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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "dance" (31)

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Showing 21-31 of 31 works

Les Vampires (Serial)

Louis Feuillade (director/writer)
Manichoux (cinematographer)
Édouard Mathé (lead)
Fernand Herrmann (lead)
Frédéric Moriss (lead)
Germaine Rouer (lead)
Jean Aymé (lead)
Louise Lagrange (lead)
Louis Leubas (lead)
Marcel Lévesque (lead)
Musidora (lead)
Paula Maxa (lead)
Stacia Napierkowska (lead)
Gaumont (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Nov 1915

Les Vampires is Paris' most infamous criminal gang - a gang led by a succession of Wile E. Coyotes who are forever concocting over-ingenious fails. As a result, it's a gang that seems to make no money, that just hangs out gangster partying. Therefore, it's up to de facto leader Irma Vep to get the job done right - which earns her the title of one of Cinema's Most Badass.

Featured elements:

: action; automobile; backstage; beheading; chase; comedy; comic sidekick; crime; criminal mastermind; dance; death scene; detective; femme fatale; gangs; gender-bender; heist; hypnosis; kiddie act; manipulator; metatheatre; newsroom; pimp; servitude; sidekick; train; windbag assassin

Burlesque On Carmen

Charles Chaplin (director/lead/writer)
Roland Totheroh (cinematographer)
Prosper Mérimée (author)
Edna Purviance (lead)
Essanay (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1915
Minutes: 31

Maybe not the funniest, but the silly-walks, patty-cakes, hairy-eyeballs, and Ali-shuffle make this a catalog of creative nuttiness.

Featured elements:

: Bizet's Carmen; catfight; comedy; dance; death scene; femme fatale; fighting; forsaken; metatheatre; parody; slapstick; tramp

The Floorwalker

Charles Chaplin (director/lead/writer)
William C. Foster (cinematographer)
Roland Totheroh (cinematographer)
Vincent Bryan (writer)
Maverick Terrell (writer)
Eric Campbell (lead)
Edna Purviance (lead)
Lloyd Bacon (lead)
Albert Austin (lead)
Charlotte Mineau (lead)
Leo White (lead)
James T. Kelley (lead)
Mutual (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in May 1916
Minutes: 28

Trying to avoid capture by a store detective, The Tramp switches identities with a floorwalker - unaware he is a double-crossing embezzler on the lam.

Featured elements:

: comedy; dance; fighting; identity mix-up; mirror image gag; shadow-the-guard gag; slapstick; smack attack; tramp

Shoes

Lois Weber (director/producer/writer)
Stephen S. Norton (cinematographer)
Allen G. Siegler (cinematographer)
Stella Wynne Herron (author)
Jane Addams (author)
Mary MacLaren (lead)
Harry Griffith (lead)
Mattie Witting (lead)
Jessie Arnold (lead)
William V. Mong (lead)
Lina Basquette (lead)
Phillips Smalley (producer)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jun 1916
Minutes: 48

Eva is a young woman who works in a variety store for a meager salary, solely supporting her two parents and three sisters - while her father lies in bed reading dime novels, smoking his pipe, and drinking pails of beer. As her only pair of shoes disintegrates from long use, so does her hopes, her respect for her father, and her resistance against a leering cabaret singer.

Featured elements:

: addiction; alienation; boozy-woozy; dance; family; flashback; kiddie act; pathos; patriarchy; poverty; prostitution; unemployment; wage slavery

Max The Heartbreaker (Max Entre Deux Feux)

Max Linder (director/lead/writer)
Pathé (production)

Language: Silent, French titles, English subtitles, released in May 1917
Minutes: 19

Two girls crazy over Max. Begins as a romance (with some surprisingly nice cinematography) but, in the last 5 minutes, switches to comedy when Max learns the girls plan to kill each other over him! That sends Max into a wacky bliss, and he pulls a string of gags that look like they could have inspired Looney Tunes!

