Max Linder (director/lead/writer)
Lucy d'Orbel (lead)
Georges Gorby (lead)
Pathé (production)
Max is lovesick when rejected by his lover's father. Although billed as 'comédie sentimementale', other than the light humor of Max pretending to be a doctor, it's all played strictly sentimental.
Gustavo Serena (director/lead)
Alberto G. Carta (cinematographer)
Renzo Chiosso (writer)
Alexandre Dumas fils (author)
Ennio Morricone (music)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Caesar (production)
Heartrending story of infantile infatuation and endless messaging among 19th century European bourgeois airheads. Viewers unfamiliar with the novel's story will likely be a bit puzzled by this concise film version, that carefully tiptoes around the central topic: the “scandal”. And nothing on the screen comes close to the intensity of Ennio Morricone's score, currently available om Youtube.
Gustavo Serena (director/lead)
Alberto G. Carta (cinematographer)
Renzo Chiosso (writer)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Carlo Benetti (lead)
Caesar (production)
Three quarters into this film I was still waiting for it to start. Then suddenly a bunch of stuff happened that I couldn't make head nor tails of. After that, it was all over. And I'm not convinced it's worth another try. Given that it's a spy story so characters and their actions may be covert, and that over 25% of the film is missing from this copy, there's no shame in bailing on this puzzler.
Frank Griffin (director)
Louise Fazenda (lead)
Charles Murray (lead)
Mary Thurman (lead)
Wayland Trask (lead)
Harry Booker (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Keystone (production)
A surprise from Keystone: an actual story, that's even impressively tight. Surely must be lifted from somewhere. Add in a car chase, Italian bombers du jour, and a diving horse and you've got a bona-fide Keystone.
Giovanni Pastrone (director)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Giovanni Tomatis (cinematographer)
Giovanni Verga (author)
Pina Menichelli (lead)
Alberto Nepoti (lead)
Febo Mari (lead)
Gabriel Moreau (lead)
Itala (production)
Never again utter the phrase “Drama Queen” until you've watched this diva single-handedly transform a threadbare story into a symphony of sensual expression.
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
Frank D. Williams (cinematographer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Josephine Stevens (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Comique (production)
Featuring:
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead/writer)
Vincent Bryan (writer)
Al St. John (lead)
Monty Banks (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Winifred Westover (lead)
Comique (production)
Once again, Fatty must fight off rival Al for an old man's daughter, and go drag just to be with her. But the old story is recast with new faces, and the limitations of Newtonian physics are replaced by the endless possibilities of the Loonyverse, where the slightest perturbation can propel a comic into weightless flight. Buster's face is missing from this one, but his spirit is felt when the dainty love interest does the same backflip-over-a-table stunt that we saw Buster do in Oh Doctor.
Max Linder (director/lead/writer)
Alta Allen (lead)
Caroline Rankin (lead)
Lincoln Stedman (lead)
Max Linder Productions (production)
Max must overcome both a disapproving aunt and his rival's vicious dog to be with his sweetheart. First reel of the second of Linder's three full-length feature films made in USA.
Zhang Shi-Chuan/張石川 (director)
Zhang Wei-Tao/張偉濤 (cinematographer)
Zheng Zheng-Qiu/鄭正秋 (lead/writer)
Cheng Cheh-Ku/鄭鷓鴣 (lead)
Yu Yuan/余媛 (lead)
Mingxing/明星 (production)
A familiar tale: Cheng has eyes for gal, he defends her against bullies, then proposes to her, but her dad demands Cheng first prove himself. This work is elevated from mundaneness by Cheng, a happy-go-lucky oddball with his own wacky way of handling the world - sort of a silent version of Pee Wee Herman.
Edouard-Emile Violet/Édouard-Émile Violet (director)
Max Linder (director/lead/writer)
Vilma Bánky (lead)
Gyula Szöreghy (lead)
Eugen Burg (lead)
Ernst Günther (lead)
Vita-Film (production)
In her 1983 documentary on Max Linder, The Man in the Silk Hat, Maud Linder says of Max Linder's rarely-found final feature film (made in Austria): “Nothing remains of this great film but a few stills and scraps of footage, unscreenable today”. Fortunately, more of the film was later found. Although most profiles of Linder's career sketch a portrait of post-war decline until the end, his final feature film rebuts those claims. The film was so successful that it was remade in 1937 and 1957.
Max suffers from brattiness and drunkenness, but gets serious after he falls for the daughter of a circus director - who forbids her romance with an outsider. Max then attempts to learn circus performance but when he is forced to admit his failure, the director then invites Max to join his circus anyway - as a lion tamer!
Y.C. Zai/謝雲卿 (director/lead)
S.M. Chow/周詩穆 (cinematographer)
P.H. Yuen/嚴秉衡 (cinematographer)
Lyton Wong/王乃東 (lead)
T.S. Tong/湯天繡 (lead)
Chen Yi-Tang/陳一堂 (lead)
Yang Ai-Zhen/楊愛真 (lead)
Wang Xie-Yan/王謝燕 (lead)
Cui Tian-Sheng/催天生 (lead)
Zhang Fu-Feng/張扶風 (lead)
Wu Yi-Xiao/吳一笑 (lead)
Great China Lilium/大中華百合影片 (production)
When a young wife's indiscreet extramarital affair is discovered, she and her husband find themselves pressured into a divorce that neither of them wants, but tensions aggravated by their families' class differences seem to compel. The shorter length and abrupt ending suggest that the final reel may be missing. A clumsy and heavy-handed plea for old-school righteousness, saved only by its lavish interior settings and a shot of mixed-up Chinese telegraph code.
Bu Wan-Cang/蔔萬蒼 (director/writer)
Huang Shao-Fen/黃紹芬 (cinematographer)
Ruan Ling-Yu/阮玲玉 (lead)
Jin Yan/金焰 (lead)
Wang Gui-Lin/王桂林 (lead)
Li S.Y./李時苑 (lead)
Lily Chow Lee-Lee/周麗麗 (lead)
Liu Ji-Qun/劉繼群 (lead)
Lianhua (production)
Naive but willing farm girl falls for rich but dysfunctional adult crack baby who calls her 'chaste' but treats her like a slut. But the affair is opposed by his strictly orthodox but stoned-out junkie mom in this clichéd but engaging hyper-tragicum that proves that contradictions are the spice of life.
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