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soitgoes...
11-02-2007, 10:09 PM
I remember a thread dedicated to silent film over at the old site. I think it was lost during the "Great Server Purge of Early '07". I thought a new one would be nice as I, a)like silent film, b)enjoy reading what others have seen, and c)like to get new ideas on what to watch.
I've recently watch 4 Chaplin shorts.

A Day's Pleasure - Quite uneven for a Chaplin film. I read because he was focusing on making his first feature, The Kid, he wasn't concerned about this one, and it shows. The film is basically broken down into three parts. The first has Charlie and his family getting set for their day long outing. Next they are on a ferry, the longest section. Last we find the Chaplin family once again in a car locked in a battle with a traffic officer. The last section is by far the funniest.

Sunnyside - Another letdown. Chaplin works as a farm hand. It only seems to pick up when his Tramp must compete with a well-to-do man for a lady. There are some good gags, but overall nothing special.

The Idle Class - This one was a good 'un. The Tramp invades a resort. From the golf course to a costume party where he gets mistaken for a wealthy husband with a bit of an alcohol problem, this one is all laughs.

Pay Day - A funny short that relies on some good timing and stunts. It shows the Tramp working in a construction site digging up a pitiful amount a dirt, an amazing bricklaying scene, and him eating everyone's lunch unbeknownst to him or everyone else. Then comes his pay and his wife, rolling pin in hand.

monolith94
11-02-2007, 10:15 PM
Someday I want to write a book about silent film. Obviously, I need to absorb more information on the period and the artists, but I think I have some really interesting critical points to make about filmmakers like Harold Lloyd and Pabst and all of those fellows.

Philosophe_rouge
11-02-2007, 10:34 PM
I actually decided to dedicate November to watching silent fims almost exclusively. I've seen a few, but am still missing a lot of the major ones.

I agree with you wholeheartidly on Sunnyside and A Day's Pleasure, both had brief moments of interest but overall were flat and overlong. My favourite Chaplin short I've seen so far is 1 A.M. but there are so many I still have to see.

EDIT: Strangely enough, I picked up a used copy of Gloria Swanson's autobiography today, should be interesting.

Boner M
11-02-2007, 10:38 PM
Have you seen or heard of The Sentimental Bloke (1919), mono? It's a gem.

Mysterious Dude
11-03-2007, 12:09 AM
I'm not sure if this will be a controversial opinion. I like silent movies a lot, but I honestly have very little use for the short films by Chaplin and Keaton. Chaplin may be remembered as a clown, but he was capable of creating great moments of drama in The Kid, The Circus and City Lights, and I just don't see enough of that in his short films. They seem very disposable to me.

On the other hand, I'm starting to realize that most of Keaton's films are about very elaborate schemes to the win the hand of a very shallow girl.

Spinal
11-03-2007, 12:37 AM
On the other hand, I'm starting to realize that most of Keaton's films are about very elaborate schemes to the win the hand of a very shallow girl.

Does the substance of the plot really matter in this case?

Mysterious Dude
11-03-2007, 01:37 AM
Does the substance of the plot really matter in this case?

I think it matters a little bit. I think it's interesting, at least, that Keaton used this particular device so frequently.

soitgoes...
11-03-2007, 09:56 AM
I'm not sure if this will be a controversial opinion. I like silent movies a lot, but I honestly have very little use for the short films by Chaplin and Keaton. Chaplin may be remembered as a clown, but he was capable of creating great moments of drama in The Kid, The Circus and City Lights, and I just don't see enough of that in his short films. They seem very disposable to me.
.
I agree and disagree. The majority of the shorts I've seen from Chaplin, Keaton, and throw in Lloyd too, are the weakest part of their filmgraphies. They occasionally pull off something akin to their features though, like the aforementioned The Idle Class, which I was laughing pretty much from beginning to end. Shorts like that are worth wading through a handful of mediocre ones. Plus they have the added benefit of preceding their careers in feature length films. Sort of like a proving ground to test their goods. Lloyd was doing stunts on the side of a building three years prior to Safety Last! in High and Dizzy, something he'd use again in Feet First. Just watching their progression as performers is at least worth the 20-30 minutes it takes to watch one short, says I.
The moments of drama just aren't going to happen in a 20 minute slapstick short. There just isn't time to set up all the gags, as well as getting enough character development in to have the audience care about drama. The Essanays and Hal Roaches were paying them for laughs.
I do see where you're coming from. I suppose I just haven't lost a taste for them yet. I imagine only watching a handful of them at a time and then moving on to something else helps.

Bosco B Thug
11-03-2007, 09:43 PM
I juuust had to watch The Birth of Nation (for class), probably the most irresponsible movie ever made. Not thinking about it in context with the time, didn't find any of it too impressive. The best thing about it is it's lively and detailed blocking of character acting and movement.

Raiders
11-03-2007, 09:50 PM
Hm. Many of Keaton's short films are just about perfect. Then again, I don't really care too much about a well developed plot when watching short films. I also think his drama is far more sincere than Chaplin's, which felt a little mugging to me sometimes. Keaton was so unassuming and natural he was able to create a terrific sympathetic character without even trying. Chaplin occasionally shoved his character's big heart and little sense in our faces. I find this more bearable in short films, but then again I have seen all of about two of Chaplin's shorts.

Mysterious Dude
11-03-2007, 10:10 PM
Hm. Many of Keaton's short films are just about perfect. Then again, I don't really care too much about a well developed plot when watching short films.I don't know that I need well-developed plot, either, but I need something more than endless gags. For short films, I prefer Méliès.


I also think his drama is far more sincere than Chaplin's, which felt a little mugging to me sometimes. Keaton was so unassuming and natural he was able to create a terrific sympathetic character without even trying. Chaplin occasionally shoved his character's big heart and little sense in our faces. I find this more bearable in short films, but then again I have seen all of about two of Chaplin's shorts.
To me, Keaton's drama services the gags. I don't think it's very sincere. In The General, he joins a war because the girl he loves will only love him if he joins the war. In College, he goes out for sports because the girl he loves will only love him if he goes out for sports. It isn't particularly compelling to me, and in his short films, they don't even bother with this primitive drama.

On the other hand, I think the scene in which the authorities try to take the kid away from the tramp in The Kid is as great and dramatic as any scene I've ever witnessed in a more serious film.

origami_mustache
11-05-2007, 10:17 PM
I juuust had to watch The Birth of Nation (for class), probably the most irresponsible movie ever made. Not thinking about it in context with the time, didn't find any of it too impressive. The best thing about it is it's lively and detailed blocking of character acting and movement.


...but why wouldn't you think about it in context with the time?

Spinal
11-05-2007, 10:25 PM
Even considering the time period Birth of a Nation comes from, it's still irresponsible and racist. It was protested during its initial release.

Qrazy
11-05-2007, 10:26 PM
Hm. Many of Keaton's short films are just about perfect. Then again, I don't really care too much about a well developed plot when watching short films. I also think his drama is far more sincere than Chaplin's, which felt a little mugging to me sometimes. Keaton was so unassuming and natural he was able to create a terrific sympathetic character without even trying. Chaplin occasionally shoved his character's big heart and little sense in our faces. I find this more bearable in short films, but then again I have seen all of about two of Chaplin's shorts.

Check out Monsieur Verdoux. The drama is sincere while the big heart, little sense issue is completely inverted.

origami_mustache
11-05-2007, 10:31 PM
Check out Monsieur Verdoux. The drama is sincere while the big heart, little sense issue is completely inverted.

My favorite Chaplin film.

origami_mustache
11-05-2007, 10:33 PM
Even considering the time period Birth of a Nation comes from, it's still irresponsible and racist. It was protested during its initial release.


Obviously, but that isn't to say there is nothing impressive about it from a technical standpoint. There is no denying how revolutionary and influential Birth of a Nation was, both positively and negatively.

Sycophant
11-05-2007, 10:33 PM
My favorite Chaplin film.Very interesting. I'm a fan myself, though it probably doesn't break my top five Chaplins. Am I wrong in thinking this one is oft-maligned?

origami_mustache
11-05-2007, 10:36 PM
Very interesting. I'm a fan myself, though it probably doesn't break my top five Chaplins. Am I wrong in thinking this one is oft-maligned?

I seem to get that impression as well. Perhaps because it is such a far cry from the films people most often associate Chaplin with.

Mysterious Dude
01-15-2008, 12:57 AM
I believe I have just seen the worst silent movie ever -- Salome (1923). Apparently, all men in ancient Palestine wore tights all the time and some of them wore wigs made out of marshmallows. Worst costume design ever.

On the other hand, I thought Lot in Sodom was quite a good late silent film from the director of The Fall of the House of Usher.

Qrazy
01-15-2008, 12:59 AM
I want a marshmallow wig. So I watched Murnau's Tabu. It was one of his lesser works but still pretty solid. The story is very simple and the metaphors direct but the visual storytelling is quality, particularly this early on in the history of the medium.

Yxklyx
01-15-2008, 01:32 AM
I believe I have just seen the worst silent movie ever -- Salome (1923). Apparently, all men in ancient Palestine wore tights all the time and some of them wore wigs made out of marshmallows. Worst costume design ever.

On the other hand, I thought Lot in Sodom was quite a good late silent film from the director of The Fall of the House of Usher.

I wonder why he didn't direct anything after Lot in Sodom? Perhaps he started doing porn and IMDB doesn't list them? Salome was poor.

megladon8
01-15-2008, 02:32 AM
I've just recently - mid-2007 - discovered Harold Lloyd, and boy-oh-boy he was funny.

Safety Last! was one of the funniest films I saw last year.

Melville
01-15-2008, 02:59 AM
I've just recently - mid-2007 - discovered Harold Lloyd, and boy-oh-boy he was funny.

Safety Last! was one of the funniest films I saw last year.
I just discovered that my library has a collection of his films. I'll definitely pick it up later this week.

ledfloyd
01-15-2008, 03:29 AM
i agree with Raiders that many of Keaton's shorts are near perfect.

Chaplin on the other hand, The Great Dictator is the only film of his I've really enjoyed. I didn't really care for The Circus, City Lights or Modern Times.

D_Davis
01-15-2008, 03:31 AM
Someday I want to write a book about silent film. Obviously, I need to absorb more information on the period and the artists, but I think I have some really interesting critical points to make about filmmakers like Harold Lloyd and Pabst and all of those fellows.

You should.

megladon8
01-15-2008, 03:31 AM
I just discovered that my library has a collection of his films. I'll definitely pick it up later this week.


Cool!

Is it this set?

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4774/lloydxf8.th.jpg (http://img267.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lloydxf8.jpg)


That's the one I got. The transfers are top notch, and it has some really good extras as well.

Melville
01-15-2008, 03:48 AM
Cool!

Is it this set?

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4774/lloydxf8.th.jpg (http://img267.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lloydxf8.jpg)
I'm not sure. The library website doesn't have a picture. The library's collection appears to be only two discs, while the big number 7 on the cover of that one suggests more.

megladon8
01-15-2008, 03:50 AM
I'm not sure. The library website doesn't have a picture. The library's collection appears to be only two discs, while the big number 7 on the cover of that one suggests more.


Well this 7-disc set is actually 3 separately available 2-disc sets, with another disc of extras thrown in.

So you probably got one of the separately available 2-disc sets.

Hope you enjoy it!

monolith94
01-15-2008, 04:18 AM
Oh come on, Salome isn't THAT bad. But yeah, Lot In Sodom was the impressive film on that dvd.

