Film censorship is almost as old as film itself. By the 1910s in America, several states had stringent film censorship boards that would review films and cut out parts deemed to be immoral. After a litany of Hollywood scandals in the early 1920s, calls for …
Continue ReadingThe Last Silent Picture Show — Book Review
The transition from silent pictures to all-talking and all-talking sound films is often told as a simplistic narrative: The Jazz Singer‘s success in 1927 revolutionized Hollywood as studios scrambled to convert their studios and theaters to sound as quickly as possible. William M. Drew’s …
Continue Reading2021 Classic Film Summer Reading Challenge
It is that time of year again for the 2021 Summer Reading Classic Film Book Challenge hosted by Raquel Stecher’s Out of the Past Blog. Last year’s challenge was one of the highlights of quarantine and despite being vaxxed this time around, I’ve already spent …
Continue ReadingPioneering Utah Filmmakers: From Flickers to Sound
This post on early Utah independent filmmaking is the second historical overview in my series Celebrating 125 Years of Utah and the Movies. Visit the series page for other historical overviews and reviews of films shot in Utah or made by Utahns.
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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 ReadingSix Films—Six Decades Blogathon
Anyone who has made a list before knows the labor of love required to whittle down dozens or hundreds of your favorites to select just a few. Instead of picking one single favorite film from each decade, sometimes I wished I could have made a …
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