Cohen Film Collection - Catalog Book

Cohen Film Collection

Cohen Film Collection

Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

5 Table of Contents

IntroductionPreface

American ClassicsBuster KeatonRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle and Buster KeatonCharlie Chaplin Harold LloydHarry LangdonDouglas Fairbanks, Sr.D. W. GriffithThe Talmadge SistersErich von StroheimWilliam FarnumWilliam S. HartRudolph Valentino Lon ChaneyW. C. FieldsPaul RobesonRoland WestJosef von Sternberg Other American Classics

Classic American Comedy ShortsMack SennettRobert BenchleyBurns and AllenTom HowardLulu McConnellSmith & DaleJack Benny Eddie CantorChester Conklin Dane & ArthurAl St. John More Comedy ClassicsBehind the Scenes

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Musical Shorts 1928–1973Bing CrosbyCab CallowayDuke EllingtonRuth EttingEthel MermanRudy ValleeMore Musical Shorts 1928–1973

British CinemaMarcel Hellman Productions Herbert Wilcox Productions Alfred Hitchcock Vivien LeighSelected Features

Foreign ClassicsLatin America and SpainItaly and FranceFinland and SwedenGermany

Avant-Garde: FranceGeorges MélièsFernand LégerDimitri KirsanoffSergei Eisenstein Man Ray Jean Epstein Marc’O

Avant-Garde: US Watson and WebberHerman G. WeinbergCharles VidorSlavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey Joseph VogelChester KesslerEric ArthurFrank StauffacherJohn SchmitzSam ZebbaAnthony Balch and William BurroughsJohn Parker

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First published in the United States of America in 2012 by Cohen Film Collection, LLC750 Lexington Avenue, Floor 23New York, NY 10022www.cohenmedia.net

ISBN 978-0-615-69865-6

©2012 Cohen Film Collection, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written consent of the publisher.

Editors: Tim Lanza, Leslie AdlerDesign: Graham Hanson Design

Printed in the United States of America

The Documentaries

Animation

Index: TitlesIndex: DirectorsIndex: Actors

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Cohen Film Collection: The Rohauer Library is a world-renowned collection of rare movie classics. Long acclaimed for its immensity and entertainment value, this esteemed collection of over 700 titles spans 75 years of the cinema’s most dynamic eras.This unique screen treasure was amassed by Raymond Rohauer (1924–1987), the former film curator of the Huntington Hartford Gallery of Modern Art in New York, who devoted his life to collecting these distinguished films. Rohauer was born in Buffalo, New York, and moved to Los Angeles when he was a teenager because of his passion for the movies. Starting his collection as a youth, he went on to found the Society of Cinema Arts, offering events and regular screenings of experimental, classic and foreign films at the Coronet Theatre and

the Riviera-Capri Theatre. These venues played an important role in educating film students and filmmakers in Los Angeles about early cinema history. Later, Rohauer established partnerships with Buster Keaton, Mrs. Harry Langdon, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and others for the distribution and restoration of features and shorts. Cohen Film Collection: The Rohauer Library is the successor in rights (in most cases, all rights throughout the world) to the listed motion pictures of Buster Keaton, D. W. Griffith, the films of Marcel Hellman, Herbert Wilcox, Pendennis Films, Ltd., the Paramount short film library and others. These exclusive licenses and contracts bring to the Collection original nitrates, camera negatives, prints and other materials unavailable elsewhere, to assure the best prints possible.

Introduction

Under the stewardship, and guided by the vision of Charles S. Cohen, plans for the systematic preservation and restoration of the many classics in this unique film library will ensure that they are available to be enjoyed by generations to come. Through strategic partnerships with the most prestigious archives in the United States and abroad, film titles will be selected on an ongoing basis to undergo complete digital and, where appropriate, photochemical restoration, so that the best possible versions of these historic and entertaining films are available across all platforms of delivery. In addition to the treasures contained in The Rohauer Library, Cohen Film Collection will augment its library through the acquisition of classic films from around the globe in order to offer an ever-growing selection of the classics in world cinema.

Preface

American Classics


12 American Classics Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

13 American Classics

Buster Keaton

One Week1920

Written and directed byBuster KeatonEddie Cline

Produced byJoseph M. Schenck

StarringBuster KeatonSybil SeelyJoe Roberts

20 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music Track, B&W

Buster and his new bride have one week to build a house from an assemble-it-yourself pre-fab kit before their housewarming celebration scheduled for Friday the 13th. — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

An amazing little work, not only in that it pre-dates so many of the later Keaton gags and general bizarre and dream-like style, but in that it is such an outstanding comedy by any standards. This is still one of Keaton’s cleverest and funniest shorts.— William K. Everson

Full of impossible gags—introduces the dreamlike, almost surreal imagery that became a recurring aspect of Keaton’s work— Christian Science Monitor, September, 1981

The storm which destroys his do-it-yourself house contains clear anticipations of the whirlwind climax of Steamboat Bill Jr.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

Neighbors1921



StarringBuster KeatonJoe KeatonJoe RobertsVirginia FoxEddie Cline


The classic Pyramus and Thisbe legend takes a ribbing in this funny tale about two tenement lovers who are separated by a high backyard fence. Buster nonchalantly performs daring acrobatic feats as he traverses clotheslines, teeter-totters and telephone poles to reach his beloved. The picture also has a blackface routine common to movies of the period and takes aim also at lower-class marriage customs.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

Fastest and funniest of them all.— Rudy Blesh

Convict 131920



StarringBuster KeatonSybil SeelyJoe RobertsEddie ClineJoe Keaton


Buster escapes from Death Row in the uniform of a prison guard, only to face death once more when his fellow inmates seize control of the prison and advance on the guards. Thought to exist only as a fragment, Convict 13 has been restored to its original running time.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

The Scarecrow1920



StarringBuster KeatonSybil SeelyAl St. JohnJoe KeatonLuke the Dog


“What Is A Home Without a Mother?” reads the sign on the wall of Buster and Big Joe Roberts’ bachelor pad — a marvelously inventive house designed for effortless living. The two guys also share the same gal, and her father disapproves of both of them.— Pacific Film Archive— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

A two-reel trick-and-slapstick farce with Buster Keaton and funny furniture doing most of the farcing, is broadly amusing.— The New York Times

Hard Luck1921



StarringBuster KeatonJoe RobertsVirginia Fox


Down on his luck, Buster tries various means of killing himself, only to have his attempts hilariously thwarted. This version uses text and a still to reconstruct the end sequence that had been missing for so long.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

The Haunted House1921



StarringBuster KeatonJoe RobertsVirginia FoxEddie Cline


Bank teller Buster spills glue on his money, gets himself accused of robbery and winds up in a haunted house full of spooky devices.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

The High Sign1921



StarringBuster KeatonAl St. John


One of Keaton’s funniest. He plays a contract-killer who must murder the town miser, August Nlckelnurser, but Nickelnurser knows a good man when he sees one and hires Buster as his bodyguard.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

Especially frantic farce.— Christian Science Monitor, September, 1981

One Week1920

Neighbors1921

Hard Luck1921

Convict 131920

The Haunted House1921

The Play House 1921

The Boat1921

The High Sign1921

The Scarecrow 1920




The Paleface1922



StarringBuster KeatonJoe Roberts


Buster is an absent-minded butterfly-chasing entomologist who stumbles into the midst of warring Indian tribes. This is the comedy in which he retreats backwards on his hands and knees across a suspension bridge, removing the staves in front of him and placing them behind to create his own caterpillar track.— First National Pictures, USA

Bit of business with Keaton tied to a stake, his moving from place to place as the Indians pile the brush to start a fire, is laughable— Variety

Contains elements which were to reappear in The General.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The Play House1921



StarringBuster KeatonVirginia FoxJoe Roberts


In this brilliant comedy about a vaudeville house, Buster plays every part, including simultaneously playing all eight musicians in a minstrel show. — First National Pictures, USA

One of the most extraordinary films of this period, however unique in Keaton’s work, is full of reminiscences of his vaudeville background. The Play House (1921) achieves a truly surreal quality as Keaton plays all the roles, including all the performers on stage in a little vaudeville house, the orchestra, the audience and even a performing monkey.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The Goat1921

Written and directed byBuster KeatonMalcolm St. Clair




A mistaken-identity crisis precipitates an almost continuous — and continuously brilliant chase through two adjoining towns where Buster is taken for Deadeye Dan, Public Enemy.— Pacific Film Archive— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

The Boat1921



StarringBuster KeatonSybil SeelyEddie Cline


Buster builds a boat in his basement only to run afoul of Murphy’s Law. He pulls the boat out and the house falls down. He names the boat Damfino and it sinks at sea. He sends an S.O.S. to the Coast Guard and they refuse to respond, for when they ask “who are you?” Keaton replies, “Damfino.” The Guard decides that if he doesn’t know who he is, they shouldn’t be expected to. — First National Pictures, USA

A masterpiece.— Dwight MacDonald, New York Times Review of Books

Rank(s) with Keaton’s great feature-length silent comedies.— David Robinson

My Wife’s Relations1922



StarringBuster KeatonKate PriceMonty CollinsWheezer DellTom Wilson


A family farce with Buster as the bridegroom who tries to smooth out relations with his new in-laws. Among the many gags is a marriage bed that collapses at the most inopportune moments.— First National Pictures, USA

Cops1922



StarringBuster KeatonVirginia FoxJoe RobertsEddie Cline


A wonderful example of Buster Keaton’s film artistry. A carefully orchestrated series of gags in which he plays an innocent who tries to impress his girl by becoming more than he is, and winds up inextricably caught in a police parade that breaks up to pursue him.— First National Pictures, USA

Three Stars.— Leslie Halliwell

The Blacksmith1922

Directed byBuster KeatonMalcolm St. Clair

Written byBuster KeatonEddie Cline




Buster plays a blacksmith who shoes his horses assembly-line style.— First National Pictures, USA

The Frozen North 1922



StarringBuster KeatonBonnie HillFreeman WoodJoe Roberts

23 Minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music Track, B&W

Buster so uproariously lampoons William S. Hart and the highly stylized conventions of twenties’ western epics that when Hart saw it he refused to speak to Keaton for months. — First National Pictures, USA




The Electric House 1922



StarringBuster KeatonVirginia FoxJoe RobertsJoe, Myra and Louise Keaton


Buster designs a house with all the latest gadgets for a real estate tycoon who will buy thousands if the model home impresses him. But during the demonstration, everything that can go wrong does — hilariously.— First National Pictures, USA

The Balloonatic 1923



StarringBuster KeatonPhyllis Haver


Buster rises to new heights as he sails heavenward in a balloon. He bumps into clouds and, in trying to bring down a duck, punctures the gas bag and crashes in the woods where he saves Phyllis Haver from a bear and falls in love. His courtship and the ‘balloonatic’ events that follow are hilarious. — First National Pictures, USA

Brand new gags. One of the most ingenious he has made since The Boat.— L.C. Moen. Motion Picture News

The Love Nest 1923

Written and directed byBuster Keaton


StarringBuster KeatonVirginia FoxJoe Roberts

18 Minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music Track. B&W

Love-smitten Keaton joins a whaling ship crew and its fearsome captain. — First National Pictures, USA

Keaton’s shorts, at their best, can compare with his mature feature productions. Often they seem to contain sketches for the later features: The Love Nest look(s) forward to The Navigator.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

Day Dreams 1922



StarringBuster KeatonRenee AdoreeJoe Roberts


While seeking his fortune in the big city, country bumpkin Buster tries to impress the girl back home with glowing accounts of his achievements. As she reads his letters, we see what’s really happening. — First National Pictures, USA

Our Hospitality1923

Directed byBuster KeatonJack Blystone

Written byJean HavezJoseph MitchellClyde Bruckman


StarringBuster KeatonNatalie TalmadgeJoe KeatonBuster Keaton Jr.


In 1810, the respective heads of the Canfield and McKay families try to settle an old score, but by killing each other they merely perpetuate the old feud. Twenty years later, the last surviving McKay (Keaton) comes back home by train to claim his estate. Unknown to him, his seatmate, played by Natalie Talmadge, is the Canfield daughter. Unaware that her father and brothers know who Buster is and plan to kill him, she invites him to supper at the family home. Buster escapes, and while the men are out looking for him he finds a parson to marry him and Natalie and bury the hatchet for good. Among the many gags is the train ride that zig-zags around obstacles, a wild chase through the mountains and a hair-raising rescue at a high waterfall.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

In his previous films, Keaton had revealed an ingenious talent for setting up gags in terms of the camera. In Our Hospitality, however, his highly developed gifts as a filmmaker come into evidence. The exposition of the sequence is lucid and entirely pictorial. The images are invariably correct and just and the rhythms impeccable. Keaton prefers a freer style of mise-en-scène which is sometimes remarkably modern in feeling… certainly superior to Chaplin, who at the time was preparing The Gold Rush — a beautiful film but technically archaic and visually feeble when seen alongside the Keaton film.— David Robinson, Buster Keaton

The Three Ages 1923

Directed byBuster KeatonEddie Cline

Written by Clyde BruckmanJoseph MitchellJean Havez


StarringBuster KeatonWallace BeeryMargaret LeahyJoe RobertsLillian LawrenceLionel Belmore


Inspired by D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance, Buster made this hilarious comedy in which two young men compete for the same girl in different epochs: the stone age, ancient Rome, and America during prohibition. Like the Griffith film, each story cuts parallel to the others to climax in a common end. — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

Contains one of the earliest and most brilliant of Keaton’s great climactic comic trajectories (he performs an astonishing descent down the many stories of a large apartment building to arrive on a moving fire engine below).— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

Just about as coherent as Intolerance and about fifty times as funny. — Robert E. Sherwood, Life

The Navigator1924

Directed byBuster KeatonDonald Crisp

Written byJean HavezClyde BruckmanJ. A. Mitchell


StarringBuster KeatonKathryn McGuireFrederick VroomJohn O’BrienNoble Johnson


A hilarious comedy in which Keaton and his sweetheart are cast adrift on a deserted ocean liner. The ship finally runs aground on a desert island where the two unfortunates are chased by cannibals. One of Keaton’s most revered films. — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA


Masterpiece.— Dwight MacDonald, The New York Times

Considered by many Keaton buffs to be the funniest film he ever made.— John D. Eames, The MGM Story

Keaton’s biggest box office success, which grew out of a single prop — a great ocean-going liner which his special effects person, Fred Gabourie, had found about to be scrapped — plot mechanism landed a boy and girl, spoiled millionaires adrift alone on the ship; he then created a brilliant superstructure of gag inventions upon the simple base situation.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The Saphead 1921

Written and directed byHerbert Blache

Written byJune MathisBased on the play The New Henriettaby Winchell Smith and Victor Mapes

StarringBuster KeatonBeulah BookerWilliam H. CraneIrving Cummings

70 Minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music Track, Color Tint

Among the rarest of the Keaton comedies, The Saphead casts Buster as shy Bertie “the lamb” Van Alstyne, the wealthy son of the “wolf of Wall Street.” To win the heart of Agnes, Buster consults “how to win the modern girl,” which urges its readers to become daring. Dutifully, he tries to be rakish in an oriental morning robe, fails to get himself arrested in a gambling casino, and tries smoking huge cigars. Agnes may be singularly unimpressed, but Buster’s father is, and orders Buster to cut out the funny business and get a job. Buster buys a seat on the Stock Exchange forthwith, wins Agnes and flabbergasts his father by making a killing in the market.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

Without parallel, exhibitors made Keaton the whole show for a week, playing The Saphead along with a Keaton comic two-reeler, The Scarecrow.— Rudi Blesh, Keaton

Splendid production.— Variety

The Navigator1924

The Frozen North 1922

The Balloonatic 1923

The Love Nest 1923

The Electric House1922

The Saphead 1921

Cops1922

The Paleface1922

The Three Ages 1923



Sherlock, Jr.1924

Directed byBuster Keaton

Written byClyde BruckmanJean HavezJoseph Mitchell


StarringBuster KeatonKathryn McGuireWard CraneJoe Keaton


Buster plays a movie projectionist who daydreams himself into the movies he is showing and merges with the figures and the backgrounds on the screen. While dreaming he is Conan Doyle’s master detective, he snoops out brilliant discoveries.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

One of Keaton’s best works. Its plot development, drawing of comedy characters and imaginative comic incidents place it among the great screen comedies of all time.— Donald W. McCaffrey, American Film Institute

Keaton’s mechanical ingenuity reached a new peak in the devising of a sequence which exacts comedy from the characteristic movie technique of cutting (he is left standing, amazed, in the same place on the screen as the scene cuts from one location to another) and in the extraordinary choreographed trajectories of the great climactic chase.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

“Fast-moving, gag-filled comedy which ranks among its star’s best.”

9 Buster Keaton Comedies




Seven Chances1925


Written byClyde BruckmanJoseph MitchellJean HavezBased on the play by Roi Cooper Megrue


StarringBuster KeatonRuth DwyerRay BarnesSnitz Edwards


Buster gets word that if he can be married by seven o’clock that evening he will inherit $7,000,000. When his sweetheart refuses, he proposes to everyone in skirts, including a Scotsman. Hopeful still, he advertises for a bride and is horrified to discover 500 would-be-brides hot on his trail in a hilarious chase to the finish. — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

A favorite… surrealistic imagery becomes overwhelming in a climax in which Buster is chased down a mountainside by boulders run amok.— Christian Science Monitor, August, 1981

Go West1925


Written byRaymond CannonBuster KeatonLex Neal


Photographed byBert HainesElgin Lessley

StarringBuster KeatonHoward TruesdaleKathleen MyersRay ThompsonBrown Eyes


Buster Keaton burlesques the Western in this comedy about a friendless drifter who befriends a cow named Brown Eyes and accompanies her on the cattle train to the stockyards. When rustlers attack, he saves her, and at the fade-out the two of them ride off into the sunset in the back of a motorcar.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

The most atypical and at the same time one of the most endearing of his films. With acrobatic and gag comedy at a minimum, Keaton experimented uncharacteristically with a quality of pathos in his depiction of friendlessness and his relationship with a gentle, sweet cow. Although this was his only essay in sentiment, his grace and taste carry it off with a style that is never mawkish.— David Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

Battling Butler1926


Written byPaul G. SmithAl BoasbergCharles SmithLex NealBased on the musical play by Douglas Furber and Phillip Brabham


StarringBuster KeatonSally O’NeilSnitz EdwardsFrancis McDonald


Keaton remarked on occasion that Battling Butler was his favorite film. Based on a Broadway play, the story revolves around a case of mistaken identity between two Alfred Butlers — one an effete millionaire (Keaton), the other the heavyweight champion of the world (Francis McDonald). Coincidence brings them to the same backwoods Kentucky neighborhood, where Butler-the-flop finds love with a mountain girl, but not before antagonizing Butler-the-brute into a Madison Square Garden grudge match.— Pacific Film Archive— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA

Shrieks of delight at many hilarious moments.— The New York Times

College1927

Directed byJames W. Horne

Written byCarl HarbaughBryan Foy


StarringBuster KeatonAnne CornwallSnitz Edwards


When collegiate bookworm Keaton falls for a pretty co-ed who only has eyes for jocks, he hits the playing fields in a series of wildly hilarious attempts to win her. At first he’s all thumbs, but by the end of the picture, when he hears the campus masher is forcing himself upon her, Buster broad-jumps a pond, hurdles row after row of high bushes, and pole-vaults through a second-story window of the women’s dorm to save her. — United Artists, USA

Three Stars. Awfully funny.— Leonard Maltin

Steamboat Bill, Jr.1928

Directed byCharles Riesner

Written byBuster KeatonCarl Harbaugh


StarringBuster KeatonErnest TorrenceMarion Byron


The son of a steamboat captain, Buster falls in love with the daughter of a rival steamboat owner. The picture climaxes with a cyclone in which a two-story building comes crashing down on Keaton. As a wall falls in one piece around him, he passes untouched through an open window. — United Artists, USA

The climax is a terrifyingly funny windstorm in which self-propelled beds glide and levitate, and houses topple suddenly from all sides, with Buster as usual oblivious to his peril until a few seconds after he might have hied himself out of harm’s way. What gives this sequence such an eerie quality is that the tempest takes place amid the stark tranquility of broad daylight — it’s really like a bad dream in which Keaton is taking the licks for the rest of us watching in the dark. — The New York Times, August. 1981

I laughed or giggled all the time the picture was running; in fact, I laughed all the way through it and forgot it was my business to search for flaws in it. As the purpose of a comedy is to make us forget business and have a good laugh, I must put Steamboat Bill, Jr. down as perhaps the best comedy of the year.— The Film Spectator

The Great Stone Face1968

Written and directed byVernon Becker

StarringBuster KeatonRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle

100 minutes, 35mm, B&W

This wonderful documentary about Buster Keaton explores his mastery of silent film comedy as a writer, director and performer. Included are clips from Coney Island (1917), Cops (1922), The Three Ages (1923), The Navigator (1924), The General (1926), and The Railrodder (1965). By the early Fifties, it looked as if Keaton was finished. Then in 1954, in partnership with Raymond Rohauer, Buster Keaton Productions was resuscitated, his famous silent film comedies were restored and reissued and whole new generations discovered and came to love his special brand of humor.— Funnyman Productions

Go West1925

Our Hospitality1923

Steamboat Bill Jr. 1928



“Some say his greatest film, and one of the cleverest of all time.”

The General1926

Directed byBuster KeatonClyde Bruckman

Written byAl BoasbergCharles Smith


Photographed byJ. Devereux JenningsBert Haines

StarringBuster KeatonMarion MackGlen Cavender


Many critics consider The General to be the last great comedy of the silent era, and it consistently ranks as one of the greatest comedies of all time on international critics’ polls. Set during the Civil War and based on a true incident, the film is also an authentic looking period piece, bringing the scope and realism of Matthew Brady-like images to brilliant life. The title refers not to Keaton’s character, but to his engine, The General, which figures prominently in one of the most harrowing and hilarious chase scenes ever filmed. Keaton portrays the engineer Johnnie Gray, who is rejected by the Confederate Army and then suffers the further humiliation of his girlfriend’s (Marion Mack) thinking him a coward. When a small band of Union soldiers penetrate far beyond Confederate lines to steal his locomotive, Johnnie Gray sets off in hot pursuit; seven of the film’s eight reels (are) devoted to the chase, with its orchestration of thrills and comedy. Keaton shot the film on the narrow railways of Oregon and used less than 50 titles to explain the whole story.— Pacific Film Archive— United Artists, USA

Masterpiece.— Dwight MacDonald, New York Times Review of Books

The Goat 1921

The Blacksmith1922




Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle and Buster Keaton

The Butcher Boy1917

Directed byRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle

Written byRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle


StarringRoscoe ‘Fatty’ ArbuckleBuster KeatonAl St. John


Buster Keaton’s film debut is set in a general store with Arbuckle as the butcher. Keaton performs famous bits involving brooms and a bucket of molasses that he would recreate decades later on television. — Comique Film Corporation, USA

Coney Island1917





A day at Coney Island serves as the backdrop for slapstick mayhem by Arbuckle, Keaton and St. John.— Comique Film Corporation, USA

Out West1918


Written byRoscoe ‘Fatty’ ArbuckleNatalie Talmadge




In this satirical Western, Buster Keaton plays a saloon owner who doubles as the town sheriff. Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle becomes the saloon’s bartender after a long journey around America’s frontier railway system. Gamblers, trapdoors, Indians and a damsel in distress create a comedic journey to Mad Dog Gulch.— Comique Film Corporation, USA

Good Night, Nurse!1918

Written and directed byRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle


StarringRoscoe ‘Fatty’ ArbuckleBuster KeatonAl St. JohnAlice Lake


In this comedy, Arbuckle is committed to the No Hope Sanitarium, a facility that specializes in a surgical cure for the chronically inebriated. Chief surgeon Buster’s appearance in a blood-splattered smock is enough to convince Arbuckle that the cure is not for him, so he plots his escape dressed as a female nurse.— Comique Film Corporation, USA

The Bell Boy1918


Written byRoscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle




Arbuckle and Keaton are bellhops and St. John is the desk clerk at a third-rate hotel that uses a horse to operate the elevator. — Comique Film Corporation, USA

Backstage1919


Written byJean Havez




Arbuckle and Keaton work in a vaudeville house. When the Strongman walks out, the crew has to put on the show. Keaton would later echo this film in his short, The Play House. — Comique Film Corporation, USA




A Night with Charlie Chaplin1914/1985

Individual shorts produced byMack Sennett

StarringCharlie ChaplinMabel NormandChester Conklin


In 1984 Thames Television aired The Unknown Chaplin, a television special produced by Kevin Brownlow, David Gill and Raymond Rohauer. A critical and popular success, it used outtakes and other footage, much of it never before seen in public. Most of the material was in mint condition. A Night With Charlie Chaplin is a dividend constructed from some of that same footage. It includes Caught In a Cabaret, in which Chaplin plays a cabaret waiter who pretends to be a duke at Mabel Normand’s garden party; Dough and Dynamite, in which Charlie gets involved with strikers at a bakery; His Trysting Place, in which he picks up the wrong coat in a diner and his wife, Mabel, finds a love letter in the pocket; and His Primitive Past. — Keystone, USA

Tillie’s Punctured Romance1914

Produced and directed byMack Sennett

Written byHampton Del RuthBased on Tillie’s Nightmare by Edgar Smith

StarringCharlie ChaplinMarie DresslerMabel NormandChester ConklinEdgar KennedyCharley ChaseCharles MurrayMack Swain


Comedy writer/producer/director Mack Sennett got Marie Dressler to repeat her Broadway starring role as “Tillie,” put her opposite Chaplin, and packed the film with all his other leading comedy stars. Chaplin plays a fortune-hunter who deceives both Marie and Mabel who sic the Keystone Kops on him in one of the wildest chases ever seen on film.— Keystone, USA

The world had never heard of a six-reel comedy. It was as stupendous an undertaking in its field as Quo Vadis or Birth of a Nation, and was proclaimed a success.— Terry Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights

Chaplin and Dressler constitute a rare team of filmmakers — the sort of combination that not only tempts but impels an ordinary fallible reviewer to indulge in extravagant language. Chaplin outdoes Chaplin; that’s all there is to it. Mack Sennett has done well.— The Moving Picture World

Charlie Chaplin

Luke’s Movie Muddle1916

Directed byHal Roach

StarringHarold LloydBebe Daniels


This comedy pokes fun at early movie-making. Bebe Daniels was Harold Lloyd’s comedy partner beginning with this film, until Captain Kidd’s Kids (1919). — Rolin Films, USA

Harold Lloyd

Somewhere in Turkey1918

Directed byAlfred J. Goulding

StarringHarold LloydBebe DanielsSnub PollardBud Jamison


Already wearing his famous glasses, Lloyd plays an archaeologist who rescues Bebe from the clutches of an evil Sultan. — Rolin Films, USA

Swing Your Partner 1918

Directed byAlfred J. Goulding

StarringHarold LloydBebe DanielsSnub Pollard


Harold is mistaken for a dance instructor expected by Professor Tanglefoot’s class, so he offers his own version of the art. — Rolin Films, USA



On the Fire1919


StarringHarold LloydBebe DanielsSnub Pollard


With Harold as chef and Snub Pollard as his assistant, things get pretty lively for Bebe as she tries to dine at the Cafe Sordide.— Rolin Films, USA

Back to the Woods1919


StarringHarold LloydBebe DanielsSnub PollardBud Jamison


Harold is a neophyte in the North Woods where Bebe grew up as a tomboy. The slapstick comedy also involves Indians and some bears. — Rolin Films, USA

Haunted Spooks1920

Directed byHal RoachAlfred J. Goulding

StarringHarold LloydMildred Davis


Harold has girl troubles, but their adventure in a haunted house reunites them. The comedy contains one of the most hilariously frustrated suicide sequences ever put on film, when Harold, despairing over rejection, tries to kill himself, ineptly. During the filming, one of the special effects “bomb” detonated, blowing off three of Lloyd’s fingers, setting the production back many months. This was the third film with Lloyd for new leading lady Mildred Davis, who married him in 1923 and remained married to him until her death in 1969. — Rolin Films, USA

Somewhere in Turkey1918




Picking Peaches1924

Directed byErle C. Kenton

Produced byMack Sennett

StarringHarry Langdon


In Picking Peaches, Harry Langdon’s first film, we’re introduced to what looks at first like a standard vaudeville character: whitened, oval face; demure pucker of the mouth with turned up corners; natty dresser with slicked down hair. He’s an accomplished flirt and full of Sennett energy. Walter Kerr, in his book, The Silent Clowns, detects two faint suggestions of the Langdon to come. Having successfully flirted with a girl under a beach umbrella, Harry curls up in her lap, rather as though what he’d really been looking for was a motherly cuddle. The flicker of oddity breaks stride with the routine gagging. Later, when someone happens to tickle his nose with a feathered fan, he instantly puts palm and all five fingers to it, in a directionless spasm, as though his motor control weren’t secure enough to guide him to any one particular itch. Again we are slightly surprised; we almost expect to see jam on his face.— Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

Harry Langdon

All Night Long1924

Directed byHarry Edwards

StarringHarry LangdonVernon Dent


Harry wakes up in a movie theatre after the audience has left. On his way home, he stumbles across a burglary in action, only to discover that one of the burglars is an old Army friend. They reminisce about their wartime rivalry.— Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

The Sea Squawk1924



StarringHarry LangdonVernon Dent


Aboard ship, Harry tries to escape from a crook by disguising himself in a dress and blonde curls. While he becomes the center of attention on the dance floor, everything goes awry when he snaps the girdle of a buxom woman, gets involved with an escaped monkey, loses his panties and gets himself chased up the ship’s rigging.— Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

Boobs in the Woods1925



StarringHarry LangdonMarie AstaireVernon Dent


Harry has to leave home because he won’t roll Grandma’s cigarettes. He winds up in a logging camp with Marie Astaire and Vernon Dent, who’s a bull and a mile wide. Dent threatens to kill Harry for nosing around Marie, so Marie gets a job as a bar maid at a higher salary at a lower altitude, and Harry joins her as a waiter known as the Crying Killer. Putting kerosene into the soup, he wires the saloon to make himself look like a dead shot and, when Dent shows up, starts a fight and dowses the lights until the last man is down and out. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

His Marriage Wow1925



StarringHarry LangdonVernon DentNatalie Kingston


Bumbling Harry shows up at the wrong church on his wedding day, leaving his bride-to-be waiting anxiously at another church across town. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

Ella Goes to Hollywood1926

(The Harry Langdon sequence from Ella Cinders)

Directed byAlfred Green

StarringHarry LangdonColleen Moore


You don’t have to book Ella Cinders to see Langdon. Show this amusing feature excerpt instead. Ella Cinders (Colleen Moore) stumbles into First National Studios and wanders onto the set of Tramp Tramp Tramp (1926) where Harry Langdon is being filmed.— First National Pictures, USA

Lucky Stars1925


Written byArthur RipleyFrank Capra

Produced ByMack Sennett

StarringHarry LangdonNatalie KingstonVernon Dent


Harry sells elixir to the rubes in a border town, but when the pharmacist’s daughter (Natalie Kingston) doctors the medicine with something explosive, the natives run Harry out of town. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA



“Possibly Langdon’s masterpiece, blending romance, misfortune and humor.”

