All Movie Guide
The French silent film La Chute de la Maison Usher is adapted from Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher. Director Jean Epstein studiously avoids cheap shocks in this tale of hereditary madness, choosing instead a tightly controlled, spookily subtle technique. The hero, having indirectly caused the death of his beloved, stubbornly tries to resurrect her spirit by devoting himself to painting and sculpture. Epstein conveys the twilight zone between life and death with lingering dissolves and brilliant utilization of slow motion. The production design of La Chute de la Maison Usher, together with the earlier Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, obviously inspired the "look" of Robert Florey's 1932 Poe derivation Murders in the Rue Morgue. Hal Erickson
All Movie Guide
Before becoming a silent screen star, Marguerite Clark played Snow White on the stage, and Famous Players eventually had her do this screen version. It's the classic Grimm fairy tale, with a few additions (at one point Santa Claus makes an appearance!): The evil Queen (Dorothy G. Cumming) wants Snow White (Clark) dead when Prince Florimund (Creighton Hale) falls in love with her. Berthold the huntsman (Lionel Braham), her supposed killer, instead spirits her off to the forest where she finds the home of the seven dwarfs. The Queen, discovering the job hasn't been done, makes a couple of attempts to poison her, both of which are unsuccessful. The Prince gets Snow White, and the Queen's magic mirror is smashed, reducing her to the ugly hag she really was all along. Famous Players put a lot of effort into this production and released it Christmas week of 1916, but reviews were mixed. It took a couple of decades and an animated version by Walt Disney for the real charm of this fairy tale to reach the screen. Janiss Garza
All Movie Guide
Toll of the Sea, a tragic tale of the Orient, was only the second feature film in which a color film process invented by Technicolor was used throughout (and was the first to use their subtractive two-color process). It stars the stunningly beautiful Anna May Wong as Lotus Flower, a Chinese girl who finds an American sailor washed up on the shore. The sailor, Allen Carver (Kenneth Harlan), professes to love her and they marry. He goes back out to the sea and Lotus Flower has a baby. But Carver is a faithless man, and he returns to China with an American wife, Barbara (Beatrice Bentley). Lotus Flower is devastated. She hands the baby over to Barbara and then "pays her debt to the sea" by throwing herself into it and drowning. Barbara adopts the child, as per Lotus Flower's last wishes. If this story seems to bear some similarities to Madame Butterfly, scenarist Frances Marion didn't exactly deny it. In fact, she later said it was "practically the step-daughter of Madame Butterfly." Despite its lack of an original story, Technicolor made it a success. But the process was so complicated -- in those days, the blue-greens were photographed on one strip of film, and orange-reds on another, to be glued together later -- that it took many more years and innovations before color was commonly used. Janiss Garza
All Movie Guide
Filmed in April 1893 at Thomas Edison's New Jersey studios, the 30-second Blacksmithing Scene is the earliest known example of "actors" performing a role in a film. The three men shown were not blacksmiths, but rather Edison employees playing the parts of blacksmiths. Despite its brevity the film has a plot of sorts, as the men tire and take a brief break to drink some beer. ~ All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
Every bit as cool, or maybe more so, to the audiences of 1909 as The Matrix is to the modern moviegoer, Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy still has the power to surprise and delight. Nearly every shot in the film is a special effect of one sort or another. The nominal plot consists of the Smoker (Paul Panzer) falling asleep, only to have his rest disturbed by two tiny visitors. This provides a framework for the special effects. We see the Smoker asleep in his chair and the fairies emerge onto the table near him. Many of the shots are designed to show the diminutive fairies contrasted against and interacting with much larger objects. The innovative techniques of Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy were celebrated in scientific journals and thus were made available to others experimenting with filmed visual tricks. A part of what's fun about Princess Nicotine today is to watch and try to figure out how the amazing shots were created while limited to early cinematic technology. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