Philosophe_rouge
01-15-2008, 04:37 AM
Back peddling, the only Chaplin short I feel even approaches the quality, innovation and the laughs of a Keaton one is One A.M. (1916), and even then doesn't begin to reach the sheer wonder of something like the Playhouse. Honestly, watching many of Chaplin's early work I'm amazed he was so popular and loved early in his career, because most of his shorts are unfunny, repetitive and overly long. I do love his feature work though, City Lights has been a staple of my favourites since I first got into film. With the exception of maybe A Woman in Paris (and his post-Verdoux work, which I haven't seen) I think all his features are wonderful, and I watch them again and again without getting tired of them. I'm less familiar with Keaton's feature work, I've seen The General and Steamboat Bill Jr. Neither of which stand up against my favourite Chaplin, although the former is a masterpiece in it's own right. I need to see his other work though. I still haven't seen a single Harold and Lloyd :(

Sycophant
01-15-2008, 06:50 AM
Chaplin on the other hand, The Great Dictator is the only film of his I've really enjoyed. I didn't really care for The Circus, City Lights or Modern Times.
I can't believe I'm giving you rep on a post where you profess not caring much for City Lights or The Circus, but that's just how damn much I love The Great Dictator.

Mysterious Dude
01-15-2008, 02:03 PM
My top 7 movies of 1923:

1. Our Hospitality
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
3. Why Worry?
4. Safety Last!
5. A Woman of Paris
6. Scaramouche
7. Salome

Yxklyx
01-15-2008, 02:39 PM
- 1923
1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley) 8
2. Why Worry? (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor) 8
3. Our Hospitality (John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton) 8
4. Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor) 7
5. Voice of the Nightingale (Wladyslaw Starewicz) [short] 7
6. A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin) 7
7. Merry-Go-Round (Rupert Julian & Erich von Stroheim) 6

Very similar lists. Of course, there aren't that many movies available to watch.

monolith94
01-15-2008, 09:55 PM
Was Way Down East 1923?

Mysterious Dude
01-16-2008, 04:52 AM
Was Way Down East 1923?
Dude, shut up. You know how to use the internet.

I just watched the American version of Pabst's The Joyless Street. I didn't realize until now that it was severely edited from its original version, in which Greta Garbo was a secondary character. The one I saw was all about Garbo. I would really be interested in seeing the longer version.

monolith94
01-16-2008, 05:07 AM
I was wrong. It isn't from 1923.

When I posted that I was running late for a date. I just felt oddly compelled to post something.

I can only hope that sometime in my future I will be forgiven.

The play itself, Salome, as written by Oscar Wilde really is quite marvelous, but much of the art of it comes from the whistful repetition of language, the unique phrasing of love from the mouths of its characters, something undeniably hindered by the silent screen. David Lynch would be a good adapter.

Melville
01-19-2008, 01:40 AM
Well this 7-disc set is actually 3 separately available 2-disc sets, with another disc of extras thrown in.

So you probably got one of the separately available 2-disc sets.

Hope you enjoy it!
It turns out that I got 4 discs, which I'm guessing are the first two volumes of the 3-volume set. I just watched Safety Last!, but I'm unsure what else I should check out. The discs feature An Eastern Westerner, Ask Father, Girl Shy, From Hand to Mouth, The Cat's Paw, The Milky Way, Why Worry?, The Kid Brother, Bumping into Broadway, The Freshman, Billy Blazes, Esq., Dr. Jack, Feet First, Grandma's Boy, Now or Never, and High and Dizzy. Any recommendations?

Yxklyx
01-19-2008, 02:04 AM
It turns out that I got 4 discs, which I'm guessing are the first two volumes of the 3-volume set. I just watched Safety Last!, but I'm unsure what else I should check out. The discs feature An Eastern Westerner, Ask Father, Girl Shy, From Hand to Mouth, The Cat's Paw, The Milky Way, Why Worry?, The Kid Brother, Bumping into Broadway, The Freshman, Billy Blazes, Esq., Dr. Jack, Feet First, Grandma's Boy, Now or Never, and High and Dizzy. Any recommendations?

If you can't watch them all then you should definitely watch:

Girl Shy
Why Worry?

and then...

The Kid Brother
The Freshman

P.S. Girl Shy has one of the best chase/race scenes in silent film and Why Worry? is like live Looney Tunes.

monolith94
01-19-2008, 02:21 AM
Girl Shy is a beautiful, beautiful piece of filmmaking. Just brilliant.

Melville
01-22-2008, 04:57 AM
Girl Shy was great; that madcap race to the wedding was hilarious. But unfortunately the disc with Why Worry is defective.:sad:

Mysterious Dude
01-27-2008, 07:38 AM
My efforts to fill out my top ten of 1923 have led me to a little-known German expressionist film called Warning Shadows, about an 18th century dinner party that goes awry, sort of. Highly expressionistic, but different than any other expressionist film I've seen. Most of the reviews on IMDb are pretty middling, but I loved it.

Yxklyx
01-27-2008, 07:47 AM
My efforts to fill out my top ten of 1923 have led me to a little-known German expressionist film called Warning Shadows, about an 18th century dinner party that goes awry, sort of. Highly expressionistic, but different than any other expressionist film I've seen. Most of the reviews on IMDb are pretty middling, but I loved it.

Cool, 1923 is a pretty weak year from what I've seen - maybe related to the transition from short films to feature films? So, anything new from that year is good to check out. My top 10:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley)
Why Worry? (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)
Our Hospitality (John G. Blystone & Buster Keaton)
Safety Last! (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)
Voice of the Nightingale (Wladyslaw Starewicz) [short]
A Woman of Paris (Charles Chaplin)
Merry-Go-Round (Rupert Julian & Erich von Stroheim)
The Treasure (Georg Wilhelm Pabst)
The Shock (Lambert Hillyer)
The Love Nest (Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton) [short]

Mysterious Dude
02-10-2008, 09:53 PM
I didn't think Three Ages was very good, except for the jumping off the building part. How does he do it?! But I'm honestly getting a little tired of Keaton. His movies just aren't different enough from each other.

But at least I now have a semi-presentable top ten list of 1923.

1. Warning Shadows
2. Our Hospitality
3. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
4. Why Worry?
5. Safety Last!
6. A Woman of Paris
7. The Ten Commandments
8. The Shock
9. Three Ages
10. Scaramouche

Ah, small victories.

I also thought The Ten Commandments was good, although preachy. Great special effects.

soitgoes...
02-10-2008, 10:07 PM
Yeah Three Ages is my least favorite full-length Buster Keaton film. A rather immemorable film, except for the car falling apart.

I really need to get cracking on watching more from this era. I think my next silent film will be Vidor's The Crowd.

Mysterious Dude
11-30-2008, 01:47 AM
I think if Neil LaBute had made a film in the 1920's, it would be a lot like Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle, what with the lies and the jealousy and the scheming and the general douchebaggery.

B-side
11-30-2008, 09:55 AM
The best Chaplin short I've seen would have to be The Immigrant. That and The Adventurer are great for shorts.

soitgoes...
01-31-2009, 11:02 AM
I love history. It was always my favorite subject in school. When I read, I tend to enjoy non-fiction history books over anything else. So when I watch films from the early silent period, before 1920, it's mostly for the historical record. Entertainment and artistic merit tends to be lacking, as filmmakers are still trying to figure out what this new medium can offer. Since I love history, including the history of film, watching these early films aren't necessarily a chore, but how can I compare them with what was produced at the peak of silent films at the advent of sound? I try not to; rather I give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. After all how can I find fault with a 13 minute short with the simplest of story lines, sets made out of what looks to be cardboard, and the most basic camerawork and editing when only 20 years prior a sneeze caught on camera was groundbreaking.

The past few days I have watched Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires. This truly is unlike any film I have seen. A serial, it is composed of 10 parts of varying length (between 15 and 60 minutes). Though the title might suggest something supernatural, it is actually a crime thriller of sorts. Each episode is self-contained with a cliffhanger to draw the viewer to the next one. Think comic books. It pits reporter Philippe Guérande against les Vampires, a Parisian crime syndicate led by the infamous Irma Vep, among others. There are twists and turns, murders and kidnappings, a lot of things that might be taken as being cliché, but at the time were probably fresh and innovative. All in all it was an enjoyable few nights of film watching. It opened my eyes to what early silent films could offer. I'm not expecting greatness by all, but it's exciting to think that it might be there all the same.

Boner M
01-31-2009, 11:13 AM
I watched Girl Shy a few days ago and agree with the praise in this thread; it felt a lot more like an actual film than Safety Last, which I also enjoyed immensely, but found the plot seemed like a sketchy afterthought, or at least a thin excuse to string together a bunch of set pieces, however impressive they were.

Yxklyx
01-31-2009, 01:24 PM
My efforts to fill out my top ten of 1923 have led me to a little-known German expressionist film called Warning Shadows, about an 18th century dinner party that goes awry, sort of. Highly expressionistic, but different than any other expressionist film I've seen. Most of the reviews on IMDb are pretty middling, but I loved it.

This was very good. Thanks for the recommendation.

Mysterious Dude
03-23-2009, 11:15 PM
I believe I have just seen the worst silent movie ever
So I've found a new film to earn this distinction -- Larry Semon's 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz. Semon himself plays the scarecrow, or, I should say, a farmhand who briefly disguises himself as a scarecrow late in the film. He has about four times as much screen time as Dorothy. I generally wouldn't dwell on differences between the film and the source material, but the changes are so terrible. It's pretty much all slapstick. Really bad slapstick. It's almost 50 minutes before they arrive in Oz. What do you think is the appeal of this story, Larry? Do you think anyone really wants to watch you chase a bee?

Mysterious Dude
08-16-2010, 03:41 AM
If you're going to make a movie called The Headless Horseman, it would be nice if the titular horseman made an appearance earlier than ONE HOUR INTO THE MOVIE. Especially if your movie is only 68 minutes long.

That was almost as bad as The Wizard of Oz.

Dukefrukem
01-19-2011, 12:27 PM
Watched my third silent movie ever last night.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari.

It's hard for me to critique silent films. I don't have enough experience in the genre to grade it. It's a much different experience than movies... with sound.

Dukefrukem
01-19-2011, 01:19 PM
Watched my third silent movie ever last night.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari.

It's hard for me to critique silent films. I don't have enough experience in the genre to grade it. It's a much different experience than movies... with sound.

and the whole movie is on youtube! Awesome.

ALqnSUMHPrA

Russ
06-11-2011, 10:08 PM
It's the Old Army Game (A. Edward Sutherland, 1926) ** ½ /****

What could have been a great silent classic is merely a good one. I'm not sure if the main culprit is Sutherland's pedestrian direction or W.C. Fields' unrestrained narrative but the short answer is probably a mixture of both. This was like a trial version for many of the gags and classic bits that would find their way into his later talkies; indeed, this was the original incarnation of Fields' funniest film, It's a Gift. Fields is indeed excellent throughout although some scenes, such as the picnic on private property, while arguably funnier than the remake, are way too long and bring the film's momentum to a screeching halt. Fields' scenes with children (a child and a baby, both brats) are equally funny and eyebrow-raising (in the way the kids are obviously mishandled, sometimes a bit dangerously). There are at least two laugh-out loud scenes (that I haven't seen repeated in his talkies) featuring a stubborn mule, and an insect. Oh, and Louise Brooks looks heavenly, so it's got that going for it too. A definite recommendation.