The Strong Man1926

Directed byFrank Capra

Written byFrank CapraArthur RipleyHal ConklinRobert Eddy

StarringHarry LangdonGertrude AstorTay Garnett


Harry plays a World War I veteran from Belgium who accompanies a strong-man act to America so he can look for Mary Smith, the pen pal he fell in love with during the war. Along the way, a gangster’s moll hides a bankroll on Harry and then has to lure him to her apartment to recover the loot. In the mistaken notion that his virginity is at stake (and being very ticklish), he demolishes her and the apartment in his flight to escape. Another famous routine occurs on a crowded bus when Harry tries to soothe a cold by rubbing his chest with a piece of over-ripe Limburger. — First National Pictures, USA

Quite charming star comedy, probably Langdon’s best.— Leslie Halliwell

A wealth of slapstick. Langdon is second only to Chaplin in his ability to inject pathos into his comedy.— Variety

I don’t know when I’ve seen anything more touchingly beautiful than Harry Langdon’s performance in this. Probably never.— Robert E. Sherwood, Life




His First Flame1926


Presented byMack Sennett

Written byFrank CapraArthur Ripley

StarringHarry LangdonVernon DentRuth HiattBud Jamison


Long thought lost, His First Flame, Harry Langdon’s first feature film, has been restored and a music score added. Timid Harry fails spectacularly to make his macho fireman uncle proud of him. He gets mugged by a female shoplifter who takes his clothes and leaves him hers. He hitchhikes in her dress and gets picked up by a truck driver. Later, his girl fakes a fire in order to give Harry a chance to become a hero. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA Selected for special screening as a rediscovered film.— Madrid International Film Festival, 1979

Soldier Man1926

Written, produced and directed byMack Sennett

StarringHarry Langdon


Harry plays a lost soldier wandering the battlefields long after World War I has ended. He is pursued by a farmer, hides under a cow and, to his complete fascination, discovers the cow’s udders. Later, mistaken for the lost King Strudel XIII, Harry is enthroned by a thankful people, only to discover that the Queen wants him executed. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

Saturday Afternoon1926



StarringHarry LangdonAlice WardVernon Dent


He’s just a “crumb from the sponge-cake of life,” but when buddy Vernon Dent suggests they double date with a pair of good-looking dames, hen-pecked Harry goes home to harangue his wife, hoping she’ll throw him out. His performance is wonderful. He thinks she’s in the next room, but she’s standing right behind him. — Mack Sennett Comedies, USA

Tramp Tramp Tramp1926


Written byFrank CapraTim WhelanHal ConklinGerald DuffyMurray RothJ. Frank Holliday

StarringHarry LangdonJoan CrawfordAlec B. Francis


Harry Langdon’s second feature film about a man who enters a cross-country walking contest to impress his girl showcases some of his best routines: throwing small stones at a tornado to scare it away, he spits at it in victory, only to look down and have to wipe the spit off his lapel; or the one in which he gets hung up on a fence nail, unaware that it is all that keeps him from dropping several hundred feet to the highway below. Joan Crawford, working with him for the first time, laughed so hysterically that they had to re-shoot her close-ups after Langdon left the set. — First National Pictures, USA

This picture takes Harry Langdon’s doleful face and pathetic figure out of the two-reel class and into the Chaplin and Lloyd screen dimensions. The boy’s good.— Photoplay

Three’s a Crowd1927

Produced and directed byHarry Langdon

Written byArthur Ripley

StarringHarry LangdonGladys McConnellCornelius Keefe


A touching story in which Harry plays a poor young man who loves a girl left alone with her baby by her husband. Harry takes them in, cares for her and the infant, but is too shy to tell her how he feels. Then, on Christmas Eve, as Harry prepares to play Santa Claus, the husband returns to claim his family and Harry is alone once more.— First National Pictures, USA

Langdon is brilliant.— Variety

Three’s a Crowd has some wonderful passages in it, including the prize-ring nightmare.— James Agee, Agee on Film

The Chaser1928

Produced and directed byHarry Langdon

Written byClarence Henneckeand othersBased on a story by Arthur Ripley

StarringHarry LangdonGladys McConnellHelen HaywardWilliam Jaimison


Harry Langdon’s funniest and blackest comedy on the subject of love and marriage. His wife is a nagger and his mother-in-law is worse. The first half of the picture takes hilarious pot-shots at marriage and sets the scene for the second half, in which Harry runs away from home with his buddy William Jaimison. They get involved in a slapstick auto chase along the way and Harry parodies The Great Lover.— First National Pictures, USA

Long Pants1927

Directed byFrank Capra

Written byArthur EddyBased on a story by Arthur Ripley

StarringHarry LangdonGladys BrockwellAl Roscoe


A timid young man who knows nothing of the fairer sex, Harry gets his first long pants and goes after the girls with the innocence of a newly-fallen snow and the single-minded purpose of a kid after the forbidden cookie jar. — First National Pictures, USA

Another of Langdon’s films from the peak of his career. He incarnates the innocent child wandering through a sort of fairytale life where disasters happen but are always averted at the last moment by magical coincidences. Long Pants is especially typical of Langdon’s method of slow-mounting climax. Instead of music and wall·to-wall gags, Langdon seduces us into bubbling laughter.— American Film Institute


The Strong Man1926

Long Pants1927

Saturday Afternoon1926

Soldier Man1926

Three’s a Crowd1927

The Chaser1928


Long Pants1927




Double Trouble1915

Directed byW. Christy Cabanne

StarringDouglas FairbanksMargery Wilson

50 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent, B&W

Fairbanks plays a man with dueling personalities in this early comedy. — Fine Arts Film Company, USA

The Lamb1915


Written byAnita LoosBased on a story by D. W. Griffith

Production supervised byD. W. Griffith

StarringDouglas FairbanksSeana OwenWilliam E. Lowery


Douglas Fairbanks’ first film — he plays a timid man who becomes a hero by saving his girl from a tribe of Indians. It was so much fun and Fairbanks proved to be such a terrific actor that after seeing the picture, the reviewer for Variety said it was “no wonder the Triangle people signed up Fairbanks for a period of three years at any salary within reason.”— Triangle, USA

Young Anita Loos found in exuberant Doug a kindred spirit, a man who could carry off the kind of cheeky gags she loved (to write) but which Griffith somehow never got around to filming. The Lamb set the pattern for the majority of Doug’s early comedies, with the protagonist starting out as a study in ineptitude, then, under the impress of necessity, discovering within himself an unsuspected heroic (and pragmatic) side — unpretentiously stated message — there is extraordinary stuff in ordinary people if only they will let it out.— Richard Schickel, The Fairbanks Album

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

The Habit of Happiness1916

Directed byAllan Dwan

Supervised byD. W. Griffith

Written byShannon FifeDrawn from an idea by Griffith

StarringDouglas FairbanksDorothy WestGeorge FawcettMacy HarlanGeorge Bakus


Sunny Wiggins’ (Fairbanks) old man has buckets of money, so Sunny has plenty of time to indulge his “Ideas” about “the brotherhood of man,” like the night he brings home a fine collection of Bowery Mission down-and-outers, treats them all to the luxury of a hot bath, and then marches them down to supper to a dining table set with the best silver and linens. What he doesn’t know is that his sister is throwing a dinner party for a bunch of society somebodies, so when they descend upon the roomful of ragamuffins, the results are side-splitting.— A Triangle-Fine Arts Production, USA

For a laugh-getter this one is a peach, and it carries a strong love interest and a dramatic punch at the end that is sure to send it over with any audience.— Variety

Flirting with Fate1916


Written byW. Christy CabanneBased on a story by Robert M. Baker

Supervised byD. W. Griffith

StarringDouglas FairbanksHoward GayeJule CarmenGeorge Beranger


Doug plays a penniless artist in this romantic comedy who falls in love with a society girl he meets in the park (Jule Carmen). Her aunt, who wants her to marry money, squashes the romance. Heartbroken, Doug decides to end it all and hires a hit man named “Automatic Joe” to “bump him off.” Just as Joe is ready to earn his dough, Doug comes into an inheritance and the society girl sends him a note to call. How he gives Death’s Messenger the slip and marries the girl is full of Keystone Kops hilarity.— Triangle-Fine Arts, USA

Superior in many respects to any vehicle Fairbanks has had — a winner straight through, admirably constructed, capably handled and interpreted by a notable cast. — The Moving Picture World

The Good Bad Man1916


Written and produced by Douglas Fairbanks

StarringDouglas FairbanksBessie LoveSam De Grasse

50 minutes (24 fps), 35mm, B&W

Victor Fleming photographed this early Western starring Fairbanks as a Robin Hood-like outlaw named Passin’ Through, who robs from the rich to benefit a group of young orphans. This film was once thought to be lost.— Fine Arts Film Company, USA

Reggie Mixes In1916


Written byRobert M. Baker

StarringDouglas FairbanksBessie LoveJoseph SingletonAlma Rubens


Douglas Fairbanks plays a wealthy playboy in love with a woman from the wrong side of the tracks. Little does he know, the girl’s in with the local gang boss. When the boss sends his men after Reggie, Reggie knows there’s only one way to stop the criminal and get the girl — a duel to the death.— Fine Arts Film Company, USA

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish1916

Directed byJohn Emerson

Written byTod Browning

StarringDouglas FairbanksBessie Love


An early Fairbanks two-reeler in which Doug parodies Sherlock Holmes and pokes fun at the wide use of cocaine during the Twenties. He plays master sleuth Coke Ennyday who is on the case of the mysterious Leaping Fish. Clark Kent can’t be Superman without his telephone booth, and Ennyday can’t sleuth without his cocaine, so he keeps a supply handy, dances the “Cocaine Quiver” and then takes off after the bad guys.— Artcraft, USA




In Again, Out Again1917


Written byAnita Loos

Photographed byVictor Fleming

StarringDouglas FairbanksArline PrettyBull Montana


So many people stood outside waiting to get into the Rialto theatre when this picture opened in New York that they had to turn swarms of people away. Doug plays a Jersey youth whose fiancée jilts him because he wants to enlist in the Army. He drowns his troubles in “the cup that cheers” and winds up in the slammer. When he awakens to find a sweet young thing leaning over him bathing his brow, he falls instantly in love and is ecstatic when the judge sentences him to thirty days. Trouble is, a rival gets him pardoned and they have to throw Doug out of jail bodily. His attempts to break back in are hilarious.— Artcraft, USA

Screamingly farcical.— Variety

The Half Breed1916


Written byAnita LoosBret Harte

Produced byD. W. Griffith

StarringDouglas FairbanksAlma RubensSam De Grasse


Once thought to survive only as a two-reel fragment, this is the full five-reel version. Fairbanks plays Lo Dorman, a half-Cherokee half-white man who is raised and educated by a white naturalist, but discovers that he is not welcome in the white community. He lives in the Carquinez Woods of California in a hollowed-out redwood tree and becomes infatuated with a flirtatous white woman, Nellie Wynn, further alienating the local townspeople. When a young woman, Teresa, becomes a fugitive after stabbing her lover and the local sheriff, Lo takes her into his care and protects her. After saving her from a forest fire, he discovers that it is Teresa, not Nellie, whom he really loves.— Fine Arts Film Company, USA

Wild and Woolly1917


Written byAnita Loos

Based on a story byH.P. Carpenter

StarringDouglas FairbanksEileen Percy


Urban cowboy Fairbanks goes out West to scout the right-of-way for a new rail spur, but when someone tips off the residents of Bitter Creek that a dude is coming to town, they prepare a real welcome. They pretend to be frontier primitives, but when real crooks hold up the train, Doug gets a hilarious chance to prove his mettle. — Douglas Fairbanks Pictures, USA

The Matrimaniac1916

Directed byPaul Powell

Written byAnita LoosOctavus Roy CohenJohn EmersonJ.U. Giesy

Cinematography byVictor Fleming

StarringDouglas FairbanksConstance TalmadgeWilbur Higby


The dashing Fairbanks schemes to marry a beautiful girl without her father’s permission in this romantic comedy. — Fine Arts Film Company, USA

Down to Earth1917


Written byAnita LoosFrom a story by Douglas Fairbanks

Photographed byVictor Flemlng

StarringDouglas FairbanksEileen PercyGustav von Seyffertitz


Doug pushes healthful living in this comedy about the All-American health nut whose girl burns the candle at both ends. Eventually her high living lands her in the sanitarium of Dr. Jollyem to recuperate with a bunch of other effete Easterners. In a flash of gee-whiz inspiration, Doug kidnaps the whole lot and whisks them to a far-off shore to teach them how to embrace the simple life and gain new-found health. (The running time is approximate. The last two-fifths of the nitrate negative had completely disintegrated before it could be transferred to safety stock.)— Famous Players-Lasky Film Corporation, USA

Fairbanks does some of the best work of his dramatic or screen career. Book it Mr. Exhibitor, and if it fails to draw, it will be just about time to hail a few carpenters and make a garage out of your place.— Variety

The Man from Painted Post 1917

Directed byJoseph Henabery

Written byDouglas FairbanksJackson Gregory

Produced byDouglas Fairbanks

StarringDouglas FairbanksEileen PercyFrank Campeau


Victor Flemming serves as cinematographer in this Western detective story. Fairbanks investigates a cattle rustling scam in a when-East-meets-West comedic role.— Douglas Fairbanks Pictures, USA

Reaching for the Moon1917


Written byAnita LoosJohn Emerson

StarringDouglas FairbanksEileen PercyEugene OrmondeFrank CampeauErich von Stroheim


Doug plays Alexis Caesar Napoleon Brown, a clerk in a button factory whose mother died at his birth. The family always said she was a real princess who married beneath her for love. While reading “How to Concentrate,” Doug imagines himself into the kingdom of Vulgaria and the royal court. Later, during a nap, he dreams himself into the middle of a palace intrigue in which Black Boris, the Pretender, tries to keep Doug from assuming his rightful place on the throne. Just as Boris forces him off a cliff at sword-point, Doug falls out of bed and awakens.— Famous Players-Lasky Film Corporation, USA

Laughs come from Fairbanks’ battles with Boris, who fields bomb-throwers, assassins with knives and revolvers. All working fast while the populace shouts “Long Live the King!”— Variety

His Majesty, the American1919

Directed byJoseph Henabery

Written byJoseph HenaberyDouglas Fairbanks

StarringDouglas FairbanksMarjorie DawFrank CampeauBoris KarloffLillian Langdon


United Artists’ first release, a sort of Prisoner of Zenda, in which Doug plays a New York man-about-town who turns out to be the long lost heir to the throne of a small European kingdom. He arrives in time to foil the rotters who are trying to assassinate the royal family, wins the hand of a lady, and becomes the new monarch.— United Artists, USA

United Artists got off to a well-publicized start when the company’s first film, His Majesty, the American opened the newly-built Capitol Theatre in New York — then the world’s largest movie theatre — on September 1, 1919.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story




When the Clouds Roll By1919

Directed byVictor Fleming

Produced and written byDouglas FairbanksLewis WeadonThomas J. Geraghty

StarringDouglas FairbanksKathleen CliffordFrank Campeau


Fairbanks had a low opinion of psychiatry and its practitioners and made this funny satire to poke fun at it. Preoccupied by superstition, Daniel Boone Brown winds up in the clutches of Dr. Ullrich Metz, a mad doctor who has designs on Brown’s brain. In a funny battle of wits, Brown wins and it is Metz who gets carted off to the loony bin. Noted for its slow-motion chase sequence and surreal dream sequences.— United Artists, USA

Fairbanks’ comedies parodied with no discernible time-lag the pattern of a new social scene we now take for granted. In twenty-odd films, the Fairbanks screen character flattered Joe Nobody’s ability to meet and throw every affectation of the day and to have sensible ideas on a lot of topics a layman should know nothing about. This picture is a skit on the dubious profession of ‘psychoanalyst,’ a new word in 1919 and one that covered in the public mind more naive and lurid cures than Freud or Adler had ever dreamed. Technically, it is one of the most inventive of all Fairbanks’ films. The slow-motion chase is about the best gymnastic section of all the early comedies.— Alistair Cooke

The Mark of Zorro1920

Directed byFred Niblo

Produced byDouglas FairbanksScreenplay based on the novel The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley

StarringDouglas FairbanksMarguerite De La MotteNoah Berry


One of Fairbanks’ most famous pictures. He plays a Mexican Robin Hood who carves his initial wherever he transforms himself from a social idler to the masked avenger who harasses the Spanish Invaders.— United Artists, USA

Three Stars. Non-stop fun.— Leonard Maltin

One of his most attractive of all films, with Fairbanks at once at his most manic and his most graceful, and with scenes of high slapstick comedy as he teases villainous Noah Beery with a deft dueling sword that can at any moment serve him as a javelin or throwing knife.— David Robinson, The London Times

The Mark of Zorro began a Fairbanks series of costume spectaculars from which he emerged as a major sex symbol. As the yawning fop and the swashbuckling Zorro, Doug was at his brilliant bouncy best, playing up the comic possibilities of two sides of the same character. The film was an immediate success, with police having to control crowds during the first weeks of its run.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Mollycoddle1920


Written byDouglas FairbanksThomas J. GeraghtyBased on the Saturday Evening Post serial by Harold McGrath

StarringDouglas FairbanksRuth RenickBetty BoultonWallace Beery


The last of a line of macho males, Fairbanks wimps away his time in Monte Carlo. But when Wallace Beery kidnaps him and takes him back to America’s Great West, Doug plays both ends against the middle to become the heroic figure his family expects him to be. Packed with action, laughs and stunts: Doug jumps from a yacht, gets caught in a fish net and dumped among some salmon, nearly has his head chopped off, rides to the rescue of a girl who turns out to be a spy, gets caught in an avalanche, jumps from a cliff to a tree in pursuit of the villain, down a mountain, over a waterfall.— United Artists, USA

For sheer movement and excitement, there is little in the silent cinema to equal the climax of Douglas Fairbanks’ production of The Mollycoddle. And the film was another success for the star.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Nut1921

Directed byTed Reed

Written and produced byDouglas FairbanksBased on a story by Kenneth Davenport

StarringDouglas FairbanksMarguerite De La MotteBarbara LaMarrCharlie Chaplin


Doug plays a Greenwich Village bachelor who attempts to win the love of a do-gooder by helping her to do good. The lady in question has the idea that poor children can be made into ‘proper citizens’ if exposed periodically to the homes of the wealthy. To this end our hero invites rich patrons to his flat, but his soirees end prematurely in disaster. Charlie Chaplin makes an appearance as himself, doing party tricks.— Pacific Film Archive— United Artists, USA

The last of Doug’s satires on contemporary life, this one has a go at sociology. The film moves rapidly through a series of great visual gags from the Keatonesque opening scene.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Three Musketeers1921


Written byEdward KnoblockDouglas FaibanksLotta WoodsBased on the novel by Alexandre Dumas

StarringDouglas FairbanksLeon BarryGeorge SiegmannBarbara LaMarrMarguerite De La MotteEugene PaletteAdolphe Menjou


Fairbanks opened this picture in New York and showed up at the premiere with Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Jack Dempsey in tow. Crowds jamming the sidewalks at Broadway and 42nd Street prevailed on Fairbanks to make an opening speech, one during the intermission and a final one after the show. The $2 tickets were sold by scalpers at $5 and they were worth every penny.— United Artists, USA

By far the grandest production Fairbanks had ever attempted on screen.— Richard Schlckel, The Fairbanks Album

Fairbanks was born to play D’Artagnan, “the best swordsman in France.” The film still stands out among the many screen versions of this popular tale.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Robin Hood1922



Written byDouglas FaibanksAllan DwanLotta Woods

Photographed byArthur Edeson

StarringDouglas FairbanksWallace BeeryAlan HaleEnid BennettMary Pickford


Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood still wows audiences with its classic tale of derring-do as Robin fights Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham.— United Artists, USA

The sequences in which he performs his stunts — the leap from the tree to the man on horseback, the chase through the castle climaxed by his slide down the great drapery, the jump across space from one wall to another, the climb up the chain of the rising drawbridge — could only have been staged by the man who devised them and performed them.— David Robinson, The London Times

One of the undoubted masterpieces of the silent era.— Joel W. Finley, Movie Directors

The Black Pirate1926

Directed byAlbert Parker


Written byDouglas FairbanksJack Cunningham

Photographed byHenry Sharp

StarringDouglas FairbanksBillie DoveAnders RandolfDonald Crisp

88 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent, Two-strip Technicolor

The Black Pirate was the first full-length, two-strip Technicolor movie and contains one of the silent screen’s most spectacular stunts when, in order to capture a ship, Doug climbs up a mast and descends to the deck by piercing the wide sail with his sword, ripping the canvas as he goes. There is still speculation as to how it was done. Fairbanks is an aristocrat who joins a pirate crew in order to avenge the death of his father and rescues a princess (Billie Dove) along the way.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story— United Artists, USA


Three Stars.— Leonard Maltin

Awards: Ten Best of the Year — Fairbanks studied the work of the masters at the Huntington Art Gallery in Pasadena to get a feel for colors, to make it seem as if the picture had been down in a cellar for 300 years, then cleaned and varnished it for a theatrical showing.— The New York Times

Don Q, Son of Zorro1925

Directed byDonald Crisp


Written byJack CunninghamBased on the novel Don Q’s Love Story by Kate and Hesketh Prichard

StarringDouglas FairbanksMary AstorDonald CrispWarner OlandJean HersholtLottie Pickford Forrest


Douglas Fairbanks reprises his smash hit, The Mark of Zorro, in this thrilling sequel in which he plays both Zorro the father and Don Q the son, who must prove himself innocent of a murder he never committed.— United Artists, USA

Awards: Ten Best of the Year.— The New York Times

Technically superior to The Mark of Zorro, it apparently found greater favour with the audiences as well, and raked in more money at the box-office.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story



“William Cameron Menzies constructed magnificent mammoth sets, giving the film an exotic, fairytale atmosphere”

The Thief of Bagdad1924

Directed byRaoul Walsh


Written byDouglas FairbanksLotta Woods

Art direction byWilliam Cameron Menzies

StarringDouglas FairbanksSnitz EdwardsAnna May WongJulanne Johnston


Three years spent in painstaking preservation and reconstruction culminated in the American premiere of this famous classic on PBS’ Great Performances in January, 1987, and later with a full orchestra at Radio City Music Hall in March, including many “lost” scenes. Thief is a dazzling Arabian Nights adventure fantasy set in the city of Bagdad and one of the most imaginative of all silent movies. The elaborate and lush backgrounds, the massive sets by William Cameron Menzies, who would later design Gone With the Wind, have an expressionist quality unique for American films of the time. Fairbanks is at his lightest and most impudent best as the dashing Ahmed, the thief who wins a princess.— United Artists, USA

Awards: Ten Best of the Year — entrancing and beautiful.— The New York Times

Wonderful Thief of Bagdad. Brought a highly successful festival to a magnificent end. It was great.— Derek Malcolm, Director, London Film Festival 1983 and film critic of The Guardian

The Mark of Zorro1920

When the Clouds Roll By1919

The Nut1921


In Again, Out Again1917

The Three Musketeers1921

Robin Hood1922

The Black Pirate1926

Don Q, Son of Zorro1925




The Gaucho1928

Directed byF. Richard Jones

Written and produced byDouglas Fairbanks

StarringDouglas FairbanksLupe VelezEve SouthernGustav von SeyffertitzMary Pickford


The Gaucho was one of the biggest money spinners of the year. True to type, Doug plays the leader of a band of outlaws seeking to unseat an evil usurper (Gustav von Seyffertitz) who runs Miracle City where he exploits the natives who come to worship at the shrine of the Madonna. Fairbanks’ original screenplay was inspired by a visit to Lourdes, and he got his wife Mary Pickford to appear briefly as the Madonna. As expected, the film provided a good percentage of daredevil stunts plus a cattle stampede and a house being moved by 100 horses. Instead of the usual wan heroine opposite the virile star, Lupe Velez, the Mexican Spitfire was cast in her first feature film, almost matching Doug in athletic prowess and humor.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story— United Artists, USA

Even better than The Black Pirate — joyous flavor — contained some magnificently smooth and convincing glass shots and an extremely handsome production design.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

The Iron Mask1929


Written and produced byDouglas FairbanksBased on the novels The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas

Music byHugo Riesenfeld

StarringDouglas FairbanksNigel De BrulierBelle BennettMarguerite De La Motte

72 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSound, B&W

The last big costume picture of the Twenties and Fairbanks’ first excursion into sound motion pictures. It has a symphonic score, sound effects and some talking sequences, including a spoken introduction by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., recorded in 1952. A spectacularly detailed sequel to The Three Musketeers with Fairbanks as D’Artagnan.— United Artists, USA


Superb example of screen art in its highest form, the new art that employs the sound device with intelligence, discretion and sympathy. There are directorial subtleties in it, little touches of rare genius, that will delight.— Film Spectator

The Taming of the Shrew1929

Directed bySam Taylor

Written bySam TaylorFrom the play by William Shakespeare

StarringMary PickfordDouglas FairbanksEdwin Maxwell

65 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSound, B&W

Doug and Mary made The Taming of the Shrew for slapstick, laughs and more laughs. Pickford takes a couple of pratfalls — one lands her dressed in a bridal gown in the mud with the pigs, and the other during a tit-for-tat slapping match with Fairbanks, which knocks her clear across the room and into a feather bed. It’s an extravagant burlesque of the Bard’s best laugh and the two stars (husband and wife in real life) turn it into a howl.— United Artists, USA

Splendid settings in the Fairbanks massive production manner to more sharply contrast the very low comedy, as low as Shubert — common and more common. But laughs get money and besides the laughs you have Mary Pickford, with Douglas Fairbanks and Shakespeare at last.— Variety


Written and directed byEdmund GouldingBased on the story by Irving Berlin

StarringDouglas FairbanksBebe DanielsEdward Everett HortonJack MulhallBing Crosby


Doug falls hard when Bebe Daniels worms her way into his office on a bet, and when she fails to show up for supper with him, he drops everything to join her on a transatlantic voyage to Europe. The pairing of Doug with blonde bombshell Daniels was inspired casting, and the comedy patter of Edward Everett Horton, who teaches Doug how to woo, is hilarious. The sets are lavish and the music by Irving Berlin gives a young Bing Crosby a chance to sing “Lower Than Lowdown.”— United Artists, USA

Most of this breezy film took place on board the glittering Art Deco ship. As a girl-shy Wall Street millionaire, he takes lessons in love from his valet (Edward Everett Horton) in a hilarious scene of homosexual innuendo.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Around the World in 80 Minutes1931

Directed byDouglas FairbanksVictor Fleming


Written byDouglas FairbanksRobert E. Sherwood

Narrated byDouglas Fairbanks


Doug, director Victor Fleming and a party of friends took a trip around the world and produced this amusing travelogue from the photographs and footage they shot along the way. It concentrates on Japan, China, Thailand and India, with a brief stop in the Philippines. Then a magic carpet takes everybody across Europe and back to Hollywood where Doug shows how he created the special visual effects for the sword, basket, rope-tricks and flying carpet rides featured in The Thief of Bagdad.— United Artists, USA

Enlivened with Fairbanks’ acrobatics — smart and bright narration.— Variety

Mr. Robinson Crusoe1931

Directed byA. Edward Sutherland

Written and produced byDouglas Fairbanks

Music byAlfred Newman

StarringDouglas FairbanksMaria AlbaWilliam Farnum

Filmed on location inFiji, Samoa and Tahiti


Mr. Robinson Crusoe provided Douglas Fairbanks with a good excuse to catch some rays in Tahiti, show off his physique, and be athletic. He plays a wealthy man who leaps from his yacht on a bet, swims to shore and tries to live on the island alone for a year. He lasts for only four months, but manages to build a house out of available materials with all the amenities one would want, including a radio; and takes up with a Girl Friday (Maria Alba) whom he takes back to Broadway at the end of the year.— United Artists, USA

Despite Fairbanks’ ego being as much in evidence as the abundant coconuts, most of the movie provided good innocent fun.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Iron Mask1929

The Taming of the Shrew1929

The Gaucho1928




The Lonedale Operator1911

Written, produced and directed byD. W. Griffith

StarringBlanche Sweet


Enormously suspenseful and technically advanced for its time, Griffith’s exciting story about a telegraph operator who is held up by bandits uses many camera angles and 66 rapid cuts for her heroic rescue at the climax. — Biograph, USA

Judith of Bethulia1913

Produced and directed byD. W. Griffith

Written byFrank WoodsBased on The Book of Judith in the Apocrypha and the poem and tragedy by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Photographed byBilly Bitzer

StarringBlanche SweetHenry B. WalthallRobert HarronMae MarshLillian Gish


Griffith’s first feature picture after producing more than 400 short subjects for Biograph. It’s the biblical drama about the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia and how a heroic woman saves her people. When the Assyrian commander Holofernes lays siege to the city, he captures its wells, knowing he has only to wait for the food and water to run out and the city will be his. Judith, a wealthy widow, disguises herself as a camp follower, infiltrates his headquarters, captivates Holofernes and, when he collapses in a drunken stupor during a night of revelry, beheads him. The sight of his severed head so demoralizes his troops and revives the spirit of the city that the Jews rise up and rout the enemy.— American Biograph Productions, USA

A fascinating work of high artistry. Marks an encouraging step in the development of the new art.— Anthony Slide, Ed. Selected Film Criticism

D. W. Griffith

Home Sweet Home1914


StarringHenry B. WalthallLillian GishDorothy GishMae MarshFay TincherRobert HarronDonald CrispMiriam CooperBlanche SweetJack KirkwoodJack PickfordOwen Moore


Four episodes in the lives of those for whom the old song “Home Sweet Home” acquired a special meaning, beginning with the song’s composer, John Howard Payne. This was the first film in which Griffith told several stories related by a common theme. Here, however, they are told in series, whereas in Intolerance they ran parallel. The prologue shows how Payne wrote the song in France while desperately homesick; the remaining three stories tell of dramatic events in the lives of others who were affected by the song, and in the epilogue we see Payne once more, suffering in Purgatory, but reunited finally in Heaven with his mother and his abandoned sweetheart when his repentance brings forgiveness.— Mutual Film Corporation, USA

The Avenging Conscience1914

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on stories by Edgar Allan Poe

StarringHenry B. WalthallBlanche SweetSpottiswoode AikenGeorge SiegmannRalph LewisMae Marsh


This is the first psychological horror movie, a study of the dark side of a man’s mind that predates The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by five years. Inspired by several stories by Poe, it has at its core a lengthy dream sequence in which the hero envisions the consequences of the crime he is contemplating. Griffith uses double exposure, dramatic lighting, symbolism, tight editing to compress time, a framing device to direct attention to specific objects by changing the shape of the screen image, and a moving camera. Cut loose from the conventions of the stage which limited serious filmmaking at the time, The Avenging Conscience was a total departure and an important breakthrough in the development of film as an art form. It was one of the first films to elicit comments from drama critics and other intellectuals who, up until then, had mostly ignored or ridiculed film as a passing fad or penny arcade amusement.— Mutual Film Corporation, USA

One of the most fascinating and bewildering of films, by turns innovative and mature, naive and listless; substitutes psychological tension for physical action. At times, the film has much of the doom-laden power of the celebrated German films of the twenties.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

The Birth of a Nation1915, 1930

Directed byD. W. Griffith

Produced byD. W. GriffithHarry E. Aitken

Written byD. W. GriffithFrank WoodsBased on the novel and play, The Clansman and The Leopard’s Skin by Thomas Dixon


Music score for the sound version byJoseph C. Briel

A cinema milestone, the most important historic pageant filmed up to that time, and the first major film anywhere to stake out a firm position on a volatile, controversial national issue. The saga of a distinguished Southern family at the time of the Civil War that tries to explain, and to some extent justify, the motivations that led them to form the notorious terrorist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan during the confused days after the war’s end. Griffith’s 1930 cut for the sound version incorporates the Briel score for full orchestra that accompanied the silent version during its original release.— Epoch Producing Corporation, USA

Four Stars.— Leonard Maltin

Among moving pictures, it is alone, as the one great epic tragic film.— James Agee, The Nation

StarringLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallRobert HarronWallace ReidJoseph HenaberyDonald CrispRaoul Walsh



With The Birth of a Nation in 1915, all the major black screen types had been introduced. Literal and unimaginative as some of the types might now appear, the naive and cinematically untutored audiences of the early part of the century responded to the character types as if they were the real thing.— Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mullatoes, Mammies & Bucks

Hearts of the World1918

Written and directed byD. W. Griffith

StarringLillian GishRobert HarronBen AlexanderDorothy GishKate BruceJack CosgroveJosephine CrowellAdolphe LestinaGeorge FawcettNoel Coward


Griffiths’ poignant and harrowing tale of lovers torn apart by World War I, a conflict beyond their comprehension. They both lose family members; the girl is nearly driven insane, and the boy is wounded and thought lost. Made in the heat of World War I, the film is intensely anti-German, although its propaganda message now appears somewhat dated. Some of the war scenes were filmed on location near the actual front lines in France.— Paramount-Artcraft-D. W. Griffith, USA



“The first and only film fugue… a specimen of screen algebra.”

Intolerance1916


Assisted byAllan DwanErich von StroheimTod Browning and others

Titles byAnita Loos

StarringLillian GishMae MarshErich von StroheimBessie LoveElmo LincolnTod Browning


165 minutes (20 fps), 35mmSilent, Original Tints and Tones

This major innovation in screen narrative tells four stories about social injustice in parallel: 1. “The Modern Story” of a working man wrongly accused of a crime was later issued as a separate film (The Mother and the Law, 1919). 2. “The Judean Story” of Jesus’s conflict with the Pharisees and Rome. 3. “The Medieval Story” of the effects of the massacre of 16th-century French Huguenots. 4. “The Babylonian Story” of the conquest of Babylon by conspirators. Also was issued later as a separate film (The Fall of Babylon, 1919).

Skillful cross-cutting brings all four stories to a tense climax. With the profits from The Birth of a Nation, Griffith constructed huge sets and hired thousands of extras for spectacular crowd scenes that remain among the best directed scenes of their kind. A new tinted-and-toned version opened at the Cannes Film Festival and met with rave reviews. It completed wildly successful runs in London and Paris in November, 1985, and enjoyed four days of sold-out performances at the Avignon Film Festival, July, 1986, where it was projected onto a 100-foot screen and accompanied by L’Orchestre de L’Ile de France, conducted by Jacques Mercier, performing an original score by Antoine Duhamel and Pierre Jansen. This version is now in limited release. —Wark Producing Corporation, USA

Four Stars— Leslie Halliwell

Four Stars— Leonard Maltin

The first and only film fugue — a specimen of screen algebra.— Terry Ramsaye, A Million and One Nights

Among the most influential films in screen history and still as monumental and complex as any made since. It is relatively the most expensive film ever made and one of the most ambitious — nothing less than a four-part survey of human civilization.— The American Film Institute




The Greatest Thing in Life1918


Written byD. W. GriffithS.E.V. Taylor

StarringLillian GishRobert HarronAdolphe LestinaElmo LincolnKate BruceEdward PielPeaches Jackson


Lillian Gish plays the beautiful and vivacious daughter of a New York City newspaper seller and captivates wealthy society-type Robert Harron. Fascinated, he can’t consider marrying someone of a lower class, so contents himself with helping her and her father return to their native France at the outbreak of World War I. Later, they meet again. Harron is now a soldier and Gish and her father are agents in the French Underground. War, the great leveler, eradicates Harron’s snobbery and he finds love and humility with Gish.— Paramount Pictures, USA

One of Mr. Griffith’s best films, said Lillian Gish in her autobiography. But it arrived rather late in a period overloaded with war pictures, and it was received with less rapture than the great D. W.’s pictures of the following year starring Miss Gish — True Heart Susie and Broken Blossoms.— John Douglas Eames, The Paramount Story

A Romance of Happy Valley1919

Written and directed byD. W. Griffithfrom a story by Mary Castleman


StarringLillian GishRobert HarronCarol DempsterKate BraceAdolphe Lestina


The corruption of a country lad by the urban metropolis is told with sensitivity by Griffith in this story about John (Harron) who leaves his sweetheart (Gish) to seek his fortune in the city. Returning home seven years later, he finds Gish an old maid and his father nearly driven to crime by desperate poverty. John makes amends and is reunited with the long-suffering Ms. Gish. Griffith’s lyrical evocation of a small town atmosphere, with its simple pleasures and virtues, makes this one of the director’s minor masterpieces.— Paramount-Artcraft, USA

A success. There is the indefinable Griffith touch in direction and cutting, the Bitzer photography and the screen acting.— Variety

Broken Blossoms1919

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on The Chink and the Child,a short story from Limehouse Nights by Thomas Burke

Photographed byBilly BitzerHendrik Sartov

StaringLillian GishRichard BarthelmessDonald Crisp


A Griffith masterpiece. Frustrated in his desire to bring the gentle teachings of Buddha to the tough denizens of London’s Limehouse slums, a disillusioned young Chinese man (Richard Barthelmess) loses himself in the reveries of opium mists until the plight of a young waif (Lillian Gish) startles him back to reality. He befriends and protects her, but when her pugilist father (Donald Crisp) beats her to death, the kimonoed Barthelmess murders him and carries her broken body back to his apartments where he commits suicide at the foot of his Buddhist altar.— United Artists, USA


For sheer terror, is there anything in modem cinema to surpass Miss Gish’s agony after she has locked herself in the closet with her brutish father hacking away at the door with his axe?— The London Times, 1983

A masterpiece.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Scarlet Days1919


Written byS.E.V. Taylor

StarringRichard BarthelmessCarol DempsterEugenie BessererClarine SeymourRalph GravesGeorge Fawcett


Griffith’s first feature-length Western is a rough and ready action picture laid during the Gold Rush. Nell, a tough dance hall woman (Eugenie Besserer) gets into a fight with two floozies who try to rob her. When one dies, a posse is organized to bring her in. Mexican bandit Richard Barthelmess disperses the lynch mob, but Nell dies anyway from a stray bullet. Barthelmess is jailed until Chiquita, Clarine Seymour, his sweetheart, stages a daring escape for them both.— Paramount-Artcraft, USA

The Girl Who Stayed at Home1919


Written byS.E.V. TaylorD. W. GriffithFrom Taylor’s original story

StarringCarol DempsterClarine SeymourRichard BarthelmessRobert HarronFrances ParkerAdolphe Lestina


This charming Griffith film takes its inspiration from World War I and dramatizes how the stress of war quickly matures and even ennobles some people. The story concerns two brothers — Barthelmess, who enlists, and Harron, a playboy who has to be forced to go, but matures as a result. Lestina is an American expatriate in France who must acknowledge his allegiance to his country. His daughter refuses a marriage he is pushing with a French nobleman and marries Barthelmess instead. Harron’s sweetheart, show girl Clarine Seymour, waits patiently at home for the return of her playboy-turned-war hero.— Paramount-Artcraft, USA

Entire cast is brilliant. High-class Griffith direction.— Variety

The Fall of Babylon1919



StarringConstance TalmadgeElmer CliftonAlfred PagetElmo Lincoln


Griffith lifted this sequence from Intolerance and edited it into a complete feature film in its own right. It’s the Old Testament story about the destruction of Babylon and includes the spectacular Feast of Belshazzar and the Battle at the Walls.— Epoch Producing Corporation, USA

As the picture now stands, one is fully able to appreciate the wonderful work that Constance Talmadge did in the original picture. In Intolerance she was buried in a mass of story. Griffith is a showman first and last.— Variety

The Greatest Question1919


Written byS.E.V. TaylorBased on a story by William Hale

StarringLillian GishRobert HarronRalph Graves


Whether there is life after death becomes an almost peripheral issue in this tense story of villainy and retribution. Pious, generous and good, the Hiltons’ faith is sorely tried when they lose a son during World War I. The younger son (Robert Harron) tries his best to keep the family afloat, and an orphan girl they had taken in (Lillian Gish) hires herself out as a maid to an evil couple, only to be treated as a slave by the wife and to find herself in constant danger from the husband. Things go from bad to worse as Gish recognizes her employers as the couple who killed and buried a girl the man had raped, and having accused them of the crime, may well suffer the same fate herself. Harron saves her in the nick of time and realizing he loves her, asks her to be his wife. Griffith’s masterly intercutting creates real suspense in the climactic scene of Gish’s recollection of the crime, the accusation, her flight from the couple and their attempts to reach her in the attic where she has fled.— First National Pictures, USA

It showed just how much the people and places of Griffith’s childhood meant to him and how he tried to express that love in his films.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

