director Allan Dwan. It is also among his earliest films to explore … [Read more...] about The Good Bad Man
The Golden Clown
Alone in the center ring, a white-faced clown sings. Rather than making the crowd laugh, he draws tears. This trope is as familiar today as it was in cinema’s earliest days, when the circus and the cinema were more closely linked. According to Italian scholar Carlo Piccardi, “In its first decade the … [Read more...] about The Golden Clown