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Friday, October 15, 2010

Tickets

A Cheap Seat is offering tickets at a deep discount. Upcoming events include Roger Waters, Ozzy Osbourne, Carrie Underwood, and Lady Gaga (ST. PETE TIMES FORUM TICKETS).

Not only does the site offer discounted tickets to concerts, but also to sports events, theatre shows, and circuses. One such event is the ACC Men's Football Championship (ACC Mens Football Championship Tickets).

Venues nationwide are included in the offer, including Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. (VERIZON CENTER TICKETS).

Enjoy your show!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

More silents!

I just discovered that the British Film Institute has its own channel on YouTube. The name is BFIfilms.

Some fascinating things here, such as Anny Ondra's sound test for Hitchcock's (and Britain's) first sound film, Blackmail. Footage of the construction of the Olympic, sister ship to the Titanic. Footage of London, pre-WWII.

Take a look!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

This year's Giornate

I couldn't make it to Le Giornate del Cinema Muto this year, and I'm heartbroken. The program is rich and varied, as I saw from checking the website:

http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/giornate/questa_edizione.html

The Giornate has been suffering from budget cuts; this year, the admission fee had to be increased. It's still worth it. Where else can you find such marvelous treasures, eight days' worth, available to you?

Silent film historian Kevin Brownlow attends the Giornate every year. This year, as I blogged earlier, he is receiving an honorary Oscar for his work in getting silent films restored. Maybe more attention will be focused on this field, keeping the silents alive for all of us.

I hope it's a good one. And I am determined to make it next year!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Oscar time!

I get good and tired of watching Oscars being handed out to blandly pretty faces with no talent behind them. I haven't even watched the ceremony in years.

However, I would LOVE to see the recipients on November 13. One of them is film historian Kevin Brownlow, who has finally been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his unceasing efforts to have classic films restored.

Brownlow is also the author of The Parade's Gone By, a work on silent film, and has made a number of documentaries of such luminaries as Buster Keaton and Mary Pickford.

Finally, FINALLY, his fine work has earned him a statuette. Read this, Hollywood; his work. Not a talentless botoxed surgery-laden face and anorexic body. His dedication to film, his achievements in having major films restored, and his success in bringing them to the public eye.

A job well done.

Monday, July 5, 2010

San Francisco Silent Film Festival

This festival is coming soon. To take a look at the offerings this year, go to: http://www.silentfilm.org/index.php

Friday, June 18, 2010

Return of the silents

New Zealand is returning a LARGE collection of American silent films to the United States:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/movies/07silent.html

Here's hoping that these films are in, at least, relatively good shape, and can be viewed by us soon.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

The Cheat

I found this to be a very interesting film, despite Fannie Ward's over-the-top arm gestures and horrified eyes.

Ward plays a married woman who lives to be seen and admired; we first see her out shopping for clothes and arguing with her husband that she simply won't give up her way of life - which includes not only shopping for horrendously expensive clothes, but keeping company, as they used to say, with an ivory baron (played by Sessue Hayakawa).

This is one of the things that intrigued me - the movie was made in 1915, and a high-society woman is associating with a man of a different race. I'm sure she wouldn't do it if he weren't rich, of course, but the same can be said of many Caucasian men. Even more intriguing, the film was re-released in 1918, and the Hayakawa character was changed from Japanese (as he was in the original) to Burmese.

Why? Because Japanese-Americans objected to the way a Japanese man was portrayed in the film.

This was the same time The Birth of a Nation was raising hell due to its almost unbelievable racism, with a fledgling organization called the NAACP protesting mightily - and with the fullest justification - against the way the black characters were shown.

That's what interests me, apart from the technical aspects of both movies. They both showed non-Caucasian characters in an unfavorable light, and they both received criticism for it. In 1915. Long before the civil rights movement; when the States were still segregated. Even then, there were organizations setting the stage for reform.