The Mother and the Law1919



StarringMae MarshRobert HarronMiriam CooperVera Lewis


The story of a working mother (Mae Marsh) who loses her baby to a corrupt orphanage is a morality tale about the inconsistency of present-day laws and how two innocents are dragged into its net. Through no fault of their own, they are at its mercy until a kindlier fate rescues them and returns them to a world that condemned them without evidence. Shot originally as a short feature, a portion of which was used for one of the stories in Intolerance, this full-length version contains many scenes not shown before, plus some new ones Griffith shot in 1918. — Epoch Producing Corporation, USA

One of the most emotionally stirring of all silent films. A masterpiece, needless to say, sadly neglected by about every critic. Passionate, brilliantly cut, tremendously moving.— Arthur Lennig, The Silent Voice

The Birth of a Nation1915 and 1930

The Girl Who Stayed at Home1919

The Greatest Thing in Life1918

Judith of Bethulia1913

Hearts of the World1918

Scarlet Days1919

True Heart Susie1919

The Love Flower1920

The Idol Dancer1920




The Love Flower1920

Written and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on the story The Black Beach by Ralph Stock

StarringCarol DempsterRichard BarthelmessGeorge McQuarrieAnders RandolfFlorence ShortCrauford KentAdolphe Lestina


Griffith explores the bitter fruits of passion and the extraordinary lengths to which some people can be pushed by hatred or love. A man (McQuarrie) kills his wife’s lover and flees with his daughter (Carol Dempster) to the South Seas. Detective Crane (Randolf) pursues them in the yacht of a traveler (Barthelmess), who promptly falls in love with the girl. Love triumphs in the end.— United Artists, USA

Even Billy Bitzer’s luminous photographic creation of a pseudo-South Seas locale failed to prevent Griffith from waving Aloha to any profit.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Idol Dancer1920


Written byS.E.V. TaylorBased on a story by Gordon Ray

StarringRichard BarthelmessClarine SeymourCreighton HaleGeorge McQuarrieKate Bruce


A melodrama of life in the South Seas, where the natives find it hard to return to simple values after being subjected to the extremes of white culture: The corruption and vice of the exploiters on the one side, and the impossibly straitlaced puritanism of the missionaries on the other. Griffith uses the romance between an untamed wild native girl and a drunken beachcomber to tell his tale, building to the characteristic Griffith climax, with the native village under attack and a race to the rescue. Filmed on location in Florida and the Caribbean.— First National Pictures, USA

Distinguished by poetic inter-titles and far-away, dreamy atmosphere, admirably acted by a well-chosen cast. Griffith melodrama at the very best. Great stuff.— Variety

True Heart Susie1919


Written byMarian Fremont


StarringLillian GishRobert HarronClarine SeymourGeorge FawcettCarol DempsterKate Bruce


Lillian Gish suffers magnificently in this one in which she secretly pays for Bobby Harron’s college education so he can become a clergyman, only to lose him to a worthless flirt (Clarine Seymour). Seymour’s true nature becomes apparent and contributes to her illness and early death, whereupon Harron realizes that Gish is his one true love.— Paramount Pictures, USA

One of the last pictures D. W. Griffith made for Paramount release under the Artcraft label during his 1917–1919 association with the company. It turned out to be one of the best of the lot. True Heart Susie inspired superlative praise from the critics and brought in not only the habitual movie fans but also (in spite of a title that was pretty icky even for that era) the more discriminating customers.— John Douglas Eames, The Paramount Story

Way Down East1920


Written byAnthony KenyBased on the novel by Lottie Blair Parker and the play by William Brady

Photographed byHendrik Sartov

Music score supervised byD. W. Griffith

StarringLillian GishRichard BarthelmessLowell Sherman


The public responded wildly to this hoary tale of a young orphan girl (Lillian Gish) seduced and abandoned by a rake (Lowell Sherman), then sent out into the wasteland of New England by the farming family for whom she works when her past is discovered. She is rescued from drowning in the icy river in the nick of time by the farmer’s son (Richard Barthelmess) who finally marries her. The climax is justly famous. Griffith, using exciting cross-cutting, and alternation of close-ups and long shots, built up the tension as the girl floated down the river on a cake of ice while the boy stepped from one floe to another towards her. These gripping scenes, as well as those of the blizzard, were shot on location in real winter conditions, with Miss Gish having to be thawed out from time to time. She gave one of her most touching performances, helped by the reality of the surroundings and the fine camerawork.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story — 20th Century Fox, USA

Compelling masterpiece. Picture of rural America is nostalgic and realistic, and the last-minute rescue on the ice is a miracle of camera work and cutting. Made more money than any other Griffith film except The Birth of a Nation.— Lillian Gish. The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me

Dream Street1921

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on the short stories, Gina of Chinatown and The Lamp in the Window from Limehouse Nights by Thomas Burke


StarringCarol DempsterRalph GravesCharles Emmett MackTyrone Power Sr.W. J. Ferguson


From the author of whose works sprang Broken Blossoms comes this trilogy of moral tales about two brothers who love the same girl and what happens when a rejected suitor swears a vendetta.— D. W. Griffith Inc., USA

Smashing melodrama — rich in deft touches — tremendously absorbing — scenic features are flawless and the photography is unmatched. When the police are in pursuit of “Spike” after the killing, he races through the slum byways in the midst of a fog. Sitting in the theatre almost gets a sensation of choking mist: the pavements shine with moisture and tiny globules stand out from the dark walls.— Variety

Orphans of the Storm1921

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on The Two Orphans by Adolph D. Ennery and additional material from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle

Photographed byHendrik SartovBilly Bitzer

StarringLillian GishDorothy GishJoseph SchildkrautLouis WolheimMonte BlueSidney HerbertLucille La Verne


D. W. Griffith’s last commercial and critical success is a sublime example of his art, combining the intimacy of Broken Blossoms with the spectacle of The Birth of a Nation to tell the story of two orphans who are separated by circumstance and become caught up in the tide of the French Revolution.— Pacific Film Archive— United Artists, USA

The first half of the film is crammed with incidents: a murder, kidnappings, orgies, duels, last-minute escapes and finally a pathetic scene in which Lillian Gish hears the adopted blind sister she has been searching for singing in the streets — a scene so powerful that spectators later thought they had actually heard the girl sing. The second half of the film rises to even greater magnificence as it portrays the Revolution itself. The storming of the Bastille, the masses surging into streets and squares with torches and weapons held aloft, must be counted with Griffith’s best work. (In several shots he masks the top and bottom of the screen, anticipating the widescreen ratio, to heighten dramatic effect.)— Eileen Bowser, Museum of Modern Art

Brilliantly photographed by Hendrik Sartov and full of spectacular set pieces. It remains one of Griffith’s most enduring films.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

One Exciting Night1922

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on his story The Haunted Grange


StarringCarol DempsterHenry HullPorter StrongMorgan WallaceIrma Harrison


Griffith joins the ranks of Paul Leni and Roland West with this tense thriller with comedy overtones — a whodunit with a house full of guests, each of whom suspects the rest of having done-in the bootlegger whose lifeless body is discovered. It’s a little reminiscent of the curdlers like The Lonely Villa that he made back during his Biograph days, but far better. In fact, the only jarring note is the comedy relief by Irma Harrison and Porter Strong, who play it in blackface as the black maid and her beau, complete with stereotyped eye-rolling cowardice and crude humor. While this was standard vaudeville practice of Griffith’s day, contemporary audiences cringe at seeing a word like “nigger” [sic] used in the intertitles with no apparent awareness of its demeaning impact.— United Artists, USA

Hidden safes, sliding panels, masked figures, revolving bookcases, guns, knives, hidden hands groping out of doorways — a wow of a storm scene.— Variety

The White Rose1923


StarringMae MarshCarol DempsterIvor NovelloNeil HamiltonLucille La VernePorter StrongJane Thomas


Filmed in the Bayou Teche country of Louisiana, this Griffith picture follows the fortunes of an orphan girl (Mae Marsh) made pregnant by a fallen divinity student (Ivor Novello), who faces many trials and tribulations before she succeeds in getting the young man to face his responsibilities and marry her.— United Artists, USA

It had some magnificent moments. An unforgettable one is the brief but almost unbearably poignant episode in which Mae (Marsh) is about to jump into a swirling river to drown herself and her baby and is stayed only by the more immediate need to breastfeed the child. This reminder of the essence of life causes her to change her mind.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film




America(UK: Love and Sacrifice) 1924


Written byJohn PenBased on a story by Robert Chambers

Photographed byBilly BitzerHendrlk Sartov

StarringNeil HamiltonCarol DempsterLionel BarrymoreLouis Wolheim


Griffith’s classic formula tells the story of The War for Independence. Staged with a wealth of authentic detail and enhanced by skillful editing, especially during the battles of Lexington and Concord.— United Artists, USA

Two Stars.— Leslie Halliwell


Just as The Birth of a Nation was about the Civil War, so was America an accurate but controversial treatment of the Revolutionary War, contrasting “high born” and “low born” characters. Griffith weaves them into history. The build-up is slow, full of political intrigue, plot and counterplot, until the machinery of war is set in motion; then a cavalcade of spectacular action until the first climax and the end of the first half of the film is reached. In part two, the process starts at a much higher pitch, building to a mighty and typical Griffith climax of two battles intercut and an exciting ride to the rescue.— William K. Everson

Isn’t Life Wonderful?1924

Written, produced and directed byD. W. GriffithBased on a story by Major Geoffrey Moss


StarringCarol DempsterNeil HamiltonErville AldersonHelen LowellFrank PugliaMarcia HarrisLapino Lane


An intimate and realistic portrait of the German people driven to despair after World War I by a depression that produced the most devastating runaway inflation in history. Hunger pushes some towards a life of crime and a callous disregard for others, while others try desperately to hold onto their values and ride out the storm. The picture climaxes as Carol Dempster and Neil Hamilton try to make their way home with a precious sack of potatoes pursued by a mob of the unemployed. Griffith ends his film on a note of hope — that simple humanity will conquer all.— United Artists, USA

Awards: Ten Best of the Year— The New York Times

One of Griffith’s finest and most important movies.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

The Sorrows of Satan1926


Written byForrest HalseyBased on the novel by Marie Corelli

StarringAdolphe MenjouLya De PuttiRicardo CortezCarol Dempster


An allegorical tale in which a struggling young writer succumbs to the temptation of wealth but renounces it when he discovers it is keeping him from happiness with the only woman he really loves. Presented as a struggle between God and Satan in Heaven, Griffith’s sense of the spectacular is evident in the sequence showing Satan’s banishment from Heaven, and in the beautifully mounted scenes of hedonistic revelry in high society. The underlying novel by Marie Corelli was acquired in 1919 by Adolph Zukor at Paramount for Cecil B. DeMille. The project was shelved during a disagreement, then given to Griffith to make seven years later. The original contract with Marie Corelli stipulated that after five years the picture was to be withdrawn and all materials destroyed. — Famous Players-Lasky Productions, USA

In the sense of pure craftsmanship, The Sorrows of Satan is one of Griffith’s best films. There is none of the untidy, ragged cutting that marked so many of his 1920s films, and the lighting and photography, backed by the superior equipment and large stages of Paramount’s Long Island Studios, are first rate.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

Sally of the Sawdust1925


Written byForrest HalseyBased on the play Poppy by Dorothy Donnelly

StarringW. C. FieldsCarol DempsterAlfred LuntErville AldersonEffie Shannon


Ironically, Griffith, known for his epics and serious dramas, directed W. C. Fields in the vehicle that made him a major comedy star. They created the character that was to remain Fields’ screen image for the rest of his life — irascible, larcenous, distrustful, misanthropic and iconoclastic, a pompous braggart and a conniving schemer. He is Professor Eustace McGargle, a small-time vaudeville fraud whose only redeeming virtue is his bringing up an orphan girl, Sally (Carol Dempster) and looking out for her best interests.— United Artists, USA

W. C. Fields manages to inject some of his own matchless comedy and some of his own human warmth. There is a fine collection of ham sub-titles, all bearing Griffith’s trademark, several of which he comes out boldly for Mother Love.— Robert E. Sherwood, Life

The Battle of the Sexes1928


Written byGerrit LloydBased on The Single Standard by Daniel Carson Goodman

StarringJean HersholtPhyllis HaverBelle BennettDon AlvaradoSally O’NeilWilliam Bakewell


Whether or not a man who indulges in a bit of hanky-panky should be judged by a different standard than a woman was explored by Griffith decades before Women’s Liberation, but with the same resounding conclusion. Entertaining and well-paced, this is Griffith’s second treatment of the same story — the first having been filmed in 1914. Phyllis Haver, the gold-digger who leads wealthy Jean Hersholt astray, ironically left the movies the following year to marry a millionaire.— United Artists, USA

A remake of Griffith’s much earlier film of the same name, it had quite a bit of sparkle and life, and while perhaps beneath Griffith’s dignity, was a vivacious film that audiences seemed to enjoy.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

Abraham Lincoln1930


Written byStephen Vincent BenetGerrit J. LloydBased on a story by John W. Considine Jr.

Photographed byKarl Struss

Sets designed byWilliam Cameron Menzies

StarringWalter HustonUna MerkelKay HammondHenry B. Walthall


D. W. Griffith’s first sound motion picture — a magical dramatization of important events in the life of the President, from his birth to his untimely death. Griffith proves to be a master of the new sound techniques by using “off-screen” sound effects and voices, moving his camera at will and, when necessary, looping sound during post-production.— United Artists, USA

Awards: Ten Best of the Year— The New York Times

There were certainly moments of greatness in Walter Huston’s performance in the title role, and in the more spectacular visual sequences.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Struggle1931


Written byAnita LoosJohn EmersonBased on The Drunkard by Emile Zola

StarringHal SkellyZita JohannCharlotte Wynters


Anita Loos and husband John Emerson wrote a humorous screenplay based on Emile Zola’s The Drunkard, but Griffith rewrote much of it as a morality tale about the evils of drink. A millworker promises his bride he’ll give up drinking, but gets hooked again during Prohibition, loses his job and eventually becomes a Skid Row bum. The film was not successful, perhaps because this was the era of escapist musicals when no one wanted to see such an uncompromising view of the horrors of alcohol abuse. Discouraged, Griffith never made another picture.— United Artists, USA

It was laughed off the screen, and certain papers refused to review it out of respect for Griffith’s former reputation. The reviews that did appear were generally hostile. Variety called it “valueless“ and “an utter bore,“ but at this distance, the film appears far better than one would expect. There are good realistic scenes in a 20’s jazz cafe, a factory and in the slums of the Bowery.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

D. W. Griffith: An Interview1930


StarringD. W. GriffithWalter Huston


Shot as a publicity stunt for the 1930 sound reissue of The Birth of a Nation, this rare interview between Griffith and Walter Huston (star of Abraham Lincoln and father of John Huston), is a fascinating portrait of Griffith.— United Artists, USA

Broken Blossoms1919

Orphans of the Storm1921

Dream Street1921

Way Down East1920

One Exciting Night1922

America1924

Isn’t Life Wonderful?1924

The Battle of the Sexes1928

Abraham Lincoln1930




The Talmadge Sisters

De Luxe Annie 1918

Produced and directed byRoland West

StarringNorma TalmadgeEdward DavisEdna HunterJoseph BurkeFred R. Stanton


Roland West’s second feature film (his first was Lost Souls in 1916), De Luxe Annie is the story about a respectable young wife who disappears after an accident in which she loses her memory. When found, she is helping a crook run a confidence game. Finally, brain surgery restores her memory and she is reunited with her family. — Select, USA

Lessons in Love 1921

Directed byChet Withey

Screenplay byGrant CarpenterBased on a play by Douglas Murray

StarringConstance TalmadgeKenneth HarlanFlora FinchJames HarrisonGeorge Fawcett

70 minutes, 35mm Silent, B&W

A romantic comedy in which a scorned woman decides to teach the young man a lesson for daring to resist her. When John (Harlan) is told that a marriage has been arranged for him with eligible socialite Leila (Talmadge), he rejects her sight unseen. To teach him a lesson, she disguises herself as a maid and makes him fall for her, while pretending her elderly aunt (Finch) is the arranged match. Digitally restored from nitrate material held at the Library of Congress.— Constance Talmadge Film Company/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Mama’s Affair1921


Screenplay byJohn EmersonAnita LoosBased on a play by Rachel Burton Butler

StarringConstance TalmadgeEffie ShannonKenneth Harlan


In this comedy, Eve’s (Talmadge) domineering mother hates the thought of losing her, so she arranges a marriage with a friend’s son who would be sure to do just what she wants. But this is where Eve finally asserts herself and runs away with the family doctor (Harlan).— Constance Talmadge Film Company/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Sign on the Door1921

Directed byHerbert Brenon

Screenplay byMary MurilloHerbert BrenonBased on a play by Channing Pollock

StarringNorma TalmadgeLew CodyCharles Richman


Self-scarificing love triumphs over the machinations of a scoundrel in this drama of a wronged woman. Frank (Cody) tries to trick Ann (Talmadge) into a romance, but she sees through him and marries Lafe (Richman), a widower with a grown daughter. Frank switches his attention to the daughter and is killed by Lafe. But, by unhesitatingly shouldering the blame, Ann convinces the D.A. not to prosecute and saves her marriage.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Smilin’ Through1922

Directed bySidney Franklin


Written bySidney A. FranklinJames A. Creelman

Based on a stage play byAllan Langdon Martin

StarringNorma TalmadgeWyndham StandingHarrison FordAlec B. FrancisGlenn HunterGrace Griswold

96 minutes, 35mmSilent, B&W

The happiness of two young people is almost destroyed because of an old grudge. When Kathleen (Talmadge) tells her guardian Uncle John (Standing) that she wants to marry Kenneth (Ford), John wants to stop her because Kenneth’s father had once spoiled John’s own chance of marriage. He relents when Kathleen proves how deep her love is by sticking to Kenneth in spite of his serious injury in WWI. This was Talmadge’s biggest box office success up to that time and put her into the ranks of the superstar during the silent era.— First National Pictures, USA

Song of Love1923

Directed byChester FranklinFrances Marion

Screenplay byFrances Marion

StarringNorma TalmadgeJoseph SchildkrautArthur Edmund Carew


A dashing tale of romance, gallantry and loving sacrifice in the Arabian desert. A Foreign Legion spy (Schildkraut) fools dancing girl Noorma-Hal (Talmadge) into believing he loves her so that she will tell him of the Sheik’s insurrection plot. When he is caught and about to be executed, she offers herself to the Sheik in exchange for his life.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Ashes of Vengeance1923

Directed byFrank Lloyd

StarringNorma TalmadgeConway TearleWallace Beery


A romantic drama of medieval France in which the love of a noblewoman saves a defeated enemy from feudal serfdom. Defeated in battle, Rupert (Tearle) must accept the humiliation of working as a servant in the house of his conqueror, the Count. Seeing that the Count’s sister Yolande (Talmadge) is being pursued by a Duke (Beery) she despises, Rupert fights a duel for her which he wins, thereby earning her love and obtaining his freedom from the grateful Count.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA




Within the Law1923

Directed byFrank Lloyd

Screenplay byFrances MarionBased on a play by Byard Veiller

StarringNorma TalmadgeLew CodyJack MulhallEileen Percy


Unjustly accused of shoplifting, Mary (Talmadge) plans revenge by joining a blackmail plot against her former employer’s son Dick (Mulhall). When her accomplice (Cody) tries to frame Dick for a murder, she realizes she is actually in love with Dick and now must find a way out.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

The Lady1925

Directed byFrank Borzage

Screenplay byFrances MarionBased on a play by Martin Brown

StarringNorma TalmadgeWallace MacDonaldBrandon Hurst


Polly (Talmadge) finds herself deserted by her playboy husband (MacDonald) and despised by his family, who try to take her son from her. She manages to send the boy away and does not see him again until he gets into trouble in the Army years later. She helps the now grown son (Hurst) to start a new life overseas. Due to nitrate decomposition, this film is incomplete.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Her Night of Romance1924


Screenplay byHans Kraly

StarringConstance TalmadgeRonald ColmanJean Hersholt


Paul (Colman), an impoverished nobleman, is forced to sell his ancestral home but sneaks in there to spend just one more night. When he finds that Dorothy (Talmadge), the daughter of the new owner, has also spent the night, he prevents a scandal by claiming to her wealthy father that they are married. At first she thinks he is after her money, but in the end decides to make the fiction a reality in this romantic comedy.— Constance Talmadge Film Company/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Her Sister from Paris1925


Screenplay byHans Kraly

StarringNorma TalmadgeConstance TalmadgeRonald ColmanGeorge K. Arthur


When Helen (Talmadge) realizes she is about to lose her husband Joseph (Colman) out of sheer boredom, she takes the advice of her glamorous sister (also played by Talmadge) and pretends to be her. Joseph falls in love with her new image, but when she reveals the deception, he realizes he’s been courting his own wife all the time.— Constance Talmadge Film Company/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Kiki1926

Directed byClarence Brown

Screenplay byHans KralyBased on a play by Andre Picard

StarringNorma TalmadgeRonald ColmanGertrude AstorGeorge K. Arthur


Kiki (Talmadge) is a chorus girl with ambitions to be a featured star, but in order to get a chance with cabaret owner Renal (Colman), she must first win him over from Paulette (Astor). This is one of Talmadge’s rare but highly successful forays into comedy and was restored by the Library of Congress.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

Breakfast at Sunrise1927

Directed byMalcolm St. Clair

Written byFred De Gresac

StarringConstance TalmadgeBryant WashburnMarie DresslerDon Alvarado


St. Clair has introduced some expert effects and Miss Talmadge helps the picture by her fetching appearance and costly gowns. Don Alvarado is restrained and good-looking and his dark hair makes an excellent contrast to Miss Talmadge’s golden coiffure.— The New York Times— Constance Talmadge Film Company/Associated First National Pictures, USA

The Woman Disputed1928

Directed byHenry KingSam Taylor

Screenplay byC. Gardner SullivanBased on a play by Denison Clift and the story Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant

StarringNorma TalmadgeGilbert RolandArnold Kent

108 minutes (22 fps), 35mmB&W

Two rivals for the hand of Mary (Talmadge) find themselves on opposing sides in WWI. She marries Paul (Roland), who is soon called away to battle. Rival Nika (Kent) occupies her town and she must offer her favors in exchange for the life of a spy.— Norma Talmadge Productions/Associated First National Pictures, USA

The Dove 1928

Directed byRoland West


Written byRoland WestWallace SmithWillard MackBased on Willard Mack’s Broadway play

Art direction byWilliam Cameron Menzies

StarringNorma TalmadgeNoah BeeryGilbert RolandEddie Borden


Roland West and Norma Talmadge planned to make a picture at UFA in Germany, but the right project never materialized. Instead they did this movie adaptation of the Mack stage hit about a corrupt Mexican despot. Changing the locale to the Mediterranean to avoid political repercussions south of the border, Talmadge plays “the Dove,” a dance hall girl who falls in love with croupier Gilbert Roland. And, if West couldn’t go to Germany to use their techniques, he did the next best thing: he brought them to Hollywood, especially the kind of roving camera favored by F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang.— Norma Talmadge Productions/United Artist, USA

Academy Award: William Cameron Menzies for Best Interior Decoration, 1927/28.

One of the best Norma Talmadge sllents.— William K. Everson

West acutely aware of German films… implication (was) that he wanted to emulate them. It confirms influences on the visual style of his late films and perhaps explains some stray individual images which might otherwise seem mere coincidences.— Scott MacQueen. Roland West from Between Action and Cut: Five American Directors

The Dove 1928

The Woman Disputed1928

Breakfast at Sunrise1927




Du Barry, Woman of Passion1930

Written and directed bySam TaylorBased on the play Du Barry by David Belasco


StarringNorma TalmadgeWilliam FarnumConrad NagelUllrich Haupt


A costume melodrama about the shop girl who becomes a favorite of King Louis XV of France and then dies on the guillotine.— Art Cinema Corporation/United Artists, USA

Movie buffs might have recognized, in the heartless ribbing of the actress whose screechy voice was inappropriate to the 18th-century French setting of the film within a film in Singin’ In The Rain (MGM 1952), something of Norma Talmadge’s problem as Du Barry, Woman of Passion. The lovers die a double death. Miss Talmadge retired from the screen at age 33 to live on her fortune.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Foolish Wives1921

Written, directed and designed byErich von Stroheim

Produced byCarl Laemmle

Photographed byBen Reynolds

StarringErich von StroheimMae BuschMaud GeorgeCesare Gravina


Von Stroheim’s acknowledged masterpiece, second only to Greed. Shocking in its day, contemporary audiences love it for its baroque decadence. In turn-of-the-century Monte Carlo, a fake Russian count (von Stroheim) earns his living by passing counterfeit bills, cheating at the casino tables, and seducing, then blackmailing the wives of wealthy tourists.— Universal, USA

Foreshadows Wedding March and Queen Kelly.— Lotte Eisner, Cinema Francais

A masterpiece typical of von Stroheim. Brilliant yet controversial.— The New York Times

Masterpiece.— Clive Hirschhorn, The Universal Story

Blind Husbands1918

Written, directed and designed byErich von Stroheim

StarringErich von StroheimSam De GrasseGibson GowlandFrancella Billington


The legendary von Stroheim’s first picture as director, a comedy of sexual manners in which an Austrian army officer attempts to seduce the wife of a wealthy American, a theme he explored further in Foolish Wives (1921). The climactic confrontation between the officer and the husband on a barren Alpine mountain top foreshadows the ending of Greed.— Universal, USA


Superior to most of the year’s productions. In a number of von Stroheim’s dominating scenes there are no words at all, only eloquent pictures, more eloquent than words could ever be.— The New York Times

Few careers have been launched so auspiciously as von Stroheim’s was with Blind Husbands — strong material with an inherently sexual theme, yet also with a framework of melodrama that appealed to popular tastes. There is considerable subtlety in the writing and in the juxtaposition of characters.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

Erich von Stroheim

The Merry-Go-Round1922

Directed byRupert Julian

Written byErich von Stroheim

Costumes byErich von StroheimRichard Day

Produced byIrving Thalberg

Presented byCarl Laemmle

StarringNorman KerryMary PhilbinCesare Gravina


Erich von Stroheim conceived of the idea for this film, wrote the story, helped design the sets and planned to play the leading role, but Universal cast Norman Kerry instead and removed von Stroheim as director for going over budget with his obsessive attention to detail. It is a von Stroheim film, nonetheless. Pre-war Vienna — Emperor Franz Joseph orders a count to marry a woman at court, but the count has fallen in love with a pretty organ grinder. A hopeless, hapless love, the gulf between their two lives widens as the luxurious high-life of the court is juxtaposed with the drudging poverty of the circus. Although economically disparate, both worlds are depicted as morally dissipated: beneath the glistening gold of the Hapsburg court, the aristocracy takes their last decadent breaths: beneath the tinsel lights of the Prater Amusement Park, brutality and cruelty are bred of poverty. Only Mitzi, the virtuous circus girl, comes through unscathed.— Pacific Film Archive— Universal, USA



The Great Gabbo1929

Directed byJames Cruze

Written byBen Hecht

StarringErich von StroheimBetty CompsonDon DouglasMargie (Babe) Kane

91 minutes, 16mm, Sound, B&W

Von Stroheim’s first talking picture, a screen classic about a pair of show people: one, a lovely considerate girl (Betty Compson), and Gabbo, a super-egotistical ventriloquist (von Stroheim) who expresses his true feelings only through his dummy. She leaves him. Some years later, when Gabbo is a star, he meets her again and mistaking her kindness towards him as a display of love, he presses his suit with such persistence that she finally confesses she is married to her partner. Insane with jealousy, Gabbo nearly wrecks the show. — Sona-Art, USA

Foolish Wives1921




William Farnum

The Spoilers1914

Staged ByColin CampbellRex Beach

Based on the novel by Rex Beach

StarringWilliam FarnumTom SantschiKathlyn WilliamsBessie EytonsFrank Clark


Of the eight-reel film, apparently only one reel of this feature has survived the decades, but it contains one of the most famous and brutal brawls in film history. — Polyscope, USA

To the rabid movie fan — the one who revels in action, excitement and a panoramic succession of real live adventures — this picture hands him/her a wallop thrill upon thrill. — Variety

The Saga of William S. Hart1914–1924


Back in the good old days when the world, its people and events were seen in terms of black and white with no compromises allowed or needed, William S. Hart began making movies. For audiences of the day he was the first incarnation of Rambo and John Wayne. Tall, lean, wiry, with a steely glint in his eyes, Hart made thrilling Westerns from 1913–1924, and developed a character capable of getting what he wanted and keeping what he had with only his bare knuckles, a pair of six-guns and single-minded determination. Here are clips and fragments from his most popular films: Two Gun Hicks, On The Night Stage (1914), Hell’s Hinges, The Aryan (1916), Square Deal Man, Desert Man, Wolf Lowry (1917), The Toll Gate, Testing Black (1920), O’Malley of the Mounted, Three Word Brand (1921) and Wild Bill Hickok (1924) which includes the famous “fight of the water barrels.”— Mutual Master Corporation/Triangle Productions/Artcraft/Paramount Pictures, USA

William S. Hart

Blood and Sand1922


Written byJune MathisBased on the novel by Vicente Blasco-Ibanez and the play by Tom Cushing

StarringRudolph ValentinoNita NaldiLila LeeGeorge FieldRosa Rosanova


Valentino debuted in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and then established his image with this famous film about a matador extraordinaire who marries his childhood sweetheart only to have a fatal affair with another.— Paramount Pictures, USA

One Star.— Leslie Halliwell

Valentino remains forever lithe, handsome, smooth-skinned, and languorous-eyed. He was an ideal actor for the silent screen. He had a Latin capacity for total abandon: the love scenes and the affecting death scene still command a total belief. He remains a singularly winning personality and a compelling actor and merits his little bit of immortality.— David Robinson, The London Times

Rudolph Valentino

The Eagle1925

Produced and directed byClarence Brown

Written byHans KralyBased on Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin

Designed byWilliam Cameron Menzies

StarringRudolph ValentinoVilma BankyLouise DresserJames Marcus

73 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music and Effects Track, B&W

Hailed by the critics, The Eagle was the first in a string of hits by director Clarence Brown (Flesh and the Devil, Anna Christie, Anna Karenina) and features one of Valentino’s most memorable performances.— United Artists, USA


Valentino changes his personality three times in his new picture and each one is dashing and fascinating and very Valentino. First, he is a young lieutenant in the Czarina’s regiment, brave and handsome and desired of Catherine. Later he becomes a bandit, the Black Eagle, seeking to avenge a wrong done his father. Next we see Rudy impersonating a French tutor in the house of his enemy, teaching the enemy’s beautiful daughter. Valentino falls in love. Shall he break his oath of allegiance?— Photoplay

Clarence Brown, soon to become Garbo’s favorite director, established his reputation for glossy elegance with this picture.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story



“Apart from being grand entertainment, Son of the Sheik comes closest to being a masterpiece.”

