Works, By Title: G-L (74)

Total: 479 works

Featured image for In The Hands Of Impostors (Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer)

In The Hands Of Impostors (Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer)

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.

Featured image for In The Prime Of Life (Ekspeditricen)

In The Prime Of Life (Ekspeditricen)

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:

  • Ungdom og letsind (Youth and Frivolity)
  • Ungdomsynd (Sins of Youth)
  • Dyrköpt lycka eller När ungdomsblodet sjuder (Costly Joy or When the blood of youth boils)
  • Ödets underliga väga (The strange path of fate)
  • Offer för sin lidelse (Victim of his passion)
Earlier, a similar tale went by a much less fearsome name: An Unexpected Guest (1909).

Featured image for In Turmoil (Im Lebenswirbel)

In Turmoil (Im Lebenswirbel)

In the first minute we learn all we need to know about the nature of the protagonist, when we see that she seems unable to distinguish between a clothes rack and the floor. After that, nothing is to be gained by continuing to view this mishmash of twits endlessly shaking hands and waving to each other. Your hopes that they all immediately succumb to torturous disaster will be unfulfilled. The only casualty will be you, so best to watch this at double speed: cut the torture down to 35 minutes instead of 70.

Featured image for La danse des apaches

La danse des apaches

According to the Oxford dictionary of dance, the Apaché did not appear in France until about 1908. But here it is, in full bloom, in 1904. Is Oxford lying to us? Check out this Stanford post “The hidden story of the Apache dance” for an explanation. TLDR: Mistinguett's autobiography claims that she created the dance before 1908, as early as 1903.

Featured image for La Polka des Trottins

La Polka des Trottins

The Phonoscène was an antecedent of music video and is regarded as a forerunner of sound film. It combined a sound recording with a film shot with actors lip-synching to the sound recording. The recording and film were synchronized by a mechanism ('Chronophone') patented by Léon Gaumont in 1902.

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Featured image for La secta de los misteriosos

La secta de los misteriosos

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).