As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***The coming of sound cost the American film industry plenty: it forced them to soundproof their stages, refit their theaters, and it rendered a fair few actors unemployable, by reason of heavy accents or lack of facility with the English language. In fact, one of the founders of 20th Century Fox was the comedy star Raymond Griffith, whose damaged vocal cords prevented him speaking above a croak, and who made the transition to writing and producing when he saw the writing on the wall. But on the other hand,...
- 3/18/2020
- MUBI
One of cinema's early comediennes, Dorothy Devore: between 1918 and 1930, the Ft. Worth-born actress was seen in nearly 100 movies, both features and shorts. Among them were 'Salvation Sue,' 'Naughty Mary Brown' and 'Saving Sister Susie,' all with frequent partner Earle Rodney. 'Comediennes of the Silent Era' & film historian Anthony Slide at the American Cinematheque Film historian and author Anthony Slide, once described by Lillian Gish as “our preeminent historian of the silent film,” will attend the American Cinematheque's 2017 Retroformat program “Comediennes of the Silent Era” on Sat., May 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the Spielberg Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. Slide will be signing copies of his book She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell (University Press of Mississippi), about the largely forgotten pioneering comedy actress of the 1910s and early 1920s. The book signing will take place at 6:30 p.
- 5/5/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Slapstick Festival | The Loco London Comedy Film Festival | Rybczynski: Exploring Space | CarnyVille
Slapstick Festival, Bristol
With Buster Keaton back in cinemas (The General is on reissue and there's a retrospective at London's BFI), it's a good time to brush up on silent comedy, and this festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has done much to spread the word, or maybe the subtitle. This year Charlie Chaplin takes his turn in the spotlight and marks the 100th anniversary of his Little Tramp incarnation, with Omid Djalili introducing an orchestra-backed screening of City Lights at Colston Hall on Friday. The seen-it-all crowd will be more intrigued by celebrations of forgotten stars such as Constance Talmadge, Raymond Griffith and Max Davidson. More up to date, Tim Vine explains why he loves Benny Hill (Watershed, 26 Jan), and Phill Jupitus asks Paul McGann and Ralph Brown about the making of Withnail & I (Bristol Old Vic, 26 Jan).
Various venues,...
Slapstick Festival, Bristol
With Buster Keaton back in cinemas (The General is on reissue and there's a retrospective at London's BFI), it's a good time to brush up on silent comedy, and this festival, celebrating its 10th anniversary, has done much to spread the word, or maybe the subtitle. This year Charlie Chaplin takes his turn in the spotlight and marks the 100th anniversary of his Little Tramp incarnation, with Omid Djalili introducing an orchestra-backed screening of City Lights at Colston Hall on Friday. The seen-it-all crowd will be more intrigued by celebrations of forgotten stars such as Constance Talmadge, Raymond Griffith and Max Davidson. More up to date, Tim Vine explains why he loves Benny Hill (Watershed, 26 Jan), and Phill Jupitus asks Paul McGann and Ralph Brown about the making of Withnail & I (Bristol Old Vic, 26 Jan).
Various venues,...
- 1/18/2014
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Claudette Colbert, Alla Nazimova, Marion Davies, Charles Boyer: Cinecon 2011 Thursday September 1 (photo: Alla Nazimova) 7:00 Hollywood Rhythm (1934) 7:10 Welcoming Remarks 7:15 Hollywood Story (1951) 77 min. Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan. Dir: William Castle. 8:35 Q & A with Julie Adams 9:10 Blazing Days (1927) 60 min. Fred Humes. Dir: William Wyler. 10:20 In The Sweet Pie And Pie (1941) 18 min 10:40 She Had To Eat (1937) 75 min. Jack Haley, Rochelle Hudson, Eugene Pallette. Friday September 2 9:00 Signing Off (1936) 9:20 Moon Over Her Shoulder (1941) 68 min. Dan Dailey, Lynn Bari, John Sutton, Alan Mowbray. 10:40 The Active Life Of Dolly Of The Dailies (1914) 15 min. Mary Fuller. 10:55 Stronger Than Death (1920) 80 min. Alla Nazimova, Charles Bryant. Dir: Herbert Blaché, Charles Bryant, Robert Z. Leonard. 12:15 Lunch Break 1:45 Open Track (1916) 2:00 On The Night Stage (1915) 60 min. William S. Hart, Rhea Mitchell. Dir: Reginald Barker. 3:15 50 Miles From Broadway (1929) 23 min 3:45 Cinerama Adventure (2002). Dir: David Strohmaier. 5:18 Discussion...
- 9/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and re-repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Code series, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...
- 8/4/2011
- MUBI
All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) Direction: Lewis Milestone Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, Russell Gleason, John Wray, William Bakewell, Raymond Griffith, Beryl Mercer, Ben Alexander, Slim Summerville, Yola D'Avril Screenplay: Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews; from Erich Maria Remarque's novel Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Lew Ayres, All Quiet on the Western Front Synopsis: World War I: A group of German schoolboys soon learn that war has absolutely nothing to do with either glory or heroics. Pros: More than eight decades after its release, Lewis Milestone's unflinching film version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front remains the greatest war movie ever made. Or rather, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. In its simple, straightforward manner, All Quiet on the Western Front manages to be infinitely more powerful than all other loftier (and widely acclaimed) war dramas I've seen, including Terrence Malick...
- 3/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Raymond Griffith, silent comedian, has fallen into such neglect as to be virtually erased from screen history, it seems. None of his comedy appears to be available on any commercial format, nor ever has been. And much of his work is thought lost forever.
This would be sad even if Griffith were just one of those mustachioed little men falling over in Mack Sennett shorts, filling out a Keystone Kops paddy-wagon or slipping on a banana peal. What makes it tragic is that he was a unique, subtle and subversive talent, not notably like any of his famous contemporaries.
How to describe him? Eschewing the grotesquerie of the typical clown, he was small, trimly-built, and wore a neat, normal mustache. He was almost good-looking, a certain heaviness about the jowls giving him a debauched look which he exploited to his advantage. He had a variety of smiles, most of them...
This would be sad even if Griffith were just one of those mustachioed little men falling over in Mack Sennett shorts, filling out a Keystone Kops paddy-wagon or slipping on a banana peal. What makes it tragic is that he was a unique, subtle and subversive talent, not notably like any of his famous contemporaries.
How to describe him? Eschewing the grotesquerie of the typical clown, he was small, trimly-built, and wore a neat, normal mustache. He was almost good-looking, a certain heaviness about the jowls giving him a debauched look which he exploited to his advantage. He had a variety of smiles, most of them...
- 3/10/2011
- MUBI
Former Ally McBeal star Portia de Rossi and her lover Francesca Gregorini have taken their romance to a new level - by buying a house together. The actress and Ringo Starr's musician stepdaughter have bought a home in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, for just over $2 million. The five-bedroom Spanish villa-style home was once owned by silent movie star Raymond Griffith.
- 7/15/2002
- WENN
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