Mysterious Dude
06-27-2011, 04:55 PM
It's weird reading my own posts from three and four years ago. I sound like an idiot.

http://www.wildsound.ca/images/thescarletletterpicture.jpg
"I didn't take it out so you could look at it, bitch!"

I watched Victor Sjöström's The Scarlet Letter on TV last night, and while it is a little problematic, I still love it. As an adaptation of the book, it adds a lot of content, such as the beginning of the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. It's also a bit of an apology for them. Hester was forced to get married, never loved her husband, only knew him for a day and thought he was dead, and Dimmesdale did not even know she was married (like Adam and Eve, the woman carries more of the blame), though he certainly must have known he was having pre-marital sex. So that's half an hour of content that's not in the book (which begins after Hester has already given birth to Pearl).

(I've found a lot of silent films have a rather old-fashioned morality, even compared to some earlier works. The 1926 version of Don Juan ends with the hero realizing he needs to settle down and get married. That is sure not how Mozart's version ended.)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yROgVUGnRfA/TEDQd16sz-I/AAAAAAAAAck/TBiu8iROTYg/s1600/The+Scarlet+Letter.jpg

I think the source material does not lend itself well for adaptation, and the filmmakers did the best they could with it. The movie is still more faithful than the 1995 version, and at least retains the sad ending (unlike Sjöström's later film with Lillian Gish, The Wind). What is also retained is the harsh criticism of the Puritan community. Dimmesdale becomes more sympathetic. The scene where he baptizes the baby Pearl, who he knows is his own child but can never be a father to, is heart-wrenching. There are several other moments in the film that win me over. It's one of my favorite silent films.

B-side
06-27-2011, 09:46 PM
Was the print you saw on TV good quality? The rip on KG is relatively poor, so I've held off. I love The Wind and He Who Gets Slapped.

Mysterious Dude
06-27-2011, 10:20 PM
The TCM cut was quite good for the most part. It looked like a combination of two different prints and some scenes were noticeably inferior in quality to the rest of the movie. It was similar to the last version of Metropolis. I assume they had one very good, but incomplete, print, and filled in the missing scenes with an inferior print.

D_Davis
07-15-2011, 02:44 PM
Silent film buffs, I need your help. I'm trying to track down a full version of Seven Footprints to Satan (1929), directed by Benjamin Christensen, of Haxan fame.

zYZ45KRDgRw

Anyone know of any good resources? Apparently, it's not on DVD. I want to see it because it's based on a book by A. Merritt, one of my current literary obsessions.

Raiders
07-15-2011, 03:23 PM
Silent film buffs, I need your help. I'm trying to track down a full version of Seven Footprints to Satan (1929), directed by Benjamin Christensen, of Haxan fame.

If you are not opposed to such measures, I can tell you there are torrents of that online. Not going to vouch for the safety of the links.

There is one at KG which I'm sure is safe, but it's a pretty hefty file size.

D_Davis
07-15-2011, 11:05 PM
If you are not opposed to such measures, I can tell you there are torrents of that online. Not going to vouch for the safety of the links.

There is one at KG which I'm sure is safe, but it's a pretty hefty file size.

I'm not opposed, as the film should be in public domain anyhow. And I don't really care if it's not. :D

Also, elixer im'ed me a link to watch it online:

http://stagevu.com/video/nqftkjcmptbx

Thanks!

StanleyK
08-15-2011, 11:59 PM
I watched hella silent movies this weekend:

The Four Troublesome Heads (Georges Méliès, 1898) - ?
The One Man Band (Georges Méliès, 1900) - ?
The Devil's Castle (Georges Méliès, 1896) - ***½
The Fat and the Lean Wrestling Match (Georges Méliès, 1901) - ?
The Man with the Rubber Head (Georges Méliès, 1901) - ***
Le Chaudron Infernal (Georges Méliès, 1903) - ?
Le Cake-Walk Infernal (Georges Méliès, 1903) - ***½
Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat (Auguste Lumière & Louis Lumière, 1895) - ?
Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory (Louis Lumière, 1895) - ?
L'Arrouser Arrosé (Louis Lumière, 1895) - ?
Carmencita (William K.L. Dickson, 1894) - ?
Blacksmith Scene (William K.L. Dickson, 1893) - ?
Monkeyshines, No. 1 (William K.L. Dickson & William Heise, 1890) - ?
Monkeyshines, No. 2 (William K.L. Dickson & William Heise, 1890) - ?
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (William K.L. Dickson, 1894) - ?
Dickson Experimental Sound Film (William K.L. Dickson, 1894) - ?
Annabelle Serpentine Dance (William Heise, 1895) - ?
Repas de Bébé (Louis Lumière, 1895) - ?
Pauvre Pierrot (Émile Reynaud, 1892) - ***
Autour d'une Cabine (Émile Reynaud, 1895) - ?
The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (Alfred Clark, 1895) - ?
The Kiss (William Heise, 1896) - ?
The Astronomer's Dream (Georges Méliès, 1898) - ***½
The Enchanted Drawing (J. Stuart Blackton, 1900) - ?
Grandma's Reading Glass (George Albert Smith, 1900) - ?
How It Feels to be Run Over (Cecil M. Hepworth, 1900) - ?
L'Impressionniste Fin de Siècle (Georges Méliès, 1899) - ?
Demolishing and Building Up the Star Theater (Frederick Armitage, 1901) ?
The Music Lover (Georges Méliès, 1903) - **½
The Big Swallow (James Williamson, 1901) - ?
Bluebeard (Georges Méliès, 1901) - ***½
Jack and the Beanstalk (George S. Fleming & Edwin S. Porter, 1902) - **½
Le Monstre (Georges Méliès, 1903) - ?
The Gay Shoe Clerk (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) - ?
Life of an American Fireman (George S. Fleming & Edwin Porter, 1903) **½
Alice in Wonderland (Cecil M. Hepworth & Percy Stow, 1903) - **
[2] The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) - ****
[3] A Trip to the Moon (Georges Méliès, 1902) - ****
The Wonderful Living Fan (Georges Méliès, 1904) - **½
[2] The Mermaid (Georges Méliès, 1904) - ***
[2] The Impossible Voyage (Georges Méliès, 1904) - ****
Le Thaumaturge Chinois (Georges Méliès, 1904) - **½
The Cook in Trouble (Georges Méliès, 1904) - ***½
Le Roi du Maquillage (Georges Méliès, 1904) - ?
The Living Playing Cards (Georges Méliès, 1904) - ?
Le Tripot Clandestin (Georges Méliès, 1905) - ***
The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog (Edwin S. Porter, 1905) - ?
Rescued by Rover (Lewin Fitzhamon & Cecil M. Hepworth, 1905) - ***
New York Subway (G.W. Bitzer, 1905) - **½
[2] The Black Imp (Georges Méliés, 1905) - ***½
Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (J. Stuart Blackton, 1906) - ?
The Mysterious Retort (Georges Méliés, 1906) - **
[2] Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (McCutcheon & Edwin S. Porter, 1906) ***
[2] The Hilarious Posters (Georges Méliés, 1906) - ***
Aladdin and His Wonder Lamp (Albert Capellani, 1906) - **½
[2] The '?' Motorist (Walter R. Booth, 1906) - ***
Ben Hur (Sidney Olcott, Frank Oakes Rose & H. Temple, 1907) - *½
Good Glue Sticks (Georges Méliès, 1907) - ***
The Policemen's Little Run (Ferdinand Zecca, 1907) - **
The Red Spectre (Segundo de Chomón & Ferdinand Zecca, 1907) - ***
[2] The Golden Beetle (Segundo de Chomón, 1907) - ?
[2] The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon (Méliès, 1907) ****
The Thieving Hand (J. Stuart Blackton, 1908) - **½
[2] The Adventures of Dollie (D.W. Griffith, 1908) - **½
The Electric Hotel (Segundo de Chomón, 1908) - **½
Long Distance Wireless Photography (Georges Méliès, 1908) - ***
Fantasmagorie (Émile Cohl, 1908) - ?
The Sealed Room (D.W. Griffith, 1909) - ***½
Moscow Clad in Snow (Joseph-Louis Mundwiller, 1909) - ***½
The Devilish Tenant (Georges Méliès, 1909) - ***
The Red Man's View (D.W. Griffith, 1909) - **½
Nerone (Luigi Maggi, 1909) - ***
[2] Those Awful Hats (D.W. Griffith, 1909) - ?
The Smoke Fairy (J. Stuart Blackton, 1909) - ***
A Midsummer Night's Dream (J. Stuart Blackton & Charles Kent, 1909) - **
[2] A Corner in Wheat (D.W. Griffith, 1909) - ****
I started out catching up with Méliès, and ended up taking a journey through the birth and early development of cinema. It's so fascinating to watch these people so excited with the possibilities of a new art form, be it through experimentation, or simply by capturing the mundane. The best of these shorts are awe-inspiring, and even the worst ones are an interesting watch. Along with the experimental and the surreal, I loved seeing narrative filmmaking slowly establishing itself and evolving. The Great Train Robbery, so concise and unfolding its story through compositions and full-body acting, is probably one of the best action movies ever.

I also fulfilled my original intention, which is a deeper appreciation of Georges Méliès. His imagination was staggering, his playfulness and love for illusion intoxicating. His Sun and Moon trilogy (A Trip to the Moon, An Impossible Voyage and The Eclipse) are just so fucking cool; I love how the first two movies are about half build-up, emphasizing the process of creation along with the discovery, and how by the second one they're already focusing on their failed attempts of taking off. A Trip to the Moon remains one of my very favorites; so as to not clog my signature, I selected it to represent this weekend.

My two-day trip through the beginning of cinema was exhilarating, and I feel like my love of movies has been reinvigorated. I've got half a mind to pull a Rowland and start watching films only from a given year, until exhausting my options and moving on forward chronologically (so far, I'm using 200 votes on IMDB as a sort of cut-off point- I have almost endless free time). Sheer insanity, or worth trying if only to see how far I can make it?

Ezee E
08-16-2011, 05:15 AM
I guess A Trip To The Moon has been restored and will be at all the film festivals this fall.

StanleyK
08-20-2011, 04:17 AM
1910:

In the Border States (D.W. Griffith): Five years before The Birth of a Nation, Griffith made this movie about how Confederate and Union soldiers are, after all, both American, and thus brothers and the war pointless. It's a pretty obvious movie, but at least there's no racism. I'm honestly kind of amazed that people got away with painting Confederate soldiers in a positive light early in the 20th century. [**½]

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Otis Turner): Like Alice in Wonderland, this film condenses the story into rather random bits of action with little apparent causality or consequence between them. This is less boring thanks to little touches like the animals' Méliès-like somersaults, or the sinchronized dancing as they go off to see the wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I'm also starting to notice that films from this period have the bad habit of telling us what's going to happen in an intertitle before actually showing it. [**½]

Frankenstein (J. Searle Dawley): This one's legit creepy. It also manages to use the intertitle before the action to its advantage: by informing us that the monster is about to see himself, a seemingly peaceful shot featuring a mirror becomes tense. Now that's skillful filmmaking. I also really love the skeleton lounging in Frankenstein's lair for no reason; both funny and unsettling. [***½]

The Unchanging Sea (D.W. Griffith): The tacked-on story about the guy with memory loss detracts from an otherwise poignant tone poem, much like A Corner in Wheat, about the endless toiling of the working class. Good movie, too bad it has to have a plot. [***]

Afgrunden (Urban Gad): The earliest movie I know past the 30-minute mark, and likely one of the earliest dysfunctional love stories on film. It figures that it would be an European joint. Of course there's not much nuance in the tale of the fickle girl falling for the total prick, but Afgrunden stands out as comparatively ambitious. [***½]

A Christmas Carol (J. Searle Dawley, Charles Kent, Ashley Miller): This is actually the first version I saw of the tale. It's pretty good. I think what mostly sells it is Scrooge's actor; his condescending little bow at the beginning, his giddily joining a dance in the distant past. [***]

StanleyK
08-21-2011, 10:38 PM
1911:

His Trust (D.W. Griffith): A Confederate soldier entrusts his wife and daughter to George, his slave. After he is killed and the big bad Union soldiers loot and burn down his house (presumably killing all the other slaves, but of course George doesn't bother with them as he saves the little white girl), George keeps his promise by supporting the wife and daughter and selflessly giving them his house while he sleeps on the welcome mat like a dog. This is supposed to be a positive portrayal of black people on film. [*½]

His Trust Fulfilled (D.W. Griffith): The sequel, in which George uses all his savings to send the little white girl to school (he doesn't let her know that, of course- he's a martyr and doesn't have any needs of his own) until she marries a nice white boy (who happens to be her first-degree cousin), and at the wedding he gets the ultimate reward: a handshake from the white couple. She doesn't even hug the guy who she owes her life to, it's just a handshake. Did I mention George is played by a white guy in blackface?