Son of the Sheik1926

Directed byGeorge Fitzmaurice


Written byFrances MarionFred de GresacBased on the novel The Son of the Sheik by Edith Maude Hull

Art Direction byWilliam Cameron Menzies

StarringRudolph ValentinoVilma BankyGeorge FawcettAgnes Ayres

74 minutes (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music and Effects Track, B&W

A wonderfully exotic and romantic adventure complete with desert chases, stunts, last minute rescues, daring escapes and ferocious fights. Valentino plays both father and son in this tongue-in-cheek romp that many think is his best film.— United Artists, USA


Apart from being grand entertainment, Son of the Sheik comes closest (of Valentino’s films) to being a masterpiece.— Joe Franklin, Classics of the Silent Screen



The Hunchback of Notre Dame1923

Directed byWallace Worsley

Assistant directorWilliam Wyler

Written byEdward T. LoweBased on Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Conceived byIrving Thalberg

StarringLon ChaneyErnest TorrencePatsy Ruth MillerNorman Kerry


The deformed Quasimodo (Lon Chaney) rescues a gypsy girl from the evil clutches of her guardian. Its horror put off Variety’s reviewer who called it a “nightmare! No children can stand its morbid scenes and there are likely but few parents seeing it first who will permit their young to see it afterward” which just goes to show how far the movies have come since 1923.— Universal, USA

Three Stars. Lavish filming of Hugo classic, capturing flair of medieval Paris and strange attraction of outcast Chaney for dancing girl (Miller). Silent classic still holds up well, with Chaney’s makeup still incredible.— Leonard Maltin

Remains a classic piece of silent filmmaking. Chaney gave one of the great performances in cinema history.— Clive Hirschhorn. The Universal Story

The Phantom of the Opera1925

Directed byRupert Julian

Adapted byRaymond SchrockElliott J. ClawsonFrom the novel by Gaston Leroux

StarringLon ChaneyMary PhilbinNorman KerrySnitz Edwards


Lon Chaney created one of his most grotesque performances as the crazed man without a face who lives in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera and falls in love with the voice of a young opera singer performing on the stage above. Infatuated, he kidnaps her, dragging her to the depths below where she will sing only for him.— Universal, USA

The unmasking scene is a brilliant horror episode. Many of the scenes in the grim caverns under the Paris Opera have very real beauty and dramatic power in their composition, evoking genuine images of terror.— Joe Franklin, Classics of the Silent Screen

One of the greatest of all horror films, and certainly the pinnacle of the genre in the silent era. Gave Lon Chaney the chance to shatter audiences with his most grotesque face yet — that of Erik, the phantom of the title.— Clive Hirschhorn, The Universal Story

Lon Chaney

The Hunchback of Notre Dame1923




Pool Sharks1915

Directed byEdwin Middleton

Written by and starringW. C. Fields

10 minutes, (24 fps), 35mmSilent with Music Track, B&W

W. C. Fields’ first film. He performs his famous pool-playlng vaudeville routine and vies for the hand of a young lady.

Admirers of Fields will find plenty of good fun in the picture and much of the ‘business’ is new. The action centers around a pool contest between two rivals, the winner of which is to marry the disputed girl.— Motion Picture News

W. C. Fields

The Golf Specialist1930

Directed byMonte Brice

Written by and starringW. C. Fields


W. C. Fields, in his first sound motion picture, teaches golf to a brazen hussy in this film version of his classic vaudeville golfing sketch. — RKO, USA


The Dentist 1932

Directed byLeslie Pearce

Written byW. C. Fields


StarringW. C. FieldsBabe KaneElise Cavanna


The classic, uncut comedy in which W. C. Fields performs hilarious verbal surgery on his patients and then takes off for the golf links to murder the game. — Paramount Pictures, USA


The Barbershop1933

Directed byArthur Ripley



StarringW. C. FieldsElise CavannaBarry Watson


Fields, the barber, walks a tightrope between the threats of his nagging wife and the attractions of his pretty manicurist. As one customer wastes away, forgotten in a steam cabinet, another, who is getting a shave, asks Fields why a mutt sits watching expectantly. “Funny thing about that dog,” Fields muses. “One day I was shaving a man, sliced his ear off and the dog got it. Been back ever since.” — Paramount Pictures, USA

The Fatal Glass of Beer1933

Directed byClyde Bruckman



StarringW. C. FieldsRosemary ThebyRichard CramerGeorge Chandler


Fields’ prodigal son returns home to his parents’ snowbound cabin in the Yukon where he is welcomed with open arms. It’s comedy par excellence from whence comes the immortal line “… and it ain’t a fit night out for man nor beast.”— Paramount Pictures, USA

Down Memory Lane 1949

Directed byPhil Karlson


StarringSteve AllenBing CrosbyW. C. FieldsGloria SwansonMabel NormandBen TurpinPhyllis HaverFranklin PangbornCharles MurrayJames FinlaysonMack SwainMack Sennett


Produced by Mack Sennett in 1949, this feature compilation contains amusing silent and sound sequences from famous Sennett shorts. Steve Allen plays a TV disc jockey who is selling a novel program concept: a film made from great films of the past. Silent sequences with Turpin, Swanson, Normand, the Kops and the Beauties are accompanied by music and sound effects which Pangborn and Allen provide. The sound clips include Fields as The Dentist (1932) and Crosby in a musical comedy of mistaken identity.— Eagle Lion Films, USA

Surefire to ripple audiences with resounding yucks, early films have a genuine antique flavor. Fields’ The Dentist is probably one of the funniest and certainly the most suggestive item made by the late comedian.— Variety

The Pharmacist1933

Directed byArthur Ripley



StarringW. C. FieldsElise CavannaGrady SuttonBabe Kane


Fields is a small-town druggist with a family that is simply beyond words. His daughter, Babe Kane, tries to eat the pet canary, and his wife is a pompous scold who, when an old lady in the pharmacy downstairs asks “Is there a lady in attendance,” gets all gussied up and descends the stairs with a regal air only to discover the dear old thing just wants to use the ladles’ room.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Pharmacist1933

The Barbershop1933




Borderline1928

Directed byKenneth MacPherson

StarringPaul RobesonEslanda RobesonHelga DoornGavin ArthurRobert HerringBlanche LewisCharlotte Arthur


An experimental silent film project of Kenneth MacPherson, British writer and editor of the cinema journal Close Up. Made in Switzerland, its cast features American imagist poetess Hilda Doolittle (“H.D.” aka Helga Doorn), British historical novelist Bryher (and wife of director MacPherson), Robert Herring (editor of Life and Letters Today), Dr. Eslanda Robeson, anthropologist, wife and constant companion of husband Paul, the only professional actor in the cast. The film studies several people at a Swiss mountain resort, each of whom reacts in one way or another to the arrival of a black couple played by Paul Robeson and his wife.— Pool Films, Great Britain

Body and Soul1925

Written, produced and directed byOscar Micheaux

StarringPaul RobesonJulia Theresa RussellMercedes GilbertChester A. AlexanderLawrence Chenault


Paul Robeson’s first film and a very rare silent film by the pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, an innovator who, between 1918 and 1940, wrote, produced, directed and personally distributed nearly 30 films.— Micheaux Film Corporation, USA

One of Micheaux’s artistic triumphs in which Robeson plays a dissolute, venal black preacher with a double life. He shows up in a seedy speakeasy full of criminals and cardsharps, then appears trying to dupe a pious mother into marrying off her daughter. The film cuts back and forth between the two rogues as they grow more corrupt and treacherous. The roles are symbolized by two portraits: a mugshot of Robeson from the Police Gazette on the wall of the gambling hall and a huge painting of a benign Booker T. Washington on the church wall. Near the end, both roles are revealed as shams: Robeson is really a powerful, kind and handsome man who will close the speakeasy. A strong, resolute, and masculine black emerged from the hysterical stereotypes of the whites.— Norman Kagan, Black American Cinema

Paul Robeson The film proved to be a visually exciting experiment with lights and shadows which are made into analogs for the black and white characters. The light-and-shadow compositions are then used to comment on the sordid racism of the white society that in the film the Robesons are cast from; far beyond its time in both technique and characterization of Negroes. For Robeson, it would be the top of a career after which he spent a decade plodding through white men’s movies with their stereotyped vision of blacks. Self-consciously experimental and distributed by a small independent company, there was no reason to expect a wide showing. Thus his work for Micheaux would be seen only by a few Negroes, while his great work for MacPherson would be lost to all but a select audience who would see it in private showings or in museums.— Thomas Cripps, Film Historian

Song of Freedom1936

Directed byJ. Elder Wills

StarringPaul RobesonElisabeth WelchGeorge MozartEsme PercyJoan Fred EmneyArthur WilliamsRonald Simpson


One of the earliest films that dealt with sensitivity with a black man’s search for his cultural background in Africa, predating Roots by four decades. Robeson is a successful British concert singer who discovers he is descended from a West African queen whose tribe is now leaderless. Though black, he retains all the values of the white middle class which educated him. He goes to Africa and is met initially with hostility, but uses the universal language of song to help him to break the barriers. Songs Include: “Sleepy River, Lonely Road, Song of Freedom,” “The Black Emperor”— London Film Productions, Great Britain

As the archetypal modern black man, Robeson was also depicted as still having the jungle blood running through his veins. That he can never escape. Although his wife is a fair-skinned, straight-haired, proper mulatto, and he has a dark-skinned coon servant, he takes his British manners and mores and civilizes the savage natives. Great Britain could not have asked for a more loyal subject.— Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mullattoes, Mammies & Bucks

Sanders of the River(US: Bosambo)1935

Directed byZoltan Korda

Produced byAlexander Korda

Written byLajos BiroJeffrey DellArthur WimperisBased on the novel by Edgar Wallace

StarringPaul RobesonLeslie BanksNina May McKinney


Based on the popular Wallace novel about British Colonial rule in Africa, Bosambo (Robeson) is used by Sanders (Leslie Banks), the British administrator, to keep the other natives in line and satisfied with British governance. Later, Bosambo is rewarded for his efforts by being proclaimed King over all the tribes. The film has the look of a Flaherty film with its many shots of wildlife (some taken from an airplane) and scenes of authentic tribal rites and customs.— Hammer Films/London Films, Great Britain

Much of Alexander Korda’s production of Sanders of the River was shot on location in East Africa, with real natives as extras (the future leader of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, had a bit part). But it starred American Paul Robeson.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story


An immense production. Will be regarded as a milestone in the history of British cinema.— Variety

Stirring. One of the best pictures of the year. — Anthony Slide, Ed. Selected Film Criticism

Robeson was Bosambo, the trusty right-hand man of Sanders, the white “man of iron” who rules the dark, backward tribes of Africa. Robeson provided not only physical strength for his master but some comic and romantic interludes for the mass audience. While he agreed to star out of a passionate concern with African culture, It was transformed into a glorification of British colonial rule, and at a special preview an irate Robeson stormed out of the movie house in protest.— Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks

The Emperor Jones1933

Directed byDudley MurphyWilliam C. DeMille

Written byDuBose HaywardBased on the play by Eugene O’Neill

StarringPaul RobesonDudley DiggesRex IngramFrank WilsonFredi WashingtonJackie “Moms” Mayble


In the key role of his career, Paul Robeson repeats his powerful stage portrayal of Brutus Jones, a railroad porter who becomes the ruler of a remote Caribbean Island, a story patterned after the life of Haitian emperor Henri Christophe. The underlying 1920 Eugene O’Neill play was one of the first to portray the black man as an individual rather than as a stereotype. Jones deals with whites on his own terms — sometimes even contemptuously, as in his dialogue with the white-trash trader, played superbly by Dudley Digges. Jones’s eventual downfall comes as the result of his own fears rather than any other cause. Robeson has two songs, “Let Me Fly” and “Water Boy.” Watch for Moms Mayble in a bit part.— United Artists, USA

The Emperor Jones made Paul Robeson a symbol of black confidence and self-fulfillment.Black audiences must have felt immensely proud and fond of that bad “nigger” [sic] up there on the screen, telling them white folks to get outta his way to give him room to breathe. Despite the fact that Robeson portrayed a character that was often a black brute figure, black audiences still saw a black male completely unlike the servile characters of most American movies. The Emperor Jones gave Robeson his finest screen role.— Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks


97 American ClassicsSong of Freedom1936

Jericho(US: Dark Sands)1937

Directed byThornton Freeland

Written byGeorge BarraudBased on an original story by Walter Futter

StarringPaul RobesonHenry WilcoxonWallace FordPrincess ZoukaJohn LaurieJames Carew


Sailing to France during World War I, Jericho (Paul Robeson) accidentally causes the death of his sergeant and is sentenced to death for murder. He escapes to the African desert to become the leader of a desert tribe, marries and has a son. When his pursuers finally catch up with him, they meet with tragedy, because Robeson’s people believe he is to be harmed. Robeson sings “My Way,” “Golden River,” ‘Silent Night,” “Deep Desert,” “Shortnin’ Bread.”— A Buckingham Production, Great Britain

Splendid. Heroic sentimental story.— Variety

Tales of Manhattan1942

Directed byJulien Duvivier

StarringPaul RobesonEthel WatersEddie AndersonJ. Carrol NaishClarence MuseGeorge ReedCordell HickmanJohn KellyThe Hall Johnson Choir

15 minutes, 35mm, B&W(Final sequence only)

The final sequence of a prestigious but episodic production built around the fate of a fine evening dresscoat. While the first five episodes (one of which features W. C. Fields, was not released with the film, but is a part of The Rohauer Library) takes place in Manhattan. The last sequence strays into a poor Southern community inhabited by black sharecroppers.— 20th Century Fox, USA

Robeson’s last American film and a personal disaster. He portrays a backwoods Southern coon who discovers a satchel of money that has been dropped into his cotton field from an airplane. Immediately, he and Waters thank “de almighty Gawd in de hebben above” and stand trembling, “fore de power and de glory above.” Again, superstition had been substituted for the genuine intensity of the black religious experience, and the Negro sequence of this all-star film alienated black audiences and aroused great controversy.— Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies & Bucks

Big Fella1937

Directed byJ. Elder Wills

Written byIngram D’AbbesFenn Sherie

StarringPaul RobesonElisabeth WelchRoy EmertonMarcel RogezEldon GrantJoyce KennedyMargaret Rutherford


Marseilles dockworker Paul Robeson befriends a small boy and reunites him with his parents following their separation, after arriving on an ocean liner. Songs Include: “Lazin,” “Roll Up Sailorman,” “You Didn’t Ought to Do Such Things,” “All God’s Chillun Got a Robe,” “My Curly-Headed Baby” and “River Steals My Folks From Me.”— British Lion/Beaconsfield Films, Great Britain



Roland West

Alibi(UK: The Perfect Alibi)1929

Produced and directed byRoland West

Written byRoland WestC. Gardner SullivanBased on the play Night Stick by John Wray, J.C. Nugent and Elaine Stern Carrington

Art Direction byWilliam Cameron Menzies

Photographed byRay June

StarringChester MorrisEleanor GriffithRegis ToomeyMae Busch


Roland West’s first sound motion picture uses several new techniques first attributed to Alfred Hitchcock in Blackmail (dubbing of live dialogue, building subjective suspense by accenting a key phrase, using a chirping bird to distract, using sound to create an abstract rhythm). It’s a gripping story about a young cop killer who marries the police chief’s daughter to alibi the warehouse robbery he commits. Quick to shoot enemies in the back, he becomes a sniveling coward when he’s finally cornered.— United Artists, USA

Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Chester Morris for Best Actor, 1929.

The distorted sets, odd angles and restless camera work make it West’s most Germanic work. This claustrophobic little nightmare would be fully at home in a retrospective of the American avant-garde film.— Elliott Stein, Film: A Critical Dictionary

One of the best of the early all-dialogue gangster movies. — Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

See also:De Luxe AnniePage 74

The DovePage 77

Corsair1931

Written, produced and directed byRoland WestBased on the novel by Walton Green

StarringChester MorrisAlison Lloyd (Thelma Todd)William AustinFrank McHughFred KohlerMayo Methot


Producer-director Roland West indulged his love of the sea by making Corsair, a high seas adventure in which a former college football hero, Chester Morris, forsakes his job on Wall Street for the romance of rum-running during Prohibition, pirating cargoes of contraband hootch and selling it back to the bootleggers from whom he stole it.— United Artists, USA

West’s most virulent, wildly irresponsible and reckless exercise of his recurring themes of personal honor and anti-social moral codes. Everyone engages in guiltless profiteering, and no one is ever held accountable for the many sadistic murders committed to advance the smuggling.— Scott MacQueen, “Roland West” from Between Action and Cut: Five American Directors

The misty expressionism and delicate feelings of Corsair entitle the director to a place in film history.— Arthur Sarris, The American Cinema

Alibi1929


101 American ClassicsSalvation Hunters1925

Salvation Hunters1925

Written, produced, photographed and directed byJosef von Sternberg

Prologue featuring Josef von Sternberg, courtesy of BBC-TV

StarringGeorge K. ArthurGeorgia HaleBruce GuerinOtto MatlesenNellie Bly BakerOlaf HyttenStuart Holmes


Salvation Hunters, Josef von Sternberg’s first picture, was years ahead of its time. Chaplin saw it and recommended it to Douglas Fairbanks, who bought it for United Artists. It made its money back in the first year and launched von Sternberg’s career. Critic Arthur Knight wrote, “Salvation Hunters was hailed as an artistic achievement without peer, an American film that rivaled anything then being imported from Europe.” — United Artists, USA

Essentially a mood piece, a simple story of three lost souls, an unemployed ambitionless family who live on a river scow until a procurer offers them a room in exchange for the wife’s services. Only when the scabrous villain mistreats their child does the husband recover his self-respect sufficiently to face up to the man. The implication is that, having taken this first step, he will lead his little family on to happiness.— Arthur Knight, The Liveliest Art

There is always a thrill for the audience in supplying through their own minds something that is not blatantly disclosed on the screen. Eventually, alert directors will capitalize on this added interest and give us more films like Salvation Hunters. Mr. von Sternberg may be commended for thus widening the technical art and narrative power of the motion picture.— Exceptional Photoplays

Josef von Sternberg




Other American Classics

Headin’ Home1920

Directed byLawrence C. Windom

Written byEarle BrowneArthur Baer

Produced byWilliam Shea

StarringBabe Ruth


A heavily fictionalized biopic of the Bambino, filmed shortly after he was sold to the Yankees.— Kessell & Baumann, USA

Salome1923

Directed byCharles Bryant

Written byPeter M. WintersBased on Salome by Oscar Wilde

Set design and costumes byNatacha RambovaBased on designs by Aubrey Beardsley

StarringAlla NazimovaRose DioneMitchell LewisNigel De Brulier


Russian-born, avant-garde actress Nazimova was famous for her performances of Ibsen and other works about sensitive, passionate or neurotic women. At the peak of her career she produced Salome with her own production company to use as a curtain-raiser for her live performances. A boldly stylized filming of the Oscar Wilde work, its sets and costumes are patterned after sketches by Aubrey Beardsley. The Richard Strauss score is the one used when the film opened in 1923. — Nazimova Productions, USA

The most extraordinarily beautiful picture that has ever been produced — a spectacle for the eye — absolutely superlative.— Robert E. Sherwood, The Best Moving Pictures of 1922–23

Oscar Wilde might have approved of Nazimova’s flamboyant portrayal of his perverse heroine. Although at 44 she was not exactly the pubescent Biblical stripper of Wilde’s imagination, her campy facial expressions and gestures were reminiscent of Sarah Bernhardt, for whom Salome was originally written. The highlight, of course, was the dance of the seven veils, which stopped in time to avoid the censor’s scissors.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Hold Your Breath1924

Directed byScott Sidney

Written byFrank Roland Conklin

Produced byAl Christie

StarringDorothy DevoreWalter HiersTully MarshallMax Davidson

50 minutes (24 fps), 16 mm, B&W

Dorothy Devore plays The Girl in Scott Sidney’s silent comedy. Fired from her job at a local beauty salon, she finds herself caring for her sick newspaper reporter brother. Taking over his crime beat at the paper, she quickly becomes entangled in a jewel heist involving an eccentric millionaire and a thieving monkey. Devore gives pursuit to clear her name and ends up scaling the side of a skyscraper in a sequence that is just as impressive as Harold Lloyd’s famous climb in Safety Last from the previous year.— Christie Film Company, USA

Lady Windermere’s Fan1925

Produced and directed byErnst Lubitsch

Written byJulien JosephsonBased on the play by Oscar Wilde

StarringRonald ColmanIrene RichMay McAvoyBert LytellEdward MartindelHelen DunbarCarrie Daumery


A sophisticated comedy-drama about a beautiful young wife who suspects her husband of having an affair with another woman. What she doesn’t know is that the “other woman” is her own mother. It seems that Mama ran off with a lover years before and, now having returned a bit down at the heels and broke, has decided to shake down her daughter’s husband.— Warner Brothers, USA

A tour de force, capturing the Wildean spirit without the use of a single Wildean epigram. Lubitsch said they had no place in a silent film and substituted visual epigrams for the spoken Wilde wit. Alfred Kerr, the famous Berlin drama critic, called it a work ‘In the purest Burgtheater style,’ and it was a favorite film of Edmund Wilson. Voted one of the ten best films of 1925.— Herman G. Weinberg, The Lubitsch Touch, A Critical Study

Capital Punishment1925

Directed byJames P. Hogan

Written byB.P. Schulberg

Produced byB.P. Schulberg

StarringClara BowGeorge HackathorneMargaret Livingston


Once considered a lost film, Capital Punishment was restored by the Library of Congress from a 35mm nitrate print and other elements. Similar to Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, a crusading social worker sets out to prove that the ultimate punishment is both ineffective and unjust.— B.P. Schulberg Productions, USA

Wedding Song1925

Directed byAlan Hale

Written byDouglas Z Doty

Produced byCecil B. DeMille

StarringLeatrice JoyRobert AmesCharles K. Gerrard


In this silent comedy, Leatrice Joy plays a con artist who marries the wealthy owner of an island rich with pearls. Joy’s crooked partners soon enter the picture posing as her rather eccentric family. — Cinema Corporation of America, USA

The Swan1925

Written and directed byDimitri BuchowetzkiBased on the play The Swan by Ferenc Molnar

StarringFrances HowardAdolphe MenjouRicardo CortezIda WatermanHelen LindrothHelen Lee WorthingJoseph DepewGeorge Walcott


The first filmed version of The Swan opened just three years after its premiere in Budapest. The leading male role, that of the Prince, was changed to fit star Adolphe Menjou, and the critics gave up trying to compare the film to the play because there was no comparison, and because the film was an artistic success in its own right.— Famous Players-Lasky, USA

Far more Lubitsch and Stroheim than Molnar (one whole episode seems almost a spoof of a key Foolish Wives episode). It was a handsome and snappy production that bowled along far more rapidly than Molnar would have liked and was dominated by Adolphe Menjou’s perfectly styled and good-natured performance. Although typical of mid-1920s Hollywood product, its Germanic roots were stressed in the sets, with their strong emphasis on perfect symmetry and balance — thought quite highly of at the time, especially by Rene Clair.— William K. Everson. American Silent Film




Bachelor Brides1926

Directed byWilliam K. Howard

Written byCharles Horace MalcolmC. Gardner SullivanEddie Cline


StarringRod LaRocqueElinor FairSally Rand


An entertaining mystery-comedy involving paternity claims, stolen pearls and an escape from a mental asylum, all set in a mansion on a dark and stormy night.— DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA

Cruise of the Jasper B1926

Directed byJames W. Horne

Written byTay Garnett


StarringRod LaRocqueMildred HarrisSnitz Edwards


In this comedy, LaRocque must marry aboard the family ship by his 25th birthday in order to retain his inheritance.— DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA

Ella Cinders1926

Directed byAlfred Green

Written byFrank GriffinMervyn LeRoyBased on Cinderella In the Movies, a syndicated comic strip by William Counselman and Charles Plumb

Presented byJohn McCormick

StarringColleen MooreLloyd HughesVera LewisHarry Langdon


A hilarious send up of the Cinderella story. Buoyed up by the smile of the local iceman Waite Lifter, pretty Ella Cinders (Colleen Moore) slaves away to satisfy every whim of her two evil stepsisters, Lotta and Prissy Pill. When Ella enters a movie contest and goes to the Ball dressed in one of Lotta’s gowns and draped in Ma Cinders’ piano scarf, her indignant relatives drag her home, but she wins the contest anyway and goes off to Hollywood to seek her fortune.— First National Pictures, USA

Three Stars — Excellent Colleen Moore vehicle about a small-town girl going to Hollywood to make good: bright and peppy with amusing guest appearance by Harry Langdon.— Leonard Maltin

For Alimony Only1926

Directed byWilliam C. DeMille

Written byLenore J. Coffee


StarringLeatrice JoyClive BrookLilyan Tashman


Clive Brook, recently divorced from gold-digging Tashman, meets and marries Leatrice Joy. The newlyweds find it hard to make ends meet with the alimony payment that Brook must make, so scheme to get Tashman married off to stop the payments.— DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA

Her Man O’ War1926

Directed byFrank Urson

Written byFred Jackson


StarringJetta GoudalWilliam BoydJimmie Adams


Goudal stars in this World War I drama as a half German, half French woman living in a well-fortified German village holding the line against the advance of the Allies. Because of the war, she is left to care for the family farm and her crippled young brother alone. A pre-Hopalong Cassidy Boyd is an American soldier who, along with comic-relief sidekick Adams, poses as a deserter in order to infiltrate the town and learn the whereabouts of an underground tunnel that will lead the army to the castle that overlooks the village and houses the artillery gun that has been standing in their way. The Germans are on to them from the beginning but, with plans on keeping close tabs on the Americans, assign them as farm hands to two of the village women. Of course Boyd is assigned to Goudal’s farm and she must struggle between her hatred for deserters and her growing affection for the young Yank. — DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA

Gigolo1926


Written byEdna FerberMarion Orth

Produced byWilliam C. DeMille

StarringRod LaRocqueJobyna RalstonLouise Dresser


LaRocque plays the heir to a Wisconsin manufacturing family whose widowed mother sells their factory in order to finance a luxurious life in Paris for her and her gold-digging second husband. After distinguishing himself in WWI flying for the famed Lafayette Escadrille, LaRocque returns to Paris to find his mother dead and stepfather gone. Penniless, he must support himself as a gigolo in a seedy dance hall cafe, until his fate changes. — DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA

Face Value1927

Directed byRobert Florey

Written byFrances Guihan

StarringGene GowingFritzi Ridgeway


A bleak and gritty tale of a disfigured soldier returning home from World War I.— Sterling Pictures, USA

Fighting Love1927

Directed byNils Olaf Chrisander

Written byBeulah Marie Dix


StarringJetta GoudalVictor Varconi


Goudal plays a young girl who marries an older man in order to escape an arranged marriage. When her soldier husband is reported to be killed in action fighting in the desert, she marries the young soldier she has fallen in love with, only to have her first husband return. — DeMille Pictures Corporation, USA



“The greatest of all horror films.”

The Old Dark House1932

Directed byJames Whale

Written byBenn LevyBased on the novel Benighted by J.B. Priestly

StarringMelvyn DouglasCharles LaughtonRaymond MasseyBoris KarloffEva MooreGloria Stuart 75 minutes, 35mm, B&W

One of the most literate and visually striking horror films of the ‘30s, James Whale’s The Old Dark House is a masterpiece of the genre — an urbane mixture of English “Gothic” horror, parody, and civilized responses to the absurd. Five travelers caught in a violent storm take refuge in a sinister mansion inhabited by three certifiable lunatics headed by Boris Karloff, Hollywood’s reigning “King of Horror.” An artful mixture of chills and ghoulish gallows humor, directed with a wonderful sense of the eccentric and bizarre, and acted by a splendid cast. — Universal, USA

The greatest of all horror films. Nothing better in this vein has ever been done, before or since.— William K. Everson, Classics of the Horror Film

Whale mixes a quais-realistic atmosphere (his monsters are decidedly human, his guests ever so civilized) with high Hollywood Gothic: a tremendous thunderstorm, swirling roads, and the eerie house with its Chinese-box series of horrors.— Pacific Film Archive




The Cat and the Canary1927

Directed byPaul Leni

Written byAlfred CohnRobert F. HillBased on the play by John Willard

StarringCreighton HaleLaura La PlanteForrest StanleyTully MarshallFlora Finch

84 minutes (24 fps), 35mm B&W Version Silent Tinted Version, Silent with Music Track

The flair and style of Paul Leni’s archetypal spooky house-comedy-horror movie influenced Hollywood through the ‘30s and was spoofed in James Whale’s The Old Dark House. Screen clichés like trembling hands coming at frightened characters, corpses falling from opened doors — all predate Alfred Hitchcock. The thriller opens as a diverse group of people gather together in a haunted house to hear a will read twenty years after the testator’s death, only to discover that most of them have been disinherited in favor of a distant relative (Laura La Plante) on the condition that she is proven sane. Well, you can imagine what a tough time she’s going to have proving that one, with all those greedy vultures around ready to drive her cuckoo. — Universal, USA



A first-rate, highly imaginative adaptation of John Willard’s Broadway success.— Clive Hirschhorn, The Universal Story

Glorifying the American Girl1929

Directed byMillard WebbUnder the personal supervision ofFlorenz Ziegfeld

StarringMary EatonEdward Crandallwith guest appearances by Eddie CantorHelen MorganRudy ValleeFlorenz ZiegfeldAdolph ZukorOtto KahnTexas GuinanMayor Jimmy WalkerRing LardnerNoah BeeryJohnny Weissmuller


A typical show-business plot with some fine footage detailing how a girl is chosen and trained for her enviable role as a Ziegfeld Follies beauty. Among the musical and comedy sequences by the guest stars is Eddie Cantor’s Sam the Tailor routine. He first performed this sketch for the Shubert Brothers in the stage production of The Midnight Rounders (1921). He tries to convince a hapless customer to purchase an ill-fitting suit. The complete, uninterrupted sketch provides a rare opportunity to see a comedy great in a famous stage vehicle.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Be Yourself1930


Written byThornton FreelandMax MarcinAdapted from The Champ by Joseph Jackson


StarringFanny BriceRobert ArmstrongBarry GreenGertrude Astor


Fanny Brice, that “funny girl” herself, in a sentimental romantic comedy about the nightclub entertainer who falls in love with a punchy prizefighter.— United Artists, USA

The bright spots came when Miss Brice (then Mrs. Billy Rose) sang five songs by her husband.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Puttin’ on the Ritz1930

Directed byE. B. Sloman

Written and produced byJohn W. Considine Jr.

Designed byWilliam Cameron Menzies

Special music byIrving Berlin

Score byHugo Riesenfeld

Photographed byRay June

StarringHarry RichmanJoan BennettJames GleasonAileen Pringle


Broadway actor Harry Richman was seeing Clara Bow off-screen, Joan Bennett looked exquisite, and Irving Berlin’s songs were the perfect topping for this backstage yarn about a man who springs from poverty to success, gets corrupted by his sudden rise, goes high hat and then loses his sight from drinking bad hootch. Songs include “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “There’s Danger in Your Eyes.”— United Artists, USA

Outstanding. Several production numbers are close to the best yet. William Cameron Menzies has concocted several peachy sets, notably a crazy landscape that becomes animated.— Variety

Irving Berlin’s title song became a hit.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

The Bad One1930

Directed byGeorge Fitzmaurice

Written byCarey WilsonHoward E. RogersBased on the story by John Farrow

StarringDolores Del RioEdmund LoweDon AlvaradoUllrich Haupt


The ever-fascinating Dolores Del Rio stars as the young woman who hands out the keys in a bawdy house but never succumbs herself until her wedding day.— United Artists, USA

The Lottery Bride1930

Directed byPaul Stein

Produced byArthur Hammerstein

Written byHorace JacksonBased on Bride 66, an original story by Herbert Stothart

Music byRudolph FrimlArranged by Hugo Riesenfeld

StarringJeanette MacDonaldJohn GarrickJoe E. BrownZasu PittsRobert Chisholm


Early sound and early Jeanette MacDonald in a Rudolph Friml musical about the Norwegian girl who marries a miner in the Yukon only to discover it’s his younger brother she loves.— United Artists, USA

Delightfully creaky musical with a Yukon setting: Jeanette must deny her true love when she becomes a lottery-bride for his older brother. Impressive sets, forgettable music, enjoyable comic relief from Brown and Pitts.— Leonard Maltin

White Zombie1932

Produced and directed byVictor Halperin

Written byGarnett Weston

StarringBela LugosiMadge BellamyJohn Harron


This classic about an army of Hatian zombies who work in a sugar mill for the white man who controls them is one of the best from Hollywood’s Golden Age of Horror Films.— United Artists, USA

Three Stars. Eerily made unique chiller.— Leonard Maltin

Superior to Dracula, although it was made on a much smaller budget. While Tod Browning’s film was theatrical, garrulous and devoid of mood music, White Zombie is fluidly cinematic, filled with lengthy, wordless sequences and supported by an effective music score. Bela Lugosi throws himself into the part of Legendre with real relish, gleefully etching lines in venom, Gothic fairy tale filled with traditional symbols, dreamlike imagery, echoes of Romanticism and probably unintentional psychosexual overtones.— Carlos Clarens. An Illustrated History of the Horror Film

She1935

Directed byIrving PichelLansing C. Holden

Produced byMerian C. Cooper

Written byRuth RoseDudley NicholsBased on the novel by H. Rider Haggard

Music byMax Steiner

StarringRandolph ScottNigel BruceHelen GahaganGustav von Seyffertitz


Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom look suspiciously like this famous fantasy-adventure picture from the makers of King Kong. Ancient manuscripts telling of a Flame of Eternal Life lead a Cambridge professor to a lost city in the Arctic and the Ice Queen who can never die — until she falls in love. Escapist adventure on a grand scale.— RKO Radio Pictures, USA

Fun with outstanding Steiner score.— Leonard Maltin

A spectacular reuniting of several of the Kong gang — screenplay by Ruth Rose, a thumping score by Max Steiner. Noble Johnson as the Amahagger chief. Even the colossal gate from Kong turned up again. In this film it opens to reveal an art deco staircase at the top of which She stands. If this is the best of the half-dozen filmed versions of Rider Haggard’s tall story, the reasons are visual: frisky sacrificial dances, a whopping avalanche, leaps over chasms, and the oddly-designed city beneath a glacier.— Richard Roud, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The Cat and the Canary1927

The Bad One1930

Puttin’ on the Ritz1930

She1935




Flying Deuces1939

Directed byA. Edward Sutherland

Written byRalph SpenceHarry Langdon

Produced byBoris Morros

StarringStan LaurelOliver HardyJames Finlayson


To overcome Ollie’s broken heart, the boys join the French Foreign Legion, only to end up in front of the firing squad.— Boris Morros Productions, USA

Second Chorus1940

Directed byH. C. Potter

Written byElaine RyanIan McClellan HunterFrank Cavett

Music byArtie Shaw

StarringFred AstaireBurgess MeredithPaulette GoddardCharles ButterworthArtie Shaw and His Band


A neat concoction of comedy, song and dance routines showcasing the talents of Fred Astaire in this light-hearted story about two college musicians (Astaire and Meredith) who battle the odds to rise to the top of their profession and battle each other for the favors of Paulette Goddard. Astaire has three dance numbers and three songs: “Poor Mr. Chisholm,” “Would You Like To Be the Love of My Life,” and “Dig It.”— Paramount Pictures, USA

Academy Award Nomination: Artie Shaw for Best Song, “Love of My Life.” Music by Artie Shaw, lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

Forever and a Day1943

Directed byRene ClairEdmund GouldingCedric HardwickeFrank LloydVictor SavilleRobert StevensonHerbert Wilcox

Written byC.S. ForesterJohn Van DrutenChristopher IsherwoodR.C. SherriffNorman CorwinJames Hilton

Produced byHerbert WilcoxVictor Saville

This wonderful romantic-adventure yarn tells of Britain’s epochal struggles to retain the integrity of an empire and the freedom of her people by tracing the quaint history of a picturesque London mansion, its illustrious builder and his descendants from the Napoleonic period through the ravages of time and world-shattering conflicts until the days of the Nazi blitz. It showcases the talents of some of the most brilliant writers, performers and directors in the business and is absolutely crammed with funny bits of business. One of the most hilarious concerns the family who lived in the mansion during the late 19th century. Ever the young, modern wife engages a Dickensian inventor (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) and his helper (Buster Keaton) to install Hardwicke’s latest invention, an enormous cast-iron bathtub. Her husband comes home and demands they rip it out and gets himself embroiled in a three-way argument with his wife and Hardwicke as to whether the thing stays or goes, while Keaton schleps up and down stairs with the tub on his back as the argument moves from “take it out” to “put it back this instant” and back again. — RKO Radio Pictures, USA

StarringAnna Neagle, Ray MillandClaude Rains, C. Aubrey SmithDame May Whitty, Gene LockhartRay Bolger, Edmund GwennCharles Coburn, Charles LaughtonBuster Keaton, Wendy BarrieIda Lupino, Brian AherneEdward Everett Horton, June DuprezEric Blore, Merle OberonUna O’Connor, Nigel BruceRoland Young, Gladys CooperRobert Cummings, Elsa LanchesterSara Allgood, Donald CrispRuth Warrick, Herbert MarshallVictor McLaglen


Amusing and affecting passages — derive in a measure from the story but in the main from superb performances.— Bosley Crowther, The New York Times

Four Stars.— Leonard Maltin

It Happened Tomorrow1944

Directed byRene Clair

Written byDudley NicholsRene Clair

Produced byArnold Pressburger

StarringDick PowellLinda DarnellJack OakieEdgar Kennedy


Director Clair’s whimsical fantasy comedy about a turn-of-the-century newspaper reporter (Powell) who mysteriously receives tomorrow’s paper today. The complications of knowing the future soon become apparent, as the reporter’s “scoops” draw the attention and interest of the police.— United Artists, USA

It Happened Tomorrow can shake hands with his [Clair’s] best French films. This time, Rene Clair wasn’t satisfied with directing a fairytale vaudeville, applying his rigorous aesthetics of the watchmaker-poet to this or that farce-pretext. Instead, he bravely attacked a subject that Voltaire or Chamisso would have liked, a subject that could equally well have served as a theme for some somber film with philosophical pretensions. Never before has Rene Clair’s precise and winged talent been exercised with such mastery. In a balletic rhythm, all the gears mesh perfectly, everything becomes ordered, everything works out with a clarity and an apparent simplicity. A little wine from home that doesn’t lose anything in travel.— Le Courrier de Paris

Knickerbocker Holiday1944

Produced and directed byHarry Joe Brown

Adapted byThomas Lennon

Screenplay byDavid BoehmRowland LeighBased on the 1938 Broadway musical

Music byKurt Weill

Lyrics byMaxwell AndersonBased on Father Knickerbocker’s History of New York by Washington Irving

Peg-legged tyrant Peter Stuyvesant (Coburn) arrives in New Amsterdam to rule the city, uproot the old order and install his own — no graft. Brom Breck (Eddy) expects the new governor to right all the wrongs of past administrations, but when he discovers that Stuyvesant is a bigger crook than the ones already in power, he steals Stuyvesant’s bejeweled wooden leg and won’t give it back until the governor reforms. The memorable songs include “September Song,” and among the many funny characters you’ll find a petite Shelley Winters and Percy Kilbride playing in a role that foreshadows the “Pa Kettle” character he immortalized just a few years later.— United Artists, USA

Academy Award Nomination: Werner Heymann for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, 1944.

Rousing escapist musical with humor, gaiety and songs. Film has nine songs, four from the original: “Nowhere to Go But Up,” “It Never Was Anything But You,” “Indispensable Man,” “September Song” and five new ones.— Variety

Although much of the political content of the stage version was lost in the screenplay, obvious parallels were drawn between Stuyvesant’s regime and the book-burning Nazis.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Additional music byWerner HeymannForman BrownFranz SteiningerJule StyneSammy Cahn

StarringNelson EddyConstance DowlingCharles CoburnShelley WintersOtto KrogerPercy Kilbride


Voice in the Wind1944

Written and directed byArthur Ripley

Produced byArthur RipleyRudolph Monter

StarringFrancis LedererSigrid GurieJ. Carrol Naish


In this gritty noir, a Czech pianist, driven half-mad by Nazi oppression, flees Europe to the island of Guadalupe. He finds a lost love there who is also a refugee waiting to enter the US. They fall in with crooked smugglers.— Ripley/Monter Productions USA



“It is a film full of murky shadows, harsh commands and dangerous whispers.”

