D.W. Griffith (director)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Edward Acker (writer)
Lillian Gish (lead)
Dorothy Gish (lead)
Elmer Booth (lead)
Robert Harron (lead)
Harry Carey (lead)
Grace Henderson (lead)
Walter Miller (lead)
Biograph (production)
A return to Physician Of The Castle and The Lonely Villa - but with wife and husband replaced by teen sisters and elder brother, and where the invasion is an inside job. Serves as the debut of Lillian and Dorothy Gish, with cinematography that showcases the screen magnetism that made them popular.
D.W. Griffith (director)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Anita Loos (writer)
Edward Acker (author)
Mae Marsh (lead)
Claire McDowell (lead)
Alfred Paget (lead)
Charles Hill Mailes (lead)
Harry Carey (lead)
Lionel Barrymore (lead)
Biograph (production)
Yet another riff on the invasion-call-rescue theme, but made more interesting because the distress call goes not to a male Master Of The Home, but to the girl in the telephone office who, like The Lonedale Operator, thinks quick to save the day (without even fainting!). Plus 11 more points of interest...
Enrico Guazzoni (director/writer)
Eugenio Bava (cinematographer)
Alessandro Bona (cinematographer)
Henryk Sienkiewicz (author)
Gustavo Serena (lead)
Amleto Novelli (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)
Maybe Rome wasn't built in a day, but it only took one night to burn it down (with the help of a few good men with torches), according to this elaborate tale of palace intrigue, divine intervention, and jungle fever in Nero's Rome.
Henry Lehrman (director)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Fred Mace (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Nick Cogley (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Mack Sennett (producer)
Keystone (production)
Debut (or semi-debut according to some) of The Keystone Cops in a parody of the invasion-call-rescue plot formula, popularized by D.W. Griffith films.
Eleuterio Rodolfi (director)
Mario Caserini (writer)
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (author)
Fernanda Negri Pouget (lead)
Eugenia Tettoni Fior (lead)
Ubaldo Stefani (lead)
Antonio Grisanti (lead)
Società Anonima Ambrosio (production)
This version puts more focus on the dark deeds of the evil Egyptian high priest.
Mack Sennett (director)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Keystone 3-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Mabel in a mercifully short all-animal remake of Rescued By Rover (1905).
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.
Mack Sennett (director/lead/producer)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Ford Sterling (lead)
Barney Oldfield (lead)
Keystone (production)
Oldfield's just the chauffeur, Mabel's just eye candy, and Sennett's just his usual bore, so Ford Sterling has to try his best to get a laugh out of this tied-to-the-tracks/race-to-the-rescue parody. But he only does pratfalls, silly walks, and gratuitous cop-killing: amusing, but not funny.
Phillips Smalley (director)
Lois Weber (director/lead)
Val Paul (lead)
Sam Kaufman (lead)
Rex (production)
Even though D.W. Griffith led the pack in quantity of invasion-call-rescue films, the pinnacle of development of the form during that period came from this lesser-known crew. With its stark title and startling visuals, more realistic characters, less reliance on explicit narrative and instead favoring more subtle story-telling, this bears less resemblance to its contemporaries than to the films that would later be created by Hitchcock (known as 'The Master Of Suspense').
Ubaldo Maria Del Colle (director)
Giovanni Enrico Vidali (director)
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (author)
Cristina Ruspoli (lead)
Pasquali e C. (production)
Vay e Hubert (production)
This version adds characters, and adds variety to the settings (including animals and spectacular chariot races). Most interesting is the lively background action that adds a sense of ambiguous realism - is that a crap game? Wait - is he supposed to be a femboy? And why does that crazy dance come to the foreground, hiding the villain's attack on Jone?? Strange, but dazzling flick.
Paul Wegener (director/lead)
Guido Seeber (cinematographer)
Hanns Heinz Ewers (writer)
John Gottowt (lead)
Broke-ass jock goes schizo for a sleazo two-timing upper-class dame, gets stalked by a bitch who's a wall-creeping snitch so he ends up in a ditch - yeah, don't it suck to be a jock.
Mack Sennett (director/producer)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Ford Sterling (lead)
Charles Inslee (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Mack Swain (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Echo Park Lake (location)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)
Yet another park improv comedy that delivers much more park than comedy.
George Nichols (director)
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Echo Park Lake (location)
Keystone (production)
A Keystone novelty flick: cops are neither clowns nor bullies. Even though Arbuckle showcases his comic falls, this one still fell flat for me.
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.
Mabel Normand (director/lead)
Charles Inslee (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Hank Mann (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Keystone (production)
Starts slow, but builds: from the comic pairing of Mabel the farm beauty and her geeky Alfred E. Newman-clone “ideal” in the first third, to a symphony of quirky Keystone chaos in the final third. Second half is mostly a rework of The Bangville Police (1913).
Henry Lehrman (director/lead)
Enrique Juan Vallejo (cinematographer)
Frank D. Williams (cinematographer)
Charles Chaplin (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Virginia Kirtley (lead)
Chester Conklin (lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Keystone Cops (lead)
Keystone (production)
Bone-thin, starving comic makes an appropriately titled film debut where a little-known fact is revealed: Chaplin got his start doing a cheesy impersonation of Richard Pryor.
Giovanni Pastrone (director/writer)
Eugenio Bava (cinematographer)
Natale Chiusano (cinematographer)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Giovanni Tomatis (cinematographer)
Gabriele D'Annunzio (writer)
Emilio Salgari (author)
Gustave Flaubert (author)
Titus Livius (author)
Umberto Mozzato (lead)
Bartolomeo Pagano (lead)
Itala (production)
With awe-inspiring visuals, a compelling story, and the screen debuts of Maciste and Moloch, this gets even better with multiple viewings.
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