The Lonedale Operator (D.W. Griffith): Griffith redeems himself with a solid thriller. The first half is unremarkable as build-up, but the second half stands on its own as a suspenseful heist scenario that the protagonist thwarts thanks to her wits. [***]

L'Inferno (Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe de Liguoro): The first feature-length movie that I know of. It actually would probably work better as a short, but it's worth watching for the terrific production design alone. [***]

Little Nemo (J. Stuart Blackton, Winsor McCay): The opening title claims that McCay is "the first artist to attempt drawing pictures that will move", but there were a whole bunch of such attempts before. His drawings are indeed really good and move in a smooth, charming animation, but the live-action segments (which take up most of the running time) make this feel rather self-aggrandizing. [**½]

Mysterious Dude
08-21-2011, 11:33 PM
1912 is where it's at.

1. The Land Beyond the Sunset (Shore)
2. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (Griffith)
3. À la conquête du pôle (Méliès)
4. The Invaders (Ford & Ince)
5. An Unseen Enemy (Griffith)
6. From the Manger to the Cross (Olcott)
7. The Cry of the Children (Nichols)
8. A Lively Affair (Young)
9. The Userer's Grip (Merwin)
10. From the Submerged (Wharton)

Okay, I don't really remember all of those. But the top four I remember pretty well. They're good. What the hell is a userer?

Yxklyx
08-22-2011, 12:44 AM
Top 5 from 1912:

1. The Cameraman's Revenge (Wladyslaw Starewicz) [short] 8
2. The Girl and Her Trust (D.W. Griffith) [short] 7
3. An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith) [short] 7
4. The New York Hat (D.W. Griffith) [short] 7
5. For His Son (D.W. Griffith) [short] 7

soitgoes...
08-22-2011, 04:46 AM
I can't rate films that early on. I wait for the arbitrary year of 1914 to start my ranking, mostly due to the rise of the feature length film that year. 1912 is populated mostly with Griffith shorts, a smattering of shorts from European filmmakers and a couple mid-length mediocre Danish circus films. Anyhow, as I've said before these years are more of an interest to me with how the art of film continued to develop rather than the off chance of seeing something I might deem to be great.

Dukefrukem
08-22-2011, 11:32 AM
I haven't seen a single movie from the 1910s.

Yxklyx
08-22-2011, 04:07 PM
I haven't seen a single movie from the 1910s.

Try this one:

http://www.archive.org/details/MysteryOfTheLeapingFish_348

StanleyK
08-25-2011, 02:56 AM
1912 part 1:

The New York Hat (D.W. Griffith): A movie about how gossip sucks. As a drama it isn't very engaging, and it's not quite heavy-handed enough to be funny like For His Son. [**½]

The Land Beyond the Sunset (Harold M. Shaw): This one plays with subjectivity quite a bit, with shots like the first one, with the boy completely alone on a black backdrop, or one where a sea of impoverished children march away from the screen until only he is left in the foreground with the lady, and of course the wonderful fairy tale segment; it lends a rather bittersweet tone to the whimsical ending. Now this is the kind of children's story I can get behind. [***½]

An Unseen Enemy (D.W. Griffith): Another good invasion thriller by Griffith; in The Lonedale Operator it was a train station being invaded, here it hits harder with the very sanctity of home being threatened. Not spectacular (I'm starting to wonder whether he'll ever top his one-two punch in 1909, with a great genre outing and an even greater drama) but solid. [***]

For His Son (D.W. Griffith): Hilarious in its heavy-handedness on cocaine use and greed. I love the moment where the doctor breaks the fourth wall and justifies himself to the audience (silently, of course, so there's plenty of limb-flailing). The denouement was kind of weak though, and defused the comical exaggeration [***]

How a Mosquito Operates (Winsor McCay): This one's legit creepy, too bad it's not a horror movie. The animated actions which unsettlingly repeat for no discernible reason, the freakishly enormous mosquito (who changes size at will, from human face-sized to 4 feet tall), and the gallon of blood which he slowly drains from the poor sleeping man are the stuff of nightmares in what's supposed to be an amiable demonstration of animation like Gertie the Dinosaur. I won't sleep well tonight.

Troubles of a Grasswidower (Max Linder): I admit it, I'd never heard of this guy until I watched Inglourious Basterds. The influence on Keaton, Chaplin et al is clear. This is the first really good physical comedy (a couple of Méliès shorts notwithstanding, but there's a clear difference between those and this), and despite the inherent sexism of the premise, it doesn't diminish the hilarity of watching the cocksure Max show how much of a spoiled bumbling oaf he is without his wife. [***½]

StanleyK
08-29-2011, 01:00 AM
I can't rate films that early on. I wait for the arbitrary year of 1914 to start my ranking, mostly due to the rise of the feature length film that year. 1912 is populated mostly with Griffith shorts, a smattering of shorts from European filmmakers and a couple mid-length mediocre Danish circus films. Anyhow, as I've said before these years are more of an interest to me with how the art of film continued to develop rather than the off chance of seeing something I might deem to be great

The only ones I have trouble rating are the ones that are really short, like two minutes or so, but that applies to any era really. I don't see how it's easier to rate a 15-minute short from nowadays than one from 1912 (and certainly not how it's easier to rate Brakhage's Eye Myth).

StanleyK
08-29-2011, 01:01 AM
1912 part 2 (I was going to watch Cleopatra, but my internet straight-up refused to load it):

The Musketeers of Pig Alley (D.W. Griffith): Not the most inspired story, this movie is nevertheless of one Griffith's best because his direction is fresher than usual. He has a stronger eye for composition here, shuffling his actors to make dramatic reveals around the frame, using shadows and smoke to announce characters' arrivals in an interesting way, and a particularly effective instance of a close-up during a tense stalking sequence between rival gangs. [***½]

Jesus of Nazareth: From the Manger to the Cross (Sydney Olcott): The filmmakers were clearly so confident with the source that they didn't bother making the actual material compelling, which results in a pretty narratively incompetent film. An example from early on: an angel appears before Joseph, saying that king Herod will kill Jesus and they have to flee to Egypt, and so they do; then when they're in Egypt, the angel appears before Joseph and tells him Herod is dead and they can go back to Israel, and so they do. What's the point of that? They might as well not have put Herod in the film. Later on, a big deal is made of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus. Impressive... if he hadn't already brought a dude back to life before like it was no thang. This feels basically like the precursor to today's greatest-hits biopics; uninspired, and very dull. [**]

The Conquest of the Pole (Georges Méliés): Something of the Méliés magic is lost with intertitles and subplots, especially ones about how women want to go to the Pole along with the men and are laughed at by everybody. It's particularly bad because, I mean, there were some ladies going on The Impossible Voyage. What's with the regression? [**½]

The Girl and Her Trust (D.W. Griffith): This is essentially the same movie as The Lonedale Operator, but it's better for a number of reasons. For starters, this one has a better actress for the protagonist, someone who can actually convey fright at the right moment rather than looking vaguely put off the whole way through; her main stunt is also much cleverer, something so simple yet so ingenious that I'm surprised I've never seen replicated in the following century of action cinema; and said stunt, rather than being the climax by itself, leads to a wonderfully executed and thrilling chase sequence. [***½]

The Cameraman's Revenge (Wladyslaw Starewicz): This one achieves the colossal feat of making insects not just tolerable to look at, but likeable and expressive, without anthropomorphizing them. The animation is amazingly detailed, and the story is a masterpiece of wit, right down to the intertitles, which feel like both an emulation and skewering of children's books ("Mr. Beetle should have guessed that the aggressive grasshopper was a movie cameraman"- delightfully surreal). [****]




And so, my own top of 1912:

1. The Cameraman's Revenge (Starewicz)
2. The Land Beyond the Sunset (Shaw)
3. The Girl and Her Trust (Griffith)
4. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (Griffith)
5. Troubles of a Grasswidower (Linder)

I have to agree with Isaac that this year really is where it's at (the first one where compiling a top 5 is possible, anyway). I couldn't find most of the movies on his list, though.

StanleyK
09-18-2011, 05:08 PM
Should've posted this last Monday. I actually spent almost a whole week without watching anything; stupid real life.

1913 part 1:

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/vlcsnap-2011-09-08-20h33m23s245.png

Fantômas (Louis Feuillade): More narratively slight than I expected, but Feuillade's direction is as good as I had heard. Particularly notable are the many shots of people watching someone else, hidden somewhere in the frame (probably the most clever of which being the above shot of a theater booth in part 1, which is the best installment). But even with part 2's exciting action sequences, part 3's almost Kubrickian obsession with tracking an action all the way through its process, and part 4's culmination of its identity games (part 5 didn't have much remarkable about it), it's just not a very interesting story, and it's saddled with glaring plotholes and a main villain who commits some ludicrously amateurish slip-ups that take away a lot of his menace. This is definitely a case of strong execution elevating otherwise bland material.

Fantômas - À l'Ombre de la Guillotine ***½
Juve Against Fantômas ***
The Dead Man Who Killed ***
Fantômas Against Fantômas ***
The Fake Magistrat **½
The serial: ***

The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (D.W. Griffith): More racist shit from Griffith, where a white woman's puppies are apparently justification for bloody warfare (those crazy dog-eatin' Injuns, huh?). The war scenes are pretty amazing, even in the ludicrously sped-up version I watched, but not enough to overcome the unpleasantness. [**]

Suspense. (Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber): Bordwell's (http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2008/08/29/lucky-13) take on it inspired me to watch it. It's a very simple story, accomplished with very taut filmmaking that deliver the titular suspense in spades. Look for an early version of Spielberg's beloved pursuer-in-the-rearview-mirror shot. Also notable for being the first movie directed by a woman (that I know of).

Twilight of a Woman's Soul (Yevgeni Bauer): Whoa, a tracking shot! It's pretty brief and doesn't cover much ground, but it's pretty weird seeing space being treated as three-dimensional in such an early film. The rest of it is mostly functional and stagey; it starts out as a somewhat interesting deconstruction of wealthy naivete and savior complex (if it comes with a deplorable fuck-the-poor attitude), but it eventually turns into a dull soap opera. [**½]

The Student of Prague (Stella Rye, Paul Wegener) [***]
The Night Before Christmas (Wladyslaw Starewicz) [**½]
Couldn't gather any satisfactory thoughts on these two.

