Amazing Tales from the Archives
Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases
The Gold Rush
Nosferatu
There’s an image from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu that I can’t shake: a pallid, pointy-eared ghoul stares down at a camera that is positioned below the deck of a ship whose ropes and mast are shooting skyward behind him, framing his figure to evoke a kind of authoritarian menace. And then there’s his … [Read more...] about Nosferatu
F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu
Modern Times, Modern Problems
This feature was published in conjunction with Chicago at ADoS 2025 NEW FAMILY VALUES The silent era was a time of the New Woman, suffragettes, flappers, and vampires. Alice Guy-Blaché envisions a world of sexually aggressive ladies-about-town openly harassing timid house-husbands in the … [Read more...] about Modern Times, Modern Problems
American Venus: Esther Ralston
This feature was published in conjunction with Children of Divorce at ADoS 2025 Today, “American Venus” is connected with Louise Brooks, a supporting player in the 1926 comedy of the same name. But in its day the term was associated with the film’s top-billed star: Esther Ralston. A graceful, … [Read more...] about American Venus: Esther Ralston