Arturo Ambrosio (director)
Luigi Maggi (director)
Roberto Omegna (cinematographer/writer)
Giovanni Vitrotti (cinematographer)
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (author)
Lydia De Roberti (lead)
Umberto Mozzato (lead)
Società Anonima Ambrosio (production)
Also known as "The Last Days of Pomposity", thanks to the hilariously hammy acting.
Lubin (production)
From Lubin ad:
A young doctor had a love affair with one of the hospital nurses. Through machinations of his father the young doctor is made to believe that the nurse has given him up...
From The Moving Picture World (August 28, 1909) review:
A Lubin which seems to be somewhat uncalled for...The photography is good and to a certain extent the picture may interest those who are thoughtless, but there is a certain degree of delicacy which should be observed about such matters that is plainly violated here. The picture serves no useful purpose. It is not instructive and cannot be called entertaining. The reason for its existence is not plain and the silent drama would be improved if the picture was never shown again.
So here it is, shown again, over 100 years later, still of interest to the thoughtless.
Goof: Though we see the unexpected guest two years after its conception was hinted at, making it at least 15 months old, it appears to be still an infant!
August Blom (director)
Axel Graatkjær (cinematographer)
Louis Schmidt (writer)
Ellen Diedrich (lead)
Lauritz Olsen (lead)
Ella La Cour (lead)
Nordisk (production)
A fast-moving 30 minutes, that delivers the cheap thrills promised by the title - with minimum melodrama. And like The Lonedale Operator (1911), it features a tough cookie that takes care of business - then chills out for a quick mid-crisis nap.
D.W. Griffith (director)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Frank E. Woods (writer)
Mary Pickford (lead)
Henry B. Walthall (lead)
Claire McDowell (lead)
Biograph (production)
Prissy voyeur lord of the manor gets the hots watching peasant gal kicking ass and dressing up as a man to flirt with the ladies. Could've been kinky, but instead it's just a freeze-dried Taming of the Shrew.
Pyotr Chardynin (director/writer)
Louis Forestier (cinematographer)
Alexander Pushkin (author)
Pavel Biryukov (lead)
Aleksandra Goncharova (lead)
Andrey Gromov (lead)
Khanzhonkov (production)
Fails as an adaptation: had to consult a summary of the short story it is based on to make sense of it.
Fails as dramatic performance: the star hams it up with all the worst excesses of early cinema performance, constantly on his toes, ballet-style.
But won a place in my heart at the ball, with the hilarious Three Couples Dance.
Gerolamo Lo Savio (director)
William Shakespeare (author)
Ermete Novelli (lead)
Francesca Bertini (lead)
Film d'Arte Italiana (production)
Everybody's favorite Daddy's Girls/riches-to-rags saga, Shakespeare's 150-minute play of over 25,000 words usually filling over 100 pages, is summarized in 14 minutes with pantomime and 8 title cards that are 100% dialogue-free. An interesting experiment that, surprisingly, succeeds in conveying the basic story - though not much Francesca Bertini to see.
Georges Monca (director/writer)
Charles Prince (lead)
Mistinguett (lead)
Pathé (production)
A shy young man is sent to court a young lady, but ends up being allured by a servant pretending to be the absent young lady. Humorously highlighting class differences via a spirited and domineering woman that breaks down the reserve of a bourgeois man, this provides the basic framework of the screwball comedy (sans happy ending). Mistinguett steals the show, exuding the kind of earthy charm and humor that gave her fame.
August Blom (director)
Axel Graatkjær (cinematographer)
Peter Christensen (writer)
Clara Pontoppidan (lead)
Lauritz Olsen (lead)
Thora Meincke (lead)
Carl Schenstrøm (lead)
Nordisk (production)
Oddly, the impostors' ruse starts with a primitive hit-or-miss con act repeatedly performed in full public view - yet we are to believe that this silly stunt fronts an elaborate well-tuned network. While the patsy is still in the clutches of the con woman, a masher also swoops down on her - and she again falls victim to yet another persistent motor-mouth. Not long after she steps into the hands of the impostors, the film breaks down in hopeless confusion. The impostors (who remain unnamed, just referred to as “the impostors”) phone the blackmailer (misnamed “Mr. Bright”), who quickly has his hands all over the patsy. Meanwhile, the persistent masher (aptly named “Engineer Faith”) catches on to the flimflam and leaps on his White Knight horse. But before he arrives, another blackmailer (mysteriously named “Lord X”) muscles in on Mr. Bright and nabs the patsy - which leads Mr. Bright to counter by paying to have her kidnapped from Lord X. Meanwhile, amidst this torrent of cock brawls, no one has turned a dime of profit off the patsy - nor has anyone revealed any plans to cash in. This seems to be merely a confusing tale of a town desperately in need of new nooky. Still, the patsy - and the movie - is saved by a delightfully daring cock-buster.
Let this serve as a lesson for solo travellers, showing how personal information shared with strangers can be used harmfully - i.e. as a plot for a time-wasting movie.
Most interesting was the train station exit scene, which shows passers-by gawking at the camera and performers - a quaint record of the days before mobile digital devices, when people actually paid attention to their surroundings.
August Blom (director)
Axel Graatkjær (cinematographer)
Valdemar Psilander (lead)
Clara Pontoppidan (lead)
Nordisk (production)
Not much of a story: when a squanderer who relies on his mom to pay his clubbing debts shacks up with his creditor's daughter, mom disowns him - yet he can't change his ways. Missing the expected cheap thrills, yet the story-telling style held my attention to the end - waiting for him to harden up and boot that booty to the streets to pay her way. Or at least, in true Nordisk style, sell her to white slave traders or Mormons.
August Blom (director)
Lau Lauritzen (writer)
Clara Pontoppidan (lead)
Carlo Wieth (lead)
Zanny Petersen (lead)
Nordisk (production)
Utterly useless upper class twit is rocked out his socks when he's blocked by well-stacked knockers. But after three months of rocking with no sock she gets knocked up (“loved not wisely but too well”), and has to start wearing the biggest hats she can find. And so begins a familiar tale, that goes by many names:
August Blom (director)
Valdemar Psilander (lead)
Thyra Reimann (lead)
Ole Olsen [1863-1943] (producer)
Nordisk (production)
The original Danish title For aabent Tæppe is literally translated as “for open curtain”, which is a theater term meaning “with the curtain drawn or raised so the audience can see everything that is going on on stage”, i.e., showing the action behind the scenes.
.When a married couple performing as Shakespeare's troubled couple Othello and Desdemona start having marital troubles in their own lives, the actor finds himself as “Othello...on-stage and off”. An intriguing story idea, but the execution failed to live up to the promise.
Ashley Miller (director)
Bannister Merwin (writer)
Marc McDermott (lead)
Miriam Nesbitt (lead)
Ethel Browning (lead)
Edison (production)
Story told with only two title cards, instead conveying plot points with newspaper, posters, and signs. Admittedly, the story is about as simple as it gets, turning on a child's prank, which makes it not much more sophisticated than L'Arroseur arrosé (1895). Still, the message is worth pondering: all it takes to be a menace to society is to be labeled as one. But, as a comedy, it could've been a contender in the hands of Max Linder...
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.
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.
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.
Lois Weber (director/writer)
Disappointing. No laughs, but at least it's short.
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.
head city
has waived all rights to all work here that's not stolen from somewhere else.