Back to the movie, it had some fascinating lighting techniques that Griffith never used, but then, it's not Griffith; it's DeMille. The two leads are a bit much, especially Ward, but Hayakawa is perfect and perfectly cast. Ward and Jack Dean, who played her hard-working husband, were married offscreen the following year; they remained married until his death in 1950. Ward and Dean join the ranks of the Forever Silent, neither of them ever having made a talkie film.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Hill Park Mystery

I saw this Danish movie at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy, a few years ago. The movie, fortunately, had English titles; not only that, but the names of the characters were also English, as if Copenhagen could be mistaken easily for London.

I love it. It's the same old plot of a reporter getting mixed up in a crime, but in this case, the story is a comedy. Our Hero is no damn good at staying out of trouble, and he's equally inept at keeping a low profile. The comedy really works here, and shows us how funny a movie can be with images rather than words.

I'm glad to be able to inform anyone who's reading this that it's available on DVD:

http://www.edition-filmmuseum.com/product_info.php/info/p29_A-W--Sandberg--Der-goldene-Clown---Zerr-ttete-Nerven.html

For some reason, the link option isn't working here, so I have to post the URL without it.

The other movie on the DVD is one that I haven't seen, but if it has the same standard as The Hill Park Mystery, then I,for one, have no problems owning it. I haven't bought it myself; it's still on my wish list.

If anyone out there does buy it, will you tell me your thoughts on the other movie?

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Lumiere

It's almost too perfect that the Lumiere Brothers got into filmmaking in the very early years. Lumiere is French for "light", an essential quality in creating a photograph or moving picture.

I found a few of their shorts on YouTube today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nj0vEO4Q6s&feature=related

I love watching these candid views. You aren't looking at pumped-up, undernourished, botoxed, surgically altered, overly-tanned mannequins dressed up (in modern fabrics sewn by modern machines) to look like the people of 1895. You're looking at 1895 as it really was. A train pulls into a station, and people get on it. A boat arrives at a dock, and the passengers disembark, with some of the men smiling and tipping their straw hats to the camera. A group of men sit at an outdoor table, having drinks. A young boy plays a trick on a man who is watering his garden.

These are the images of 115 years ago, before World War I blasted that sort of life away forever.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Comic influences



No, this isn't about humor. It's about silent actors/characters who have influenced comics. I was surprised to find that silent film still has this kind of influence on popular culture, though most people don't know it.

The character of Superman was based on two wildly popular performers of silent cinema. Harold Lloyd - more specifically, his "Glasses" character - was the inspiration for the character of Clark Kent. The physique of Superman was modeled on the astoundingly fit Douglas Fairbanks.

Silent and sound actor Jack Holt provided the features for Dick Tracy.

ZaSu Pitts was lampooned by voice talent Mae Questel in the character of Olive Oyl; Pitts's nervous, "oh dear" mannerisms were used to great effect.

One of the most surprising, for me, is Conrad Veidt, as Gwynplaine from The Man Who Laughs. This sympathetic 17th-century character, who has had his mouth deliberately carved into a permanent smile by his father's enemies and who is forced to work in a traveling show, provided the look for a famous villain. Let's see - who could that villain have been?

Take a look above.

In case you still don't know - and I admit, the image could show more of his face - the character is the Joker, from the Batman series.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Silent images

The post about silent-movie action figures got me thinking.

When I look for posters of famous silent movies, I find reprints of the originals. This is all well and good, but I'd also like to see images that look more realistic, and softer, rather than the hard-edged drawings that I usually find.

Yes, I know; that's how they did it back then. But we can do more, I think. Why not create posters showing some of the classic images of silent movies, uncluttered by titles? And how about just showing one
image in the posters, rather than a montage?

Is there anything to prevent it? I'd like to know.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Metropolis

This is one that has had us all peeing ourselves with joy since we heard the news last year; the silent film usergroup I belong to had post after post after post about it. It didn't have the staying power of the "Silent Hotties" thread, but a lot of excitement ensued.