Featured elements:

: bookends; comedy; dance; dark comedy; emblematic shot; romance

The Bellboy

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
Joseph Anthony Roach (writer)
George Peters (cinematographer)
Elgin Lessley (cinematographer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Alice Lake (lead)
Joe Keaton (lead)
Comique (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Mar 1918
Minutes: 25

The title could have been plural, as the first half features Roscoe and Buster as a pair of bellboys, mostly pulling off gags as a duo. Al has his share of fun time, but usually not sharing the screen with the other two. But in the second half, the three Rough Boys ditch their uniforms and roles to come together as a team for some serious wrecking. Highlights:

Roscoe and Buster's synchronized madness
When frightened by a guest's appearance, the bellboys surprisingly react in a way typical of darky humor - you can almost hear their knees knocking.
Fatty treats us to a dance again - always a joy to watch
Released about 8 months before the war's end, propaganda slips into the barber shop - and even in the dining hall
Fatty's devilish wink to the audience
Some cool acrobatic stunts

Featured elements:

: abuse; animal act; chase; comedy; dance; fighting; metatheatre; patriotism; roughhouse; slapstick; zero to hero

Good Night, Nurse!

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
George Peters (cinematographer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Alice Lake (lead)
Comique (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jul 1918
Minutes: 20

A fast-paced gagathon that's ultra high-energy - even by Comique's manic norm. Highlights:

Fatty's version of chivalry towards a storm-drenched damsel in distress
Fatty's irreverence for the National Anthem
Post-op Fatty checking on Lil' Willy
Alice Lake gets to join The Rough Boys' wild wackiness (but wisely ducks for cover when the roughhousing starts)
Fatty's Looney Tunes-style screwball pool dive
Fatty and doctor's courtship ritual

Demonstrating the usual senselessness of censors, only #1 got cut by the Chicago Board of Censors, while #2 and #3 slipped by.

Featured elements:

: addiction; animal act; bad cop; bimbo; boozy-woozy; chase; comedy; dance; gender-bender; goofs; identity mix-up; infidelity; metakill science; metatheatre; patriotism; roughhouse; servitude; slapstick

Carmen/Gypsy Blood

Ernst Lubitsch (director)
Alfred Hansen (cinematographer)
Hanns Kräly (writer)
Prosper Mérimée (author)
Pola Negri (lead)
Harry Liedtke (lead)
PAGU (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1918
Minutes: 80

The power of a Carmen production derives from a hot Carmen and a tortured Don José. This version is only semi-powered: we see a tortured José, but this Carmen has nothing that could make a good man fall. So, a heavy dose of suspension of belief is required to get through this, yet in the end it wasn't worth the effort.

Featured elements:

: Bizet's Carmen; bookends; dance; death scene; ethnic stereotype; femme fatale; forsaken; music; obsession; prison

The Oyster Princess

Ernst Lubitsch (director/writer)
Kurt Richter (production-designer)
Theodor Sparkuhl (cinematographer)
Hanns Kräly (writer)
Ossi Oswalda (lead)
Victor Janson (lead)
Julius Falkenstein (lead)
Max Kronert (lead)
PAGU (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jun 1919
Minutes: 61

A grotesque view of the excesses of early 20th century American aristocracy, aptly in accord with the comedic axiom, “A lot is funny, more is funnier, too much is riotously absurd”. The dialogue is not nearly as witty as it seems to want to be, but with visuals like this, who needs words? Parental advisory: includes scenes of gratuitous foxtrot.

Featured elements:

: boozy-woozy; boxing; comedy; comedy of manners; dance; farce; gold digger; identity mix-up; infidelity; parody; servitude; social commentary

The Doll (Die Puppe)

Ernst Lubitsch (director/lead/writer)
Kurt Richter (art-director/costume-designer)
Theodor Sparkuhl (cinematographer)
Hanns Kräly (writer)
E.T.A. Hoffmann (author)
A.E. Willner (author)
Ossi Oswalda (lead)
Hermann Thimig (lead)
Victor Janson (lead)
Gerhard Ritterband (lead)
Jakob Tiedtke (lead)
Max Kronert (lead)
PAGU (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1919
Minutes: 64

This is how a fairy tale should be told: lots of laughs, spiced with a few caustic truths, encompassing no moral at all, if you wish. Or, perhaps, a simple moral that is as easy to discard as it is to swallow (Another tale of gender role rejection: is this the sequel to I Dont Want To Be A Man? ). Multiple viewings are rewarding, as nothing is truly background - the gags are everywhere. It's a musical without sound that's an ensemble showcase, where everyone puts in a first-rate comic performance no matter how small the part - even the horses.