Some of the most valuable sources of information for silent and early sound films can be found in Moving Picture World, Variety, and numerous other motion picture trade publications. Summaries of lost films, gossip about long-forgotten stars, thousands of movie reviews from critics and …
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Last year I enjoyed reading Zane Grey’s most influential and frequently adapted for the screen Western Riders of the Purple Sage. This year I read Grey’s first Western novel the 1910 Heritage of the Desert and watched a couple of 1930s B-Western adaptations.
The …
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There may be no other sound more synonymous with the moviegoing experience than 20th Century Fox’s opening fanfare. When the Fox Film Corporation held a small stable of B-tier stars in the 1920s, it would be hard to predict that a generation of moviegoers would …
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I have a strange fascination with silent stars who never translated their careers successfully into the sound era. Last year I dove into David Stenn’s Clara Bow biography. This year I’ve already read and reviewed Tracy Gossel’s Douglas Fairbanks biography. Eve Golden’s John Gilbert: …
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Whether it’s this year’s summer blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick or the silent World War I aerial epic Wings, film always has always been a perfect medium to showcase the wonder of aviation. Over the past century, airplanes and pilots have brought movie audiences big explosions, …
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One of the first silent films I ever watched was Douglas Fairbanks’ 1924 epic The Thief of Baghdad. A lavish costume drama inspired by Arabian night tales, the film’s imaginative tale and its star’s unique and energetic charm absolutely stunned an impressable young me. …
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