Victorin Jasset (director/writer)
Lucien N. Andriot (cinematographer)
Léon Sazie (author)
Éclair (production)
Nick Carter, a dickhead whose irritating smugness is only exceeded by his utter ineptness, takes on his equal in Zigomar who, when he's not busy handing out beatdowns to Nick Carter, hands out receipts for the loot he nicks. Other than the car chase shootout (a tamer rehearsal for the upcoming Bandits En Automobile), definitely a go-to flick for insomniacs.
Mack Sennett (director)
Percy Higginson (cinematographer)
Dell Henderson (writer)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Fred Mace (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Biograph (production)
To escape the drudgery of her job in a laundry, Mabel attends 'The Alert Detective School' to become a sleuth, and soon happens on a bombing conspiracy. OK - so not much laughs, but watching Mabel's early comic moves and cross-dressing may be of historic interest for her fans.
Léonce Perret (director/lead/writer)
Georges Specht (cinematographer)
Suzanne Grandais (lead)
Émile Keppens (lead)
Jean Aymé (lead)
Louis Leubas (lead)
Gaumont (production)
A routine virgin-in-the-clutches-of-villain melodrama made interesting by a metatheatric innovation - and the surpise appearance of Satanas himself as police chief!
Vincenzo Denizot (director)
Natale Chiusano (cinematographer)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Edoardo Davesnes (lead)
Alex Bernard (lead)
Lidia Quaranta (lead)
Itala (production)
The monotonous story of repeated disguises doesn't provide enough incentive to suffer through the eyestrain of viewing this poor quality print. Maybe all the creativity was spent on the hallucination sequence.
But there is one claim to fame here: in 7 years of Voidsville Follies, here is the first instance seen of someone tied to train tracks (actually, tied up and then dumped on the tracks - a more efficient method) that seems to be done for drama, not laughs.
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.
Léonce Perret (director/writer)
Georges Specht (cinematographer)
Louis Leubas (lead)
Maurice Lagrenée (lead)
Notre-Dame de Paris (location)
Gaumont (production)
Think two-hour “epics” are reserved for tales of war or larger-than-life heroes, as in Cabiria (1914), The Birth of a Nation (1915), or J'accuse (1919)? Sorry, but this golden-to-ghetto melodrama came before those. Here - “epic” this:
Finally, after 33 minutes of bourgeois colonialist weepfest, things get real when Edmond “The Graduate” enters - but he exits less than 5 minutes later, and is gone for 15 minutes. After his return, he disappears again, and the final 47 minutes of the film is little more than watching a nookie-starved snitch run back and forth to the cops.
Sure, the street scenes look nice, but the investigation of those scenes by The Cine-Tourist is much more interesting.
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.
Nino Oxilia (director)
Giorgio Ricci (cinematographer)
Guglielmo Zorzi (writer)
Alberto Fassini (author)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Angelo Gallina (lead)
André Habay (lead)
Fulvia Perini (lead)
Celio (production)
Essentially an aristocratic elaboration of Custody Of The Child (1909), aided by lush visuals, plus the emotional breadth and depth of the star's performance - and the diva dances!
Maurice Tourneur (director)
O. Henry (author)
Robert Warwick (lead)
Ruth Shepley (lead)
Johnny Hines (lead)
Peerless (production)
Despite the staunchly corny story of redemption, this is redeemed by its inventive proto-noir visuals (and a "haunted by the past" plot that would become a noir theme), colorful characters, and a story full of nuances yet told with very few title cards. Also includes Sing Sing prison yard scenes that appear authentic, as several prisoners can clearly be seen to be hiding their faces from the camera.
Mario Roncoroni (director)
Giovanni Bertinetti (writer)
Luigi Fiorio (cinematographer)
Valeria Creti (lead)
Giovanni Spano (lead)
Cristina Ruspoli (lead)
Corona (production)
Before Mabuse, there was Fantomas - an earlier take on the criminal mastermind outwitting the detective through deception and disguise. Following the success of Fantomas, came the master criminal Filibus in this story (which also seems to have gotten some inspiration from Jules Verne's "Master of the World"). But while Fantomas and Mabuse are murderous psychos, Filibus seems to be just having fun bouncing between genders, flirting first with the brother then the sister. Is Filibus really a baroness - or a woman at all - or is that just another disguise?
Carmine Gallone (director)
Domenico Grimaldi (cinematographer)
Nino Oxilia (writer)
Lyda Borelli (lead)
Cecyl Tryan (lead)
Fulvia Perini (lead)
Augusto Poggioli (lead)
Pina Menichelli (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)
The frequent visual jumps and disconnects make it obvious that parts are missing from this fragmented restoration. As further evidence, one of the three character names listed in the opening credits (“Richard Ruggero”) - presumably a main character - doesn't appear in any subsequent title card. Yet, unlike Malombra [1917], there is no source material to refer to for clarification of the story. In fact, it's possible that even if all fragments existed and were correctly assembled, the result would still be confusing as the story lacks depth and solid construction. It feels less like a coherent story, more like a string of cliche hacks quickly thrown together merely to capitalize on a star's appeal (by crew who didn't even spare the time to name the characters!).