Hangmen Also Die1943

Directed byFritz Lang

Written byBertolt BrechtFritz Lang

Produced byArnold Pressburger

Photographed byJames Wong Howe

StarringBrian DonlevyWalter BrennanAnn LeeDennis O’Keefe


Beautifully shot by James Wong Howe and tightly scripted by Brecht and Lang, this noir-like espionage thriller is set in occupied Czechoslovakia and revolves around the successful plot by the Czech resistance to assassinate Deputy Reich-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia “Hangman” Reinhard Heydrich and the hunt by the Gestapo to track down the killers.— Arnold Pressburger Films, USA

Fritz Lang has returned to the starkly melodramatic style that marked his finest films. It is a film full of murky shadows, harsh commands and dangerous whispers. It reveals Lang as a master of contrived suspense. — The New York Times




Song for Miss Julie1945

Directed byWilliam Rowland

Written byLeighton Brill

Produced byCarley HarrimanWilliam Rowland

StarringShirley RossBarton HepburnJane Farrar


This musical comedy of manners pits North versus South when two playwrights come to town to research a 19th Century Southern gentleman for an operetta they are writing. Fearing that family secrets will be revealed, the gentleman’s only surviving relative tries to stop them. — Republic Pictures, USA

The Southerner1945

Written and directed byJean RenoirBased on the novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry

Photographed byLucien Andriot

Music byWerner Janssen

StarringZachary ScottBetty FieldBeulah BondiJ. Carrol NaishPercy KilbrideBlanche YurkaNorman Lloyd


This superb drama about a family struggling against almost insurmountable odds to make their farm productive demonstrates how little things have changed in the decades since its production. — United Artists, USA

One of the most sensitive and beautiful American made pictures I have seen. There is a solemnly eager, smoky, foggy ‘possum hunt which may be studio-faked for all I know; it gets perfectly the mournful, hungry mysteriousness of a Southern country winter. There is an equally good small-town street; I have seldom, in a movie, seen the corner of a brick building look at once so lonely and so highly charged with sadness and fear.— James Agee, The Nation

Not since The Grapes of Wrath has an American film got so close to the lives of the struggling poor, and The Southerner is nearer to that life because it has more of what might be called eternal verities in it. Human people in it will be long remembered by those with eyes to see and hearts to feel.— New Movies

Scandal in Paris1946

Directed byDouglas Sirk

Written byEllis St. JosephAdapted from the memoirs of Francois-Eugene Vidocq

StarringGeorge SandersCarole LandisAkim TamiroffGene Lockhart


Sanders plays François Eugène Vidocq, the French thief turned chief of police of Paris.— United Artists, USA

Young Widow1946

Directed byEdwin Marin

Written byClarissa Fairchild Cushman

StarringJane RussellLouis HaywardPenny SingletonNorman Lloyd


Independently produced by Hunt Stromberg, this was most audiences’ first view of Russell, Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw, having been pulled from distribution for re-editing. In this wartime drama, Russell plays a young journalist who can’t get over the death of her husband.— Hunt Stromberg Productions, USA

Buffalo Bill Rides Again1947

Directed byBernard B. Ray

Written byFrank Gilbert

Produced byJack Schwarz

StarringRichard ArlenJennifer Holt


Buffalo Bill battles a criminal gang that is trying to run off settlers from land on which oil has been discovered. — Jack Schwarz Productions, USA

Carnegie Hall1947

Directed byEdgar G. Ulmer

Screenplay byKarl LambBased on a story by Seena Owen

StarringMarsha HuntWilliam PrinceFrank McHughMartha Driscoll

Featuring performances byGregor PiatigorskyArtur RubinsteinJascha HeifetzHarry James


A lush tribute to New York City’s Carnegie Hall and the classical musicians who perform there. The story line follows a young immigrant to New York who lands a job as a cleaning woman at the Hall, though her ambitions are for her son to someday perform on its stage.— United Artists, USA

Magnificent. The genius of its music and of the artists who present it makes Carnegie Hall a quality film presentation that will be a treat for any picture-goer.— Variety

Fun on a Weekend1947

Written and directed byAndrew L. Stone

Produced byAndrew L. Stone

StarringEddie BrackenPriscilla Lane


In this screwball comedy, Bracken and Lane play a flat-broke couple who masquerade as wealthy in order to attract well-heeled investors. — Andrew L. Stone Productions, USA

Hollywood Barn Dance1947

Directed byBernard B. Ray

Written byDorothea Knox MartinBernard B. Ray


StarringErnest TubbLori TalbottHelen Boyce


A group of teenagers in a country-Western band are forced to hold their practice sessions in a nearby church. During a practice, the boys accidentally burn the church down. The group tours the West to raise the money to build a new church. Traveling away from home for the first time, the boys encounter drinking, gambling and other hardships until they find a barn in Texas that might just save the day. — Screen Guild Productions, USA

Forever and a Day1943

Scandal in Paris1946

It Happened Tomorrow1944

Young Widow1946



“Lavish backgrounds and good acting.”

Lured1947

Directed byDouglas Sirk

Written byLeo RostenBased on a story by Jacques Companeez, Ernest Neuville and Simin Gantillon

StarringLucille BallGeorge SandersBoris KarloffCharles CoburnSir Cedric Hardwick


A serial killer is preying on young women in London, using the personal ads to lure them to their doom. Lucille Ball is the young dance hall girl recruited as bait by a Scotland Yard detective (Coburn). Among the suspects, a disturbed clothing designer (memorably played by Karloff) and a dashing playboy (George Sanders). A stylish blend of romance, comedy and film noir.— Hunt Stromberg Productions, USA

Lucille Ball gives a sturdy performance as a taxi-dancer in London who is drafted by Scotland Yard to be the bait in trapping a character who specializes in killing pretty girls.— The New York Times



The Long Night1947

Directed byAnatole Litvak

Screenplay byJohn WexleyBased on a story by Jacques Viot

Photographed bySol Polito

StarringHenry FondaBarbara Bel GeddesVincent PriceAnn DvorakElisha Cook, Jr.


Hollywood remake of Marcel Carne’s Le Jour Se Leve (France, 1939) stars Fonda as Joe Adams, a WWII vet holed up in his dingy steel town apartment, surrounded by police who are looking to bring him in for the murder of a sleazy nightclub magician (played by a dapper Price). Bel Geddes, in her motion picture debut, is Joe’s demure girlfriend, who is in danger of falling into the predatory web being set by Price. Sol Polito’s photography and Eugene Lourie production design create a claustrophobic and gritty world for these doomed lovers to inhabit.— RKO, USA

“A claustrophobic and gritty world for these doomed lovers.”




New Orleans1947

Directed byArthur Lubin

Written byElliot PaulDick Irving HylandBased on a story by Elliot Paul and Herbert J. Biberman

StarringArturo De CordovaDorothy Patrick

Featuring performances byLouis ArmstrongBillie HolidayWoody HermanKid Ory


A look at the birth of jazz in one of America’s finest music towns. Set in 1917, the main narrative is that of “King of Basin Street” Nick Duquesne (De Cordova), the owner of a gambling joint who falls in love with an opera-singing socialite (Patrick). The film showcases performances by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and Kid Ory, including a memorable “Farewell to Storyville,” sung by Holiday.— United Artists, USA

I Killed Geronimo1950

Directed byJohn Hoffman

Written bySam NeumanNat Tanchuck

Produced byJack Rabin

StarringJames EllisonVirginia HerrickChief Thundercloud


A riveting action film about the fictionalized death of Geronimo, famous Apache war chief. I Killed Geronimo gives viewers all of the essential elements for a great Western.— Jack Schwarz Productions, USA

On Our Merry Way(aka A Miracle Can Happen)1948

Directed byKing VidorLeslie FentonJohn HustonGeorge Stevens

Written byLaurence StallingsBased on original stories by John O’Hara, Arch Oboler and Lou Breslow

StarringJames StewartHenry FondaPaulette GoddardDorothy LamourBurgess MeredithFred MacMurrayWilliam DemarestHarry James


A lighthearted comedy in which aspiring reporter Meredith (the film’s co-producer) travels around posing a question suggested to him by his wife (Goddard): “What influence has a little child had in your life?” His travels introduce him to a variety of strangers whose stories unfold. In an episode directed by an uncredited John Huston, James Stewart and Henry Fonda play down-and-out jazz musicians involved in a rigged talent contest, judged by band leader Harry James. Dorothy Lamour plays an actress who tells the story of working with an unruly child actor who almost ruins her career. In the last episode, MacMurray and Demarest are travelling con men who meet their match in the form of a 10-year-old boy nicknamed “Sniffles.”— United Artists, USA

The cast couldn’t have been better. The story’s execution falters because a scene here and there is inclined to strive too much for a whimsical effect. But Meredith responds capitally to the mood of the character he plays, being given more of a chance to do so than any of the other stars.– Variety

Badman’s Gold1951

Written and directed byRobert Tansey


StarringJohnny CarpenterAlyn LockwoodDaisy


US Marshalls investigate a series of stagecoach robberies in this “B” Western. Daisy the Dog was also featured in the Blondie series of films. — Jack Schwarz Productions, USA

Korea Patrol1951

Directed byMax Nosseck

Written byKenneth G. BrownWalter Shenson

Produced byWalter Shenson

StarringRichard EmorySung LiBenson Fong


UN soldiers use a South Korean scouting guide to navigate hostile territory in search of a vital enemy bridge. Many lives are lost throughout the heroic mission. Nosseck’s war movie takes on the look of a gritty true-to-life documentary, with added newsreel footage of real combat. — Jack Schwarz Productions, USA

The Hoodlum1951

Directed byLawrence Tierney

Produced byMaurice KosloffJack Schwarz

StarringLawrence TierneyEdward Tierney


The Hoodlum is a journey into the seedy-underbelly of urban society few dare to tread. Vincent Lubeck, recently released from prison, rejoins his mother and brother to devise a new life of crime. Sex, betrayal, crime, murder, the viewer will find all of these elements in Lawrence Tierney’s very underrated film noir. — Jack Schwarz Productions, USA

The Living Idol1957

Written and directed byAlbert Lewin

Photographed byJack Hildyard

StarringJames Robertson JusticeSteve ForrestLilliane Montevecchi

100 minutes, Color, 35mm in English with French subtitles

An Albert Lewin production about a Mexican girl who becomes possessed by the spirit of the Jaguar God to whom local Mayan maidens were once sacrificed.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Mexico/USA

Pretentious but rather enjoyable highbrow hokum of the heady kind expected from this producer.— Leslie Halliwell

Exotic spree of drama and mysticism.— John Douglas Eames, The MGM Story

New Orleans1947

The Living Idol1957

On Our Merry Way1948



“Encompassing ecstatic love, fear, hate and revenge.”

Sudden Fear1952

Directed byDavid Miller

Written byLenore CoffeeRobert Smith

Produced byJoseph Kaufman

Photographed byCharles Lang Jr.

Music byElmer Bernstein

StarringJoan CrawfordJack PalanceGloria Grahame


A rediscovered masterpiece of film noir. A glossy, well-paced thriller with plenty of suspense. Joan Crawford plays a successful and wealthy playwright who falls in love and marries Jack Palance, a mediocre actor who, she discovers, only married her for her money and with the aid of an old flame (Gloria Grahame), plans to murder her.— RKO Radio Pictures, USA

Three and a half stars.— Leonard Maltin

Academy Award Nominations: Charles Lang Jr for Best B&W Cinematography, Joan Crawford for Best Actress, and Jack Palance for Best Supporting Actor. 1952

Suspense drama tailored for Joan Crawford. It allows her to experience a familiar gamut of emotions, encompassing ecstatic love, fear, hate and revenge — chiller replete with clever gimmicks mounted handsomely to take advantage of the star’s box office value.— Variety

Classic American Comedy Shorts


132 Classic American Comedy Shorts Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

133 Classic American Comedy Shorts

Bring ‘Em Back Sober1931

Directed byBabe Stafford

Written byMack Sennett

StarringJackie the LionMarge BeebeeArthur StoneMelvin Koontz


Jackie, the lovable lion, plays a house-cat who scares off a drunk and protects his trainer’s wife.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Mack Sennett

Courting Trouble 1932


Written and produced byMack Sennett

StarringCharles MurrayArthur StoneAggie Herring


Charles just wants to have a night out on the town away from his wife and controlling mother-in-law. The two are not too happy about that. When he gets arrested after his first night of freedom, the judge sentences him to a month in women’s clothing. Now he must deal with embarrassment, housework and a friend who wants a favor that just might just put him in jail.— Paramount Pictures, USA

False Impressions1932



StarringMarge BeebeeDorothy GrangerEdmund Bums


Shopgirl Marge and her friend Dorothy pose as royalty in the hopes of catching a millionaire. They are invited to a party at a Long Island mansion, but little do they know that their hosts throwing the soiree also have something to hide. The real owners of the mansion return and the imposters are revealed to be not millionaires but the help.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Hawkins and Watkins, Inc.1932

Directed byMichael Emmes


StarringDaphne PollardMatt McHughCharles Gemora


Two down-and-out private eyes save the wealthy Beatrice De Vere from the clutches of her butler and a gorilla.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Jimmy’s New Yacht1932

Directed by Del Lord


StarringRay CookeFranklin PangbornBabe KaneLucien Littlefield


News of Jimmy’s new yacht travels fast after his girl invites her disapproving father to join the couple for a day on the water. High society friends invite themselves to the party and plan to head out to sea, only to discover that Jimmy’s “yacht” is just a small motorboat. On top of mechanical problems with the motor, Jimmy must also compete with a rival for his girl’s affection. Can Jimmy still get the girl? You bet he can!— Paramount Pictures, USA

Meet the Senator1932

Directed byDel Lord


StarringHeine ConklinBlanche PaysonNatalie KingstonGeorge Byron


An errant husband tries to pass off his bootlegger as a famous senator in an attempt to explain to his wife why he was out all night. The ruse is quickly discovered and she turns the tables on him by playing her own gag. Soon the whole town is pursuing him.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Loud Mouth1932

Directed byDel Lord


StarringMatt McHughMarjorie KaneFranklin PangbornThe Los Angeles Angels


A gamblers’ plot to fix the World Series goes awry. McHugh plays a loud-mouthed sports fan who is used by gamblers to disrupt the Series. On the train to St. Louis, the players get wise and sabotage his voice, ruining the gamblers’ plans.— Paramount Pictures, USA




Daddy Knows Best1933


Written byClyde Bruckman


StarringWalter CatlettBen AlexanderJoyce Compton


Walter Catlett suspects that his well-behaved daughter Peggy is a closet jazz-baby due to her frequent late nights. Grounding her doesn’t help and when her boyfriend takes her for another night out, Daddy follows them to a party where he gets into trouble with a mob boss, only to be saved by his daughter’s beau.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Don’t Play Bridge with Your Wife1933



StarringNora LaneMarge BeebeeGrady SuttonCornelius Keefe


A hilarious history of squabbles through the ages over who should have played what trick and when. It begins in the Stone Age, where players bid real clubs and spades and use them to belabor their opponents.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Caliente Love1933

Directed byGeorge Marshall


StarringWalter CatlettJoyce Compton


Marry the woman and you marry the family! A couple of newlyweds begin their marriage with a honeymoon to Mexico. When the young husband carries his bride over the threshold, he finds his bride’s rejected and drunk suitor in their bed. In a strange twist, the groom ends up having to sleep with his rival, as well as his new father-in-law. Chaos ensues as a monkey joins them, along with the rest of the family and guests.— Paramount Pictures, USA

A Wrestler’s Bride1933

Directed byBabe StaffordArthur Ripley


StarringEddie GibbonJoyce Compton


Scissors Jackson is a no-talent wrestler who is preparing for the world championship bout. Unfortunately, perhaps due to too many blows to the head, he can’t remember when the fight is scheduled to take place. With the help of his fiancée and trusty manager, can this underdog take the belt?— Paramount Pictures, USA

Husbands’ Reunion1933



StarringWalter CatlettGrady SuttonNora Lane


A couple of young newlyweds are enjoying their marital bliss when they have an unexpected house guest: an ex-husband, played by Catlett. It doesn’t take much time before he wears out his welcome and the two men battle it out. They end up having to take the shenanigans to court and having the judge sort out the mess.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Knockout Kisses1933


Written byCliff Foerster


StarringCharlie DelaneyJoyce ComptonMarge BeebeeRichard Hemingway


Middleweight champion Frankie Riley leaves his girlfriend Joyce McNeil for Broadway actress Blanche LaRue. To get back at him, she hires another boxer to fight the champ. Riley agrees to the bout, but little does he know that the fix is in, because he will actually be facing identical twins.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Dream Stuff1933

Directed byWilliam Crowley


StarringWalter CatlettJoyce ComptonFranklin Pangborn


Walter Catlett teaches his shy nephew how to catch a girl. A wild dream sequence ends the film.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Roadhouse Queen1933


Produced and written byMack Sennett

StarringWalter CatlettNora Lane


Walter Catlett lectures his son about the importance of marrying well. Junior takes the message to heart and gets himself engaged to a young woman who sings from a trapeze at the local speakeasy.— Paramount Pictures, USA




See You Tonight1933

Directed byWilliam Crowley


StarringTom MooreNora LaneMarge Beebee


Nora Lane tries her best to seduce a young playboy but he doesn’t seem very interested. He thinks she is too spoiled, so he tries to teach her a lesson by switching places with the butler. His amusement at her expense eventually brings the pair together after many pranks, jokes and laughs.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Sweet Cookie1933



StarringFranklin PangbornMarge Beebee


Marge is a great cook whose food makes up for all the trouble she causes her employers: noise, late nights and a boyfriend who is a police officer. When she announces she is getting married, her employers are desperate to make her stay, but in the end she really may not be worth the trouble.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Plumber and the Lady1933



StarringFrank AlberMarge BeebeeJoyce Compton


Fawcett is a plumber who has fallen in love with a woman he sees walking by his store every day. A musical whirlwind romance brings the two happily together. Sadly, a rift develops between the two lovers that can only be mended by a wacky brawl and an animated cartoon finale.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Big Fibber1933



StarringWalter CatlettBilly GilbertElise CavannaGrady Sutton


When Walter Catlett comes home after a 20-year absence, his family mistakes him for a burglar.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Too Many Highballs1933

Directed byClyde Bruckman


StarringLloyd HamiltonMarge BeebeeAggie Herring


When his in-laws move in, marital bliss goes out the window for Lloyd Hamilton. His brother-in-law is more content with mooching Lloyd’s stash of booze than looking for work. When it gets to be too much, Lloyd finally tries to make it unpleasant for his guests by lacing his brother-in-law’s hooch with castor oil.— Paramount Pictures, USA




The Sex Life of the Polyp1929

Directed byThomas Chalmers

Written and narrated byRobert Benchley


Witty and urbane, Robert Benchley spoofs scientific lectures by attempting to explain the mating habits of polyps and getting hilariously entangled by his examples.— 20th Century Fox, USA

It is hard to believe the short is over 50 years old. The film, in which Dr. Benchley is lecturing to a ladies’ luncheon club on his scientific research concerning the polyp, aided by some nonsensical slides, is fresh and delightful. The absurdity of the lecture reaches a climatic peak when Benchley explains that the male polyp glows brightly when displaying sexual attraction towards the female of the species, but for experiment’s sake he substituted a collar button for the male polyp and then a piece of cornbread for the female polyp, which didn’t seem to have any effect on the male’s reactions. Benchley then explains that he and his assistant reluctantly abandoned their experiment at this point to examine some other creature that takes its sex life a little more seriously.— Leonard Maltin, The Great Movie Shorts

The Treasurer’s Report1928

Directed byThomas Chalmers



In 1922, Robert Benchley, grandfather of author Peter Benchley (Jaws), drama critic for Life magazine, and one of the members of the Algonquin Hotel’s Round Table (which included friends like Dorothy Parker, Marc Connelly and Alexander Woollcott) walked onto a Broadway stage, cleared his throat and proceeded to entrance the audience with a deadly-dry financial report, a parody of such speeches. The routine became world-famous as The Treasurer’s Report. Benchley later said he “inflicted it upon the public in every conceivable way except over the radio and dropping it from aeroplanes.” Fox filmed it in 1928 and signed him for five more pictures.— 20th Century Fox, USA

Robert Benchley

The Trouble with Husbands1940

Directed byLeslie Roush



Among the many characteristics that distinguish husbands and wives is the penchant the wife has for finding something constructive for her husband to do at the precise instant he is departing for a camping trip with the boys — an event he has been planning and has talked about for weeks before.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Crime Control1941




Normal folk need never fear inanimate objects. Simply hide your real intentions from them, and this will prevent them from getting the upper hand regardless of the circumstances.— Paramount Pictures, USA

How to Take a Vacation1941


Written by and starringRobert Benchley


Benchley gives his famous “how to” lecture on how to have a relaxing vacation.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Forgotten Man1941




In this sequel to Waiting for Baby, Benchley explains in hilarious detail why the expectant father is the forgotten man.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Waiting for Baby1941




Waiting for the arrival of a new baby can be a rewarding experience for the expectant father. Humorist Benchley opines and explains why in this hilarious comedy.— Paramount Pictures, USA




Keeping in Shape1942




Benchley takes us on a hilarious tour of a health spa. He lectures on the pros of dieting and exercise while, in a second role, also demonstrates the cons.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Man’s Angle1942




In his continuing examination of the battle of the sexes, Benchley concludes that it’s not the husbands but the wives who are at fault in this follow-up to The Trouble with Husbands.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Nothing But Nerves1942




Feeling jumpy and out of sorts? You won’t be after laughing at Benchley’s hilarious explanation of why you’ve been that way and what you can do about It.— Paramount Pictures, USA

The Witness1942




Based on one of Robert Benchley’s most famous humorous essays, Take the Witness, this hilarious comedy explains how to be a good witness in court.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Burns and Allen

The Burns and Allen Collection1930—1933

10 minutes each, 35mm, B&W

One of the most beloved teams of vaudeville, radio, films and television, George Burns and Gracie Allen both entered show business at an early age. George had a checkered career in East Side taverns in New York and spent time as a trick roller skater and dance teacher. Then came a succession of song-and-dance acts. In 1923 he chose Gracie Allen as his partner. She had been with a sister act and then with an Irish troupe on the West Coast before heading East to seek fame on the stage. Realizing the audience laughed more at her straight lines than at his funny answers, George switched their roles and became one of the most famous straight men in the business. For her part, Gracie volleyed hilarious non-sequiturs that made intelligent conversations with her described as “trying to talk to that woman is like taking hold of a doorknob and having it come off in your hand.”

Fit to Be Tied1930

George and Gracie’s first sound-on-film short. In the end George prompts Gracie to bid her first recorded “goodbye” to the audience — a routine they replayed through their television years until her retirement in 1958. Gracie plays a clerk in a tie store.

Pulling a Bone1930

Gracie works behind the drugstore lunch counter with George as her customer. George gets a bone caught in his throat and Gracie serves him a piece of pie. “Here’s a piece of pie.” “Is that necessary?” “No, it’s apple.”

The Antique Shop1930

Gracie clerks in an antique shop where George comes to buy a statue. Their conversation together only remotely resembles human communication.

100% Service1931

Gracie works at the hotel cigar stand and after thoroughly exasperating customer George, he opines that she could make it big in the movies — as a vampire. Gracie’s unsure. “I don’t know anything about baseball.”

Babbling Book1931

Gracie clerks in a bookstore and takes hilarious pokes at books and authors when George comes in to buy a book.

Oh, My Operation1931

George is a patient in the hospital and draws Gracie as his nurse. There is a spate of doctor jokes and funny routines.

Once Over, Light1931

Gracie plays fun and games with George when he comes into the barber shop for a manicure.

Your Hat1931

George works in a hat shop where he sells one customer his own hat and gets Gracie as his next customer. Their comedy repartee is full of outrageous puns.

Walking the Baby1932

Gracie is a nanny taking a baby through the park when she stops to visit with street cleaner George. “Where were you born?” “In a hospital.” “Oh, were you sick?” “No, I wanted to be near my mother.”

Let’s Dance1933

Gracie is a dance-hall girl to George’s visiting sailor. Full of Burns and Allen fun.




Tom Howard

The Tom Howard Collection1930–1933


One of time’s most unjustly forgotten comedians, Tom Howard was a vaudeville monologist who starred in several editions of The Greenwich Village Follies during the 1920’s. He has a self-deprecating, dry humor and specializes in commenting with the deadpan earnestness of a crackerbarrel philosopher on surreal situations. In the ‘30s, Howard became the quizmaster of the radio panel show, It Pays To Be Ignorant, whose panelists invariably missed such questions as “What color is a white horse?” The show ran for years and was transferred to early television with the same personnel. In the shorts that follow, Howard performs at his lunatic best just prior to his long career in radio. — USA

Go Ahead and Sing1930

Directed by Mort Blumenstock

Starring Tom HowardSam KearnJoe Lyon

In a classic comedy act, Tom Howard agrees to sing in order to help a street fiddler expand his act. Unfortunately, they happen to be rehearsing in front of a hospital. Whenever the attendant objects, the fiddler urges his partner to continue singing — with dire results for Tom. All three actors in this short met in the Greenwich Village Follies of 1925.

The African Dodger 1930

A standard feature at American fairs and carnivals of yesteryear was pitching baseballs at a live target, usually a young black boy who poked his head through a canvas cutout and did his best to dodge the onrushing balls — hence the name “African dodger.” Here, Tom Howard takes the job after the boy quits due to severe injury.

The Pest1930

Tom plays the meddlesome neighbor who horns in, as his friend (Edward Keane) tries to sell his car to a stranger. With genial naiveté, Tom reveals the car’s hidden faults until the deal falls through.

My Wife’s Jewelry1931

Written byEddie Cantor

A surreal encounter between Howard as a gentleman burglar caught in the act of robbing jewels from the family safe by the husband of the house. They and the equally polite cop who shows up to exchange all the courtesies of a social visit.

Breaking Even1932

During the Depression, Tom befriends a failed businessman and makes him a partner in his own business, selling nothing in an empty store which, he says, eliminates all worry about money. Dry wit and sheer lunacy.

The Rookie1932

Directed byEddie Cline

Policeman Tom tries to show the ropes to a rookie and proves he is easily the biggest bumbler on the force by calmly playing with a live grenade and letting the crooks escape with a whole jewelry store.

Detective Tom Howard of The Suicide Squad1933


Tom Howard and George Shelton are assigned to the suicide detail. They meet one would-be suicide by the river and tell him of the legal consequences of his deed, and dissuade another for trying to kill herself without a prior appointment. Finally, Tom soft-heartedly allows her to jump in together with the other applicant.

Lulu McConnell

The Lulu McConnell Collection1930

10–20 minutes each, 35mm, B&W

Lulu McConnell (1882-1962) was an inimitable comedienne who later became familiar to a vast radio and early television audience as a panel member on Tom Howard’s mock quiz show, It Pays To Be Ignorant.— USA

Neighborly Neighbors1930

20 minutes

Virginia and Robert Hyman make the mistake of asking their new neighbors in for an evening of bridge. The husband is taciturn and hen-pecked and the wife (Lulu McConnell) is a non-stop talker who, with the help of a drink or two, succeeds in making a complete fool of herself.

Red, Green and Yellow1930

10 minutes

Lulu and hubby decide to use the traffic light outside their window to regulate their domestic spats. A perfect example of comedic pacing.

The Introduction of Mrs. Gibbs1930

10 minutes

About to be married into high society, a young girl undergoes the trauma of introducing her mother, who runs a low-class boarding house for bit actors (Lulu McConnell), to her prospective mother-in-law. Lulu puts both feet in it and slowly evolves into the inebriated routine she made famous in vaudeville.


144 Classic American Comedy Shorts The Great Pants Mystery1930

Smith & Dale

The Smith & Dale Collection1929–1931


Smith & Dale, Joe Sultzer (1884–1981) and Charles Marks (1881–1971), inspired Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys. They became a comedy team as teenagers on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1898, and later became famous for their Dr. Kronkheit routine (“Did you ever have these pains before?” “Yes.” “Well, now you’ve got them again.”) They performed the routine with minor variations for more than half a century in every medium. They acquired their stage names accidentally. About to order their calling cards, they discovered the stationer had a batch already printed up for “Smith & Dale,” a team that had just broken up their act. He offered the cards at a fraction of the going rate, so Sultzer and Marks became “Smith & Dale.”— Paramount Pictures, USA

The False Alarm Fire Company1929

10 minutes

Pure old fashioned vaudeville. Smith & Dale as a fire chief and his lieutenant play cards and calmly discuss other issues as they ignore frantic phone calls from people whose houses are on fire.

Accidents Will Happen1930

10 minutes

A funny routine about the lengths to which a dishonest man will go to defraud an insurance company by turning a near-miss into an accident.

La Schnaps, Inc.1930

20 minutes

Clothes buyer Strudel (Dale) visits clothing manufacturer Schnaps (Smith) and gets sold a bill of goods — his hand in marriage to Schnaps’ ugly daughter.

The Great Pants Mystery1930

Directed byNorman Taurog

20 minutes

Inept private detectives intent only on free room and board, Smith & Dale move into a man’s house to investigate the man’s complaint that his pants keep disappearing. The dialogue bristles with wonderful puns and zingy one-liners.

The S.S. Malaria1930

10 minutes

Three routines strung together to form a single plot: the first at a passport office where Smith & Dale discuss their destination; the second in which they try to pick up a couple of girls aboard ship; the third is their dying confession routine, which also was one of their best laugh-getters in a 50-year career in vaudeville.

The Arabian Shrieks1931

20 minutes

In the Foreign Legion, Smith & Dale volunteer for spy duty by mistake, penetrate a sheik’s hideout and save the fort. Besides the hilarious banter, this short is interesting for its use of stock footage from the 1926 Paramount feature Beau Geste, whose exteriors were filmed in an actual desert.

What Price Pants1931

Directed byCasey Robinson

20 minutes

A funny garment center sketch in which pants manufacturer Dale discovers his best pants maker Smith is about to inherit a fortune. He makes him a partner only to learn when the contract is signed that it’s all a hoax.




Jack Benny

The Jack Benny Collection1931


Jack Benny (1894–1974) had a brief career in Broadway musicals and turned to radio in 1932 to become the top comedian of the airwaves. Star of stage, screen, radio and television, Benny made these short films in which he is seen still groping for a comedy character best suited to his unique style. He plays the “swinging single” whose humor is based on dialogue rather than on his personality. He was later to settle on the character of a stingy, vain, perennially 39 year-old. Even though these shorts show a comedy character in its formative stage, there are obvious elements of the world-famous personality who would emerge fully in due time on radio and television.— Paramount Pictures, USA

A Broadway Romeo1931

20 minutes

Jack is a seasoned city slicker who takes newcomer Estalle Brody under his wing. When they read in the out-of-town papers that their respective hometown sweethearts are getting married, they share their disappointment by keeping each other company.

Cab Waiting1931

20 minutes

Man-about-town Jack meets an erudite cabbie and a frivolous showgirl. With good-natured sarcasm, he escorts her to the theatre and then to her home, where they eventually agree to marry, with the ubiquitous cabbie as guest of honor.

Taxi Tangle1931

10 minutes

A spoof of Manhattan traffic jams. Jack in one cab, meets, woos, and wins a lady in an adjacent cab, then proceeds to locate a Justice of the Peace to marry them, argues with his new wife, and also annuls the marriage — all before the traffic light changes from red to green.

Eddie Cantor

The Eddie Cantor Collection1929–1930


Born Edward Iskowitz on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Eddie Cantor (1892–1964) became one of the top entertainers in vaudeville, musical comedy, the Ziegfeld Follies, radio, film and television. His routines were embellished with his trademark restless prance, fluttery hand-clap, and “banjo-eye” expressions. His comic songs and records sold by the millions, even in the Depression. Successful gag writer and author, he devoted much of his later life to charitable causes. —Paramount Pictures, USA

Getting a Ticket1929

Eddie tries to stall the officer who stops him for speeding by bribing him with a bottle of (at the time, illegal) whiskey. Failing that, he invents an involved and totally irrelevant story, and finally, discloses his identity and sings “My Wife Is On A Diet” to prove it. This gets him off the hook for speeding, but ticketed anyway — for disturbing the peace.

That Party in Person1929

More of Eddie Cantor’s dry wit in action.

Insurance1930

Eddie plays doctor for a medical examination for insurance purposes. (“On which side are you Jewish?” “On the East Side.” “What did your grandfather die of?” “Throat trouble — they hanged him.”) He also sings, “Now That The Girls Are Wearing Long Dresses” as he eyes the pretty nurse.

Chester Conklin

The Chester Conklin Collection1930–1931


Chester Conklin (1886–1971) took elocution lessons and participated in dramatic recitals in his hometown of Oskaloosa, Iowa, but became a Mack Sennett slapstick star in Hollywood. Often teamed with Chaplin, Fields, Mack Swain and Vernon Dent, his slapstick training is evident in these shorts.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Cleaning Up1930


Conklin and Mack Swain are street cleaners who prevent a crime and are offered a job on the police force.

Gents of Leisure1931

Directed byDel Lord

Chester and Vernon Dent are loafers who find a dollar and treat themselves to a meal, unaware that the dollar has fallen out of their money pouch. They eat and run, and the plot escalates to an all-out train chase in the best slapstick fashion.

The Studio Sap1931

Chester sneaks into a movie studio dressing room and disturbs the chorus girls, disrupts a silly German director’s love scene, and disguises himself as Fatima the harem dancer to escape the doctor’s wrath. It climaxes in a pie-throwing melee.

The Thirteenth Alarm1931

Directed byDel Lord

Chester plays a bumbling fireman who buys a worthless invention, starts a fire with it, and disrupts attempts to put it out. The unwilling victim of most of the mishaps is Vernon Dent, long-time side-kick of Harry Langdon.

Dane & Arthur

The Dane & Arthur Collection1931


Karl Dane (1886–1934) was a Danish émigré who came to the United States during World War I, having had a distinguished acting career in Copenhagen. His first big break came as the tobacco-chewing doughboy in King Vidor’s 1925 classic, The Big Parade. George K. Arthur (1899–1985) was born in Scotland, came to America in 1922 after appearing on the Shakespearean stage and in films in England. His first well-known role was that of the sad, dreamy hero in Josef von Sternberg’s The Salvation Hunters. As a comedy team, Dane & Arthur made pictures during the transition from silent to sound movies. George K. Arthur later became a film distributor and producer. Dane failed to find a future for himself and committed suicide in 1934. — Paramount Pictures, USA

A Put Up Job1931

Out of work, Dane & Arthur get a job delivering and assembling a pre-fab house; it’s a mess. The bathroom fixtures are mounted sideways and drive the intended residents crazy.

Shove Off1931


After getting knocked out after a fight with some sailors, Arthur dreams a hilarious sequence aboard a battleship under bosun Dane.

Summer Daze1931

Dane & Arthur take a joint trip into the great outdoors with their wives, but camping does not prove to be the joy they had hoped for.

The Lease Breakers1931

Pure Sennett-type slapstick. Dane & Arthur, professional apartment wreckers hired to induce the landlord into freeing the tenants from a long-term lease, create havoc when they hit the wrong apartment.




Al St. John

The Al St. John Collection1931


Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle’s nephew, Al St. John (1893–1963), trained as a circus acrobat and got a job as Arbuckle’s nimble second banana, learning the business alongside Buster Keaton. From the mid-30’s on, he switched to Westerns as “Fuzzy” St. John, playing a humorous sidekick to Buster Crabbe and other Western stars. Between the two extremes he appeared in his most interesting roles and, as a comedy star in his own right, in a series of comedy shorts. Here they are, delightful and well-paced, with Al as a timid young man with a flair for under-played comedy. — Paramount Pictures, USA

More Comedy Classics1928–1934


A sampling of comedy classics showcasing the talents of many famous stars.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Always a Gentleman1928

Written and directed by Norman Taurog

StarringLloyd HamiltonStanley Blystone Al ThomsonJack Miller

20 minutes

Three friends need a forth for a round of golf and invite the worst player they can possibly find, which sets off an incredible adventure on the links. Strictly following the “play it where it lands” rule, no surface is left unscathed, including another golfer’s dome and the bottom of the pond. After the game, the friends invite their new partner back to their home, which unfortunately turns out to be the local asylum.— Lloyd Hamilton Corporation

Belle of the Night1929

20 minutes

Dorothy McNulty, who later changed her name to Penny Singleton and gained fame as Blondie in the movie series based on the famous comic strip, plays the flirtatious wife of a Hudson riverboat captain. Among the assorted men on the make she shamelessly bamboozles is Frank Morgan (1890–1949), best remembered for playing the title role in The Wizard of Oz.

