Wallace McCutcheon (director)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Gayne Whitman (lead)
American Mutoscope and Biograph (production)
Remember the last time you saw a movie in tribute to a heroic family man (and his gun-totin' wife) who made a clean living producing and selling illegal recreational drugs, until killed in a police raid? Well, if you missed that one, just turn your clock back to pre-Hollywood, and dig this sympathetic look at one of America's outlaw folk heroes (featuring an MMA-style fight scene!)
Alf Collins (director)
Gaumont (production)
This revenge is not so sweet - quite nasty, in fact - showing that producers learned early that exploiting human fascination with viewing violence can be profitable.
Lubin (production)
Arrest, imprisonment, escape, chase...but ending is lost.
D.W. Griffith (director/writer)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Frank E. Woods (writer)
Frank Norris (author)
Frank Powell (lead)
Grace Henderson (lead)
James Kirkwood (lead)
Linda Arvidson (lead)
Mack Sennett (lead)
Biograph (production)
From the first scene to the last, this not only juxtaposes the greed of the middleman with the resultant suffering of both producer and consumer, but also juxtaposes contrasting storytelling styles - going from static scenes of profoundly subtle beauty, to actively employing cinematic techniques to engineer viewer response - resulting in a spellbinding epic.
Max Linder (director/lead)
Maurice Delamare (lead/writer)
Pathé (production)
AKA, “Why Top Hats Fell Out Of Favor”...Max visits a doctor who prescribes a tonic, but Max overdoses and goes about the day in a completely drunken state. A true masterpiece - funnier with every viewing.
Louis Feuillade (director/writer)
Georges Guérin (cinematographer)
Marcel Allain (author)
Pierre Souvestre (author)
André Luguet (lead)
André Volbert (lead)
Edmund Breon (lead)
Fabienne Fabrèges (lead)
Georges Melchior (lead)
Jane Faber (lead)
Laurent Morléas (lead)
Naudier (lead)
Renée Carl (lead)
René Navarre (lead)
Yvette Andréyor (lead)
Gaumont (production)
Fantômas is the first famous film criminal mastermind. Like all criminal masterminds, he is pursued by a shrewd and determined detective - Inspector Juve. But unlike other police detectives in film, Juve is no hero, no pompous know-it-all. Yet, unlike noir private detectives, Juve isn't portrayed as an antihero. Juve is simply a loser - a loser who is unstylish, seems to have no family or love life, and tends toward despondence and chain-smoking. In short, Juve is the soul of this flick, giving it its uniquely modern feel. And, for those of us that normally root for the bad guys, Juve is the only detective we can comfortably cheer for - because we know he will lose.
George Loane Tucker (author/director)
Walter MacNamara (writer)
H. Alderson Leach (cinematographer)
Jane Gail (lead)
Ethel Grandin (lead)
Matt Moore (lead)
A country girl, just into the big city, is misled from the train station to a 'den of iniquity' where she is held captive. Two immigrant girls, literally fresh off the boat, are promised 'good positions and salary' but instead are trapped in that same den. A naive city girl falls for a smooth operator who drugs her drink then carries her off to another den. All the work of one mob, and a high society elite who is, literally, 'the man higher up' - his office is upstairs from the mob's. This mob doesn't look tough, but they go out like gangsters - almost 20 years before "Little Caesar" and "Scarface". And although we're supposed to believe the man higher up had no connections with police, a member of the upper class rolling in cash by enslaving some of the most vulnerable members of the lower classes - in a way that's despised by general society - is nontheless an unusually provocative plot line for early American film.
Reginald Barker (director)
Robert Newhard (cinematographer)
Thomas H. Ince (writer)
William H. Clifford (writer)
Richard V. Spencer (author)
William S. Hart (lead)
Clara Williams (lead)
J. Frank Burke (lead)
J. Barney Sherry (lead)
Joseph J. Dowling (lead)
Solid performances, plausible backdrops, and gratuitous greaser-bashing overcome lack of action and implausible story. Bargain for a square deal from a crooked cop? That's as believable as a woman who never speaks. Even though her lips move, and others talk and respond to her, none of her dialogue was deemed worthy of a title card. Was she mute or censored?