StanleyK
09-19-2011, 02:17 AM
Now might be a good time to start taking suggestions. I see Charlie Chaplin made a whopping 36 shorts in 1914:

His Prehistoric Past (1914) [Writer] [Actor .... Weakchin] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "The Hula-Hula Dance" - USA (alternative title)
Getting Acquainted (1914) [Writer] [Actor .... Mr. Sniffels] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914) [Actor .... The City Guy]
His Trysting Place (1914) [Writer] [Actor .... Clarence, the Husband] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "His Trysting Places" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Henpecked Spouse" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Ladies' Man" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Very Much Married" - USA (alternative title)
His Musical Career (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Charlie, Piano Mover] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Charlie as a Piano Mover" - USA (alternative title)
Gentlemen of Nerve (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Mr. Wow-Woe, Track Fanatic] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
Dough and Dynamite (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Pierre, a Waiter] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
Those Love Pangs (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Masher] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Oh, You Girls" - USA (alternative title)
The New Janitor (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Janitor] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
The Rounders (1914) [Writer] [Actor .... Reveller] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Going Down" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Oh, What a Night" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Love Thief" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Tip, Tap, Toe" - USA (alternative title)
His New Profession (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Charlie] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
The Masquerader (1914/I) [Writer] [Actor .... Film Actor/Beautiful Stranger] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "The Female Impersonator" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Perfumed Lady" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Picnic" - USA (alternative title)
Recreation (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Tramp] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
The Face on the Bar Room Floor (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Artist] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
The Property Man (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... The Property Man] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Charlie on the Boards" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Hits of the Past" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Props" - USA (alternative title)
Laughing Gas (1914) [Actor .... Dentist's Assistant] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Busy Little Dentist" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Laffing Gas" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Tuning His Ivories" - USA (alternative title)
Mabel's Married Life (1914) [Writer] [Actor .... Mabel's Husband] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
Mabel's Busy Day (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Tipsy Nuisance]
The Knockout (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Referee]
Her Friend the Bandit (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Bandit]
The Fatal Mallet (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Mabel's Rival Suitor]
A Busy Day (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... The Wife] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "Busy as Can Be" - USA (alternative title)
Caught in the Rain (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Tipsy Hotel Guest] [Director] [Editor] (uncredited)
... aka "In the Park" - USA (reissue title)
Caught in a Cabaret (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Waiter]
... aka "Charlie the Waiter" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Prime Minister Charlie" - USA (alternative title)
Twenty Minutes of Love (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Pickpocket] [Director] (unconfirmed)
Mabel at the Wheel (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Villain]
... aka "A Hot Finish" - USA (alternative title)
The Star Boarder (1914/II) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... The Star Boarder]
... aka "The Fatal Lantern" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Landlady's Pet" - USA (alternative title)
Cruel, Cruel Love (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Lord Helpus/Mr. Dovey]
His Favorite Pastime (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Drunken Masher]
... aka "Charlie Is Thirsty" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "Charlie's Reckless Fling" - USA (alternative title)
... aka "The Reckless Fling" - USA (alternative title)
Tango Tangles (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Tipsy Dancer]
A Film Johnnie (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... The Film Johnnie]
... aka "Charlie the Actor" - USA (alternative title)
Between Showers (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Masher]
... aka "In Wrong Thunder and Lightning" - USA (alternative title)
A Thief Catcher (1914/I) [Actor .... Cop] (uncredited)
Mabel's Strange Predicament (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Drunk]
Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) [Writer] (uncredited) [Actor .... Tramp]
... aka "The Pest" - USA (alternative title)
Making a Living (1914) [Actor .... Swindler]
... aka "Take My Picture" - USA (alternative title)
I don't really feel like watching all of these or most of these. Which would you guys say are essential?

B-side
09-19-2011, 02:39 AM
The only good Chaplin shorts I've seen are The Immigrant and The Adventurer.

soitgoes...
09-19-2011, 05:36 AM
Suspense. (Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber): Also notable for being the first movie directed by a woman (that I know of).Alice Guy Blaché (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0349785/)

StanleyK
09-22-2011, 10:35 PM
Alice Guy Blaché (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0349785/)

What an impressive filmography! I just watched Falling Leaves. It was okay, not particularly remarkable; its central story could have had something to say about the power of metaphor and the loss off childhood innocence, but the ending squanders all that. Anyway, it's sort of blandly directed. I strongly recommend Suspense., which has some pretty impressive filmmaking on display.

StanleyK
10-21-2011, 10:33 PM
Man, I've been swarmed with way more things to do lately than I expected. The worst part is that it's not actually doing the things which takes up my time, but procrastinating on doing them. I should start procrastinating by watching movies.



1913 part 2 (I wanted to watch but couldn't find Traffic in Souls):

The Grasshopper and the Ant (Wladyslaw Starewicz): The classic fable, told with the same attention to detail and dark sense of humor as in The Cameraman's Revenge, and if not quite as great it's really enjoyable. [***½]

The Mothering Heart (D.W. Griffith): I've already forgotten about this one. Not really a good sign. [**]

The Bangville Police (Henry Lehrman): I also forgot about this one, but I guess I liked it well enough. The crappy car blowing off steam every few meters is a pretty funny sight gag, and at least the earliest occurence of it I've seen. [***]

The Last Days of Pompeii (Mario Caserini, Eleuterio Rodolfi): Starts out strong with a fairly fleshed out romantic quadrangle and the city's impending doom lending a somber weight to the characters' actions. As it goes on, their actions get more and more improbable and their relationships grow stale. By the end I so bored I was actually surprised when the vulcan erupted- I didn't even remember that was supposed to happen. Turns out the movie's story doesn't actually have any sort of thematic link with the incident, which comes off as more of an unpleasant deus ex machina. [**½]

Ingeborg Holm (Victor Sjöström): Straighforward and hard-hitting. The escalation of hardships Ingeborg has to suffer feels like a natural progression and the drama is earned, as opposed to cynically piling misery upon misery. There's a part in the third act which kind of baffles me (I mean, Ingeborg is in a workhouse, not a prison, right? Why does she have to escape rather than willingly leave and why is she chased by police?), but overall it's very effective and devastating. Sjöström owns the compositions and mise-en-scene, too. [***½]

The Insects' Christmas (Wladyslaw Starewicz): Starewicz doesn't go for humor here, instead evoking a childlike joy at Christmas, albeit with his usual surreal touch. It continues to amaze me just how compelling he manages to make these insect carcasses; the beetles somersaulting with glee are the cutest thing, and the frog hugging little Father Christmas is totally heartwarming. [***½]



My top 5 of 1913:

1. Ingeborm Holm (Sjöström)
2. Suspense. (Smalley, Weber)
3. The Insects' Christmas (Starewicz)
4. Fantômas - À l'Ombre de la Guillotine (Feuillade)
5. The Grasshopper and the Ant (Starewicz)

Russ
11-13-2011, 02:00 PM
Limite (Mario Peixoto, 1931) ****

In 1930, 22 year old Brazilian Mario Peixoto began work on what would turn out to be the only film he ever made. By the time Limite was made and first shown, silent filmmaking had already been discarded by both U.S. and European cinema in favor of “talking pictures.” Adding to the film’s notoriety were its sporadic screenings (some specifically held for luminaries as diverse as Orson Welles and Maria Falconetti) and its general unavailability (from 1959 to 1978) because of a dedicated, twenty year(!) restoration effort by Plinio Süssekind and Saulo Pereira de Mello to repair the nitrate film’s deterioration (they were working with the only copy of the film in existence). Even in the restored version, the damage to the film is apparent during a short stretch, including a few feet of film that are forever lost and represented by a brief photo and an accompanying title card.

The film’s director, Mario Peixoto, infused Limite with all the influences he learned as an eager student in London and Paris in the late 1920’s, at the height of several crucial art movements of the period. Limite displays its influences proudly, from German Expressionism to Soviet Montage, along with the best of the European avant garde and surrealist offerings. Peixoto had written a precise scenario for Limite, inspired by a cover photo on a Paris magazine, by which legendary cameraman Edgar Brasil composed many of the film’s breathtaking shots. The nearly two hour film centers on the lives of three people adrift at sea in a small boat, each of whom reflect on events in their lives which led to them reaching the “limits” of their existence. Peixoto, also a poet and novelist, adhered closely to his stated attempt to create a “pure cinema” language, one that eschewed traditional narrative devices in favor of utilizing the beauty of the form – as shown in the striking marriage of his images to carefully chosen classical music selections (Debussy, Satie, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ravel, etc.). It’s a two hour audiovisual feast for the senses (only a very brief sequence in a graveyard provided the three intertitles used in the entire two hour film). The music is so important to the film and its proper synchronization was an integral part of the restoration process.

Long regarded as a lost masterpiece, but perennially voted by critics as the greatest Brazilian film ever, Limite had been on my radar since first reading about it several years ago. This is a must-see for any serious fan of cinema. Highest recommendation.

Check out some screen shots here (http://match-cut.org/showpost.php?p=383905&postcount=165).

Russ
12-18-2011, 12:15 AM
My top ten of 1920:

1. Man of the Sea (Marcel L'Herbier)
2. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene)
3. One Week (Keaton/Cline)
4. The Penalty (Wallace Worsley)
5. Neighbors (Keaton/Cline)
6. Romeo and Juliet in the Snow (Ernst Lubitsch)
7. The Scarecrow (Keaton/Cline)
8. Outside the Law (Tod Browning)
9. The Moving Image (Fritz Lang)
10. Humoresque (Frank Borzage)


Ernst Lubitsch knows funny:

http://i536.photobucket.com/albums/ff324/astrojester/romeoundjulia.jpg

StanleyK
01-23-2012, 02:00 AM
Think I'll try this again.



1914 part 1:

The Squaw Man (Oscar Apfel, Cecil B. DeMille): This film sure spends a lot of time establishing just how perfect the main character is. He's literally flawless; he's always right, he can easily beat up anybody, all the women lust after him, and the only bad things that happen to him are humbly self-inflicted out of the nobleness of his heart. Doesn't make for very compelling drama. [**]

Making a Living (Henry Lehrman): Seen it, don't remember it. It wasn't good. [**]

Kid Auto Races at Venice (Henry Lehrman): The first appearance of The Tramp, in which he repeatedly hogs the camera from the kids racing. Not sure why that's supposed to be funny. [**]

Between Showers (Henry Lehrman): Entertaining if only because of what an asshole everybody is, even the damsel in supposed distress (why can't she just walk around the puddle?), but it drags with too much repetitive slapstick. [**½]

Judith of Bethulia (D.W. Griffith): The main conflict of the film- Judith's internal struggle between loyalty to her people and her newfound love with the enemy's leader- is very interesting in concept, but as it is, it feels severely underdeveloped. I wish more screentime was devoted to it and less on the competently made but ultimately dull battle scenes. [**½]

A Film Johnnie (George Nichols): Ha, Chaplin was such a dick in his first shorts. Here he walks into a studio, punches some people, tries to score the leading lady, shoots the whole place up, sets it on fire and then just strolls out. Then he laughs at the people trying to put out the fire. I haven't seen The Gold Rush in a while, but I'm pretty sure this is a long ways from his later Tramp persona. [***]

The Avenging Conscience: or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' (D.W. Griffith): A pretty decent, or at least entertainingly over the top treatise on why murdering is bad for your health. Until the 'it was all a dream' ending, that is, which not only lets the protagonist off the hook but also magically resolves the issue for which he would've been driven to murder in the first place. [**½]

Cruel, Cruel Love (George Nichols): I watched this one (and the earlier Fatty Joins the Force, which was also good) because I liked Nichols' A Film Johnnie. I don't know how much auteur theory applies to these kind of shorts, but I actually thought this was neatly directed, with some closer showing off Chaplin's funnier faces, and managing to weave an exciting race against time in with the comedy. I just love how his butler watches Chaplin try to kill himself and all he does is laugh his ass off, or Charlie flip-kicking the doctors at the end for no reason. I guess misanthropy and comedy do compliment each other after all. [***½]

Dead & Messed Up
01-23-2012, 06:32 AM
Is this a place where anybody can post their thoughts?

