MC Yearly Consensus - 1924/25

[Spinal]

Submit your five favorite films from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten. IMDb dates will be used.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-5 points
2nd Place-4 points
3rd Place-3.5 points
4th Place-3 points
5th Place-2.5 points

There will be no restrictions on short films. A minimum of three films must be listed. You may edit your post freely up until the time that the thread is locked, which will be in about a week. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

You may begin now.

IMDB Power Search (http://www.imdb.com/list)

[Spinal]

1. Seven Chances
2. The Last Laugh
3. Sherlock Jr.
4. Battleship Potemkin
5. The Thief of Bagdad

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Cirano di Bergerac
2. Strike
3. Kriemhild's Revenge
4. Sherlock, Jr.
5. Battleship Potemkin

I should probably watch Greed again some day.

[soitgoes...]

1. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton)
2. The Last Laugh (F. W. Murnau)
3. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin)
4. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
5. Paris qui dort (René Clair)
-------------------------------------------------------
6. The Freshman (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)
7. The Iron Horse (John Ford)
8. Entr'acte (René Clair)
9. The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian)
10. Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)

[Russ]

1. Seven Chances
2. Sherlock, Jr.
3. The Gold Rush
4. Girl Shy
5. The Phantom of the Opera

[Derek]

1. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton)
2. Greed (Erich von Stroheim)
3. The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau)
4. The Big Parade (King Vidor)
5. Entr'Acte (Rene Clair)
************************
6. The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin)
7. Ballet Mécanique (Fernand Leger & Dudley Murphy)
8. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein)
9. Seven Chances (Buster Keaton)
10. Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)

HM: Die Nibelungen: Siegfried (Fritz Lang)

Despite the presence of Metropolis and Sunrise, I think this is a more solid two years than '26-'27.

[origami_mustache]

1. He Who Gets Slapped
2. Entr'acte
3. Battleship Potemkin
4. The Gold Rush
5. Greed

hm:
Paris qui dort
Ballet Mécanique
The Freshman

need to see more Keaton

[Yxklyx]

1. Seven Chances (Buster Keaton)
2. Strike (Sergei M. Eisenstein)
3. Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)
4. Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton)
5. Faces of Children (Jacques Feyder)

6. The Marriage Circle (Ernst Lubitsch)
7. The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene)
8. The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian)
9. The Navigator (Donald Crisp & Buster Keaton)
10. The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau)

[Philosophe_rouge]

1. Paris qui dort
2. The Gold Rush (USA, Charles Chaplin)
3. Greed (USA, Erich Von Stroheim)
4. The Last Laugh (Germany, F.W. Murnau)
5. Battleship Potemkin (Soviet Union, Sergei Eisenstein)

[Grouchy]

1. The Gold Rush
2. Battleship Potemkin
3. The Phantom of the Opera

[Boner M]

1. Seven Chances
2. Sherlock Jr
3. Master of the House
4. The Gold Rush
5. The Thief of Bagdad

[Ezee E]

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. Greed (no idea which version I saw though)
3. Thief of Baghdad
4. Battleship Potemkin
5. The Navigator

[monolith94]

1. The Thief of Bagdad
2. The Gold Rush
3. Battleship Potemkin
4. Girl Shy
5. Sherlock Jr.


6. Strike
7. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
8. The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks
9. Seven Chances
10. Hot Water

Honorable mentions: Don Q, Son Of Zorro; Greed

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. Seven Chances
2. The Last Laugh
3. The Gold Rush
4. Battleship Potemkin
5. Phantom of the Opera

6. Sherlock Jr.

[Qrazy]

1. The Gold Rush
2. Sherlock Jr.
3. Battleship Potemkin
4. Strike
5. Ballet Mécanique

[Raiders]

1. Sherlock, Jr.
2. The Last Laugh
3. The Gold Rush
4. Greed
5. Battleship Potemkin

[origami_mustache]

more people need to see He Who Gets Slapped...

http://bp1.blogger.com/_Wd8gCUw8E7w/RtzNUtJp6SI/AAAAAAAAAVI/bktzs-gC40k/s320/he+who+1.jpg

[Qrazy]

more people need to see He Who Gets Slapped...

Yeah, I need to get on Victor Sjostrom in general.

