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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "unrequited love" (18)

The Last Days Of Pompeii (Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei) [1908]

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)

Language: Silent, Dutch titles, English subtitles, released in Dec 1908
Minutes: 17

Also known as "The Last Days of Pomposity", thanks to the hilariously hammy acting.

Featured elements:

: abuse; boozy-woozy; death scene; falsely accused; heroic defender; historical drama; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; rescue; revenge; Roman empire; servitude; suicide; unrequited love

The Salvation Army Lass

D.W. Griffith (director/writer)
G.W. Bitzer (cinematographer)
Edward Sheldon (author)
Florence Lawrence (lead)
Harry Solter (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Biograph (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Mar 1909
Minutes: 14

Despite being burdened with the stale saved-from-sin storyline that was already cliche in 1909, this film holds interest with performances that skillfully evoke viewer empathy without going over the top in the usual melodramatic style. In addition, background characters also come across strong:

bar patron who nonchalantly spits a wad on the floor - twice
workers who witness The Lass being bum-rushed from her job and respond by jeering her, then walking away
woman who comforts The Lass with a tender kiss, before pulling up her own dress to reveal her Harpo-style underwear

Featured elements:

: abuse; agent of discontent; death scene; fighting; melodrama; prejudice; redemption; religion; unemployment; unrequited love

She

George Nichols (director)
Theodore Marston (writer)
H. Rider Haggard (author)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1911
Minutes: 24

Sheesh...such shite.

But camels are so cool.

Featured elements:

: adopted child; family; fantasy; melodrama; revenge; unrequited love

The Great Mine Disaster (Au Pays des ténèbres)

Victorin Jasset (director/writer)
Emile Zola (author)
Charles Krauss (lead)
Marcel Vibert (lead)
André Liabel (lead)
Cécile Guyon (lead)
Éclair (production)

Language: Silent, Dutch titles, French subtitles, released in Jan 1912
Minutes: 35

Inspired by Emile Zola's novel "Germinal", with the socio-political themes of exploitation and protest replaced by melodrama and the thrill of disaster.

Featured elements:

: death scene; melodrama; rescue; unrequited love

Quo Vadis? [1913]

Enrico Guazzoni (director/writer)
Eugenio Bava (cinematographer)
Alessandro Bona (cinematographer)
Henryk Sienkiewicz (author)
Gustavo Serena (lead)
Amleto Novelli (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, Russian subtitles, released in Mar 1913
Minutes: 103

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.

Featured elements:

: corruption; death scene; execution; falsely accused; female bonding; forbidden love; heroic defender; historical drama; male bonding; manipulator; melodrama; patriarchy; persecution; prison; redemption; religion; rescue; revenge; Roman empire; romance; servitude; strongman; suicide; torture; treachery; unrequited love

The Last Days Of Pompeii (Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei) [1913]

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)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in May 1913
Minutes: 58

This version puts more focus on the dark deeds of the evil Egyptian high priest.

Featured elements:

: abuse; boozy-woozy; courtroom; death scene; falsely accused; heroic defender; historical drama; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; rescue; revenge; Roman empire; servitude; suicide; unrequited love

Jone, Or The Last Days Of Pompeii

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)

Language: Silent, Italian titles, English subtitles, released in Aug 1913
Minutes: 100

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.

Featured elements:

: abuse; animal act; boozy-woozy; courtroom; dance; falsely accused; heroic defender; historical drama; manipulator; melodrama; redemption; rescue; revenge; Roman empire; servitude; suicide; treachery; unrequited love

Won in a Closet/Won in a Cupboard

Mabel Normand (director/lead)
Charles Inslee (lead)
Alice Davenport (lead)
Charles Avery (lead)
Hank Mann (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Keystone (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jan 1914
Minutes: 14

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).

Featured elements:

: abuse; automobile; comedy; crazy cops; distress call; farce; forbidden love; identity mix-up; rescue; slapstick; tramp; unrequited love

By the Sun's Rays

Charles Giblyn (director)
Lon Chaney (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jul 1914
Minutes: 11

A tragic tale of a cool porkpie cruelly condemned by fate to live as an outcast amongst the grotesque 10-gallon absurdities of "cow-boys" - that peculiar product of boy-bovine love.

Featured elements:

: action; alienation; antihero; cowboys; heroic defender; pathos; persecution; rescue; unrequited love

Filibus

Mario Roncoroni (director)
Giovanni Bertinetti (writer)
Luigi Fiorio (cinematographer)
Valeria Creti (lead)
Giovanni Spano (lead)
Cristina Ruspoli (lead)
Corona (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, Spanish subtitles, released in Mar 1915
Minutes: 76

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?