I have a lot of silent film to see yet, but I just watched The Gold Rush for the first time, and some of its set-pieces had me laughing really hard. The house tipping over at the end is huge, but I also loved when Big Jim thought the Tramp was a chicken, and when Chaplin does the little tap-dance with the rolls and forks.

Very charming.

I've seen this and Modern Times. I'm eager to watch City Lights and The Great Dictator.

Mysterious Dude
01-23-2012, 02:08 PM
1913:

1. Ingeborg Holm
2. L'enfant de Paris
3. The Last Days of Pompeii
4. Suspense
5. Atlantis
6. The Yaqui Cur
7. The Courage of the Commonplace
8. The Drummer of the 8th
9. The Evidence of the Film
10. Granddad

My top ten of 1914 is a little less impressive. I've seen ten films (and only ten films), but I really only like the top four.

1. Cabiria
2. The Avenging Conscience
3. The Squaw Man
4. Tillie's Punctured Romance
5. The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England
6. Gertie the Dinosaur
7. The Magic Cloak
8. The Patchwork Girl of Oz
9. His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz
10. In the Land of the Head Hunters

StanleyK
01-23-2012, 02:20 PM
1912 is where it's at.

1. The Land Beyond the Sunset (Shore)
2. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (Griffith)
3. À la conquête du pôle (Méliès)
4. The Invaders (Ford & Ince)
5. An Unseen Enemy (Griffith)
6. From the Manger to the Cross (Olcott)
7. The Cry of the Children (Nichols)
8. A Lively Affair (Young)
9. The Userer's Grip (Merwin)
10. From the Submerged (Wharton)

Okay, I don't really remember all of those. But the top four I remember pretty well. They're good. What the hell is a userer?


1913:

1. Ingeborg Holm
2. L'enfant de Paris
3. The Last Days of Pompeii
4. Suspense
5. Atlantis
6. The Yaqui Cur
7. The Courage of the Commonplace
8. The Drummer of the 8th
9. The Evidence of the Film
10. Granddad

My top ten of 1914 is a little less impressive. I've seen ten films (and only ten films), but I really only like the top four.

1. Cabiria
2. The Avenging Conscience
3. The Squaw Man
4. Tillie's Punctured Romance
5. The Wishing Ring: An Idyll of Old England
6. Gertie the Dinosaur
7. The Magic Cloak
8. The Patchwork Girl of Oz
9. His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz
10. In the Land of the Head Hunters

Where do you find these movies? Maybe I'm not looking properly, but I can't find trace of most of them.

Mysterious Dude
01-23-2012, 03:01 PM
Where do you find these movies? Maybe I'm not looking properly, but I can't find trace of most of them.
You've seen the major ones.

L'enfant de Paris I saw last year on the DVD "Gaumont Treasures: The Films of Leonce Perret." Suspense is on disc four of "Unseen Cinema." The Evidence of the Film is on "Thanhouser Collection." The Wishing Ring is on "Before Hollywood There Was Fort Lee, N.J." The Drummer of the 8th and Granddad are on the DVD "Civil War Films of the Silent Era." The Usurer's Grip, From the Submerged, The Courage of the Commonplace and A Lively Affair are all on "Treasures from American Film Archives: Vol. 3." The Patchwork Girl of Oz and The Magic Cloak of Oz are on one DVD. His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz, From the Manger to the Cross and In the Land of the Head Hunters are all on DVD.

All of those are available through Netflix. Most of them include a number of short films, and you may have to sit through some pretty dull stuff before you find anything of interest to you. Unseen Cinema is the worst; seven discs and every one of them is three hours.

One notable movie I did not see through Netflix was Atlantis, which I saw at a University library. I think I saw The Invaders on the internet, but it is on the DVD "More Treasures from American Film Archives," which, unfortunately, is not available through Netflix.

StanleyK
01-23-2012, 10:09 PM
Oh, DVDs. There are almost no films from before 1920 available in my region. I've had to rely solely on the internet so far.

StanleyK
01-27-2012, 01:25 AM
1914 part 2:

Cinderella (James Kirkwood): Some occasionally inspired direction, and Pickford adds a good number of funny little touches which endeared me to her character. They can't overcome the inherent ickyness of the story, but it's better than I expected. [**½]

The Knockout (Mack Sennett): The main actual fight is dull, with no stakes and no visual interest. But the opening fight with a bunch of dudes trying to prove how manly and tough they are is good, as is the ending chase with Fatty running around in boxing gear shooting wildly at his opponent and playing tug-of-war with the cops, which is fine comical absurdity. [***]

Mabel's Married Life (Charles Chaplin): The characters here almost behave like they're in a psychological drama. Mabel venting out her frustration with her husband ranting to imaginary people and letting it out on the boxing dummy, Charlie being so regularly emasculated that he believes the dummy is real and sleeping with his wife, the way that couple messing with them feel like they're playing a weird sexual game... I'm probably just seeing things, but it did make watching it more fun. [***½]

Laughing Gas (Charles Chaplin): Relies far too much on people being punched/kicked/having things thrown at them, which is less and less amusing each time it happens, and Charlie comes off as a creep as he hits on the patient. [*½]

The Rounders (Charles Chaplin): Entertaining despite the rather off-putting misogyny. Fatty and Chaplin are great at playing drunk. Also, damn is that ending grim. I'd like to see a modern comedy pull that off. [**½]

Gertie the Dinosaur (Winsor McCay): Same deal as Little Nemo for me. It's hard not to respect the amount of work put into this (an intertitle says it makes McCay six months to animate Gertie. Six months for six minutes! That's mindblowing.), but ultimately, through the unnecessary live-action segments, concerning a bet which he obviously wins, the movie again feels like McCay mostly wants to show off how good he is. [**½]

Tillie's Punctured Romance (Mack Sennett): I really liked the first 20 minutes or so, a black comedy about greed and deception where the humor comes from the succintly established characters and the cleverly worded intertitles (that has to be a first). But after a while that goes away and is replaced with an uninteresting plot that goes around in circles and limp slapstick. Apparently people tripping over was the height of comedy back then because it just. Keeps. Happening. If I took a shot every time somebody trips my liver would be gone by now. It's so tiresome. This movie was especially disappointing because it showed such promise early on, but it quickly wears out its welcome and becomes actively bad by the end. [**]

Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone): Between the sheer awe I felt watching the filmmakers use the limited camera movements available to them for the best possible effect within the frame (and what amazingly composed frames they are) and the immense pleasure at witnessing the meticulously woven narrative unfolding, this is one of the most magical first viewings I've had in quite a while. I must confess that the very ending is unsatisfying; Cabiria herself is a macguffin, she doesn't need to find love and I felt cheated by not being shown her reunion with her parents. Still, two disappointing minutes are nothing after two hours of pure exhilaration. [****]



I can't make a top 5 for 1914, despite having seen more films than in any previous year- outside of Cabiria, I felt it was kind of weak.

soitgoes...
01-27-2012, 04:05 AM
I can't make a top 5 for 1914, despite having seen more films than in any previous year- outside of Cabiria, I felt it was kind of weak.Isn't Fantômas from 1914? You need to check that one out if you haven't.

StanleyK
01-27-2012, 12:02 PM
Isn't Fantômas from 1914? You need to check that one out if you haven't.

It's 1913-1914, and I did already watch it. Good, but not quite great.

StanleyK
01-31-2012, 07:44 PM
1915 part 1:

His New Job (Charles Chaplin): Chaplin seems to be moving closer towards his Tramp persona, albeit still with plenty of hitting people. There's nothing groundbreaking here, I guess, but the slapstick is really well executed and I laughed a lot at Charlie's cluelessness. [***½]

A Night Out (Charles Chaplin): Charlie gets drunk as hell and fucks with some rich people; simple and very effective, although it starts to run out of steam towards the end. [***]

The Champion (Charles Chaplin): The boxing match is a showcase of inventive gags which must have taken an impressive amount of coordination as they're carried out in pretty long takes. Most of the movie is just alright though. I also think it's worth noting that Chaplin robs a man in this film. Really, he knocks the guy out cold and takes his money. He gets aways with it, too. [**½]

Carmen (Cecil B. Demille): Eh... This isn't really a bad movie, there's just not a single thing that's special about it. The plot machination leading to the end makes no sense, either. [**]

In the Park [**]
A Jitney Elopement [**]
The Tramp [**½]
By the Sea [**]
Some fairly weak Chaplin shorts which mostly have the same problems: an apparent belief that people hitting each other unprovoked is inherently and endlessly entertaining (it can be effective, as in Cruel, Cruel Love, if used sparingly, which ties into the other big problem), and a stale repetition of gags well past the point they're actually funny. The Tramp is also Chaplin's first attempt at dramatic gravitas; not a particularly successful one.

The Cheat (Cecil B. DeMille): A very good thriller, aptly paced and making good use of the background, shadows and dead space in the frame. Old-school racism/sexism and rather silly ending (shouldn't the dude still be jailed for perjury?) aside, I enjoyed it a good deal. [***]

The Lily of the Belgium (Wladyslaw Starewicz): It's not quite as touching as The Insects' Christmas (Starewicz seems to be a lot better at directing dead insects than humans), but a sweet enough fairytale with Starewicz's usual outstanding animation.

elixir
01-31-2012, 08:43 PM
At some point, I am going to watch all these movies you have been watching, Stan. It will happen.

soitgoes...
01-31-2012, 10:01 PM
1915 part 1:
Be sure and watch some of Yevgeny Bauer's films. They aren't all good, but I think outside of Griffth he's as consistently solid as anyone from the mid-teens.

From 1915 specifically, Les Vampires if you haven't seen it. A good candidate for "film" of that decade.

StanleyK
02-12-2012, 11:55 PM
Be sure and watch some of Yevgeny Bauer's films. They aren't all good, but I think outside of Griffth he's as consistently solid as anyone from the mid-teens.

From 1915 specifically, Les Vampires if you haven't seen it. A good candidate for "film" of that decade.

I did want to watch After Death from this year, but I only found a video which wouldn't load. And I'm definitely looking forward Les Vampires- I'm trying to save the probable best of each year for last, and now it's the only one left on my list for 1915.

StanleyK
02-17-2012, 07:40 PM
1915 part 2:

Work (Charles Chaplin): Chaplin is a lot more sympathetic when he spends almost the whole movie being bullied. It's also a lot funnier when he hits people out of cluelessness and not on purpose. So when near the end he starts exacting some mild revenge, it feels earned and is plenty satisfying. [***½]

A Woman [**]
The Bank [***]
Shanghaied [**]
A Night in the Show [**]
Some bad shorts by Chaplin (except for The Bank, which is more like Work than the others). I don't really know what I can say about them that I haven't already said; it's kind of tiresome talking about them one by one.