[baby doll]

1. Die Nibelungen (Fritz Lang, 1924)
2. Sherlock, Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
3. Greed (Erich von Stroheim, 1924)
4. The Navigator (Donald Crisp and Buster Keaton, 1924)
5. Michael (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1924)

[Boner M]

Has anyone seen Dreyer's Master of the House? I rented it today.

[koji]

The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau)
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
Strike(Eisenstein)
Seven Chances (Keaton)

[Boner M]

Has anyone seen Dreyer's Master of the House? I rented it today.
...and watched it today. Really dull at first, and barely indicative of Dreyer's talents, but builds and builds to a deeply affecting climax. Worth seeking out.

[monolith94]

So is what you're saying that you'd give the gold rush and the thief of bagdad scores less than 73?

My goodness.

[Boner M]

So is what you're saying that you'd give the gold rush and the thief of bagdad scores less than 73?

My goodness.
It's been over five years since I've seen both, so all that I can remember is that I liked them. And hey, 70-75 is a damn good score on my new scale (I might not look too discriminating at the moment, but my festivalgoing has been exceptionally good so far).

[monolith94]

See, I work in schools, where a 70-75 woud be a C, and a C is just average. That's how I score movies, personally, like as if I were grading a paper.

[BirdsAteMyFace]

1. Sherlock, Jr.
2. The Gold Rush
3. Battleship Potemkin

[Melville]

1. The Gold Rush
2. Battleship Potemkin
3. Girl Shy
4. Strike
5. Greed

[Spinal]

You have one more day to vote.

[dreamdead]

1. Sherlock Jr.
2. The Last Laugh
3. The Gold Rush
4. Battleship Potemkin

[Spinal]

Last call. Counting starting shortly.

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/chaney705.jpg

The Phantom of the Opera

Director: Rupert Julian

Country: USA

At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer and forces her to give up her role to the unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this 'phantom' in the catacombs, where he lives.

Lon Chaney devised his own make-up. It was designed to resemble a skull. Chaney attached a strip of fish skin (a thin, translucent material) to his nostrils with spirit gum, pulled it back until he got the tilt he wanted, then attached the other end of the fish skin under his bald cap. The film was re-released in sound in 1929. Approximately 40% of the film was re-shot in synchronous sound and the rest had a music/sound track added or was dubbed over.

"[The Phantom of the Opera] lets the drama of Gaston Leroux's novel play out on exaggerated sets inspired by German Expressionism, but seemingly projected from the villain's twisted psyche. The atmosphere matches Chaney's performance perfectly. His grotesque appearance is achieved with wires, cotton balls, and eye-dilating chemicals, but his character, as usual, is animated from within." - Keith Phipps

[Spinal]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Annex-LloydHaroldGirlShy_03.jpg

Girl Shy

Director: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor

Country: USA

A shy, stuttering bachelor works in a tailor shop. On the side, he is writing a guide book for other bashful young men, The Secret of Making Love, chapters from which are portrayed as fantasy sequences. He meets a rich girl, and they fall in love. But she is about to wed another man.

Many of the exterior shots were filmed on Harold Lloyd's massive estate, GreenAcres, in Beverly Hills. Some of the traveling shots with horses had a strong influence on MGM's Ben Hur the following year, and the famous final scene at the chapel had a stronger influence almost 60 years later on another MGM film, The Graduate.

"Girl Shy has a special charm and a good amount of it is due to the chemistry between the star and Ralston. This was only her second picture with Lloyd, but she already works well with him ... Ralston effectively combined a pretty face with an underlying sexuality that made her a great foil for Lloyd." - Janiss Garza

[Spinal]

#8

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/FairbanksSrDouglasThiefofBagda dThe_.jpg

The Thief of Bagdad

Director: Raoul Walsh

Country: USA

A thief falls in love with the Caliph of Bagdad's daughter. The Caliph will give her hand to the suitor that brings back the rarest treasure after seven moons. The thief sets off on a magical journey while, unbeknownst to him, another suitor, the Prince of the Mongols, is not playing by the rules.

The Persian Prince is played by Mathilde Comont, a female. In some prints, Mathilde Comont is credited as M. Comont to keep her sex a secret. Douglas Fairbanks was inspired to make this film by an episode in Paul Leni's German film Das Wachsfigurenkabinett.

