'The Doll' with Ossi Oswalda and Hermann Thimig: Early Ernst Lubitsch satirical fantasy starring 'the German Mary Pickford' has similar premise to that of the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy 'Seven Chances.' 'The Doll': San Francisco Silent Film Festival presented fast-paced Ernst Lubitsch comedy starring the German Mary Pickford – Ossi Oswalda Directed by Ernst Lubitsch (So This Is Paris, The Wedding March), the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival presentation The Doll / Die Puppe (1919) has one of the most amusing mise-en-scènes ever recorded. The set is created by cut-out figures that gradually come to life; then even more cleverly, they commence the fast-paced action. It all begins when a shy, confirmed bachelor, Lancelot (Hermann Thimig), is ordered by his rich uncle (Max Kronert), the Baron von Chanterelle, to marry for a large sum of money. As to be expected, mayhem ensues. Lancelot is forced to flee from the hordes of eligible maidens, eventually...
- 6/28/2017
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
'Amazing Tales from the Archives': Pioneering female documentarian Aloha Wanderwell Baker remembered at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival – along with the largely forgotten sound-on-cylinder technology and the Jean Desmet Collection. 'Amazing Tales from the Archives': San Francisco Silent Film Festival & the 'sound-on-cylinder' system Fans of the earliest sound films would have enjoyed the first presentation at the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, held June 1–4: “Amazing Tales from the Archives,” during which Library of Congress' Nitrate Film Vault Manager George Willeman used a wealth of enjoyable film clips to examine the Thomas Edison Kinetophone process. In the years 1913–1914, long before The Jazz Singer and Warner Bros.' sound-on-disc technology, the sound-on-cylinder system invaded the nascent film industry with a collection of “talkies.” The sound was scratchy and muffled, but “recognizable.” Notably, this system focused on dialogue, rather than music or sound effects. As with the making of other recordings at the time, the...
- 6/28/2017
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
Sfsff 2017 featured films by or with Paul Robeson, Sergei Eisenstein, Ossi Oswalda, Clara Bow, Priscilla Dean, Lon Chaney, Douglas Fairbanks, Harold Lloyd, Bessie Love, Lloyd Hughes, Wallace Beery, and The Lost World dinosaurs. Amazing Tales of the Archives Fans of the earliest sound films would enjoy the first presentation at this year's Amazing Tales Of The Archives. George Willeman examined the Thomas Edison Kinetophone process with a wealth of enjoyable film clips. Between 1913-1914, sound-on-cylinder invaded the nascent film industry with a collection of “talkies”. The sound was scratchy and muffled, but recognizable. It was notable that this effort focused on dialog rather than music or sound effects. As with making other recordings at the time, the technology was acoustic. The actors needed to stand perfectly still and shout into horns suspended overhead to make their voices record on a wax cylinder, which played back when the film was shown. As expected, the device was plagued by many synchronization errors. I can only imagine the effect this distorted sound had on the audience. Next up was a look at The Desmet Collection from 1907-1916 from The Netherlands. Film collector, Jean Desmet (1875-1956), managed to save not only film but a wealth of posters, programs and other documents. I think this supports my theory that hoarding and saving are not always pathological. The last presentation I found the most inspiring. A female documentarian. In the 1920's, Aloha Wanderwell Baker (1906-1996) practically circled the globe documenting people and places from Turkey to Africa to China. Photos from the era showed her roughing it on airplanes, boats, and caravans, much to the amusement of the locals. Her enthusiasm for film and social anthropology made itself evident by the fact that she was still reminiscing about her travelogs when she was in her 80's. This article was originally published at Alt Film Guide (http://www.altfg.com/).
- 6/22/2017
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
Simone Simon: Remembering the 'Cat People' and 'La Bête Humaine' star (photo: Simone Simon 'Cat People' publicity) Pert, pretty, pouty, and fiery-tempered Simone Simon – who died at age 94 ten years ago, on Feb. 22, 2005 – is best known for her starring role in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic Cat People (1942). Those aware of the existence of film industries outside Hollywood will also remember Simon for her button-nosed femme fatale in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938).[1] In fact, long before Brigitte Bardot, Annette Stroyberg, Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld, Ann-Margret, and Barbarella's Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm – with a tad of puppy dog wistfulness – in a film career that spanned two continents and a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both...
- 2/20/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Everybody's favorite movie decade: Which ones are the best movies released in the 20th century's second decade? Best Film (Pictured above) Broken Blossoms: Barthelmess and Gish star as ill-fated lovers in D.W. Griffith’s romantic melodrama featuring interethnic love. Check These Out (Pictured below) Cabiria: is considered one of the major landmarks in motion picture history, having inspired the scope and visual grandeur of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Also of note, Pastrone's epic of ancient Rome introduced Maciste, a bulky hero who would be featured in countless movies in the ensuing decades. Best Actor (Pictured below) In the tragic The Italian, George Beban plays an Italian immigrant recently arrived in the United States (Click below for film review). Unfortunately, his American dream quickly becomes a horrendous nightmare of poverty and despair. Best Actress (Pictured below) The movies' super-vamp Theda Bara in A Fool There Was: A little...
- 3/27/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
SXSW Film 2012 will open on March 9 with the world premiere of screenwriter Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods, produced and co-written by Joss Whedon. Featuring Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Anna Hutchison, Chris Hemsworth, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, the film, promises the festival, "takes the horror genre, shakes it down, and smacks it upside the head."
The festival's also thrown six more titles into this first round, all of them world premieres. And they are, with descriptions from Team SXSW:
Kevin Macdonald's Marley. "The definitive documentary on the life, music, and legacy of Bob Marley."
Neil Berkeley's Beauty Is Embarrassing. "A funny, irreverent and insightful look into the life and times of one of America's most important artists, Wayne White."
Jonas Åkerlund's Small Apartments. "When Franklin Franklin accidentally kills his landlord, he must hide the body; but, the wisdom of his beloved brother...
The festival's also thrown six more titles into this first round, all of them world premieres. And they are, with descriptions from Team SXSW:
Kevin Macdonald's Marley. "The definitive documentary on the life, music, and legacy of Bob Marley."
Neil Berkeley's Beauty Is Embarrassing. "A funny, irreverent and insightful look into the life and times of one of America's most important artists, Wayne White."
Jonas Åkerlund's Small Apartments. "When Franklin Franklin accidentally kills his landlord, he must hide the body; but, the wisdom of his beloved brother...
- 1/12/2012
- MUBI
Born in Russia, raised in Berlin, Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947) was Germany's first great director. Starting out as an actor in Max Reinhardt's company and turning to the cinema in 1913, he left in 1922 to become one of Hollywood's most highly regarded film-makers, especially noted for such sophisticated comedies as Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be, and practitioner of the indefinable "Lubitsch Touch". His large body of German silent films is little known, and the six in this invaluable box-set show both the extraordinary range of his work and how accomplished, subtle and innovative he had become before going to the States. Included are the elegant contemporary comedies I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man (1918) and The Oyster Princess (1919), both starring the kittenish Ossi Oswalda, as well as the Arabian Nights extravaganza Sumurun (1919) in which he himself appears with Pola Negri, and the historical epic Anne...
- 1/24/2010
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
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