Monthly Archives: October 2013

A Cottage on Dartmoor

In the opening sequence of “A Cottage on Dartmoor,” a prisoner escapes from jail and races desperately across the moor to an isolated cottage where a woman attends to her infant.  He enters the cottage and waits in the darkness … Continue reading

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Kansas Silent Film Festival

The 2014 Kansas Silent Film Festival, which takes place in Topeka, Kansas on Friday, February 28 and Saturday, March 1, features a Colleen Moore film from 1926 (“Ella Cinders”), and Marion Davies in the wonderful “The Patsy,” from 1928.  On … Continue reading

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Shkurnyk

“Shkurnyk,” a silent film from 1929 that I saw at the 2013 Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Giornate del Cinema Muto), is a very funny satire about the civil war in the years following the Russian Revolution.  The title means “The … Continue reading

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The Little Tramp at 100

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents “The Little Tramp at 100:  A Charlie Chaplin Centennial Celebration” on Saturday, January 11, 2014, at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. The program for the event includes the following showings: Our Mutual … Continue reading

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People Among Each Other

A 1926 German silent film called “Menschen untereinander,” or “People Among Each Other,” employs a handy storytelling device to introduce its characters without the extensive use of title cards.  The story concerns the inhabitants of an apartment building in Berlin, … Continue reading

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Too Much Johnson

Pordenone, Italy — On October 9, 2013, I had the honor of viewing a short silent film made by Orson Welles, only recently discovered in this great town. The film, “Too Much Johnson,” made in 1938, features a man name … Continue reading

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Beggars of Life

When a drifter (“The Boy”) knocks on a door of backwoods shack asking for bread, he doesn’t expect to find a murder scene, but that’s what happens in William Wellman’s 1928 silent classic, “Beggars of Life.”  The film screened recently … Continue reading

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Pordenone Silent Film Festival

Pordenone, Italy – The eagerly awaited Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone Silent Film Festival), Edition 32, begins this week.  Some standout films from the first 2 days include “Lucrezia Borgia,” a 1922 German epic starring Conrad Veidt and directed … Continue reading

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In Old Chicago

“In Old Chicago,” a film released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1937, contains all the elements of an early blockbuster, including an enormous and very effective rendition of the Great Chicago Fire that’s a marvel of special effects staging.  The … Continue reading

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Mrs. Soffel

“Mrs. Soffel,” an interesting and unusual film released in 1984, features Diane Keaton the wife of a prison warden who falls in love with a convicted murderer. It’s a romantic drama in the prison movie genre with fine acting and … Continue reading

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