Highlowbrow1929

20 minutes

S. J. Kaufman wrote this funny story in which three short stories are acted out: Regrets by Guy de Maupassant, The Guest by Lord Dunsany and The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.

More Comedy Classics

Humorous Flights1929

10 minutes

Donald Ogden Stewart’s amusing lecture on birds for a bird-watchers’ club. Humorist, respected author and playwright, Stewart received an Oscar for his brilliant screenplay for The Philadelphia Story (1940).

Traffic Regulations1929

10 minutes

Donald Ogden Stewart’s hilarious attack on New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen’s introduction of one-way streets to solve Manhattan’s traffic problems.

Love in the Suburbs1930

20 minutes

Victor Moore specialized in playing bumbling incompetents and reached his zenith as the inept Vice President of the US in Of Thee I Sing (1932). This is one of his earliest sound shorts in which he plays an erring husband, sneaking into the house in the early morning hours. Hale Norcross is the policeman who mistakes Moore’s wife for the new maid and adds to the confusion by flirting with her.

The Hot Air Merchant1930

20 minutes

Charlie Ruggles lectures on the techniques of gentle seduction as practiced by marriageable girls in the days before women’s lib, when an eligible girl’s social success was measured entirely by the kind of husband she managed to capture. Though dated, this tongue-in-cheek lecture, accompanying the visual depiction of the male victim who falls prey to womanly wiles, is spiritedly enacted by Ruggles, Betty Garde and Paul Clare.

Auto Intoxication1931

Directed byAlbert Ray

StarringFord SterlingFrank Allworth

20 minutes

Allworth is a high-pressure salesman who talks Ford Sterling into buying a car, then sends his “pals” to fleece him for insurance, doctor bills and lawyers’ fees. Sterling, Mack Sennett’s best comedian until displaced by Chaplin, does a fine job as the harassed buyer, who finally cracks up under the strain.

The Big Splash1931

Directed byRay Cozine

StarringJohnny WeissmullerHarold “Snubby” KrugerEd SullivanMarie Burke

20 minutes

Winner of five gold medals in swimming in the 1924 and 1928 Olympics, Weissmuller is seen here in an unusual featurette, made shortly before he was signed by MGM for the role of Tarzan. He is introduced by Ed Sullivan and demonstrates several strokes and dives. Snubby Kruger, an accomplished athlete and one-time stuntman for Douglas Fairbanks, parodies Weissmuller’s prowess in the water.

The Installment Collector1931

10 minutes

Fred Allen plays the editor of a small newspaper plagued by a relentless bill collector. This is Allen’s first film appearance and displays his trademark witty sarcasm, free use of puns and metaphors and a jaundiced view of the world.

All Sealed Up1931

Al wants to get married but the minister speaks only Polish and the wedding guests are a bunch of bums, but it all turns out to be a prank played on the couple by best man Earle Gilbert. The real fun begins when an unexpected guest (Al’s playful pet seal) shows up at the wedding.

Harem Scarem1931

Al plays Henry, the meek garment district worker who lets everyone walk all over him. A fake clairvoyant cures him of his feelings of inferiority by telling him about a famous ancestor in Bagdad who saved a harem beauty. Harriet Hilliard, mother of the late Rick Nelson, has a small role as a model.

Mlle. Irene the Great1931


Al is almost discouraged from marrying Aileen Cook when her family turns out to be a bunch of noisy circus performers. At the wedding, even the minister joins the act and barely has time to complete the ceremony.

The Door Knocker1931


Al sells books door-to-door and begins a series of hilarious encounters with apartment house tenants.




Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes1929–1949


A sampling of short films that takes the viewer behind the scenes at the studios to demonstrate how the movies are made. — Paramount Pictures, USA

Voice of Hollywood Series1931–1932


A sample of a series of short compilations of scenes featuring recognizable stars, produced by Louis Lewyn, husband of Marion Mack (Buster Keaton’s heroine in the 1927 classic The General). Developed while Hollywood was still in transition to sound, each scene was enacted especially to provide stars with an opportunity to perform with sound. Produced over a two-year period for Tiffany Productions, Lewyn went to Paramount in August 1932 to make a similar series, Hollywood On Parade. — Tiffany Productions USA

Hollywood on Parade Series1932–1934


A sampling of Louis Lewyn’s Paramount short series providing varied glimpses of the stars. They range from brief newsreel shots of stars standing at a public occasion to elaborate vignettes staged purposely for the film. In between, stars are shown at work or at play. Screen tests capture stars singing in production numbers or acting out brief scenes. Other short takes provide a peek into the public or personal lives of the Hollywood famous.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Star Reporter Series1936–1937


A sample of a series of studio publicity shorts disguised as show biz newsreels. — Ted Husing MCs, Paramount Pictures, USA

Cold Turkey1933

Directed byDel Lord

StarringJoseph Cawthorn

20 minutes

After bringing home a live turkey won in a raffle, Cawthorn is overheard by an excitable neighbor telling his wife he will kill him. The neighbor calls the police, thinking there is a murder afoot. — Paramount Pictures, USA

Poppin’ the Cork1933

24 minutes

Milton Berle is a college buffoon who debates in favor of repeal of Prohibition and marries the dean’s daughter after getting her mother drunk. Two musical numbers are staged with a surprisingly lavish production and a number of chorus girls. Berle played child parts in silent films at Biograph Studios. Later, he toured the Keith-Albee circuit, went on to Broadway musical comedy and, finally, in the late 1940’s, “Uncle Miltie” became television’s first superstar.

Mr. W’s Little Game1934

10 minutes

Alexander Woollcott was one of the brightest stars in the New York literary firmament of the 1920’s. Raconteur, reporter, top drama critic and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, Woollcott was a member of the distinguished Algonquin Hotel Round Table. In this film, Woollcott teaches a table companion an intriguing little word game, and soon the entire restaurant, including Leo Carroll, is playing. A fine example of his dry wit and intellectual approach to life.

Musical Shorts 1928–1973


154 Musical Shorts 1928–1973 Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

155 Musical Shorts 1928–1973

Bing Crosby

The Bing Crosby Collection1931–1933


After a stint with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra as a member of the singing trio The Rhythm Boys, Bing Crosby (1903–1977) went to Hollywood to try his luck in the movies. Mack Sennett offered him the lead in a series of six shorts, all made in the summer of 1931 but released over a two-year period. Shortly after making these films, Crosby went on radio, paving for himself a road that would make him a national legend and one of the most beloved entertainers in all media. His talents spanned comedy (The Road to films with Bob Hope) and drama (he won the Oscar for Best Actor in 1944 for Going My Way) as well as film, television, and records.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Billboard Girl1931


Bing falls in love with a girl he’s seen on roadside billboards. Learning her identity, he visits her at college, but her brother intercepts Bing’s letter and arranges to meet him dressed in girl’s clothing, Bing sings: “Were You Sincere,” “For You,” “Pop Goes The Weasel” (parody).

Dream House1931

Directed byDel Lord

After building a cottage for his intended bride, Bing discovers her pushy mother has sent her to Hollywood to get into the movies. He infiltrates the studio and wins her back. Bing sings: “When I Take My Sugar To Tea,” “It Must Be True,” “Dream House.”

I Surrender Dear1931

Directed byMack Sennett

Marion Sayers is about to be married to a phony marquis (Luis Alberni), but Bing manages to catch her for himself after a humorous mix-up in several hotel rooms. Bing sings: “I Surrender Dear,” “Out of Nowhere,” “At Your Command.”

One More Chance1931

Directed byMack Sennett

A washing machine salesman in a Hoboken store, Bing irritates a customer and is transferred to the California branch. His wife leaves him during the trip, but he wins her back in song by asking for “one more chance.” Bing sings: “I Surrender Dear” with parody lyrics, “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” “I’d Climb the Highest Mountain,” “Just One More Chance.”

Blue of the Night1933


Babe Kane meets Bing on a train and, unaware of his identity, tries to impress him by pretending she is engaged to Bing Crosby. He plays along with the gag, and when her fiance (Franklin Pangborn) doubts who he is, he proves it easily by singing. Bing sings: “My Silent Love,” “Auf Wiedersehen,” “Every Time My Heart Beats,” “When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day.”

Sing, Bing, Sing1933


Bing plans to elope with Florine McKinney, but her father (Franklin Pangborn) and a couple of inept detectives try to stop him. Bing sings: “In My Hideaway,” “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” “Lovable,” “Snuggled On Your Shoulder.”

Cab Calloway

The Cab Calloway Collection1933–1942


Born on Christmas Day, 1907, in Rochester, New York, Cab Calloway later moved to Baltimore where he hustled in the streets. He began playing the drums and saxophone in black vaudeville and organized his own band to play in the jazz clubs of Chicago. With his unique scat vocal style and dancing, Calloway quickly emerged as the leader of the jazz band at Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. He was the King of Hi-De-Ho and made “Minnie the Moocher” a household name. After a period of obscurity due to a battle with gambling and drinking, this electric entertainer made a comeback and is also remembered for his vocal contributions to Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop cartoon series.— USA

Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho1933

Cab plays a ladies’ man who is dating the wife of a train porter who is frequently absent from home. In addition to this tongue-in-cheek plot, Cab Calloway and His Orchestra perform “Harlem Camp Meeting,” and Calloway has two vocals, “Zaz-zuh-zaz” and “The Lady with the Fan.”

Jitterbug Party1934

Calloway and His Orchestra play two numbers at The Cotton Club. Afterwards, he and a few friends adjourn to a private jitterbug party, which he obligingly defines for one of the girls as “a party where everyone gets the jitters and goes bugs.” Musical numbers: “Hot-cha Razz-ma-tazz,” “Long About Midnight” (vocal by Calloway), and “Jitterbug.”

Blues in the Night1941–1942

Three short “soundies,” three-minute band shorts made for an experimental early coin operated juke-box system designed to project films rather than play records. Hundreds of these were made by RCM — a partnership between Jimmy Roosevelt (son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt), song writer Sam Coslow, and the Mills Juke Box Company. The novelty wore off soon after World War II, as television came into its own. This reel consists of: “Blues in the Night” with Cab Calloway (1942), “Moonlight Becomes You” with Eddy Howard (1942), and “Ain’t Misbehavin” with Fats Waller (1941).




Duke Ellington

The Duke Ellington Collection1929–1935


Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington (1899–1974) was the genius of jazz whose contribution as bandleader, composer and arranger is legendary. He began playing piano and composing while a teenager in Washington, DC, and led his first band in 1918. Duke innovatively used the band as a single instrument to create the musical effects he wanted, such as the sensuous throb of a tropical night during his “jungle” period, or the sound of a philharmonic orchestra during his forays into experimental symphonic jazz. His reputation began along the East Coast after some gigs in Atlantic City. By 1923 he had the nucleus of his future orchestra accompany him on stints with other bands, including a week with Wilbur Sweatman in New York. In 1924 his own band took up residence at the Hollywood Club (later renamed the Kentucky Club) in downtown Manhattan before moving uptown to the Cotton Club and international fame. His prodigious recording career started late in 1924 and continued until his death half a century later.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Black and Tan1929

Directed byDudley Murphy

Ellington’s first filmed appearance. Trumpet player Arthur Whetsol and dancer Fredi Washington play Duke’s friends who help him save his piano from bill collectors. A glittering Harlem nightclub show is an authentic treat from the 1920’s. The Ellington Orchestra plays: “The Duke Steps Out,” “Black Beauty,” “Cotton Club Storm,” “Hot Feet,” “Black and Tan Fantasy.”

A Bundle of Blues1933

Duke presents Ivie Anderson (1904-1949) in the first of her two film appearances: many believe her to be his best featured vocalist and was with the Ellington Orchestra between 1931 and 1942. Musical numbers: “Lightnin,” “Rockin’ in Rhythm,” “Stormy Weather” (vocal by Ivie Anderson), “Bugle Call Rag” (danced by Bessie Dudley and Florence Hill), and a reprise of “Lightnin.”

Symphony in Black1935

A brief vocal by a 19-year-old newcomer who was to become one of the jazz legends — Billie Holiday — and a performance of Duke Ellington’s jazz composition along symphonic lines — a skillful blend of Ellington’s music and mesmerizing visual imagery.

Ruth Etting

The Ruth Etting Collection1929–1935


Ruth Etting (1896–1980) came as a teenager from David City, Nebraska, to Chicago to study dress design. She did costumes for a stage show in a popular cabaret, somehow obtained a dancing job, and one day volunteered to fill in for a singer who did not show up. Though untrained, her voice was warm and vibrant, and she lent each song an extra touch of sentiment, which the audience liked. She was invited to cut a few records and, by 1926, was an established recording star. This brought her to the attention of Irving Berlin and Florenz Ziegfeld, who put her into his 1927 Follies. Then Eddie Cantor engaged her for his hit musical, Whoopee, in 1928. She appeared in three feature films and some 34 shorts, of which only a handful have been preserved.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Favorite Melodies1929

Ruth Etting sings “My Mother’s Eyes” and “That’s Him Now.” An example of early sound techniques, the film was shot in a single take, without cuts and no editing of any kind, and thus provides an interesting look at a singer shifting from one song’s mood into another before your eyes.

Roseland1930

In 1930, Ruth Etting appeared with Ed Wynn in Simple Simon on Broadway. She stopped the show with “Ten Cents a Dance,” a song that bemoaned the sad life of a dance hostess. This short capitalizes on its appeal by casting Ruth as just such a girl. The film ends happily as a wealthy man installs her on Park Avenue. Ruth sings “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy” and “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes.”

Derby Decade1934

A period comedy in which Ruth plays a turn-of-the-century vaudeville star courted by two rival Lower East Side Irish politicians. Ruth sings “A Bird in A Gilded Cage,” “After the Ball,” “When You Were Sweet Sixteen.”

Melody in May1935

Ruth accompanies a young man to an important dance as his date to give him the confidence to win his girl back from a rival.




Ethel Merman

The Ethel Merman Collection1930–1931


Ethel Merman (1909–1984) was born only a few blocks from the then thriving Astoria Studio in Queens, New York. After her singing debut in 1928, she returned to Astoria to make these five shorts. She moved on to make Broadway history with Anything Goes (1934), Panama Hattie (1940), Annie Get Your Gun (1946) and Call Me Madam (1950). These short films capture a fresh young singer with a powerful voice and an exciting delivery that carry the audiences right along with her until her very last note. — Paramount Pictures, USA

Her Future1930

An unusually moody piece, Merman sings two new 1930 compositions, “My Future Just Passed” and “Sing You Sinners” as she and a judge contemplate her future in a surrealistic courtroom setting.

Be Like Me1931

Merman owns a saloon and sets her customers swinging with “Be Like Me.” At the thought of being separated from her lover, she sings “After I’m Gone” but within minutes the same song becomes a rousing fanfare to love when he assures her they will be together.

Ireno1931

Merman plays a lonely woman awaiting her Reno divorce decree and sings of her sadness in “Shadows On the Way.” When her husband shows up to effect reconciliation, she belts out “Wipe That Frown Off Your Face.”

Old Man Blues1931

A symbolic tale, enhanced by Merman’s early, still quite lyrical style in which she and Old Man Blues sing of bygone love in “He Doesn’t Love Me Anymore” and then a joyful duet with her lover when he returns.

Roaming1931

Merman travels with a medicine show and sings of her fleeting love affairs in “Hello, My Lover, Goodbye.” In the next town she works her sales pitch to “Shake Well Before Using,” and discovers on her way out of town that an admirer has decided to join her.

Rudy Vallee

The Rudy Vallee Collection1929–1932


A native of Maine, Rudy Vallee (1901–1986) started as a saxophone player in a college jazz band at Yale and later took over the group as leader. Somewhat to his own surprise, it was his singing that took the country by storm. His voice was so weak that he had to use a megaphone on the bandstand, and a new word was coined for it: “crooning.” After broadcasting from the stage of the Heigh-Ho Club in New York, radio made Vallee a national sensation. He was the first radio-produced teenage idol, constantly besieged by girls.— Paramount Pictures, USA

Radio Rhythm1929

Rudy’s Connecticut Yankees plays “Honey, You’re Just Another Memory” and “You’ll Do It Someday.” Rudy sings all three, does a hot sax solo on the last one and parodies Ted Lewis on clarinet.

Knowmore College1931

Rudy is a musical professor with Mae Questel doing another impression of Helen Kane, the Betty Boop girl. Musical numbers: “In the Book of My Memorles,” “You’ll Find A Rhyme For Everything But Orange,” “How Well Do You Know Your Lessons?”

Musical Justice1931

Vallee dispenses justice in a courtroom: one culprit is sentenced to “sing forever through a megaphone.” Another trademark, Betty Boop’s musical signature, is panned when Mae Questel pleads with the court, “Don’t Take My Boop-oop-a-doop Away.” The band plays “The Jury Deliberates” and Vallee sings “A Little Kiss Each Morning.“

Musical Doctor1932

Vallee treats various ailments with music. Mae Questel does one of her famous Betty Boop imitations, and musical numbers include “Keep A Little Song Handy,” “Vallee’s Recipe,” “Missin’ All the Kissin’ From My Alabamy Mammy.”




More Musical Shorts 1928–1973

Boyhood Days1928

Directed byJoseph Stanley

StarringBorrrah Minnevitch and his Musical Rascals

10 minutes, B&W

One of the Rascals sings a brief ballad, “Rags,” after which the whole gang gets together and renders several of their special effects numbers on their harmonicas.— Paramount Pictures, USA

After Seben1929

Directed byS. Jay Kaufman

StarringJames BartonGeorge SnowdenChic Webb and his Orchestra

20 minutes, B&W

Vaudevillian Barton is the Master of Ceremonies at a nightclub dance contest. Features fine examples of the “Lindy-Hop” from three couples.— Paramount, USA

St. Louis Blues1929

20 minutes

Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith and the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra tell the story of a woman who is deserted by her boyfriend for a St. Louis floozy. She then sings the title song, an elaborate ten-minute production number with dance sequences and a chorus by the Hall Johnson Choir.

All for the Band1930

Directed byHoward Bretherton

StarringEddie Younger and His Mountaineers

10 minutes, B&W

Younger and band rehearsing in a general store supply plenty of vintage country music and singing as well as a bit of cracker-barrel humor.

Ballet Class1930

Directed byFrank Cambria

StarringAgnes de MilleLuigi Albertier

10 minutes, B&W

The rigors of ballet are imaginatively depicted, with Agnes de Mille as the hard-working pupil of ballet master Albertier. Her taxing exercises are transformed into a daydream of an exquisite solo performance before returning to the struggles of her practice. — USA

Clinching a Sale 1930

Directed byRay Cozine

StarringHarry RichmanJune O’Dea

10 minutes, B&W

In these short, spoofing singing commercials, Harry takes a full ten minutes to sell a broom in song and dance to a very tough prospect, June O’Dea.

Meet the Boyfriend1930

Directed byNorman Taurog

10 minutes

Lillian Roth, whose life story was told in I Want to Live! (1958), stars as a girl waiting for her date. Her friends jeer at her with “We’ve Got It But It Don’t Do Us No Good.” Then Roth sings of her feelings in “Sort of Lonesome.” Finally, when the boyfriend arrives, she sings “Me and the Boyfriend” while engaging him in hammerlocks and mauling him with affection.

Office Blues1930

10 minutes

Ginger Rogers sings and dances in this short film made prior to her association with Fred Astaire.

Ol’ King Cotton1930

10 minutes

George Dewey Washington was one of the few black performers of his day who traveled on the white vaudeville circuit in such select company as Bert Williams, Sissle and Blake, Bojangles and Ethel Waters. Here he plays a plantation hand who moves to Harlem to avoid heavy work, but finds the only job open is with a moving company where he has to lift and lug just as much as before. He sings “Ol’ King Cotton” and “On the ‘Sippi’ Shore.”

A Lesson in Love1931

10 minutes

The original flapper who became the model for Betty Boop of the comics and later animated cartoons, Helen Kane gained fame with her little-girl voice and her “boop-oop-a-doop” delivery of popular songs. Her appearance with the Paul Ash Orchestra at the Paramount Theatre in 1928 created a riot. Within the next three years she made eight feature films, several shorts and cut a dozen records. In this short she plays a co-ed who seduces her professor with “I Love Myself Because You Love Me.”

Singapore Sue1931

10 minutes

Between his last appearance as Archie Leach on Broadway in A Wonderful Night (1929–30 season) and his debut as Cary Grant in Hollywood in This Is The Night (1932), the budding future superstar appeared in this off-beat Paramount short with no billing. The plot finds Cary (or perhaps, still Archie) and three sailor buddies trying to pick up a Chinese cabaret singer. Anna Chang and Joe Wong, both vaudeville stars, sing solo and in duet, with a semi-jazz accompaniment.

Rhapsody in Black and Blue1932

10 minutes

An enduring jazz legend, Louis Armstrong (1900–1971) is seen here in the earliest of some twenty films in which he was featured. The short is a dream sequence in which an Armstrong fan sees himself ruled by the immortal trumpet player. Musical numbers include: “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead You Rascal You” and “Shine.”

Slow Poke1933

10 minutes

Lincoln Theodore Perry (1896–1986) was born in Florida and took the name Stepin Fetchit to portray a succession of good-for-nothing, lazy black characters so hilariously that an early sound short with him was expanded into the first full-length feature with an all-black cast ever made by a major studio (Fox), Hearts of Dixie (1929). In this short, Stepin Fetchit repeats the role in a film that has every racial stereotype in it. But the musical numbers are entertaining, with Lithia Hill singing “Lazybones” and a lot of lively dancing.

Bubbling Over1934

20 minutes

Ethel Waters started in black vaudeville and became a celebrated stage and screen actress, best remembered for her films Cabin in the Sky (1943) and Member of the Wedding (1952). Here she plays the wife of a shiftless janitor who fills his house with his relatives but does nothing else. Waters sings “Takin’ Your Time” and “Darkies Never Dream.” A quartet sings “When You Hang Your Hat in a Harlem Flat” and the whole ensemble renders “Company’s Comin’ Tonight.”

Hollywood Rhythm1934

10 minutes

The real-life songwriting team of Mack Gordon and Harry Revel (“As Sweet As You Are,” “Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?”) demonstrates how they worked on the score for Paramount’s 1934 release College Rhythm. Jack Oakie and Lyda Roberti, the stars of the film, do the title song and “Take a Number From One to Ten,” under the watchful eye of veteran director Norman Taurog. One of the best of the behind-the-scenes glimpses into Hollywood picture-making, the film combines a clipped pace, humor, song, and dance. It also provides a rare opportunity to see the charming Polish-born comedienne Lyda Roberti, whose vivacity was cut short tragically by heart failure at age 28 in 1938.

Broadway Highlights1935

Edited byFred Waller

Narrated byTed Husing


A testimonial for Paul Whiteman at Dempsey’s by Rudy Vallee, Jack Benny and Jack Dempsey.Earl Caroll selects dancers for his show. Sophie Tucker introduces Fanny Brice and Beatrice Lillie, and sings “Some of These Days.” Al Jolson and Max Baer do a radio comedy skit.

Artie Shaw’s Class in Swing1939


StarringArtie Shaw and His OrchestraHelen Forest


A band short of one of the most popular swing orchestras of the 1930’s. After a brief introduction of Shaw’s theme song, “Nightmare,” the band plays “Free Wheeling” as it is assembled. Helen Forest sings “I Have Eyes” and the band jams with “Shoot the Likker to Me, John Boy.”

Hoagy Carmichael1939


StarringHoagy CarmichaelJack TeagardenMeredith Blake


A song-filled short featuring composer and piano player Carmichael. Songs include “I’m Wrong,” “Washboard Blues,” “Old Rockin’ Chair” and “Stardust.”— Paramount Pictures, USA

Boogie Woogie Dream1941

20 minutes

The only known appearance of boogie woogie pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons is framed by a story of a dishwasher (Lena Horne) and two kitchen helpers in a nightclub who jam after hours and dream of how they would look in a real show. Lena Horne sings “I’d Never Wish Any More” with Ammons and Johnson, and “Unlucky Woman” with Teddy Wilson’s Orchestra. Johnson and Ammons play “Boogie Woogie Dream.”

Josephine Baker at the Folies-Bergère1973

10 minutes

Florence Mills and Sidney Bechet opened their traveling show in Paris in 1925. Their biggest sensation was created by a St. Louis chorus girl who demonstrated the Charleston and the black bottom — two brand-new American dances. Her suggestive dancing style and her penchant for exhibitionism captivated the French and she stayed in Paris most of her life, where she died in 1975 at age 69. To the French she was lovingly known simply as “Josephine.” This rare footage, filmed right on the stage of the Folies-Bergère, is the only visual record of Josephine Baker’s sensational act. Her most notorious dance, seen in this film, is a jungle number in which she wears nothing but a bunch of bananas. Carefully edited by Film Archives Company in 1973, the images have been synchronized with the type of music that Josephine actually used in performance. — Paramount Pictures, USA

British Cinema


164 British Cinema Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

165 British Cinema

The Amateur Gentleman1936


Written byClemence DaneEdward KnoblockSergei NolbandovBased on the novel by Jeffery Farnol

Produced byMarcel Hellman

Music byRichard Addinsell

StarringDouglas Fairbanks Jr.Ellissa LandiMargaret LockwoodGordon HarkerHugh Williams


Set in Regency times, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. emulates some of his famous father’s heroics in a story about an innkeeper’s son who poses as a gentleman boxer to spirit his father out of Newgate Prison and clear his name of the crime for which he was imprisoned unjustly.— Criterion, Great Britain


The first and best of three pictures starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in his own English-based production company. Marcel Hellman’s production and Thornton Freeland’s direction helped make the film as handsome and as lively as its star.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Crime Over London1936

Directed byAlfred Zeisler

Written byNorman AlexanderBased on an original story by Louis de Wohl


StarringMargot GrahamePaul CavanaghJoseph CawthornRene RayBasil SydneyGoogie Withers


An absorbing tale of a department store heist by a troupe of Chicago gangsters foiled by Scotland Yard— Criterion/United Artists, Great Britain

Plenty of action and good acting.— Variety

Marcel Hellman Productions

Accused1937


Written byZoë AkinsGeorge BarraudHarold French


StarringDouglas Fairbanks Jr.Dolores Del RioFlorence DesmondBasil SydneyGoogie Withers


A backstage whodunit in which Fairbanks and Del Rio play hoofers in a Parisian show. When the show’s producer is stabbed to death, Del Rio is accused, but later found innocent when Fairbanks proves the night watchman did it.— Criterion, Great Britain

Starts off as a backstage narrative, showing a full dress rehearsal of an elaborate musical comedy; develops into a murder mystery that isn’t solved until a few feet before the final clinch. Brilliant, incisive dialog handled by West End actors.— Variety

Jump for Glory(US: When Thief Meets Thief)1937

Directed byRaoul Walsh

Written byJohn Meehan Jr.Harold FrenchBased on the novel by Gordon MacDonell


Music byPercy Mackey

StarringDouglas Fairbanks Jr.Valerie HobsonAlan Hale


Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays a down-at-the-heels man in New Orleans who gets involved with underworld crook Alan Hale. He escapes to London where he becomes a cat burglar until a good woman (Valerie Hobson) helps him go straight.— Criterion, Great Britain

Raoul Walsh, who had directed Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in The Thief of Bagdad (1924) now directed Fairbanks Jr. in Jump For Glory.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. turns in a splendid characterization.— Variety

Double Crime in the Maginot Line1939

Directed byFeliz Gandera

Written byGandera and Robert BibalBased on the novel by Pierre Nord


StarringVictor FrancenVera KoreneJacques BaumerFernand Fabre

90 minutes, 35mm, B&WFrench with English Subtitles

Determined never again to be overrun by the Germans, the French built a sophisticated anti-tank fortification along their northern borders after World War I, called the Maginot Line. This Marcel Hellman production uses a fantastic military mechanized honeycomb as the setting for its psychological study of espionage and murder. It was the first time the world had seen the inner workings of the Line, and it so impressed the German High Command that instead of using tanks against the French in World War II, they simply flew over the Line and attacked from the air.— A Towers Release, Great Britain

Talk About Jacqueline1942

Directed byHarold French

Written byRoland PertweeMarjorie DeansBased on the novel by Katherine Holland


StarringHugh WilliamsCarla LehmannJoyce HowardRoland CulverJohn WarwickMary JerroldGuy Middleton


While yachting and flirting on the Riviera, a woman with a past meets a shy, retiring young researcher from the Far East and, against her better judgment, marries him. When he runs across some scandalous gossip touching her past, her younger sister steps in claiming she is the subject of the notoriety.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Excelsior, Great Britain

Jeannie(US: Girl in Distress)1941

Directed byHarold French

Written byAnatole de GrunwaldRoland PertweeBased on the play by Aimee Stuart


StarringBarbara MullenMichael RedgraveAlbert LievenWilfrid LawsonKay HammondGoogie Withers


This lighthearted comedy is based on the Aimee Stuart play about a hardy young Scots girl who uses her inheritance for a grand tour of the Continent where she meets and unmasks a fortune hunter and falls in love with a washing-machine salesman who follows her home to marry her.— Eros Films Ltd., Great Britain

I hacked through the thicket of ‘delightfuls’ and ‘enchantings’ which had kept me at a distance, to see Jeannie, a gently characterized British-made comedy about a Scottish peasant woman who discovers in the course of a trip to prewar Vienna that she doesn’t have to feel like an old maid after all. One of the easiest, sweetest of light comedies.— James Agee, Agee On Film


166 British Cinema

A Voice in the Night(US: Wanted for Murder)1946

Directed byLawrence Huntington

Written byEmeric PressburgerRodney AcklandMaurice Cowan


Photographed byMax Greene

Music byMischa Spoliansky

StarringEric PortmanDulcie GrayDerek Farr


Obsessed by the fact that his father was the Queen’s hangman, respectable businessman Victor Colebrook (Eric Portman) acts out that obsession by deliberately picking up young shopgirls, dallying with them and then strangling them, because he believes they are unhappy people who should be put out of their misery. Anne Fielding is different somehow and Victor senses that if she will agree to marry him, she can save him from himself. What he doesn’t know is that she plans to wed another.— 20th Century-Fox, Great Britain

Awards: One of the Ten Best of the Year— The London Times

Good complex portrayal in an otherwise straightforward thriller.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Marcel Hellman’s production is first class, shots in London’s underground railway being more than usually effective.— Variety

Meet Me at Dawn(US: The Gay Duelist)1946


Written byLesley StormJames SeymourMaurice CowanBased on the Story Le Tueur by Anatole Litvak and Marcel Achard


StarringHazel CourtWilliam EytheStanley HollowayMargaret RutherfordBasil SydneyIrene BrowneKatie Johnson


A lighthearted look at dueling, gossip and scandal in 19th-century Paris. William Eythe plays a duelist ready to take up anybody’s quarrel if the price is right. Engaged by politicians to insult, wound and put a prominent senator out of the way for a time, the challenge hits the front page when a newspaper editor, unaware that the woman about whom the men intend to duel is his own daughter, plasters his paper with lurid stories about Madame.— 20th Century-Fox, Great Britain

Margaret Rutherford and Stanley Holloway are scene-stealers par excellence and do so at every opportunity.— Variety

This Was a Woman1948

Directed byTim Whelan

Written byVal ValentineBased on the play by Joan Morgan


StarringSonia DresdelBarbara WhiteWalter FitzgeraldCyril RaymondMarjorie RhodesEmrys Jones


Sonia Dresdel was a comparatively unknown actress who rose to stardom in the play on which this film is based. She dominates the movie as well, playing the domineering woman who leads her family to ruin and destroys herself in the process. — Excelsior, Great Britain

Off-the-beaten-track, dramatic entertainment.— The Cinema

Sonia Dresdel’s part is a tour-de-force, has tremendous personality and great talent.— Variety

Accused1937

A Voice in the Night1946

The Amateur Gentleman1936

Crime over London1936

Meet Me at Dawn1946

Jeannie1941

Jump for Glory1937

This Was a Woman1948



169 British Cinema

Bitter Sweet1933

Produced and directed byHerbert Wilcox

Written byLydia HaywardHerbert WllcoxMonckton HoffeBased on the operetta by Noel Coward

StarringAnna NeagleFernand GraveyMiles ManderEsme PercyHugh WilliamsPat PetersonKay Hammond


Vienna before the Great War — the first one. Noel Coward adapted his insouciant lyrics and music for this screen version of his popular operetta. The aging Sarah Linden (Neagle) tells the story in flashback as a warning to a young woman about to marry for money when in reality she loves an impoverished musician. Sarah’s tale is impossibly romantic. She meets musician Carl Linden (Gravey) in London, elopes with him to Vienna, watches him become a popular cabaret orchestra leader and then watches him die. Songs include “I’ll See You Again,” “Zigeuner,” “Tokay,” “If Love Were All,” “Kiss Me” and “Bonnie Nuit.” —British and Dominion, Great Britain

An artistic production with gratifying elegance, tuneful music and singing.— Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times

One of the most beautiful productions of the year.— Anthony Slide, Ed. Selected Film Criticism

Herbert Wilcox Productions

Nurse Edith Cavell1931


Written byMichael HoganBased on the novel Dawn by Reginald Berkeley

Music byAnthony Collings

StarringAnna NeagleGeorge SandersMay RobsonEdna May OliverAlan MarshallZasu PittsH. B. Warner


Anna Neagle in the gripping story of the martyrdom of Edith Cavell during World War I.Nurse Cavell’s Brussels hospital cares for friend and foe alike, and she becomes the focal point in an underground system assisting refugees and escaped POWs over the border to Holland. When the German High Command accuses her of espionage, she is arrested, tried and sentenced to death before a firing squad. Essentially an anti-war film, Nurse Edith Cavell eschews battle scenes, focusing instead on the grim misfortunes of those caught in the maelstrom of war and its terrors. An all-star cast. A memorable experience.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain


This’ll Make You Whistle1936


Written byGerry BoltonFred ThompsonBased on the stage production of the same name

StarringJack BuchananElsie RandolphJean GillieWilliam Kendall


Curiously, this musical comedy was based on a play, opened first as a film, followed a few weeks later by the staging of the underlying play in London’s West End. More comedy than musical, the movie plays for farcical laughs. — Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

London Melody1937


Written byFlorence TranterMonckton Hoffe

StarringAnna NeagleTullio Carminati


Anna Neagle in a showcase for her lovely talents plays a street singer who meets and falls in love with a wealthy and cultured diplomat.— Herbert Wilcox Productions/GFD, Great Britain

Excellent compilation of trivial mush, beautifully produced and directed; classy interiors, good photography and nice cabaret sequences, furnishing ample opportunities for Miss Neagle to display her terpsichorean talents.— Variety

Our Fighting Navy1937

Directed byNorman Walker

Produced byHerbert WilcoxBased on a story by Bartimeusby arrangement with the Navy League

StarringH. B. WarnerNoah BeeryRichard CromwellRobert Douglas


H. B. Warner plays the harried British consul during an uprising in a supposedly South American port and calls in a cruiser of the Royal Navy to protect British nationals. This was the first British picture to give audiences an opportunity to witness the life and uses to which the Royal Navy is put.— Herbert Wilcox Productions/GFD, Great Britain

Stirring adaptation. Difficult to imagine this picture better cast.— Variety

The Frog1937

Directed byJack Raymond

Produced byHerbert WilcoxBased on the novel The Fellowship of the Frog by Edgar Wallace

StarringGordon HarkerJack HawkinsEsme PercyFelix Aylmer


Based on the hit stage drama and the novel by Edgar Wallace, the movie is a mellow and merry sort of melodrama in which a mysterious gang baffles Scotland Yard as they commit murder, blackmail, robbery and assorted other crimes.— Herbert Wilcox Productions/GFD, Great Britain

The Three Maxims1937


Written byHerman Mankiewicz

StarringAnna NeagleTullio CarminatiLeslie BanksHorace Hodges


One of Anna Neagle’s most successful early films in which she appears as part of a star trapeze act in a traveling circus. Full of show biz bits of business, the circus atmosphere is correct and vivid as are the theatre scenes in Paris.— Herbert Wilcox Productions/GFD, Great Britain