But who cares about story? We're here to see the diva flammin' in high fashion, twisted into sultry poses (even dancing!), with that dreamy gaze that wails her tragic fate of being too hip for this world that doesn't deserve her. Lyda in motion is all the story we need...
Louis Feuillade (director/writer)
Manichoux (cinematographer)
Édouard Mathé (lead)
Émile Keppens (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)
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.
Alberto Marro (director/writer)
Jordi Robert (cinematographer)
Josep Duran (lead)
Alexia Ventura (lead)
Emilia de la Mata (lead)
Hispano (production)
A gang steals two halves of an ancient necklace, that legend claims holds the key to hidden treasures. One half is stolen from a countess, whose young daughter interrupts the theft and is kidnapped. The police are called in, and Detective Hernandez and his assistant go on the trail of the gang. Along the way, the ancient legend of the necklace - centered on a love affair between a Moor queen and a Christian count - is presented on screen.
Restoration of films previously considered lost is always a blessing. But when they start with a lengthy lament of the difficulties of the restoration (and the hacks to work around them), expectations have to be toned down. Originally produced in Barcelona as a 3-episode Spanish-language serial (clearly inspired by the Fantômas and Les Vampire serials), but more than half of that footage is lost. This version is a reduction of the serial into a feature film for German-language viewers. Gaps are filled by text from the original scenario - in Spanish. So expect a rough ride: choppy action with frequent jump cuts, action replaced by stills and text, and titles switching between German and Spanish (here held together with English subtitles from machine translation).
The reward for hanging in there is an earnest female-tied-to-the-train-tracks scene - to counter the claim that such scenes were already outdated and obsolete before the silent fim era (see The Bioscope: Tied to the tracks).
Arthur Berthelet (director)
William Postance (director/lead)
H.S. Sheldon (writer)
William Gillette (author/lead)
Arthur Conan Doyle (author)
Ernest Maupain (lead)
Marjorie Kay (lead)
Edward Fielding (lead)
Stewart Robbins (lead)
Grace Reals (lead)
Mario Majeroni (lead)
Essanay (production)
This film exists as supporting evidence for three well-established postulates in film theory:
John Emerson (director)
Christy Cabanne (director)
Tod Browning (writer)
Douglas Fairbanks (lead)
Bessie Love (lead)
Alma Rubens (lead)
Tom Wilson (lead)
Triangle (production)
Likely the first, and certainly one of only a few, film references to Sherlock Holmes' cocaine injecting, as described in the original stories. Even though cocaine and opium had only recently became illegal, there was nonetheless a rising tide of moral opposition against them at the time of this film (just six months later, in Chaplin's Easy Street, the self-injector is portrayed as a depraved degenerate) - which makes this film's light-hearted depiction all the more surprising. And while busy coking up, Holmes is tracking down smugglers of that evil menance - opium (which used to be known as “hop”, the name providing the source for the film's puns, gags, and title). Fifteen years later, Alma Rubens died at just 33 - after a long battle with addiction. A film that's somewhat funny, quite silly, and totally bizarre (after all, it's a Tod Browning joint), reportedly “Everybody's Hero” Fairbanks hated it (after all, it has none of his heroics or acrobatics). That's a good enough reason to wholeheartedly embrace it.
Louis Feuillade (director/writer)
Arthur Bernède (writer)
André Glatti (cinematographer)
Léon Klausse (cinematographer)
Édouard Mathé (lead)
Jean Devalde (lead)
Louis Leubas (lead)
Marcel Lévesque (lead)
Musidora (lead)
René Cresté (lead)
Yvette Andréyor (lead)
Gaumont (production)
A caped crusader and his sidekick respond to a distress signal that appears at their tech-equipped cave. Welcome to the cinema of 1917 - where the story began...
George Irving (director)
Harry B. Harris (cinematographer)
Anthony Paul Kelly (writer)
Eugene Wiley Presbrey (writer)
E.W. Hornung (author)
John Barrymore (lead)
Frank Morgan (lead)
For any hardcore fan of suavecito-smooth, the first few minutes of Barrymore profiling is a fun ride. But it quickly gets old and repetitive. And any hope for mystery is dashed when it becomes apparent that every kid on the block knows that Raffles is "secretly" the Amateur Cracksman. And those who don't know, he reveals it to them. With a villain with no real commitment to skulking or skullduggery, and a story with none of the twists and turns of Fantomas flicks, there's nothing much to see here but the stereotypical American imitation of upper-class British.
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