A Fool There Was (Frank Powell): I thought this would be about actual vampires, but it turns out 'vampire' here just means an evil woman that sucks honest men out of their money and then leaves them to die, which in this case makes for a pretty dull story. Still, I like its use of flashbacks and makeup to portray the main character's descent, some neat shots early on, and a moment when the wife's sister calls out the sexism ingrained in the period (it's still a pretty sexist movie though). [**½]

Pool Sharks (Edwin Middleton): W.C. Fields' first movie. Like the only other film of his I've seen (The Bank Dick), it's extremely unpleasant. Black comedy is one thing; making a guy squirming in despair as he tries to avoid having his eye poked out by Fields a joke is another. [*½]

Regeneration (Raoul Walsh): This would've been more affecting if its main character were developed beyond 'thug with a heart of gold', but but it's a good, tight little story, and it does a decent job examining a life of hardship and crime, from the circumstances leading to it in the first place and the repercussions when one tries to leave it. [***]

A Burlesque on Carmen (Charles Chaplin): Despite the opening scroll claiming that this version of Carmen is unlike any seen before, it's actually pretty much the same movie as DeMille's Carmen, complete with Edna Purviance cowering in fear as Charlie is about to stab her. Hilarious! This version also has some extra misogynistic jokes and intertitles trying desperately and failing to be clever. [**]

Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade): The Vampires are a much more credible threat than Fantômas was, not because their methods are any less ludicrous, but strangely enough, because Guérande is actually not fooled by them at all. This makes their more coolly (and ruthlessly- they really have no qualms in killing anybody) executed plans stand out more. I particularly like how the Vampires start the series pulling off outrageous capers and by the end they're bent only on revenge and survival; when they're done in, they're not doing a heist or anything of the sort, they're throwing a party in a fleeting moment of levity. I had problems with the films, mostly with the intertitles which felt the need to explain obvious action on several occasions, and with the progression between one installment and another, which often feels like an ass-pull, introducing characters never hinted at before and sometimes completely negating previous aspects. But Feuillade's direction is impeccable, especially when handling crowd scenes, and there were many suspenseful moments where I found myself holding my breath. It's not quite the masterpiece I expected, but it's really effective entertainment and gorgeous to look at. [***½]

StanleyK
02-17-2012, 07:45 PM
1915 was another weaker year from what I've seen, only Les Vampires and Chaplin's His New Job and Work stood out.

1916 is going to be pretty meager. I wanted to see all of these movies but they seem to be unavailable:

The Children in the House
Dödskyssen
Gretchen the Greenhorn
Her Sister's Rival
Hoodoo Ann
The Matrimaniac
Reggie Mixes In
The Social Secretary

soitgoes...
02-17-2012, 09:11 PM
1916 is going to be pretty meager. I wanted to see all of these movies but they seem to be unavailable:
The switch from shorts to feature length films was a bumpy one. A handful of films each year are still quality, but it seems that for the most part it was the same few directors who made them. The learning curve was too steep for everyone to get a handle on how to make an hour+ long film entertaining. 1919 might be the turning point, but for me it isn't until 1920 that I can make a solid Top 10 with more feature length films than shorts. You don't torrent, right?

The plus is that 1916 has Griffith's best film, and it's pretty breathtaking to consider all the work that went into its production.

monolith94
02-18-2012, 06:17 PM
Victory from 1919 and The Blue Bird from 1918 are both really cool.

StanleyK
04-21-2012, 04:42 AM
1916 (Damn, took me two months to get through it):

Police ***½
The Floorwalker **
The Fireman ***
The Vagabond ***
One A.M. **½
The Count ***
The Pawnshop ***
Behind the Screen ***½
The Rink **½
Chaplin becomes a reliable entertainer. Now his unlikeable characters or repetitious gags are down to a minimum, and at his best he succeeds at mixing genuine emotional attachment along with the silliness of The Tramp. In fact, I'd say the most disappointing of these films is The Vagabond, because it's such a funny and touching story that I was almost tearing up at the end, but then the actual ending goes and ruins it. It would've have easily easily been my favorite and probably a masterpiece if not for that cheat of an ending.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (D.W. Griffith): If a lot of movies from this period point out obvious plot or action with their intertitles, Griffith goes to the next level and actually explains the metaphors employed and the main themes of this film. Really, the actual 'movie' parts of this movie felt like visual accompaniment to a written narration, almost disposable. Not to say that it's not well-made or entertaining- at three hours, it manages to never lose command of my attention, but it also doesn't justify that length. It's so obvious and blunt in its message (how many damn times do we need to see the word 'intolerance' before they think we got the point?) to the point of being slight, and the interminable cross-cutting finale feels more like redundancy then escalating tension. [**½]

Hell's Hinges (Charles Swickard): Boring Christian propaganda. [**]

Going Straight (Chester M. Franklin, Sidney Franklin): A drama about the impossibility of shaking off your past which morphs into a heist thriller, culminating in a remarkably effective set-piece and climax. The tight direction and editing provide some ingenious moments- my favorite is the cross-cutting between the husband leaning in the safe and the burglar creeping in the room; when he's thrown against the door, it makes for a clever graphic match as well as establishing an important point visually. Too bad I couldn't find these dudes' other films from this year. [***½]

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Stuart Paton): Notable for apparently being the first successful underwater photography. These underwater scenes really are great, full of wonder and awe both for the mysterious beauty of the sea and for the technical marvel of capturing it, by far the best part of the film. Unfortunately they're only about 10 minutes in an otherwise pretty dull story. It starts to pick up a little towards the end, but then crashes back down with a lengthy and unnecessary backstory for captain Nemo. [**½]

Her Sister's Rival (Yevgeni Bauer): I was able to watch this after all (After Death too, which is quite good) Excellent melodrama, where the conflict emerges from the characters' complicated relationships and emotions rather than contrivance. Very measured and affecting. It's a massive improvement for Bauer, as a director, from the rather static Twilight of a Woman's Soul to the rich staging of this film. [***½]

Where Are My Children? (Phillips Smalley, Lois Weber): You know this is going to be bad when the opening intertitle, which purpots it to be a serious drama about the issue of birth control, segues into a vision of heaven where the souls of babies are waiting to be born. What follows is infuriating drivel, a film advocating eugenics and equating abortion with murder, The Birth of a Nation with reproductive rights instead of racism.

Joan the Woman (Cecil B. DeMille): Dull, bloated and self-important- in short, your average biopic, a genre of films apparently doomed from the start. This one also has the bonus of a nonsensical framing device. [**]

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (Christy Cabanne, John Emerson) Hilarious Sherlock Holmes parody, with some sight gags that rival Chaplin's best so far. Fairbanks is pretty amazing, eliciting comedy both in facial expressions and body language; he plays 'drug addict' quite unlike anything I'd seen before (was cocaine legal back then?) Downsides are some casual racism and a number of intertitles which I felt were unnecessary. [***½]

Judex (Louis Feuillade): The story is too reliant on contrived coincidences, but thanks to Feuillade's steady formal hand, once it gets to its set-pieces it delivers thrilling action or drama in turns. There are some truly striking images and sequences (the one below, the repeated action of the boat going to-and-from the ship and later Cocantin's girlfriend swimming towards it while he despairs in the foreground). It kinda lags in the middle (and I would even say it's visually underwhelming for some stretches), but the first few and especially the last few episodes are the best I've seen from Feuillade. [***½]

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad271/PTA-Dre/TheMysteriousShadow.png





My top 5 of 1916:

1. The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (Cabanne, Emerson)
2. Her Sister's Rival (Bauer)
3. Police (Chaplin)
4. Judex (Feuillade)
5. Going Straight (Franklin, Franklin)

Honorable mention: Behind the Screen (Chaplin)

StanleyK
07-19-2012, 05:20 PM
The Poor Little Rich Girl (Maurice Tourneur): Other than an excessive amount of dialogue, and the noticeable subtext that being rich is somehow a bad thing (maybe a problem inherent in faitytale-like stories, where exaggeration of its elements will inevitably lead to oversimplifications or disingenuosness), this is a very fun and imaginative fable, especially the last quarter, which is an extended trip through the child's mind as she blurs reality with fantasy and how she wants things to be, helped by Tourneur's clever direction and Pickford's great performance. [***½]

Bucking Broadway (John Ford): Perhaps because of the short running time, the girl's affections flip-flop rather quickly from one lover to the other, making her come off as wishy-washy, and the main character has too little time to grieve before moving on to resignation and then dogged determination. Other than the fact that the story doesn't have much resonance, this is a pretty good movie, better than I expected. I found it more well-directed and entertaining than Stagecoach or 3 Godfathers. [***]

The Dying Swan (Yevgeni Bauer): I can't find any way to describe the story and themes or my reaction to them in any way that doesn't sound terribly cliché. Suffice to say, this is a masterpiece of love, death, obsession and ambiguity; the composition and editing are startlingly good (the scene transitions are even better than After Death, which suffered towards the end from some repetitiveness), ratcheting up the emotional intensity and the weird, ethereal feel of it all the way to the end. The only thing I can cite as a drawback is its wordiness (ironical, given that the protagonist is mute), but overall this is nothing short of a masterpiece. The ending shot is simply stunning. [****]

Teddy at the Throttle (Clarence C. Badger): Meh. [**½]

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (Marshall Neilan): An aimless film, largely without a drive or end in sight, but nevertheless consistently entertaining, if not particularly inspiring. Pickford makes this. [***]

The Merry Jail (Ernst Lubitsch): Act 1 is promising, but after that it stagnates and doesn't really end up anywhere. Still, there's some pretty funny stuff, particularly the facial expressions all around, and Lubitsch shows some ingenious framings that add to the comedy itself (I don't get what the gag is with Emil Jannings kissing all the dudes, though). [**½]

The Butcher Boy **½
The Rough House **½
His Wedding Night *½
Oh Doctor! **
Coney Island **
Despite occasionally containing some amazing feats of physical prowess, mostly courtesy of Buster Keaton, I can't really get on board with Fatty's mean-spirited brand of comedy. It's too reliant on violence, which makes them ultimately predictable and joyless, much like the early Chaplin shorts which he evolved from around this same time (Keaton, too, would go on to make much superior works).

Easy Street ****
The Cure **½
The Immigrant ***½
The Adventurer ***
Now Chaplin, now that's my shit right there. He still has occasional detours from The Tramp (The Cure and The Adventurer, in which he's respectively a drunk and a convict. They're still undeniably entertaining), but by now when he plays him, he's perfected the formula. Easy Street and The Immigrant, particularly the former, are equally effective as comedy and tragedy

A Romance of the Redwoods (Cecil B. DeMille): Once it gets going you can see what's coming next from a mile away. It would have been a lot more interesting had Pickford's character developed a Stockholm syndrome instead of the generic, poorly developed romance we get- or, as it is, if the power of love didn't save the day at the end. Pickford sure was a great actress though. Just on the strength of her three performances from this year, she may already be becoming one of my favorite actresses. [**½]

A Man There Was (Victor Sjöström): It's great. The chase in Act 3 is unbelievably tense. The climax with Terje's decision is emotionally powerful. The ending shot is perfect. [***½]



My Top 5 of 1917:

1. The Dying Swan (Bauer)
2. Easy Street (Chaplin)
3. The Poor Little Girl (Tourneur)
4. A Man There Was (Sjöström)
5. The Immigrant (Chaplin)

Raiders
07-19-2012, 05:38 PM
In fact, I'd say the most disappointing of these films is The Vagabond, because it's such a funny and touching story that I was almost tearing up at the end, but then the actual ending goes and ruins it. It would've have easily easily been my favorite and probably a masterpiece if not for that cheat of an ending.