Elemental enough in story, but the general effect is excellent, due to the strong cast and admirable direction.— Variety



171 British Cinema

No Parking1938

Directed byJack Raymond

Produced byHerbert Wilcox

Written byGerald ElliottBased on a story The Little Fellow by Sir Carol Reed

StarringGordon HarkerLeslie PerrinsIrene WareCyril Smith


Gordon Harker plays a parking lot attendant who gets taken for an American gangster in this comedy of mistaken identity. A group of jewel thieves recruit him to be the triggerman during a bank job, only to have the real gunman show up.— Herbert Wilcox Productions, Great Britain

Sixty Glorious Years(US: Queen of Destiny)1938


Written byRobert VansittartMiles MallesonCharles Grandcourt

StarringAnna NeagleAnton WalbrookC. Aubrey SmithWalter RillaCharles CarsonFelix AylmerLewis Casson

95 minutes, 35mm, Color

Anna Neagle plays Queen Victoria in this wonderful biography that dramatizes the major events in her life, beginning with the announcement of her betrothal to Prince Albert and continuing on to the birth of The Princess Royal, the opening of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Albert’s death, the poignancy of Victoria’s protracted retirement from public life and her misguided honoring of her husband’s memory. Later in happier circumstances during her Diamond Jubilee, the control of the Suez Canal by Disraeli, the assassination of General Gordon, Kitchener’s conquest at Khartoum, and Victoria’s death.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Anna Neagle as Queen Victoria is magnificent. A flawless, inspired interpretation that has no equal.— London Sunday Times

This is not the best film ever to come out of a British studio — it is the best film to come out of any studio in the world.— The New York Times

It stresses (Victoria’s) desire for achievement — Albert (Anton Walbrook), her consort, is revealed as a man of intelligence with a strong desire to help the masses and to build England to a position of commercial supremacy.— Variety

Lilacs in the Spring(US: Let’s Make Up)1954


Written byHarold PurcellBased on his play The Glorious Days

Music byRobert Farnon

StarringAnna NeagleErrol FlynnPeter GravesDavid FarrarKathleen Harrison


Based on Anna Neagle’s London stage success, this popular musical is a cavalcade of history. Anna Neagle plays a wartime service performer who suffers a concussion during the Blitz and imagines herself to be Nell Gwyn; Queen Victoria introducing Johann Strauss’s waltzes to her court; her own mother during the days when John Beaumont (Errol Flynn) courted and married her; and later when Mama becomes the star of the Talkies and finds fame and fortune in Hollywood. Included with the many classic songs are “Tipperary” and Noel Coward’s “Dance Little Lady.“—United Artists, Great Britain

With its snippets of stage musicals and spectacular dance sequences, the movie has a colorful and opulent look. Miss Neagle sails through her various roles with the elegant poise for which she is renowned.— Variety

King’s Rhapsody1955


Written byPamela BowerChristopher HassallA.P. Herbert

Original book and music byIvor Novello

Music arranged and conducted byRobert Farnon

StarringErrol FlynnAnna NeaglePatricia WymoreMartita HuntFinlay Currie


British composer Ivor Novello’s last Ruritanian musical is brought to the screen with all the style and tone of the original, even though cost overruns ascribed to Errol Flynn’s drinking problems broke the producers and bankrupted British Lion Pictures. King Richard of Laurentia (Flynn) is banished but returns to the throne. Forced into a political marriage with Princess Christiane (Patricia Wymore, Flynn’s wife in real life), he continues his affair with his mistress (Anna Neagle) and keeps her in a convenient love nest even after the birth of his son and heir.— United Artists, Great Britain

Herbert Wilcox is the first British independent producer to film in Cinemascope and he chose Ivor Novello’s last musical, which was also one of his greatest successes. Filmed largely on location in Spain, the handsome backgrounds are matched by lush decor and opulent costuming. Expensively mounted with big crowd scenes, to give point to the pomp and pageantry.— Variety

Yangtse Incident(US: Battle Hell aka Escape of the Amethyst)1956

Directed byMichael Anderson

Written byEric AmblerBased on the book by Lawrence Earl


StarringRichard ToddWilliam HartnellAkim TamiroffDonald Houston


On April 19, 1949, the Royal Navy frigate HMS Amethyst sails up the great Yangtse River on her way to Nanking, the Chinese capital, to deliver supplies to the British Embassy. Suddenly, without warning, the Red Chinese shore batteries open fire and, after a heavy engagement, the frigate lies grounded in the mud and badly damaged. Fifty-four of her crew lie dead, dying or seriously wounded, while others deteriorate from the tropical heat and the lack of essential medicines. The local Communist boss Colonel Peng (Akim Tamiroff) is adamant — either accept criminal responsibility for the entire incident or the Amethyst will remain his prisoner. Well, you can bet the Brits aren’t going to take that one lying down.— British Lion, Great Britain

Best British Naval film since In Which We Serve.— Empire News

Vivid battle scenes, magnificently handled. Stirring.— Variety

The Navy Lark1959

Directed byGordon Parry

Written bySid CollinsLaurie WymanBased on the BBC radio show by Laurie Wyman


StarringCecil ParkerRonald ShinerLeslie Phillips


The Royal Navy gets a brisk, irreverent drubbing in this movie based on the popular British radio comedy series. The yarn is about a “forgotten” naval base on an island off the South Coast of Britain. The men are having a high old time of it, making loads of money from smuggling and other illicit activities. When a higher authority decides to close the unit, chaos reigns as everyone schemes to avoid being posted elsewhere.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Light-hearted screen farce.— Variety

Sixty Glorious Years1938

Bitter Sweet1933


175 British CinemaJamaica Inn1939

Jamaica Inn1939

Directed byAlfred Hitchcock

Produced byErich PommerCharles Laughton

Written bySidney GilliatJoan HarrisonJ.B. PriestleyBased on the novel by Daphne DuMaurier

StarringCharles LaughtonMaureen O’HaraLeslie BanksRobert NewtonEmlyn Williams


Hitchcock’s last British picture before leaving for America to film Rebecca. Laid towards the end of the 18th century, it’s a strange tale of gangs of thieves and cutthroats called “wreckers” who prey upon the merchant ships that founder in the heavy seas that crash against the rocky coast of Cornwall. Young barmaid (Maureen O’Hara) suspects that the ruffians who frequent her inn not only scavenge the wrecks, but may actually cause the ships to run aground. But how? And why does no one bother to investigate or try to prosecute?— A Mayflower Film, Great Britain

Much to admire, especially the extraordinary use of miniatures for the opening sea battle and the giant studio sets (and pools) which were constructed for the shots involving humans. Hitchcock may eschew the merely spectacular, but these moments rival the best of Griffith or DeMille.— Donald Spoto, American Film Institute

Alfred Hitchcock


176 British Cinema

Storm in a Teacup1937

Directed byIan DalrympleVictor Saville

Written bylan DalrympleDonald BullBased on the play Sturm im Wasserglass aka Storm Over Patsy by Bruno Frank


StarringVivien LeighRex HarrisonCecil ParkerSara Allgood


This early Ealing-type comedy pits a pompous Scottish provost (Cecil Parker) against Sara Allgood, a formidable old lady whose dog he confiscates because she refuses to pay for a license. In view of the fact that he is running for high office and has just delivered a speech vowing to protect the rights of the common people, his actions do seem just a bit queer. As a matter of fact, newspaperman Rex Harrison thinks he smells hypocrisy in high places, and writes a very long article attacking the gentleman who, wounded, promptly turns around and sues him. It’s all most amusing. Parker gets himself absolutely deflated and then loses his daughter (Vivien Leigh) to Harrison.— London Films, Great Britain


Amusing, very English comedy: excellent of its kind.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Much better film than the play — a rare treat.— Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times

Fine comic brew.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Vivien Leigh

St. Martin’s Lane(US: Sidewalks of London)1938


Written byClemence Dane

Produced byErich Pommer

StarringCharles LaughtonVivien LeighRex HarrisonTyrone GuthrieLarry Adler


St. Martin’s Lane, London, the place where street singers known as buskers often perform. Busker Charles Laughton works a poor girl (Vivien Leigh) into his act, and from there guides her to stardom, even though it means sacrificing his love for her. This was Vivien Leigh’s last film before Gone With the Wind, and Paramount, the US distributor, wisely held up its release for a year until GWTW had made the name of Vivien Leigh a household word.— London Films, Great Britain


Laughton, Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison gave a spellbinding display of their special personalities and techniques, well blended by director Tim Whelan in command of a colorful cast. London’s theatre world made a fascinating background.— John Douglas Eames, The Paramount Story

One of the finest, if not the best, sympathetic portrayals Charles Laughton has ever given on the screen.— Anthony Slide, Ed., Selected Film Criticism

Dark Journey1937

Produced and directed byVictor Saville

Written byLajos BiroArthur WimperisBased on Biro’s play

Photographed byGeorges PérinalHarry Stradling


StarringConrad VeidtVivien LeighCecil Parker


One of the great romantic classics of the Thirties. Radiant Vivien Leigh plays an Allied double agent in 1915 Stockholm. The Germans, who suspect she is passing secrets to the French, send Chief of Intelligence Conrad Veidt to catch her, only to have the two fall hopelessly in love. Their feet set on opposite paths of doom, they are led inexorably towards the moment when each must choose — between love for each other and love of country. — London Films, Great Britain

Three stars.— Leonard Maltin

Swift, colorful and engagingly tangled cinema.— The New York Times

The love affair would have been unthinkable on screen a few years hence. Atmospherically directed and produced by the excellent Victor Saville.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Storm in a Teacup1937


178 British Cinema

“The very spirit of an English public schoolmistress’s vision of history.”

Fire Over England1936


Written byClemence DaneSergei NolbandovBased on the novel by A. E. W. Mason

Produced byErich PommerAlexander Korda



StarringFlora Robson, Laurence OlivierLeslie Banks, Vivien Leigh


Alexander Korda’s first film under the aegis of Pendennis, his new production company. With a cast of (then) relative unknowns, Korda creates a stirring adventure about the thrilling reign of England’s Elizabeth I and how she defeats Phillip of Spain by sinking the Spanish Armada.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain


Vigorous, quite charismatic adventure.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Superb camera work of James Wong Howe (makes it) visually one of the most beautiful films ever brought to the screen.— Anthony Slide, Ed., Selected Film Criticism



181 British Cinema

The Lodger(US: The Phantom Fiend)1932

Directed byMaurice Elvey

Written byIvor NovelloMiles ManderPaul RothaH. Fowler MearBased on the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Photographed byStanley BlytheBasil Emmott

StarringIvor NovelloElizabeth AllanA. W. BaskombJack Hawkins


A mysterious, retiring lodger is suspected of being the legendary killer Jack the Ripper. A modernized version of the classic tale of suspense already made as a silent film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926, and later remade once more as a period piece in 1944 by John Brahm.— Twickenham, Great Britain


An eerie, absorbing story.— Variety

Selected Features

No Funny Business(US: Professional Correspondent)1933

Directed byJohn StaffordVictor Hanbury

Written byVictor HanburyFrank VosperBased on a story by Dorothy Hope

StarringGertrude LawrenceLaurence OlivierJill EsmondEdmund Breon


The only picture in which the famed Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier made together. They play professional correspondents who have never met. When each is sent to the Riviera to meet a husband and wife who are considering a divorce, they mistake each other for the client, fall in love, quarrel when their mistake is discovered and then are reunited. It’s all very droll, an uproarious farce done in hilariously dated style.— United Artists, Great Britain

Fascinating period piece. Gertrude Lawrence conveys a good deal of vitality and assurance.— BFI Monthly Film BulletinGermany

Awards: One of the 12 Most Important Films of All Time— Critics’ Prize, Brussels World’s Fair, 1958

Perfect Understanding1933

Directed byCyril Gardner

Written byMichael PowellBased on a story by Miles Malleson

StarringGloria SwansonLaurence OlivierNora SwinburneJohn HollidayNigel PlayfairMichael Farmer


A comedy of manners in which two people marry on the condition that each will retain his or her individual freedom. But when each subsequently flaunts their extra-marital escapades in the face of the other, it precipitates an amusing battle of the sexes. This is the only film Gloria Swanson made in Britain. — Gloria Swanson British Pictures, Ltd., Great Britain


Deft treatment provides entertaining sequence of amusing, dramatic, exciting and emotional incidents. Sophisticated dialogue dominates sincere attempt to solve marriage problems. Very well acted by competent cast with admirable portrayals.— Cinema Booking, Guide Supplement

Love from a Stranger 1936

Directed byRowland V. Lee

Written byFrances MarionBased on the play by Frank Vosper. Adapted from the Philomel Cottage by Agatha Christie

Music byBenjamin Britten

StarringAnn HardingBasil RathboneBinnie HaleBruce SetonJean CadellBryan PowleyJoan HicksonDonald Calthrop


A highly suspenseful film based on an Agatha Christie yarn that had enjoyed immense popularity, both in book form and as a play. (It also was remade later in the US in 1947 with Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak.) Having married a man rather in haste, a young woman comes to suspect that he may be the maniac who has been strangling people in the area with herself as the next intended victim.— Trafalgar Films, Great Britain

Two Stars. Stalwart suspenser.— Leslie Halliwell

Gorgeously photographed and splendidly cut, this macabre story of a suave gentleman who marries women for their money and murders them, takes front rank with the long list of gruesome films produced in recent years.— Variety

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss(US: Romance and Riches/ Amazing Adventure)1936

Produced and directed byAlfred Zeisler

Written byJohn C. BalderstonBased on a story by E. Phillips Oppenheim

StarringCary GrantMary BrianHenry KendallCharles Farrell


After a string of Hollywood hits, Cary Grant returned to his native England to film this, his only British picture, typical of the kind of Thirties comedies in which the hero discovers that money can’t buy happiness. Wealthy playboy Bliss (Grant) is dying of boredom until his doctor wagers he can’t live independently of his riches for a year. Rising to the bait, Bliss takes an assumed name, rents a cold-water flat in London’s East End, works for a year like any other bloke, falls in love and learns how to use his wealth to help those less fortunate.— United Artists, Great Britain

Deftly directed.— David Quinlin, British Sound Films

Excellent direction and acting.— Variety

Action for Slander1937


Written byIan DalrympleMiles MallesonBased on the novel by Mary Borden

Produced byAlexander KordaVictor Saville

Photographed byHarry Stradling

StarringClive BrookAnn ToddMargaretta Scott


Clive Brook stars in this powerful drama about a major, weak enough to fall in love with the “other woman,” but strong enough to face disgrace and disaster to shield her when he becomes involved in a scandal that reaches across London to rob him of his wife, wealth and position. — London Films, Great Britain

One Star.— Leslle Halliwell

Every one of the male members of the cast is a West End actor of repute, if not a star. Hollywood, in its most lavish spurt of extravagance, never went to such pains to assemble such a company.— Variety

Good, gripping entertainment.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Dinner at the Ritz1937

Directed byHarold Schuster

Written byRoland PertweeRomney Brent

Produced byRobert T. Kane

StarringAnnabellaPaul LukasDavid NivenRomney BrentFrancis L. SullivanNora Swinburne


Filmed in Paris and along the French Riviera, this intriguing murder mystery is a classic tale of drama, suspense and romance. Annabella plays a gay adventuress who tracks her father’s killer from Paris to the Riviera to London and back.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Captivating first-rate performances. Smartly directed, good melodrama.— Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss1936

Perfect Understanding1933



185 British Cinema

Farewell Again(US: Troopship)1937


Written byClemence DanePatrick KirwinBased on a story by Wolfgang Wilhelm

Produced byErich PommerAlexander Korda

Music byRichard Addisell


StarringFlora RobsonLeslie BanksRobert NewtonRene Ray


A rousing tale of men at arms who are returning home after several years in India. When word comes that trouble in the Near East will cut their two-week leave to six short hours, their individual plans take on an unexpected urgency: the devotion of the colonel to his ailing wife, the romance between a young captain and the ship’s nurse, the love affair of a non-com for a flighty shopgirl that nearly ends in tragedy — all colorful moments.— London Films, Great Britain

The Union Jack was waved, literally and figuratively in Troopship, a compendium drama made for London Films. The different stories were cleverly linked by the writers Clemence Dane and Patrick Kirwin.— Ronald Bergan, United Artists Story

Moonlight Sonata1937

Produced and directed byLothar Mendes

Written byEdward KnoblockBased on an original story by Hans Rameau

StarringIgnacy Jan PaderewskiCharles FarrellMarie TempestBarbara GreeneEric Portman


Moonlight Sonata is important because, as Harold Bauer, himself a world-famous pianist puts it, it is an “imperishable document of historical importance, for the personality of one of the greatest artists lives therein.” The great Ignacy Jan Paderewski is seen and heard as himself. The opening shows him in concert. As an encore, he plays the title number and then tells the audience why he chose the Beethoven work, and this forms the basis for the drama that follows.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Three Stars.— National Educational Association

Music lovers will find it sheer delight. The famous Polish pianist’s playing is magnificent.— New York Journal

The Green Cockatoo(US: Four Dark Hours/Race Gang)1937

Directed byWilliam Cameron Menzies

Written byEdward O. BerkmanArthur WimperisBased on a story by Graham Greene

Music byMiklos Rosza

StarringJohn MillsRobert NewtonRene RayBruce Seton


This Graham Greene thriller is mounted with a stellar cast and set in Soho. John Mills and Rene Ray track down and wreak vengeance on the gangsters who killed Mills’ brother (Robert Newton).— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Tough little thriller.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

South Riding1937

Directed byVictor Saville

Written byIan DalrympleDonald BallBased on the novel by Winifred Holtby



StarringRalph RichardsonEdna BestEdmund GwennAnn ToddGlynis JohnsJohn Clements


A rediscovered classic, the intriguing story of a man bound to a woman he cannot have and in love with another beyond his reach. Ralph Richardson, a penurious country squire, has a lovely wife (Ann Todd) who is confined to a mental institution. Eventually he falls in love with the local school teacher, Edna Best, whose patience and understanding save his high-strung daughter from following in her mother’s footsteps.— London Films, Great Britain

Three Stars. Excellent.— New York Herald Tribune

Another artistic Korda film with a cast not only of first rate principals, but with every bit part portrayed by competent West End players.— Variety

Ralph Richardson in one of the best of his early film performances.— Ronald Bergan, The United Artists Story

Under the Red Robe1937

Directed byVictor Sjöström

Written byLajos BiroPhilip LindsayJ.L. HodsonBased on the novel by Stanley J. Weyman

Photographed byGeorges PerinalJames Wong Howe

StarringConrad VeidtAnnabellaRaymond MasseyRomney Brent


Called offbeat in its day, when movie swashing and buckling was deadly serious business, this movie has the effrontery to lace its intrigues with funny lines and amusing situations. Dubbed The Black Death by those who fear him, Conrad Veidt is snatched from the hangman’s noose by the diabolical Cardinal Richelieu (Massey) and sent to arrest the Duc d’Foix, the leader of a political faction suspected of trying to overthrow the monarchy. The fly in the ointment is the appearance of the beautiful Annabella, whom Veidt mistakes for the Duchess and with whom he promptly falls in love.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Surprisingly fine entertainment. Annabella photographs superbly; both in her love sequences and her dramatic moments, this comely French actress comes through with few flaws.— Variety

Vessel of Wrath(US: The Beachcomber)1938

Produced and directed byErich Pommer

Written byBartlett CormackB. Van ThalBased on a story by W. Somerset Maugham


StarringCharles LaughtonElsa LanchesterRobert NewtonTyrone Guthrie


Here in its original running time is Maugham’s hilarious comedy about the beachcomber (Laughton) in the Dutch East Indies who runs afoul of a self-righteous missionary (Tyrone Guthrie) and his militant sister (Elsa Lanchester) who want him deported for “corrupting” the natives. A drunk and a lecher, half monster, half pagan god, he winds up charming Lanchester, from loathing to fascination and ultimately into matrimony.— A Mayflower Production, Great Britain


Superior production. Performances of such brilliance, vigor and psychological rightness that they seem almost startlingly unfamiliar on an American screen.— The New York Times

Priceless stuff.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Ten Days in Paris(US: Missing Ten Days aka Spy in the Pantry)1939


Written byJohn Meehan Jr.James CurtisBased on the novel The Disappearance of Roger Tremayne by Bruce Graeme

Music byMiklos Rosza

StarringRex HarrisonKaren VerneLeo Genn


As Variety so aptly put it, “Rex Harrison is a devil with the women, almost always in some kind of trouble, on the verge of being disowned by his parent, has an uncanny way of getting in and out of things, and starts this picture by claiming he lost his memory 10 days prior to waking up in a hospital.” When he wakes up in Paris and finds he has been involved in espionage activities, he’s forced to clear himself.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Intricate adventure has pace and wit.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

They Came to a City1944

Directed byBasil Dearden

Written byBasil DeardenSidney ColeBased on a play by J.B. Priestley

StarringGoogie WithersJohn ClementsRaymond HuntleyRenee GaddA. E. MatthewsMabel Terry-LewisJ. B. Priestley


J. B. Priestley’s play about post-war reconstruction is an absorbing fantasy. A group of people killed in an air raid arrive at the gates of a mysterious city and each describes what kind of place he or she hopes it will turn out to be. J. B. Priestley appears as himself.— Ealing Studios, Great Britain


186 British Cinema

“A thing of beauty.”

Wings of the Morning1937

Directed byHarold Schuster

Written byTom GeraghtyBased on short stories by Donn Byrne

Photographed byRay RennahanJack Cardiff

Music byArthur Benjamin

StarringHenry FondaAnnabellaStewart RomeJohn McCormackLeslie Banks


In 1899, a gypsy princess marries an Irish nobleman; in 1937, romance again blooms between their descendants. Britain’s first Technicolor film is great to look at and quite charming, though slight; its major attractions being horse races, songs from John McCormack, and a heroine dressed for plot purposes as a boy.— Leslie Halliwell

It is French star Annabella’s first English-speaking film role and an early role for Fonda. Notable too, is the fact that famed singer John McCormack appears and sings three songs.— 20th Century-Fox, Great Britain

Excellent performances, top notch color photography and pictorial technique.— Variety

Bound to win applause.— Anthony Slide, Ed., Selected Film Criticism



189 British Cinema

Bedelia1946

Directed byLance Comfort

Written byVera CasparyBased on her novel

StarringMargaret LockwoodIan HunterBarry K. Barnes

90 minutes, Sound, B&W

Bedelia (Lockwood) and husband are living happily in Monte Carlo until an undercover detective starts probing into her past, revealing the mysterious poisoning death of her past husband.— British National Films, Great Britain

Dancing with Crime1947

Directed byJohn Paddy Carstairs

Screenplay byBrock WilliamsFrom a story by Peter Fraser

StarringRichard AttenboroughSheila SimBill RowbothamBarry K. BarnesWith a brief uncredited appearance by Dirk Bogarde


Army buddies Ted Peters (Attenborough) and Dave Robinson (Rowbotham) return to London after the war. Peters gets an honest job as a taxi driver, working the night shift to save money for his upcoming wedding. Robinson, looking to make some easy money, gets caught up with a gang of black marketers operating out of a dance hall. When Robinson gets murdered, Peters sends his fiancé (Sim) under cover as a dance hall girl to prove that the gang was involved. A taut and effective example of the Brit noir.— Coronet-Alliance, Great Britain

Call of the Blood1948

Directed byJohn ClementsLadislas Vajda

Written byJohn ClementsAkos TolnayBased on the novel by Robert Hichens

Produced byJohn StaffordSteven Pallos

StarringLea PadovaniJohn ClementsKay HammondJohn Justin


While honeymooning in Sicily, John Justin is left to his own devices when his bride, a doctor before their marriage, suddenly is called away to fight an epidemic in Tunis. And what lovely devices they are! He falls madly in love with a fiery peasant girl (Lea Padovani) and pays for his infidelity with his life.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Better than the novel. Superbly played by its English and Italian cast, exciting and impressive.— The New York Times

Idol of Paris1948

Directed byLeslie Arliss

Written byNorman LeeStafford DickensHarry OstrerBased on the novel Paiva, Queen of Love by Alfred Schirokauer

Produced byR. J. MinneyMaurice Ostrer

StarringMiles MallesonAndrew CruickshankChristine BordenMichael Rennie


A parade of loves and lovers as Theresa Lachman, daughter of a ragman in a small Continental town in the mid-19th century, deserted by her first lover in Moscow, marries a poor tailor. Later, she meets and marries world-famous pianist Henry Hertz, inspires Offenbach’s La Belle Helene, crosses the path of Cora Pearl, the queen of the demi-monde, and inadvertently causes the death of Hertz.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Miles Malleson’s Offenbach is quite a lavish production.— Variety

Teheran(Conspiracy in Teheran/ The Plot to Kill Roosevelt)1948

Directed byWilliam Freshman

Written byWilliam FreshmanAkos TolnayBased on a story presumably being told behind closed doors from 10 Downing Street to the Kremlin

Produced bySteven PallosJohn Stafford

StarringDerek FarrMarta LaBarr


A plot to assassinate President Roosevelt opens in Rome with the arrival of Allied Troops. A young war correspondent looks up a lovely Russian ballerina at the deserted Real Teatro dell’Opera and a series of flashbacks show how the adventurous journalist met the glamorous dancer. The scene then moves to Teheran where the adventure unfurls in the mysterious bazaars and hideouts.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Adventure melodrama blithely recording how a young British war correspondent prevents an attempt on the life of President Roosevelt.— Kine Weekly

Murder at the Windmill(US: Mystery at the Burlesque)1949

Written and directed byVal Guest

Produced byDaniel M. AngelNat Cohen

StarringGarry MarshJon PertweeJack Livesey

Partly filmed on location at London’s famed Windmill Theatre. When an audience member is found dead after the show, the police determine that the fatal shot came from the stage. The lead detective (Marsh) decides that the show must be restaged to retrace the scene of the crime.— Angel Productions, Great Britain

The Golden Madonna1949

Directed byLadislas Vajda

Produced byJohn Stafford

Written byAimee Stuart DudleyLeslie A. TolnayBased on an original story by Dorothy Hope

StarringPhyllis CalvertMichael RennieTullio CarminatiDavid Greene


One of the more famous British films of the Forties, this romantic comedy-drama stars Phyllis Calvert as an American lass in Italy whose priest tells her that neighboring villagers believe they are accursed because of the disappearance of a priceless painting, The Golden Madonna, which had hung in their church for centuries. Later, another caller reveals the awful truth. That terrible reproduction of The Laughing Cavalier she tossed out during her housecleaning had been painted over The Golden Madonna during World War II to hide it from the Germans.— J. Arthur Rank, Great Britain

Delightful performance by Phyllis Calvert.— Variety

Tony Draws a Horse1950

Directed byJohn Paddy Carstairs

Written byBrock WilliamsBased on the play by Lesley Storm

StarringCecil ParkerAnne CrawfordDerek BondBarbara MurrayMervyn JohnsEdward Rigby


This droll comedy springs from the split-up between a doctor and his psychiatrist wife over the upbringing of their eight-year-old son Tony. It seems the lad had been drawing a horse complete with anatomical details that the prudes think the child ought not to know. Father wants to whale the daylights out of the kid whilst Mum wants the boy left free to develop his self-expression.— Pinnacle/GFD Production. J. Arthur Rank,Great Britain

Evokes plenty of laughs via its satiric handling of a variety of subjects, including marriage, parenthood, doctors, psychiatry, social snobbery, servants, etc. Jabs at manners and conventions in a delightful and subtle way but a good deal is also given farce treatment — all adding up to an amusing comedy.— Variety


190 British Cinema

“One of the most unique British films of the 40’s.”

Corridor of Mirrors1948

Directed byTerence Young

Written byRudolph CartierEdana RomneyInspired by the novel by Christopher Massie

Music byGeorges Auric

StarringEric PortmanEdana RomneyJoan MaudeBarbara MullenCaroline HartChristopher Lee


Convalescing in Italy after the 1914 war, Paul Mangin (Eric Portman) becomes so obsessed with the likeness of a girl in a 16th century painting that he believes that he has been reincarnated as her lover. He takes the portrait back to London, furnishes his home in the Renaissance manner and installs the canvas in a place of honor at the end of a long corridor of mirrors. Well, you can see that this isn’t going to work. One can’t live behind a 16th-century facade during the 20th century and not have something dreadful happen. — Apollo Films-GFD, Great Britain

Although there are only indirect parallels, in both plot structure and sometimes in individual scenes, Corridor of Mirrors is heavily influenced by both Brief Encounter and La Belle et la Bête, recent artistic triumphs. … strange, lyrical, romantic, sometimes quite moving … fascinating, handsome, unpredictable and the kind of film you’ll probably always remember with a degree of fondness and respect. — William K. Everson, Salute to British Pictures, MoMA

Bedelia1946

Call of the Blood1948

Teheran1948

Vessel of Wrath1938

The Green Cockatoo1937

South Riding1937

Farewell Again1937

Moonlight Sonata1937

Under the Red Robe1937



195 British Cinema

Another Man’s Poison1951

Directed byIrving Rapper

Screenplay byVal GuestFrom a story by Leslie Sands

StarringBette DavisGary MerrillEmlyn WilliamsAnthony Steel


Davis plays a successful mystery writer who is living apart from her criminal husband. When he shows up on the lam after a bank robbery looking for getaway money from his wife, she poisons him. His accomplice (Davis’ real life then-husband Merrill) shows up and helps her dispose of the body, blackmailing her to pass him off as her now dead husband. — Angel Productions, Great Britain

Interesting excursion into murder and unrequited love.— The New York Times

Miss Pilgrim’s Progress1950

Directed byVal Guest

Written byVal Guest

StarringMichael RennieYolande DonlanGarry Marsh


Donlan plays Miss Pilgrim, an American factory worker who exchanges jobs with a woman in England. Rennie plays her romantic interest in this comedy of culture clashes.— Angel Productions, Great Britain

Broken Barrier1951

Directed byRoger MiramsJohn O’Shea

Written byJohn O’Shea

StarringKay NgarimuTerence Bayler


Almost a docu-drama, Broken Barrier is a romantic story about Tom Sullivan, a young journalist who writes a series of articles on Maori life in New Zealand and falls in love with a young Maori women from the rugged North island country. Both families and friends object to their marrying, but after many exciting incidents, the two young lovers break through the barriers that divide them, bringing with their marriage the hope for better understanding between two peoples.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Hotel Sahara1951

Directed byKen Annakin

Written byGeorge H. BrownPatrick Kirwin

Music byBenjamin Frankel

StarringPeter UstinovYvonne De CarloDavid TomlinsonRoland CulverAlbert Lieven


This gay and witty comedy centers on a fabulous luxury hotel in a North African desert oasis during World War II, which is occupied by a succession of small reconnaissance groups from the Italian, English, French and German armies. Emad, the proprietor (Ustinov), is ready to flee, but his fiancée, the luscious Yasmin (Yvonne de Carlo) insists they stay. The hotel is their only asset. If they lose it, they never will be able to get married. Yasmin charms the leader of the Italian troops with her great beauty, wit and seductive charms, and when the Italians leave, she disposes of each of the succeeding groups with aplomb. Finally, the war ends and Emad has Yasmin to himself — and then the Americans arrive.— J. Arthur Rank/GFD/Tower, Great Britain

Cheerful, uncomplicated empty stuff — no more subtle than a music hall sketch.— Richard Mallett, Punch

Mr. Drake’s Duck1951


Written byVal GuestFrom a story by Ian Messiter

StarringDouglas Fairbanks Jr.Yolande Donlan


Fairbanks and Donlan play young American newlyweds who live on a quiet, small English farm until one of their ducks lays a radioactive egg and draws the attention of the government and its accompanying red tape.— Angel Productions, Great Britain

The Fake1951

Directed byGodfrey Grayson

Written byPatrick KirwinBased on an original story by James Daplyn

Produced bySteven Pallos

StarringDennis O’KeefeColeen Gray


American detective Paul Mitchell (Dennis O’Keefe), engaged to guard a collection of paintings on loan to the Tate Gallery, prevents the snatching of The Madonna and Child from the docks, only to find it replaced by a fake in the Gallery itself.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Absorbing, unfolding smooth characterization, interesting setting, brisk bouts of action, suspenseful climax.— Daily Cinema

Popular thriller, provocative title, good cast, unusual backgrounds.— Kine Weekly

A wealth of technical data on the uncovering of fake paintings and other details having to do with the world of art is introduced effectively.— Variety

White Corridors1951

Directed byPat Jackson

Written byJan ReadPat JacksonBased on the novel Yeoman’s Hospital by Helen Ashton

Produced byJoseph JanniJohn Croydon

StarringGoogie WithersJames DonaldGodfrey TearlePetula Clark


Googie Withers stars as a brilliant young surgeon in love with James Donald, a research pathologist. The setting is Yeoman’s Hospital, situated in an English country town where the daily drama of saving lives, mending broken bodies and healing the sick continues as it does in every big hospital. Yet there is another drama, the one the patients never see: the behind-the-scene love affairs, ambitions, hopes, despairs and jealousies of the staff.— J. Arthur Rank, Great Britain

Intelligently handled, episodic medical drama always carries urgency at its core.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Tense emotional drama, sincere, intelligent.— Variety

But Not in Vain1952

Produced and directed byEdmond T. GrévilleBased on the play by Ben Van Esselstein

StarringRaymond LovellCarol Van DermanBruce LesterJulian Dallas


Produced by Dutch and British peace groups, But Not In Vain is an anti-war film laid during the autumn of 1944 in Amsterdam, where people are dying of starvation. A few find sanctuary at the farm of Jan Alting (Raymond Lovell), a man of great character and integrity, who hides victims of the Nazis. Divided by different creeds, ideals and politics, he and the refugees are united by their shared dangers. Now Alting faces the greatest decision of his life. His son Anton, whom he disowned for joining the Nazi militia, returns home to discover his father shelters “terrorists.” He orders his father to turn them out by dawn or he will have them all killed. If Anton lives, they will die. Alting loves his son, but he loves humanity more. His conscience fails him. What can he do? What must he do?— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain


196 British Cinema

“It captures the ghostly qualities of the tale and the exquisite beauties of Spanish settings and folkways.”