Featured elements:

: action; alter ego; antihero; crime; criminal mastermind; detective; falsely accused; fantasy; gender-bender; gentleman thief; heist; manipulator; sci-fi; undercover agent; unrequited love; unstoppable menace

Knight Of The Trail

William S. Hart (director/lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Aug 1915
Minutes: 23

“Knight” must be defined broadly here, as Hart again plays a good-hearted outlaw - in a film of not much interest.

Featured elements:

: alienation; antihero; chase; cowboys; heroic defender; homme fatale; melodrama; redemption; unrequited love

Bombs!/Bombs and Brides

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)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Oct 1916
Minutes: 25

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.

Featured elements:

: animal act; automobile; bombers; chase; comedy; corruption; ethnic stereotype; family; farce; female avenger; forbidden love; identity mix-up; politician; rescue; slapstick; social commentary; unrequited love

Judex (Serial)

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)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jan 1917

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...

Featured elements:

: abuse; adopted child; alter ego; animal act; antihero; automobile; business; chase; comedy; comic sidekick; crime; death scene; detective; ex-con; family; femme fatale; flashback; gangs; gender bender; gold digger; heroic defender; identity mix-up; kiddie act; mama's boy; manipulator; melodrama; metatheatre; poverty; prejudice; psycho; redemption; rescue; revenge; romance; servitude; sidekick; suicide; swindling; torture; treachery; undercover agent; unrequited love; vigilante

Satan's Rhapsody

Nino Oxilia (director)
Giorgio Ricci (cinematographer)
Alberto Fassini (author/writer)
Lyda Borelli (lead)
Andrea Habay (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)

Language: Silent, Italian titles, English and German subtitles, released in Jul 1917
Minutes: 45

A Faustian tale about a very old and outdated film that makes a pact with the film restoration bureaucracy to regain its youthful beauty. In return, it must remain purely eye candy, and stay away from exhibiting anything that might threaten to be interesting. It complies with a vengeance, and thus returns to being very old and outdated.

Featured elements:

: aging; fantasy; femme fatale; manipulator; melodrama; suicide; unrequited love

Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman

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)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1917
Minutes: 65

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.

Featured elements:

: alter ego; antihero; crime; detective; gentleman thief; male bonding; servitude; suicide; unrequited love

The Spiders (Serial)

Fritz Lang (director/writer)
Karl Freund (cinematographer)
Carl de Vogt (lead)
Georg John (lead)
Lil Dagover (lead)
Ressel Orla (lead)
Erich Pommer (producer)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Oct 1919

While in hot pursuit of conspicuous leisure, a delusional elite spots a bottle trashed in the sea. For no apparent reason, he takes it home and struggles to get to the urgent message he has convinced himself is inside (not wanting to simply break the valuable trashy bottle). He claims the bottle contained an urgent message (although its pedantry seems quite incongruent with the circumstances under which it was purportedly written). The message tells of “unbelievable treasures” and a gold mine “which appears to be inexhaustible” (claims that modern viewers will be familiar with from their encounters with the bottle's cyber-twin: scam spam). When he spins this tale to his fellow elites at Club Inbreeders, it gets picked up by an agent of a diabolical gullible mastermind, and leads to an intensely silly spectacle of competing blundering murderous international thieves - with one posing as White Savior - that modern viewers will be familiar with from their encounters with its political-twin: the new “Cold War”.

Featured elements:

: addiction; adventure; anti-colonialism; chase; Chinatown; corruption; cowboys; crime; criminal mastermind; ethnic stereotype; femme fatale; fighting; flashback; gambling; gangs; gentleman thief; heroic defender; home invasion; hypnosis; melodrama; message in a bottle; religion; rescue; revenge; servitude; torture; treachery; unrequited love; white savior; yellow peril

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.

Featured elements:

: abuse; bride bounty; chase; comedy; comedy of manners; dance; family; fantasy; farce; flood de femmes; gold digger; identity mix-up; mama's boy; master-disciple; metatheatre; religion; romance; screwball comedy; servitude; slapstick; social commentary; unrequited love

Red Heroine (紅俠)

Wen Yi-Min/文逸民 (director/lead)
Shang Guan-Wu/尚冠武 (director/lead)
Devil Music Ensemble (music)
Fan Xue-Peng/范雪朋 (lead)
Chu Shao-Chuen/朱少泉 (lead)
Youlian Film/友聯影片 (production)

Language: Silent, Chinese and English titles, released in 1929, month unknown
Minutes: 95

Slow moving, baffling English titles, and a flying heroine who still must climb up walls. but worth watching for its grand scale, tasteful scoring of 'Chinese traditional-style contemporary songs' and, of course, the scantily-clad ladies.

Featured elements:

: female avenger; fighting; rescue; revenge; unrequited love; zero to hero

head city has waived all rights to all work here that's not already stolen from somewhere else.

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