I didn't see this when you first posted it. Interesting to read and makes me want to go back and re-watch. It is my favorite Chaplin film actually, for the reasons you describe (its his best combo of funny/sad and for me even more affecting than City Lights). I think the ending is not really much of a cheat, though it is worth noting that Chaplin originally wanted to end the film with a comic suicide (he throws himself in the river at the loss, is rescued by Phyllis Allen and looking at her, commits suicide again) but chose against it for a more traditional ending though as some have noted, it is worth mentioning Chaplin has Purviance have him come to her instead of the traditional gender roles (I got all this from Joyce Milton's Tramp book).

StanleyK
07-25-2012, 04:03 PM
I didn't see this when you first posted it. Interesting to read and makes me want to go back and re-watch. It is my favorite Chaplin film actually, for the reasons you describe (its his best combo of funny/sad and for me even more affecting than City Lights). I think the ending is not really much of a cheat, though it is worth noting that Chaplin originally wanted to end the film with a comic suicide (he throws himself in the river at the loss, is rescued by Phyllis Allen and looking at her, commits suicide again) but chose against it for a more traditional ending though as some have noted, it is worth mentioning Chaplin has Purviance have him come to her instead of the traditional gender roles (I got all this from Joyce Milton's Tramp book).

That sounds like a better ending, but really I wish it has just finished with the girl being driven away. I think I would've cried like a baby were that the case. The ending as is feels like it was tacked on after the fact because they were afraid the audience would walk out feeling bummed out. In retrospect, though, I'm probably undervaluing the whole thing. If it inspired such a strong emotional reaction from me in the first place, it was clearly doing something very right.

Mysterious Dude
08-23-2012, 03:00 AM
I just watched Sunrise for the first time in several years. It's funny, I did not remember that the man and woman had a young child. Seems kinda important, but it's barely mentioned throughout the film.

- Sell your farm...come with me to the City
- ...and my wife?
- Couldn't she get drowned?

Okay, but there's still the kid!

I've become rather nitpicky lately. I think Mike Stoklasa is to blame.

Dead & Messed Up
08-23-2012, 03:14 AM
I just watched Sunrise for the first time in several years. It's funny, I did not remember that the man and woman had a young child. Seems kinda important, but it's barely mentioned throughout the film.

- Sell your farm...come with me to the City
- ...and my wife?
- Couldn't she get drowned?

Okay, but there's still the kid!

I've become rather nitpicky lately. I think Mike Stoklasa is to blame.

:lol:

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/yellow_moth/9858134/43446/original.png

"Why reconcile with him after he just tried to murder you?...isn't that something no one with a brain would do?"

ledfloyd
08-23-2012, 03:37 AM
i quite liked hell's hinges and wrote about it here. (http://ledfloyd18.wordpress.com/tag/hells-hinges/)

i've been on quite the keaton kick lately. i've recently watched the scarecrow, go west, seven chances, our hospitality, and the navigator. while rewatching steamboat bill jr and sherlock jr. it's made me want to watch more silent film, so hopefully i'll be chiming in here more frequently.

StanleyK
08-23-2012, 10:39 PM
i quite liked hell's hinges and wrote about it here. (http://ledfloyd18.wordpress.com/tag/hells-hinges/)

i've been on quite the keaton kick lately. i've recently watched the scarecrow, go west, seven chances, our hospitality, and the navigator. while rewatching steamboat bill jr and sherlock jr. it's made me want to watch more silent film, so hopefully i'll be chiming in here more frequently.

Just don't do what I did and start watching almost nothing but silent films for months on end. You'll get pretty sick of it eventually.

StanleyK
09-19-2012, 12:57 AM
1918:

Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (Marshall Neilan):

"Amarilly's gettin' gay with a dude!" LOL

"I can lick any kid in the alley - but I can't lick a goat!" LMAO

Anyways, mediocre movie. It feels like a slice-of-life of a pretty boring life for half its running time, but it's really all set-up for the old "poor people know how to have real fun" shit. The ending is... incongruous, to say the least. Pickford is woefully underused, but still easily the best thing about it. I guess there were a few (intentionally) funny jokes. [**½]

Mickey (F. Richard Jones, James Young): An entirely generic story (save for the last 20 minutes or so, where it got asinine in ways I couldn't see coming) that the tone-deaf comedy can't overcome. The main character's rough quirkiness, which is meant to be endearing, comes off as irritating instead. [*½]

Tarzan of the Apes (Scott Sidney): About as good as Disney's Tarzan, I guess. Not really a remarkable film either way, though there's some pretty bitchin' shots of African wildlife here and there. The expected racism towards Africans (and some unexpected towards Arabs too) sours it. [**]

Out West [**]
Good Night, Nurse! [**]
Yeah, I just don't like Fatty. Even despite some occasional good gags, the whole thing has an air of unpleasantness that makes them a chore to watch.

Just Rambling Along (Hal Roach): Early Stan Laurel short, sans Hardy. Not too bad. [**½]

A Trip to Mars (Holger-Madsen): Like The Day the Earth Stood Still in reverse, where humans go to Mars and there learn that our planet is messed up and needs reform. Unlike that film, this one is terrible. The Martians are Noble Savages with a repressed puritan's idea of a perfect and pure civilization; when there's a montage showing how bad we are in comparison, they show people - shock of shocks! - dancing, kissing and drinking. The Martians are also pretty stupid, since they say they've been studying the Earth for years, yet are surprised when the humans come packing heat and dropping fools. Their set and costume design doesn't communicate 'otherworldly' at all, it looks like a cheap historical epic. It's overall very silly and childish, inspiring no wonder or excitement. Méliès at his prime can whoop this movie's ass up and down the street. [*½]

The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay): McCay insists on putting himself in his movies so he can show us how hard it is to animate this stuff and check out how cool I look while doing it you guys. This time around he illustrates a little historical lesson meant to whip up anti-German bloodlust in the audience. Boring. It's a shame, because the animation really is great. [**½]

The Forbidden City (Sidney Franklin): For an anti-prejudice film made in the 1910's, I guess it isn't too unintenionally racist. Notice however how the only Chinese characters actually played by Chinese people are little kids. The story about the two sets of star-crossed lovers isn't very inventive but it's entertaining enough as is. It isn't quite as visually striking as Going Straight, but Franklin definitely shows a command of the form. [**½]

Stella Maris (Marshall Neilan): Neilan displays more grace, subtlety (even though you can feel the ol' sledgehammer here and there) and filmmaking ability here than I would've expected him capable of from his two other films. Despite the slight creepiness of the love triangle (at least the character's ages aren't specified), the story is pretty affecting. It's pitch-black depressing but effectively alleviated by the humor (not so much the ludicrous phonetic-accent intertitles that Neilan seems so fond of), and the ending is bittersweet and feels earned. This is also Pickford's best role yet- not only does she play two characters, but in one of them she has to emote through a layer of make-up- and she pulls it off magnificently. [***½]

Johanna Enlists (William Desmond Taylor): Reminiscent of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, with the difference that nothing interesting happens and the humor, rather than fleetingly effective, is painfully unfunny all the way through. [**]

The Outlaw and His Wife] (Victor Sjöström): It takes a long time to get interesting, but once it hits act 4 and 5, it's exactly the hardcore drama about human weakness and oppressive punishment I've come to expect from Sjöström. This one is maybe a bit too wordy (and the intertitles aren't as well-written as the ones in A Man There Was), and it suffers from some wonky editing (most likely the result of the restoration process); however, it's his best-looking movie yet, with gorgeous landscapes and compositions enhancing the storytelling. Particularly the shots of Anders lusting after the wife against the Icelandic landscape, the implied infanticide, the ending which for added impact drops out the music in favor of the howling wind. [***½]

Are Crooks Dishonest? (Gilbert Pratt): Meh. [**½]

The Blue Bird (Maurice Tourneur): I don't believe I've ever seen a fairy tale such as this, so clearly allegorical, but where the meaning is far from readily apparent, rather actually elusive. At times it's even a little confusing, but the good kid of confusing I guess. The film is also unafraid of going to some pretty grim places, like when the Tyl siblings visit their dead grandparents and ask to see all their dead little brothers and sisters. It could have used a stronger narrative linking the set-pieces, but that's more than made up by how strong those are, individual masterpieces of special effects, use of shadows and art direction. [***½]

A Dog's Life [****]
How to Make Movies [***]
Triple Trouble [***]
The Bond [**]
Shoulder Arms [***½]
Chaplin continues to own (embarrassing propaganda in The Bond aside. Shoulder Arms is funny propaganda though). A Dog's Life may be my favorite of his so far. I even liked Triple Trouble- I had no idea it was cobbled together from outtakes of his other films. Had I not learned that fact on IMDB afterwards I would have been none the wiser.



My Top 5 of 1918:

1. A Dog's Life (Chaplin)
2. Stella Maris (Neilan)
3. The Outlaw and His Wife (Sjöström)
4. Shoulder Arms (Chaplin)
5. The Blue Bird (Tourneur)

Yxklyx
09-19-2012, 08:02 PM
...
My Top 5 of 1918:

1. A Dog's Life (Chaplin)
2. Stella Maris (Neilan)
3. The Outlaw and His Wife (Sjöström)
4. Shoulder Arms (Chaplin)
5. The Blue Bird (Tourneur)

Love your comments. I prefer the Blue Bird over Stella Maris - haven't seen the others.

You've not see Lubitsch's I Don't Want to Be a Man?

StanleyK
09-19-2012, 11:12 PM
Love your comments. I prefer the Blue Bird over Stella Maris - haven't seen the others.

You've not see Lubitsch's I Don't Want to Be a Man?

Thanks. And, unfortunately, I Don't Want to Be a Man is one of a number of films from this period that I would like to watch but am unable to find. That includes all of Lubitsch's movies from 1919, and stuff like J'Accuse and Victory.

dreamdead
09-01-2013, 12:28 PM
The 1929 film Piccadilly is culturally fascinating. Anna May Wong essentially plays a stereotype of a Chinese femme fatale and is thus properly punished for her transgressions, but there's such a sense of vitality and modernity to her acting and expressions that she ultimately subverts the staid conventions and ideology that this film makes about miscegenation. Certainly the film makes known its ideas when the film earlier shows a white woman cavort with a black man at a dance club only to be separated because the owner will not tolerate such impropriety. And the film certainly suggests that the Asians destroy each other wantonly in order to get ahead or because they're heartbroken. But there's a very real performativity that Wong taps into, suggesting that much of her actions are calculated to prey upon a mainstream culture's idea of Orientalism, and it's an Orientalism that she determines and self-fashions.

Really intriguing as a historical record and for Wong's performance alone.

Dukefrukem
03-21-2016, 08:15 PM
I was trying to knock off some of these this week on the 1001 Movies to see before you die list. I was blown away to see that some were 4-7 hours long.

Mysterious Dude
03-22-2016, 03:52 PM
I was just thinking about this thread. Four years ago, I made about a post here about the DVD's I rented to see movies from the 1910's; now almost all of those movies can be found on YouTube.

I just signed up for Fandor, and I can't recommend it highly enough to fans of silent films. It seems like Netflix has gotten rid of almost all of the silent films they once had, but Fandor has hundreds of them.

Dukefrukem
03-22-2016, 06:05 PM
Yeh youtube is where I've been watching most of them. Are they public domain? Is that why it's allowed?