Released in 1912 amidst numerous 50th anniversary commemorations of the U.S. Civil War, The Confederate Ironclad is similar to Pearl Harbor and other "blockbuster" type historical films in that it emphasizes explosions and romance over accuracy and insight. Carefully designed to appease both Northern and Southern audiences, the film tells the story of two brave women, one a Southern sweetheart (Miriam Cooper) and the other a Northern spy (Anna Q. Nilsson), who struggle to outwit each other against the backdrop of runaway trains and powerful warships. One of many Civil War-themed films shot by Kalem at their Jacksonville, FL, facilities, it's easy to spot such location artifacts as Spanish moss hanging from trees along the battlefront. An interesting point to look for is the animation-assisted explosion that occurs during the train fight sequence. Even by 1912 standards it's not very good, detracting from the film's otherwise adequate sense of spectacle. The Confederate Ironclad is notable as one of the first films to have a musical accompaniment score composed specifically for use by local silent movie house pianists. (Local movie houses received copies of the sheet music along with the film.) ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
This simple and very effective melodramatic short film The Lonedale Operator was a landmark in its day; in fact, today it is still a fine example of intercutting from one scene to another to build up to an exciting climax. In 1911, director D.W. Griffith was changing the face of filmmaking by his skilled use of this technique. The Lonedale Operator is also an example of excellent storytelling. In a few charming scenes we are introduced to the girl (Blanche Sweet) and her sweetheart, a railroad engineer (Francis J. Grandon). The girl's father is the operator at the Lonedale station, and when he becomes sick his daughter takes over for him. Because of a big payroll shipment, the girl finds herself in charge of a large suitcase full of money. A pair of hobos see the lone girl as easy prey and attempt to break into the station. In a panic, the girl telegraphs for help but the operator on the other end is dozing. When the word finally gets out, her engineer sweetheart takes his train to her rescue. In a series of short cuts, we see the panicked girl, the hobos breaking through the door, the train rushing along, and the scenery flying by. By the time the engineer arrives, the girl is holding off the would-be bandits with what appears to be a gun, but which is really a small monkey wrench. It's worth noting that Sweet was an inspired choice for this role: She's not fluttery and fragile, like many of Griffith's favorite actresses. Instead, she creates the strong presence of a young girl who is able to take care of herself. Janiss Garza
All Movie Guide
In the Vitagraph "Bunnyfinch" film Her Crowning Glory, comedian John Bunny plays a widower with an unruly child. Bunny views the little girl's rowdy behavior as more playful than annoying; not so his sister, who find the child's irrepressible antics unbearable. She insists that her brother hire a governess (Flora Finch) who has a reputation for meting out stern discipline. The governess proceeds to make the little girl's life miserable, and doesn't win any favor with her nurse, either. However, she wins the heart of the widower who ultimately proposes to her, proclaiming that her beautiful mass of long, dark hair was what made him notice her in the first place. The nurse overhears Bunny's declaration and takes note. The day before the wedding, while the governess is dozing in a chair, she sends the little girl over with a pair of scissors. The child cuts off all the woman's hair, and when the widower sees how homely she really is ("Her one beauty gone," the title card wryly notes), the wedding's off. The governess is sent packing, and the child, the nurse, and the widower are a happy family once again. Janiss Garza
All Movie Guide
Little Martin Fuller stars in Land Beyond Sunset, a rare, surviving Edison Company one-reeler, which has been re-released on DVD as part of the Treasures from Film Archives project. A poor newsboy, mistreated by his greedy grandmother (Mrs. William Bechtel), little Joe is awarded the opportunity to visit the seaside with the Fresh Air Foundation. Told a fairy tale about a young prince who is saved from an evil witch by a Good Fairy (Ethel Jewett), the boy stays behind when the group departs to live out the fantasy, thus escaping a life filled with abuse. Bigelow Cooper plays the minister and among the welfare committee women are Gladys Du Pell and Elizabeth Butler. Hans J. Wollstein
All Movie Guide
This unusual home DVD collection brings together a number of rare, historically priceless silent films that were rescued from oblivion through the efforts of America's National Film Preservation Foundation, a non-profit organization working in cooperation with the nation's leading motion picture archives. Highlights of this set include an early William S. Hart feature, Hell's Hinges; a 1916 screen adaptation of Snow White; The Toll of the Sea, an Anna May Wong vehicle shot in an early color process; D.W. Griffith's The Lonedale Operator; Jean Epstein's surreal silent adaptation of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher; assorted short films featuring John Huston and Groucho Marx; and a light comedy that probably wouldn't get made these days, Princess Nicotine, or The Smoke Fairy. Newly recorded musical scores have been prepared for all the films in this set. The set includes four discs plus an accompanying 150-page booklet.
Mark Deming
loading...
© 2009 All Media Guide, LLC