"Its lavish and evocative orchestral score matches Raoul Walsh's vigorous direction and the eye-poppingly inventive matte effects, which pack nearly every frame with incidental wonder. As for Fairbanks ... he's a live wire. More doughy and goggle-eyed than movie-star handsome, Fairbanks made up for his plainness by hopping around sets with the exuberance and creativity of a young Jackie Chan." - Noel Murray

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/russia-strike.jpg

Strike

Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Country: Soviet Union

Laborers at a locomotive factory go on strike to protest harsh working conditions. Management rejects their demands and decides to break the strike by any means necessary.

Eisenstein's first full-length feature film. Famous for its use of cross-cutting between attempts to squelch the strike and imagery depicting slaughtered cattle. Animal metaphors are used in other places for the condition of various individuals.

"His later, more famous films do not match it for scope (it details a whole town and culture); it outstrips them in terms of cinematic invention, and the artistry of the compositions is exhilarating. A shot of factory workers is filmed upside down reflected from a puddle and played backwards and it works!" - Paul Sutton

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sjff_01_img0208.jpg

Greed

Director: Erich von Stroheim

Country: USA

Miner-turned-dentist McTeague wins young Trina away from her cousin Marcus, McTeague's friend. When Trina wins five thousand dollars in a lottery, Marcus accuses McTeague of marrying her for her money. Trina becomes more and more obsessed with money, refusing to spend any of her winnings even though she and her husband are forced into dire straits.

MGM's first feature-length movie. The original version ran for 9 hours. Von Stroheim then shortened it to just over 5 hours. It was then cut again by Rex Ingram, who cut the film down to 18 reels. The final cut was performed by MGM editing department acting on orders from Irving Thalberg, who without having read the book or the script, cut the film down to 10 reels. This final version was released with a runtime of 2-1/4 hours. No copies of the earlier versions were made, and the entirety of the 32 reels that did not make the final release version were destroyed - along with all of the outtakes - so that the silver could be extracted from the film celluloid. The filming of the climax was actually shot in Death Valley in August with temperatures were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Jean Hersholt was hospitalized after he lost 27 pounds during filming.

"Definitely TV's film-culture event of the year, Turner Classic Movies' premiere of the new, quasi-restored 242-minute version of Erich Von Stroheim's notorious 1924 classic Greed is about as essential as television gets ... Despite panning-and-irising handstands, the voluminous use of stills doesn't flow with the movie; the effect is something like Ken Burns doing The Gold Rush. What we've got now is more of a piece of visual scholarship, itself a unique, invaluable, and hypnotic thing. Von Stroheim's rep, after a long dormancy, has been on the rise, and this is the best evidence of his work you'll get until someone finds those lost five hours in some Ukrainian subcellar." - Michael Atkinson

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/bk-sevenchances.jpg

Seven Chances

Director: Buster Keaton

Country: USA

A financial broker is nearly bankrupt when an attorney presents his grandfather's will leaving him seven million dollars. In order to inherit the money, he must marry before 7 pm on his 27th birthday - today!

Keaton had the project foisted upon him by producer Joseph M. Schenck, who had bought the rights to the hit Broadway show. Keaton later called it his least favorite feature and tried to keep film historian Raymond Rohauer from restoring the only known copy of the movie. Julian Eltinge was a famous female impersonator, so famous that no further explanation is needed when Keaton almost immediately emerges from the variety theater looking disconcerted after seeing the name on the poster.

"Seven Chances shows [Keaton's] style in full flower, with compact, visual storytelling and imaginative gags, many of which have as their backdrop the wide-open spaces of Los Angeles. (In 1925 it still has the raw look of a pioneer town.) The end is a tour de force ..." - Rachel Saltz

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/murnau_lastlaugh_2.jpg

The Last Laugh

Director: F.W. Murnau

Country: Germany

The experienced doorman at the Atlantic Hotel is quite proud of his position, his responsibilities, and his uniform. One night, he has to take a short rest after lugging a heavy suitcase in from the rain. Unfortunately, his manager comes by. The next day, when the doorman arrives for work, he learns that he has been replaced.

May have the first use of a hand-held camera in cinema history. Karl Freund, for the first shot, took a camera strapped to his chest and rode across the hotel lobby on a bicycle. The film only uses title cards to explain the job replacement and in the end for the epilogue; but none are ever used for dialogue. Executives pressed Murnau and writer Carl Mayer to conjure up a happy ending before the film's premiere in order to maximize its economic potential. Obviously annoyed, they created a somewhat sarcastic epilogue.