This year's Berlin Film Festival is showing the newly-restored Metropolis for FREE at the Brandenburg Gate. Now I am jealous. I thought it would be a ticketed event that would sell out sometime last year.

Nope, it's open to the public - well, as much of the public as can see over each other's heads, anyway.

More information here.

Now, the question is: When are we going to see the full version on video?

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Action figures

Why don't we have more of these?

I discovered a wonderful action figure of Lon Chaney from the famous (and, sadly, lost) film London After Midnight. You can also get figures of him as Erik in Phantom of the Opera and as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I did find, much to my delight, a series called Silent Screamers Action Figures. These gems include the Frankenstein monster from Edison's 1910 version of the classic tale (in which Charles Ogle played the monster) and Count Orlok from Murnau's classic Nosferatu.

These figures were all sold out at the website I checked. But they're sold all over the place.

How about some other figures?

- John Gilbert and Lillian Gish in La Boheme

- Valentino and Agnes Ayres in The Sheik

- Buster Keaton and Brown Eyes in Go West

- Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston in Girl Shy

- Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky in any of their movies

- Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish in Way Down East

- Wallace Reid and Gloria Swanson in The Affairs of Anatol

- George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor in Sunrise

Come on, people! Get with it! Make some!

EDITED: It seems that my blog IS being read; someone has answered this post! Click on "comments" below to read it.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Silents on DVD

I came across a nifty little site for buying DVDs of silent movies. It links together several different sites I'd never heard of, and a few I had, such as Kino International, purveyors of many fine films (but not enough silent movies, folks; sad, but true).

I discovered - joy! joy! joy! - that Hearts of the World can indeed be purchased on DVD! I'd only found it on VHS, on Amazon. This particular gem is available from the French company Bach Films. Be warned, though; their website is all in French, so if you don't speak it, find a friend who can translate for you. I will give you some help here:

Hearts of the World - Les Coeurs du Monde

The Avenging Conscience - La Conscience Vengeresse

Way Down East - A Travers L'Orage

The Shock - La Terre a Tremble

The Penalty - Satan

As far as ordering the DVDs is concerned, I'm afraid you're on your own. Brush up on your French!

The Charles Farrell/Mary Duncan drama The River is also available, from an Austrian company. Drool. Drool.

Enjoy!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Arthur Johnson

Johnson is another in the "forever silent" category. According to the IMDb, he made his first movie in 1905. He would die of tuberculosis eleven years later, just shy of his fortieth birthday.

I just watched a short feature he made in 1909, directed by none other than D.W. Griffith. There is some of the posturing that was a trademark of those early films - arms flung wide, fists pressed to foreheads - but the actors are all very watchable.

The story's a bit lame; violin teacher falls for his rich pupil, then almost immediately joins a group of anarchists (Down with the Rich!) when she rejects him. When he discovers he's been sent to blow up her house, he regrets his hasty action and saves the day.

In her autobiography, Lillian Gish claimed that Griffith "discovered" Johnson, which may well have been true. Bobby Harron, for one,got his start first as a message boy, then as an actor, at Biograph. Johnson, however, never reached the fame of his fellow actors - certainly not the enduring fame of Lillian Gish, not the fleeting fame (and later, constant character roles) of Henry B. Walthall, and not the fame cut short of Bobby Harron.

The IMDb lists his final films as being directed by Johnson, as well as starring him; the production company was the "Lubin Manufacturing Company", which is a new one on me.

What intrigues me about this actor is not only that he died before the advent of sound, but that he didn't achieve any type of fame - at least, nothing that has lasted. Was it his health? Possibly. Tuberculosis is a particularly nasty disease. He wasn't lacking in the looks department, and if he improved his acting style, then I can see him being a very effective leading man, as was the younger Walthall.

Maybe we'll never know.

Click here to see one of his films.