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Phyllis Allen (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Slim Summerville (lead)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Fatty wants to take a dame to a tango whirl, but he has two problems. First, a dress suit is required and he has none. Worse, the dame's notion of dance seems limited to shimmying like a floozy. So when a dude comes along sporting formal duds, and who has no problem with the dame's shimmy, she drops Fatty to jump on this dude's jock. So good riddance, Fatty's problems are solved, and he lives happily ever after - right? Of course not. We paid to see Fatty suffer, and won't be satisfied until he's dragged down lower than us - so we can have a good laugh. Best of all, we get to see him dance.This was reworked into 1916's The Waiters Ball.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Harry Gribbon (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Ah, spooning...brings to mind some of life's sweetest intimate moments, doesn't it? Huddled over your heroin as it gently cooks up, or guiding that coke to the nostril flared in eager anticipation...But here “spooning” is used in the dated sense: i.e., what you do by the light of the silvery moon with your honey while you croon love's tune in June. That is, what other generations have called “making out”, “necking”, “petting”, “smooching”, “suck face”, “swapping spit”...you get the idea. So think of this as “Fatty's Suck Face Days”, where we get the rare cinematic treat of seeing crazy cops who are also bad cops: inept buffoons who also frame, rob and beat you.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Harry McCoy (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Echo Park (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone 6-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Way back in the days of Mabel's Strange Predicament, Harry McCoy played Mabel's boyfriend: a smiling, dapper, charmer prone to violent jealous fits. Now that Mabel's living with him, he's a foul, deadbeat slob - and still prone to violent jealous fits. Meanwhile, in the time of Predicament, Alice Davenport played an overbearing wife who was quick to catfight her neighbor Mabel. Now she's dumped the old man for Fatty - and still quick to catfight her neighbor Mabel. So when Fatty washes his hanky at the same time Mabel washes her panky, hanky meets panky. Somewhat atypical Keystone: more farce than slapstick.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Joe Bordeaux (lead)
Keystone (production)
Unlike Mabel and Fatty Viewing The World's Fair At San Francisco released later in the same year, this is not a boring celebrity tour, but is indeed another Fatty and Mabel tale, with some laughs here and there. As often happens when Keystone takes its stars out to a public event, it's also fun to watch bystanders' reactions to the Keystone silliness - including those recruited to join the action, like the hula dancers.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Katherine Griffith (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Keystone (production)
If you can't stand The Heat, watch as Fatty and crew show how to handle him.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Joe Bordeaux (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Golden Gate Park (location)
Keystone (production)
If you've been wondering how many funny gags could be improvised around local park benches, this one's for you (Spoiler: Apparently, none). And where else can you view the funny side of wanton police brutality?
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Keystone (production)
Mostly looks like another product of the “Let's just go down to the park and roll the camera while we clown around” school of film-making. Highlight is use of a blackfaced stand-in for a role genuine black faces were not likely to be eager to be seen in.
Reginald Barker (director)
Joseph August (cinematographer)
Thomas H. Ince (writer)
C. Gardner Sullivan (writer)
George Beban (lead)
Clara Williams (lead)
Leo Willis (lead)
When a film opens with someone reading a book titled the same as the film, slowly reading while puffing pipe...you know this film is in no big hurry. But if time is valued, skip to 17:26, where the story actually begins, and nothing will be missed. But it still doesn't move any faster, because this is D..R..A..M..A, where ultra-slow movements are the hallmark of reknown stage professionals. So if time is valued, skip this film entirely and nothing will be missed.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Norma Nichols (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Louise Fazenda (lead)
Josef Swickard (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Keystone 4-step Porch (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Part One starts out with some routine mother-in-law bits but ends with strikingly dark comedy: a large man on an alcohol-fueled rampage threatening a small elderly woman is an unlikely source of humor. Part Two is an inversion of the standard invasion-call-rescue pattern made famous by a slew of Griffith films (and other Keystone parodies). But here the “invasion” is unwitting - as is the distress call - and the race to rescue is made by the wife to save the husband. It works as a clever parody, effectively using closeups, even though laughs are few.
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