"The film would be famous just for its lack of titles, and for its lead performance by Emil Jannings, which is so effective that both Jannings and Murnau were offered Hollywood contracts and moved to America at the dawn of sound. But The Last Laugh is remarkable also for its moving camera ... It is certainly the film that made the most spectacular early use of movement, with shots that track down an elevator and out through a hotel lobby, or seemingly move through the plate-glass window of a hotel manager's office ..." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/battleship2.jpg

Battleship Potemkin

Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Country: Soviet Union

What starts as a protest strike, when the crew of the battleship Potemkin is given rotten meat for dinner, ends in a riot. The sailors raise the red flag and try to ignite revolution in their home port Odessa.

The famous Odessa steps sequence was not originally in the script, but was devised during production. Charles Chaplin said it was his favorite movie. The film was rejected for a UK cinema certificate in 1926 by the BBFC following fears of working class insurrection, and remained banned until January 1954 when it was finally released with an X certificate.

"Great as it undoubtedly is, it's not really a likable film; it's amazing, though--it keeps its freshness and its excitement, even if you resist its cartoon message. Perhaps no other movie has ever had such graphic strength in its images, and the young director Sergei Eisenstein opened up a new technique of psychological stimulation by means of rhythmic editing ... The Odessa Steps sequence, the most celebrated single sequence in film history, has been imitated in one way or another in countless television news programs and movies with crowd scenes; it has also been parodied endlessly. And yet the power of the original is undiminished." - Pauline Kael

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/gc-sign-725538.png

The Gold Rush

Director: Charles Chaplin

Country: USA

It is in the middle of the Gold Rush. A lone prospector searches the tundra for gold. But he finds more than gold; he finds love, and an adventure that forever changes the lives of the people he meets.

Earned two Academy Award nominations (1943 ceremony) for Best Sound and Best Original Score. The only Chaplin silent comedy in which he began to shoot with a story fully worked out. Originally a stagehand wore the chicken suit from Jim's hallucination. But when he couldn't mime Chaplin's walk and mannerisms, Chaplin himself donned the suit.

"Mr. Chaplin's acting in this film is more sympathetic than in any of his other productions ... He does not lose a single opportunity to impress a situation upon the audience. It may only be the raising of an eyebrow, the touching of his little derby, or the longing look at the girl ... Here is a comedy with streaks of poetry, pathos, tenderness, linked with brusqueness and boisterousness. It is the outstanding gem of all Chaplin's pictures ..." - Mordaunt Hall (1925)

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sherlockjr7.jpg

Sherlock Jr.

Director: Buster Keaton

Country: USA

A projectionist is studying to be a detective and is in love with a young lady. When he proposes her, his rival steals the chain watch of her father and incriminates him. The disappointed young projectionist returns to his job and while projecting the film, he dreams on being the detective of the story.

In one scene at a train station, Keaton was hanging off of a tube connected to a water basin. The water poured out and washed him on to the track, fracturing his neck nearly to the point of breaking it. This footage appears in the released film. Keaton also doubled for Ford West, the actor playing Gillette, in the scene where the motorcycle he is driving (with Keaton on the handlebars) hits a deep pothole and bucks him off.

"The whole scenario is an early meditation on the nature of cinema in life. The best reason anyone can think of why we go to the movies is to identify with some glamorous person or story, to become intimately involved with them and forget our own dreary existence for a while. Keaton has made a film about that very notion." - Jeffrey M. Anderson

[Spinal]

1. Sherlock Jr. (58)
2. The Gold Rush (50.5)
3. Battleship Potemkin (48.5)
4. The Last Laugh (31.5)
5. Seven Chances (28)
6. Greed (23)
7. Strike (17.5)
8. The Thief of Bagdad (13.5)
9. Girl Shy (13)
10. The Phantom of the Opera (8.5)

Note: Fritz Lang's two-part Nibelungen received one vote as a whole and one vote for Kriemhild's Revenge only. Combined these votes would have totaled 8.5 points.

[Raiders]

Huzzah.

[dreamdead]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Annex-LloydHaroldGirlShy_03.jpg


HAWT.

I will be viewing this film now because of this screenshot. I feel a little dirty inside.

[monolith94]

I think we came up with a very solid bunch of movies. Although I can't speak for 4 and 10, but I'm sure they're fine.

[Spinal]

I think we came up with a very solid bunch of movies. Although I can't speak for 4 and 10, but I'm sure they're fine.

4, yes.

10 ... there's probably something better.

[soitgoes...]

I'm happy with these results.