Charlie Chaplin’s greatest talent was his ability to mix heartfelt emotion into his comedies. From his touching father-son relationship with Jackie Cooper in The Kid to the utterly honest climactic romantic scene in City Lights, Chaplin manages to give you the warm fuzzies just …
Continue ReadingThe Miracle Man (1932): Remaking a Silent Classic
The canon of the greatest films constantly changes as each generation reevaluates yesteryear’s classics and rediscovers previously overlooked films. Oftentimes, films held in the highest esteem by contemporary audiences and critics do not become beloved by later generations. Evolving morals, changing tastes, and decades of …
Continue ReadingThe Grim Game (1919): Death-Defying Aerial Magic
Aviation and film took the world by storm in the early 20th century. Just eight years after the Lumiere brothers’ famed 1895 projected screenings, Orville and Wilbur Wright took their first flight in December 1903. By the 1910s, film had exploded into an international entertainment …
Continue ReadingA Trip to Salt Lake City (1905) Review
The earliest films relied heavily on other entertainment mediums such as vaudeville, theater, books, and newspapers to create short narratives for audiences. Comedy especially relied on jokes that were prevalent in late 19th and early 20th-century culture. For example, one of the earliest Lumiere films …
Continue ReadingHypocrites (1915): Lois Weber’s Tour de Force
No era of filmmaking has the potential to shock and surprise you quite like the silent era. Numerous well-made, interesting silent films from around the world have waited over a century to be discovered by a larger audience. Some hidden silent gems are unearthed from …
Continue ReadingThe Sound of Fury (1950) — A Blacklisted Film Noir
The Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950s really cut short a lot of interesting careers and forced promising talent to relocate to other countries. This is what happened to director Cy Endfield who was just getting some public and critical attention in 1950 with two film …
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