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman1951

Written, produced and directed byAlbert Lewin

Photographed byJack Cardiff

StarringJames MasonAva GardnerNigel PatrickJohn LauriePamela KellinoMarius Goring

126 minutes, Color

Painstakingly restored by The Rohauer Library in conjunction with The Film Foundation and The George Eastman House, this legendary film has been elevated to haute cult status and is available now for the first time in its original running time. Now you can see it as it was presented originally — a fascinating story in which the dead move among the living. The Dutchman lived in the 17th century but is not permitted to rest until he finds a woman who loves him enough to die for him. He meets the reincarnation of a woman from his dead past (Ava Gardner). They fall in love and the story progresses to a hair-raising reconciliation of past and present.— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Great Britain

Ornate, beautiful romantic fantasy.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Has a remote, almost ghostly quality — color photography of the Spanish settings are beautifully imprinted and the camera angles further the mood of the story.— Variety

Another Man’s Poison1951

Hotel Sahara1951

Mr. Drake’s Duck1951

The Fake1951



201 British Cinema

The Body Said No1954


Written byVal Guest

StarringMichael RennieYolande DonlanHy Hazell


In this comedy a cabaret artist sees on her television after the evening signoff a plot being discussed to murder Michael Rennie. Her friends are skeptical but she warns Rennie, and after adventures and investigations it turns out that she had seen a TV rehearsal.— Angel Productions, Great Britain

Albert R.N.1953

Directed byLewis Gilbert

Written byVernon HarrisBased on the play by Edward Sammis and Guy Morgan

StarringAnthony SteelJack WarnerRobert BeattyMichael Balfour

88 minutes, Sound, B&W

Based on the true story of British POWs who suspect there is a spy for the Germans in their midst after several escape attempts are foiled.— Eros Films Ltd., Great Britain

Runaway Bus1954


Written byVal Guest

StarringFrankie HowerdPetula ClarkMargaret Rutherford


Comedy thriller in which Howerd plays the hapless bus driver transporting a group of passengers to an alternate airport due to heavy fog. Unbeknownst to the coach operator, he is also hauling a fortune in stolen coin, as well as the criminal mastermind behind the heist.— Val Guest Productions, Great Britain

The Diamond(US: The Diamond Wizard)1954

Directed byMontgomery Tully

Written byJohn C. HigginsBased on the Collier’s magazine story, The Bowstring Murder, by Maurice Proctor


StarringDennis O’KeefeMargaret SheridanPhilip Friend


US Treasury investigator Dennis O’Keefe pursues a gang of thieves who stole a million dollars to England where they plan to buy up man-made diamonds to flood world jewelry markets.— Pendennis Films Ltd. /United Artists, Great Britain

Meaty yarn, impressive London backgrounds, interesting asides and slap-up finale.— Kine Weekly

Angela1955

Directed byDennis O’Keefe

Written byJonathan RixEdoardo AntonBased on a story by Steve Carruthers


Music byMario Nascimbene

StarringDennis O’KeefeRossano BrazziMara Lane


American Steve Catlett (Dennis O’Keefe) falls in love with Angela (Mara Lane), a young Italian woman, only to be implicated in her lover’s murder and nearly murdered by Angela’s violent husband, the brutal ex-convict Nino (Rossano Brazzi).— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Tense crime story, talented direction and performances, excellent photography.— Today’s Cinema

Well told story, first-rate acting, intriguing sex appeal, intelligent dialogue.— Daily Film Renter

The Sea Shall Not Have Them1954


Written byLewis GilbertVernon HarrisBased on the novel by John Harris

StarringMichael RedgraveDirk BogardeAnthony SteelNigel Patrick


A gritty tale set on the Noth Sea where four men are stranded in a rubber dinghy after their plane has been shot down. One is carrying secret plans that can help the fight against the Nazi attacks on British soil.— Eros Films Ltd., Great Britain

Before I Wake1955

Directed byAl Rogell

Produced byCharles LeedsAdapted from the novel by Hal Debrett

StarringJean KentMona FreemanMaxwell Reed


April Haddon (Mona Freeman) returns home to England after receiving word from her stepmother that her father has died in a boating accident and that her mother has died an alcoholic. Did they now?— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Strong melodrama, mystery, suspense, romance.— Today’s Cinema

Ingenious story, very good characterization, provocative title.— Kine Weekly

Thunderstorm1955

Directed byJohn Guillermin

Written by George St. GeorgeGeoffrey HomesBased on an original story by George St. George

Produced byBinnie Barnes

StarringCarlos ThompsonLinda Christian Charles Korvin


Marla (Linda Christian) is a doomed, beautiful unknown young woman who is rescued unconscious from a yacht by Diego, a young fisherman. Believing herself to be a presager of bad luck, she leaves the bewildered Diego to take a job at the hotel of the most influential and most hated man in the village; during the months that follow, Diego’s son is drowned during a thunderstorm and Diego is arrested for murder. When he is vindicated, Marla sails away, convinced she has brought Diego the same bad luck she brought to other men in her life who came to tragic ends. — Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Offbeat — leans towards the arty.— Variety



203 British Cinema

The Man in the Road1956


Written byGuy MorganBased on the novel He Was Found in the Road by Anthony Armstrong

Produced byCharles Leeds

StarringElla RainesDonald WolfitDerek FarrCyril Cusack


Soviet agents attempt to smuggle a British scientist out of a forbidding country sanatorium to behind the Iron Curtain. So begins a smooth espionage melodrama with colorful characters, ending in a spectacular climax.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Intriguing plot, attractive and capable cast, showman-like finale.— Kine Weekly

All accoutrements of the rollicking spy story with plenty of romantic interest and excellent comical playing by Cyril Cusack.— Daily Cinema

Windfall1955

Directed byHenry Cass

Written byJohn Gilling

Produced byRobert S. BakerMonty Berman

StarringLionel JeffriesJack WatlingArthur Lowe

64 minutes (24 fps), B&W

In this comedy Lionel Jeffries plays a shop assistant who finds a briefcase filled with cash, which his daughter’s boyfriend promptly steals.— Mid Century Film Productions Ltd., Great Britain

Guilty?1956

Directed byEdmond T. Gréville

Written byMaurice J. WilsonAdapted from the novel Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert


StarringDonald WolfitJohn JustinStephen MurrayNorman WoolandAndree DebarBarbara LaageFrank Villard


Vicki Martin (Andree Debar), heroine of the French Resistance, on trial at the Old Bailey, is framed for a murder she did not commit. French journalist Pierre Lemaire (Frank Villard) engages brilliant counselor Norman Wooland to slow up the court sessions while he and solicitor John Justin pursue investigations that will take them to France and proof of Martin’s innocence.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Popular crime fiction, attractive and competent cast, snappy asides, authentic backgrounds and arresting title.— Kine Weekly

Rollicking but well-constructed murder investigation. Highly recommended.— Daily Film Renter

At the Stroke of Nine1957


Written byTony O’GradyHarry BoothJon PeningtonBased on an original story by Tony O’Grady

Produced byHarry BoothMichael DeeleyJon Penington

StarringPatricia DaintonDermot WalshPatrick BarrStephen MurrayClifford Evans


Wanting to revenge his late father’s suicide as a result of smear publicity, a crazed concert pianist kidnaps ace Fleet Street reporter Patricia Dainton, holds her in a cellar, promising to kill her in five days’ time and forces her to write a daily story for her paper describing her ordeal.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Competently played, no padding and flowing pace. Interest sustained from start to finish.— Today’s Cinema

Suspenseful newspaper melodrama with powerful, uncluttered plot. First class entertainment.— Daily Film Renter

Face in the Night(US: Menace in the Night)1957


Written byNorman HudisBased on the novel Suspense by Bruce Graeme


StarringGriffith JonesLisa GastoniVincent BallEddie Byrne


A suspenseful tale of robbery and of a young witness afraid to go to the police out of fear of reprisals from the crooks.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Actionful yarn, virile and versatile team work, intriguing title.— Kine Weekly

Suspenseful mail van robbery murder drama, full of action, crisply directed. First-rate entertainment.— Daily Film Renter

No Road Back1957

Directed byMontgomery Tully

Written byCharles A. LeedsMontgomery TullyBased on the play by Falkland D. Cary and Philip Weathers

StarringSkip HomeierPaul CarpenterPatricia DaintonNorman WoolandMargaret RawlingsSean ConneryAlfie Bass


While Skip Homeier gets star billing, the real interest here is Sean Connery in his first picture — a crime melodrama about a blind and deaf woman (Margaret Rawlings) who fences jewels to send son Homeier to medical school. He returns home after graduation to find Mother plotting her greatest and final coup, with his fiancée mixed up in the affair as well. A man is killed and Homeier must save them from the hangman.— RKO Radio Pictures, Great Britain

Script develops a consistent degree of suspense — frequent use of sign language — intriguing.— Variety

Sail into Danger1957

Directed byRicardo GasconKenneth Hume

Written byKenneth HumeFrom his own original story


StarringDennis O’KeefeJames HayterKathleen Ryan


A boy from Barcelona who witnesses the theft of the sacred Madonna from the Cathedral tries to stop the thieves and later is found dead in the street. Skipper-owner and ex-smuggler Steve Ryman (Dennis O’Keefe) takes off after the criminals and gets more than he bargains for. Writer/ director Kenneth Hume died during the filming and O’Keefe took over as director.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Colorful Barcelona makes an interesting setting — there is an actionful climax. Dennis O’Keefe is always a good box office proposition.— Today’s Cinema

The Crowning Touch1957

Directed byDavid Eady

Written byMargot BennetBased on an original story by Cecily Finn and Joan O’Connor

StarringGreta GyntTed Ray


The tale of a hat. Diane Hart goes to buy it, is told it is not for sale and that the purchaser had never collected it. Over a birthday drink, she and her husband and a bachelor friend invent stories around it, only to find in the end that the truth is the simplest answer of all.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Entertaining, shrewdly contrasted tales, attractive cast, apt title, smoothly unfold against widely varied backgrounds.— Kine Weekly


204 British Cinema

“A thoroughly polished job of civilized homicide.”

Cast a Dark Shadow1955


Screenplay byJohn Cresswell

StarringDirk BogardeMargaret LockwoodKay Walsh


In this taut thriller Bogarde plays a scheming young man who uses his charm to wed an older wealthy woman. He stages her death to look accidental, but when he finds out that he will not be reaping financial reward from the death, he seeks out another victim.— Angel Productions, Great Britain

The British, who can make a fine art of murder on stage and screen, again have come through with a thoroughly polished job of civilized homicide in Cast a Dark Shadow.— The New York Times

Angela1955

The Sea Shall Not Have Them1954

Runaway Bus1954

Albert R.N.1953

Before I Wake1955

The Body Said No1954

At the Stroke of Nine1957

No Road Back1957

The Man in the Road1956



209 British Cinema

Broth of a Boy1958

Directed byGeorge Pollack

Written byPatrick KirwanBlanaid IrvineBased on the play The Big Birthday by Hugh Leonard

StarringBarry FitzgeraldJune ThorburnTony WrightHarry BroganDermot KellyThe Abbey Players


The delightfully droll Barry Fitzgerald stars in this gentle comedy about an elderly Irishman who, on his 100th birthday, is believed to be the oldest man in Europe. Unaware that Fitzgerald falsified his age years before in order to get a pension, TV producer Tony Randall (Tony Wright), eager to cover the event, can’t figure out why the old man wants to avoid publicity. Finally, after being caught poaching, Fitzgerald agrees to do the show in return for being let off. — British Lion/Britannia, Ireland

Palatable dose of Irish, lent sparkle by Fitzgerald.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

The Surgeon’s Knife1957

Directed byGordon Perry

Written byRobert WesterbyBased on the novel The Wicked Place by Ann Hocking


StarringDonald HoustonAdrienne CorriLyndon BrookSidney Tafler


Boy mental patient Alexander Waring (Donald Houston) grows up to be a surgeon. His anesthetist Dr. Hearne (Sidney Tafler) tries unsuccessfully to blackmail Dr. Waring for the death of a patient he believes Waring caused. What Hearne doesn’t know is that Dr. Waring plans to murder his way to the top of his profession and neither wives nor partners nor staff can stop him.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Strong crime melodrama of a highly talented surgeon who stops at nothing to get to the top. An excellent British production.— Daliy Film Renter

The Masterplan1957

Written and directed byHugh Raker

Produced byCharles LeedsAdapted from the story by Harold Bratt

StarringNorman WoolandWayne MorrisTilda Thamar


When evidence proves there is a security leak at NATO headquarters in Germany, charges of espionage and counter-espionage produce an impressive gallery of suspects from among the officers, their wives and sweethearts.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Well contrived script, mounting air of suspense, competent performances.— Daily Film Renter

Popular spy fare, intriguing title. The denouement is first-rate theatre.— Kine Weekly

In the Wake of a Stranger1958

Directed byDavid Eady

Written byJohn TullyBased on the novel by Ian S. Black

Produced byJon Penington

StarringShirley EatonTony WrightWilloughby Goddard


Drunken Irish seaman Tom Cassidy (Tony Wright) stumbles across the body of a murder victim in the night and, thinking the man a derelict, takes him to a refuge. Next day he can remember nothing of the incident, but discovers blood on his coat. The real murderers offer their “help” and try to frame Cassidy for the crime.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

The element of mystery is well sustained while the street and pub scenes have genuine local color.— Kine Weekly

The plot is largely enacted indoors but the murky dockland atmosphere is convincing. The tempo maintains interest and there is an action climax.— Daily Cinema

Sally’s Irish Rogue(US: The Poacher’s Daughter) 1958

Directed byGeorge Pollack

Written byPatrick KirwanBlanaid IrvineFrom the play The New Gossoon by George Shields

StarringJulie HarrisHarry BroganTim SeelyThe Abbey Players


Julie Harris is the lead in this wonderful movie with The Abbey Players. A young man (Tim Seely), more interested in motorcycles than in the farm he is about to inherit, breaks off with the girl (Harris) he has secretly promised to marry and goes off and gets himself involved with another one to the point that he finds himself caught between being sued for breach of promise on the one hand and a shotgun wedding on the other.— British Lion, Ireland

Directed with breezy blarney. Filmed near Dublin with pleasant Irish village scenery. Both Harris and Seely are excellent, but it is The Abbey Players who really matter. Harry Brogan has a field day as Miss Harris’ father, a wily poacher who, overplaying riotously, gives a gem of a performance.— Variety

Home Is the Hero1959

Directed byFielder Cook

Written byHarry KeatingBased on the play by Walter Macken

StarringArthur KennedyJoan O’HaraWalter MackenEileen CroweThe Abbey Players


When Paddo (Walter Macken), the “Goliath of Galway,” accidentally kills a man during a barroom brawl, he gets five years in the penitentiary, but his family must bear the brunt of his guilt. His wife becomes a charwoman, takes in boarders and develops a taste for stout; his son William (Kennedy), called “Hoppity” because of his damaged leg, loses his job and becomes apprenticed to a cobbler, while his shy sister wallows in self-pity as the daughter of a murderer. To Paddo’s drinking buddies, he’s a hero. To his wife he was a good provider who just happened to be standing in the wrong line when brains were handed out. On the fateful day when he is released from prison and comes home to pick up the pieces of his life, the conflicts in his life come into fascinating focus, for in his absence, things have changed. — British Lion, Ireland

Staged by The Abbey Players some years ago and later on Broadway, it’s even better in translation to the screen — excellent direction and some first-rate performances.— Variety

Jet Storm1959

Directed byCy Endfleld

Written byCy EndfieldSigmund Miller

Photographed byJack Hildyard

StarringRichard AttenboroughHermione BaddeleyMai ZetterlingDiane CilentoStanley BakerHarry SecombeVirginia MaskellElizabeth SellarsDame Sybil ThorndikeDavid Kossoff


The real first of the Airport pictures. An all-star cast and a suspenseful movie about a planeload of passengers enroute from London to New York who discover that one of their number (Attenborough) is mentally unbalanced. Believing a fellow passenger is the hit-and-run driver who killed his child, Attenborough has smuggled a bomb on board and intends to kill him. This is the original, full-length British cut of the picture.— British Lion, Great Britain

All-star cast — entertaining.— David Quinlan, British Sound Films

Nearly a Nasty Accident1959

Directed byDon Chaffey

Written byJack DaviesHugh WoodruffBased on the play Touch Wood by David Stringer and David Carr

Produced byBertram Ostrer

Music byKen Jones

StarringKenneth ConnorJimmy EdwardsShirley EatonRichard WattisRonnie Stevens


A throwback to the Carry On series, this comedy revolves around a one-man disaster area — a well-meaning, humble member of the RAF who becomes a figure of national importance when he turns up missing. It seems he is crazy about anything mechanical, extremely accident-prone and is costing the service a bundle. If he’s not found and quick, his shenanigans will bankrupt Her Majesty’s government. — British Lion/Britannia, Great Britain


210 British Cinema

“Brilliantly satirical.”

Expresso Bongo1959

Produced and directed byVal Guest

Written byWolf MankowitzBased on his play

Songs byDavid HenekerMonty Norman

StarringLaurence HarveySylvia SymsYolande DonlanCliff RichardWilfrid LawsonHermione Baddeley


This Fifties British classic is a fast-paced story about a cheap, opportunistic Soho talent agent (Harvey) who always looks for the quick buck. He’s glib and he’s flashy, a bluffer with a ready talent for the quick double-cross. When he picks up amateur singer and bongo player (Cliff Richard) in a Soho espresso bar, he uses a little bit of luck and tons of chutzpah to transform the kid into a highly-regarded international singing sensation. All is super. The boy loves his fame and Harvey takes half of the gate. Then the sweet scent of success attracts still hungrier sharks and Harvey winds up in the street.— British Lion, Great Britain


Script has pungency, wit and a sharp sense of observation. Fun — and a shrewd piece of social satire.— Variety



213 British Cinema

Part-Time Wife1961

Directed byMax Varnel

Written byM. M. McCormack

Produced byEdward J. and Harry Lee Danziger

StarringAnton RodgersNyree Dawn PorterKenneth J. Warren


British farce in which a womanizer convinces his friend to let him “borrow” his wife to pose as his own in order to impress his wealthy uncle.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

The Hands of Orlac(US: Hands of a Strangler)1960

Directed byEdmond T. Gréville

Written byEdmond T. GrévilleJohn BainesBased on the novel Les Mains d’Orlac by Maurice Renard

StarringMel FerrerDonald WolfitChristopher LeeDanny CarrelFelix AylmerBasil SydneyDonald Pleasence


The sound remake of Robert Wiene’s 1925 classic. Concert pianist Paul Orlac (Mel Ferrer) survives a plane crash and, while in the hospital, reads that the night of his accident, Vasseur The Strangler was executed. As in the original, hallucination and reality vie for control of Orlac’s mind as he becomes convinced that his hands are that of Vasseur, and he tries to strangle his fiancée. Christopher Lee plays the criminal who tries to blackmail him.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

A magnificent performance by Christopher Lee. Anything but a conventional horror film. Belongs to the tradition of the psychological chiller. It maintains tension right up to the completely unexpected ending.— Mike Parry, Castle of Frankenstein

Foxhole in Cairo1961

Directed byJohn Moxey

Written byLeonard MosleyBased on his novel The Cat and the Mice

Produced bySteven PallosDonald Taylor

StarringJames Robertson JusticePeter van EyckNeil McCallumAlbert LievenMichael Caine


Michael Caine’s first picture, a true story in which a German agent in Libya is allowed to get back to Rommel with false information that changes the outcome of the Battle of El Alamein.— An Omnia Production, Great Britain

The Daffodil Killer(US: The Devil’s Daffodil)1961

Directed byAkos Rathony

Written byBasil DawsonDonald TaylorBased on the story by Edgar Wallace

Produced bySteven PallosDonald Taylor

StarringChristopher LeeMarius GoringAlbert LievenPenelope HornerIngrid van Bergen


Scotland Yard joins forces with Hong Kong Airways Security to stop a series of macabre murders and the smuggling of drugs into Britain. Three girls, the last of them Chinese, are stabbed to death and left decorated with heroin-filled daffodils.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Two Stars.— Leonard Maltin

Jigsaw1962

Written, produced and directed byVal GuestBased on the play Sleep Long My Lovely by Hilary Waugh

StarringJack WarnerRonald LewisMichael Goodliffe


Val Guest whips up an absorbing and entertaining murder mystery about some Brighton policemen who track down the murderer of a woman whose body they find in a lonely beach house. — British Lion/Britannia/Figaro/Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

A first-rate detective thriller which has the authentic stamp of a documentary in its attention to detail. Plenty of red herrings keep the audience alert, and though (director) Guest resists the temptation to show the murderer at work and his subsequent cutting up of the body, he still provides the audience with plenty of excitement.— Variety

The Day the Earth Caught Fire1961

Produced and directed byVal Guest

Written byVal GuestWolf Mankowitz

StarringEdward JuddJanet MunroLeo McKernMichael GoodliffeArthur Christiansen


Told as if investigative reporters were covering the story, this classic science-fiction story opens as catastrophic weather disturbances crash across the globe, wiping out entire populations. Sensing that the disasters are related, the editor of the London Dally Express sets his best people to discover the cause and discovers that simultaneous US and Soviet nuclear tests have knocked the Earth from its orbit and the planet now is hurtling on a collision course with the sun.— British Lion/Pax, Great Britain



A model of expert movie-making, continuing and excruciatingly suspenseful. Better than On The Beach. — Hollis Alpert, Saturday Review

Mystery Submarine(US: Decoy)1962

Directed byC. M. Pennington

Written byBertram OstrerHugh WoodhouseJon Manchip White

Produced byBertram Ostrer

Music byClifton Parker

StarringEdward JuddJames Robertson JusticeLaurence Payne


A lone Nazi submarine, one of a wolf pack sent out to attack a British convoy, is captured, fitted out with a British crew and commander and ordered to rejoin the pack and then signal its position.— British Lion/Britannia, Great Britain

The City of the Dead(US: Horror Hotel)1962

Directed byJohn Moxey

Written byGeorge BaxtBased on a story by Milton Subotsky

StarringChristopher LeeDennis LotisBetta St. JohnPatricia Jessel


A great little chillier in which master horror star Christopher Lee stars as a college professor of demonology who heads a witch coven in his spare time. His unwary students go there to conduct research, only to become sacrificial victims.— British Lion/Amicus Production, Great Britain

American gothic. I played a professor at an American university, and a satanist at the same time. It really was a very good picture in many ways, insofar as it combined ancient superstition and ritual with modern American university life. It had very much the witch-haunted flavor of Lovecraft’s stories.— Christopher Lee, The Films of Christopher Lee



215 British Cinema

The Silent Playground1964

Written and directed byStanley Boulder

StarringRoland CurramBernard ArcherdJean AndersonEllen McIntoshJohn Ronque


British documentary filmmaker Stanley Boulder’s first feature picture — a taut thriller that captures the atmosphere of the London suburb and the plight of a mentally retarded youth who hands out downers to a bunch of kids waiting outside a movie theatre. By the end of the show, a number of children are found unconscious and are rushed to the hospital to fight for their lives, while the police try to track down the hapless youth.— A British Lion Release, Great Britain

A quality production which scores heavily against some of its loftier rivals. Never sensational or mawkish. Top level entertainment.— Variety

Code 7, Victim 51964

Directed byRobert Lynn

Written byPeter YeldhamBased on an original story by Peter Welbeck

Photographed byNicholas Roeg

StarringLex BarkerRonald FraserWalter RillaAnn Smyrner


This James Bond look-a-like is a hardy adventure film shot by Nicholas Roeg near Capetown, South Africa, with side trips into a fantastic cavern, ostrich farms, big game country and bathing beaches. Like the Bond pictures, the emphasis is on sex, violence and comedy, with Ronald Fraser as a womanizing police inspector who works with American private eye Lex Barker as they trail an assassin. Produced during the mid-Sixties, there are no references to Afrikaans or apartheid. In fact, except for the scenery, which is lush, the story could have taken place anywhere.— A Columbia Release, Great Britain

Enough action and scenic beauty to enable it to do well in the thriller market. Outstanding work from lesser known actors.— Variety

A Jolly Bad Fellow(US: They All Died Laughing)1964

Directed byRobert Hamer

Written byRobert HamerDonald TaylorBased on the novel Don Among the Dead Men by C.E. Vulliamy

Produced bySir Michael Balcon

Music byJohn Barry

StarringLeo McKernJanet MunroDennis PriceLeonard RossiterMaxine Audley


A droll comedy in the Ealing tradition in which university science professor Leo McKern discovers a formula that makes mice become hysterically happy before turning up their toes and dying. Since he believes that gossips, hypocrites and stuffed shirts are a greater menace to society than most major criminals, he sees his chance to get rid of them and does so hilariously.— British Lion/Pax Presentation, Great Britain

Has roots in Kind Hearts and Coronets with the same urbane flavor and mocking eye-lifting at the humorous side of murder.— Variety

Coast of Skeletons1965


Written byAnthony Scott VeitchFrom an original story by Peter Welbeck, inspired by Sanders of the River by Edgar Wallace

Produced byOliver Unger

StarringRichard ToddDale RobertsonHeinz DracheMarianne Koch


This grand British adventure tale has car chases, ships at sea, wonderful aerial photography, underwater shots, good guys, bad guys and a modicum of romance. Most of the action takes place in Africa. The picture was released in Germany as Sanders to take advantage of the German audience’s fondness for the Edgar Wallace stories on which the film is loosely based. — A Seven Arts Release, Great Britain

First-Rate.— Variety

Mozambique1965


Written and produced byH. A. Towers

StarringSteve CochranHildegard KnefMartin BensonVivi BachDietmar SchoenherrPaul Hubschmid


Down and out in Lisbon, black-listed pilot Brad Webster (Steve Cochran) is handed a one-way ticket to Mozambique and a job with a Colonel Valdez. Accompanied by Danish singer Ingrid (Hildegard Knef), Webster finds Valdez dead on their arrival and his partner, Da Silva, now in control. Soon he finds himself involved with Da Silva in drug smuggling and saves Ingrid from white slavery only to have Da Silva knifed during an emergency landing. How he traps the real villain and exonerates himself makes for gripping entertainment.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Naked Evil(US: The Obi)1965

Written and directed byStanley GoulderBased on the play The Obi by Jon Manchip

StarringAnthony AinleyBasil DignamSuzanne NeveRichard ColemanRoland Bridges

84 minutes, Multicolor

Voodoo grips an English town and only exorcism can save its people. Filmed in “MultiColor” (a process that looks not unlike the tinted footage from the days of the silent movies), Naked Evil is laid in a Midland town with a large West Indian population. A series of mysterious deaths occur and broken Obi’s (Jamaican death charms consisting of old bottles filled with dirt from a grave and trimmed with cockerel feathers) are always found with the bodies. The local academy is crawling with clues. Many students are fresh from Jamaica, a wizened old West Indian caretaker is caught with dead chickens in his room, and someone else at school has been pinching dirt from the nearby chapel cemetery. Who will be the next victim and why? — Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

The Day the Earth Caught Fire1961

A Jolly Bad Fellow1964

Naked Evil1965

Nearly a Nasty Accident1959

Code 7, Victim 51964

The City of the Dead1962

Foxhole in Cairo1961

Jigsaw1962

Coast of Skeletons1965

Foreign Classics


220 Foreign Classics Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

221 Foreign Classics

Death Day1933

Directed bySergei Eisenstein

Assisted byG. V. Alexandrov

Photographed byEduard Tisse

Produced bySol LesserUpton Sinclair


Constructed from footage shot for Eisenstein’s uncompleted Que Viva Mexico, Death Day celebrates Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” (a blend of the Christian All Souls Day and the Aztec Cult of the Dead) — a popular festival where candles are made up as skeletal death symbols. Notable for the superb photography of Eduard Tisse, the film stands alone or can be screened with Thunder Over Mexico.— The Mexican Film Trust, Mexico

Celebrates the Mexican Indians’ holiday of ‘calaveras’ in which the peon and the Indian, having suffered under bondage for so long, now show their contempt for death. The music is genuinely Mexican and bursting with the juices of life.— Herman G. Weinberg, Films In Review

Thunder Over Mexico1933

Directed bySergei Eisenstein

Produced bySol LesserUpton Sinclair

Photographed byEduard Tisse

Edited byHarry Chandlee

Music byHugo Riesenfeld

StarringA non-professional cast of Mexican villagersUpton Sinclair appears in the Prologue


Author Upton Sinclair borrowed heavily to finance a new movie to be made by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Que Viva Mexico was to portray the life of the common people of Mexico, but by the time Eisenstein had shot over 50 hours of footage, Sinclair’s money gave out and the Russians went home, leaving Sinclair holding the footage. Edited into Thunder Over Mexico, its absolutely stunning visuals make the film a must-see experience for anyone interested in seeing what a camera can do. The story concerns a poor Mexican peasant who witnesses the rape of his girlfriend at a hacienda by a guest of the landlord. He plans revenge, becomes a rebel and joins rebels against the feudal system in turn-of-the-century Mexico. When he and two friends are captured, they are trampled to death by horsemen in a gruesome execution photographed with such brutality and cruelty it lingers in the memory long after the film ends. Program Death Day with this picture. A two-reel short culled from what was to have been part of the epilogue, it deals with modern (1931–32) Mexico.— The Mexican Film Trust, Mexico

Grand photography.— Variety

Latin America and Spain

La Caida(US: The Fall aka Strange Guests)1958

Produced and directed byLeopoldo Torre Nilsson

Written byBeatriz GuidoLeopoldo Torre Nilsson

Photographed byAlberto Etchebehere

Music byJuan Carlos Paz

StarringElsa DanielDuilio MarziaLydia LamaisonCarlos Lopez Monet

86 minutes, 35mm, B&WSpanish/English subtitles

Torre Nilsson’s claustrophobic melodrama will give you the shivers. When a repressed young university student answers an ad for room and board in a town closer to school, she becomes enmeshed in a web of doom. Having been brought up in a strict Catholic home under the protective wing of her maiden aunt, Albertina cannot tell the difference between the fantasy that surrounds her and the reality it seeks to hide.— Argentine Sono Studios, Argentina

Combines the sexual tensions of an adolescent (Elsa Daniel) with the amorality of the four wild children whose governess she becomes. The director evokes with great force and conviction the film’s enclosed world with its strongly Cocteau-esque overtones.— Peter Cowie, Fifty Major Filmmakers

El Torero de Córdoba(US: The Death of Manolete)1958

SubjectManuel Rodriguez Manolete

18 minutes, 35mm, B&WSpanish/English subtitles

Manolete was perhaps the finest bullfighter ever produced by Spain. This remarkable documentary details the important events of his professional life including rare scenes from his private life and with shots taken immediately after his fatal goring and during his state funeral.— Noticiarios y Documentales Cinematográficos, Spain



“It takes really Buñuelian language to explain it.”

Tristana1970

Directed byLuis Buñuel

Written byLuis BuñuelJulio AlejandroBased on the novel by Benito Perez Galdos

StarringCatherine DeneuveFernando ReyFranco Nero

98 minutes, ColorSpanish with English subtitles or English dubbed

A rediscovered classic and one of the master’s best films. This feature is often called Buñuel’s most Spanish film and is more pure, more consistent, less ambiguous and more complex than his Viridiana. In one of her favorite films, Deneuve plays Tristana, a virginal young girl who goes to live with her guardian, Don Lope (Rey), an older man who eventually breaks through his facade of respectability and seduces her. She repays him a hundred-fold, preying on his jealousy and taunting him with perverse whimsies.— Pacific Film Archive— Época Films, Talia-Films, Spain

Academy Award Nomination: Best Foreign Film, 1970. Acclaim: Ten Best of the Year Award— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Ten Best of the Year — the quintessential Buñuel film of all time.— The New York Times




Dante’s Inferno1911

Directed byFrancesco BertoliniAdolfo Padovan

Based on the first part of the epic poem Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

StarringSalvatore PapaArturo PirovanoAugusto Milla


This opulent early Italian epic uses special effects and trick photography to dramatize the Milton literary work. By initiating a technique that Cecil B. DeMille was to find useful a couple of decades later, the filmmakers combine Sin and Salvation in the same picture to create a cathartic experience for the audience. Virgil takes Dante on a grand tour of Hell to visit famous sinners of the past. Consigned to various levels of Hell (as determined by the enormity of their sins), there they are, tormented by punishments appropriate to their transgressions.— Cines Studio, Italy

Though considered a ‘primitive,’ this early Italian spectacle is virtually a documentary of what Hell is all about, spelling it out and explaining it in far more detail than many of us might care to know. Some of the special effects are remarkably ingenious for that period.— William K. Everson

Julius Caesar1914

Directed byEnrico Guazzoni

Based on the play by William Shakespeare

StarringAmleto NovelliBruto CastellaniIrene Mattalia


Typical of the kind of silent spectacles for which the Italians became world famous. A lavish production on the life of Rome’s most honored general-ruler-philosopher.— Cines Studio, Italy

Compares favorably with the other Italian pictures that have been brought into the US. Traces the rise of Caesar through the intricacies and mazes of political intrigue and strife. The famous battle between the Romans and the Gauls is depleted in detail.— Variety

Italy and France

Le Golem(US: The Golem)1936

Directed byJulien Duvivier

Written byJulien DuvivierAndré Paul Antoine

Subtitles byMartin J. LewisHerman G. Weinberg

StarringHarry BaurRoger KarlFerdinand HartCharles DoratRaymond Aimos

95 minutes, 35mm, B&WFrench & Yiddish with English subtitles

This sound remake of the silent classic focuses on the mad Emperor Rudolf (Harry Baur) rather than on the monster that occupies so much footage of the 1915 Wegener film. Lavishly produced at Czechoslovakia’s A.B. Studios, the picture boasts an indoor jousting tournament and an authentic replica of the famous synagogue in Prague where much of the action occurs. When the Golem appears, he creates a movie climax that is both moving and magnificent.— United Artists, France/Czechoslovakia

Heady venture into fantasy. Duvivier imbues his extravagant material with the conscience of a nightmare. Photography is masterly as are the sets.— Anthony Slide, Ed., Selected Film Criticism

Le Puritaine(US: The Puritan)1938

Produced and directed byJeff MussoBased on a story by Liam O’Flaherty

Photographed byCurt Courant

StarringJean-Louis BarraultPierre FresnayViviane RomanceAlla DonellLudmilla Pitoeff

85 minutes, 35mm, B&WFrench with English subtitles

This French classic by Liam O’Flaherty (The Informer) bears close watching. Ferriter (Jean-Louis Barrault), a young religious fanatic and self-righteous newspaper reporter, tries to save a young girl from what he calls an immoral love affair. Outraged when he discovers she is just playing him along, he murders her and leads the police to believe that her lover did her in, telling everyone that her murder was an act of Divine Retribution. The police are not fooled, nor is his editor, who fires him. Failing to convince people that the murder was an act of God, Ferriter panics and finally brings about his own downfall.— Les Films Derby, France

Gripping entertainment. A psychological study of a morbid youth with a fanatical persecution complex. An exceptional film.— Variety

Ironic study in religious mania. Its moral: humans are not good enough to play God. A success with the critics in France, it was promptly banned in Poland and in author O’Flaherty’s native Ireland. Banned by New York’s State Board of Censors, temporarily held up by the Customs authorities.— Time

Le Baron Fantôme(US: The Phantom Baron)1943

Written and directed bySerge de Polgny

Dialogue byJean Cocteau

Photographed byRoger Hubert

Music byLouis Beydts

Gowns byChristian Dior

StarringJany HoltOdette JoyeuxAlain CunyGabrielle Dorziat


A great public success even during the dark days of World War II, Jean Cocteau’s Le Baron Fantôme is a surfeit of delights — an intricate puzzle that dares its audience to unravel it before the end and discourages comment at the same time that it invites it. Full of disguises and illusions, it is a ghost hunt that opens as the mysterious Baron vanishes from his own chateau. Everything is photographed in shadow and on a tilt to make things appear as out-of-time-and-place as possible. Characters who are fully identified remain unknowable and nothing is what it appears to be until the fairy tale ends with the words “once upon a time.”— Consortium de Production de Films, France

Extravagantly lovely, extravagantly romantic. Actors swirl in and out of character, and the romantic alignments shift subtly and often until the circumstances surrounding the Baron’s mysterious death are explained. It seems he deliberately sealed himself inside a cellar (his death was ‘somewhat Egyptian,’ someone remarks), and left behind a will that untangles the plot’s many questions of identity.— Janet Maslin, The New York Times

L’ Idiot (US: The Idiot)1946

Directed byGeorges Lampin

Produced bySacha Gordine

Written byCharles SpaakBased on the novel by Dostoevsky

Music byM. TherietV. de Butzov

StarringGérard PhilipeEdwige FeuillereMarguerite MorenoLucien Coedel SylvieNathalie Nattier


Considered to be the best film treatment of the Dostoevsky work, L’ Idiot is rich in detail and opulent sets and with a fine cast. It’s a poignant love story in which an artless and supposedly mad prince, whose childlike innocence enables him to see what others cannot, helps them face the realities of their lives. While he befriends the friendless, loves the loveless and helps the strong acknowledge their weaknesses, he ultimately cannot inspire faith sufficient to overcome human foibles. — Lux Compagnie Cinéma de France, France

Despite the fact that the film was produced in the midst of tremendous economic difficulties, Gordine portrayed it with lush-looking production accoutrements.— Variety

La Marie du Port1949

Directed byMarcel Carné

Produced bySacha Gordine

Written byMarcel CarnéLouis ChavanceBased on the novel by Georges Simenon

Photographed byHenri Alekan

Music byJoseph Kosma

StarringJean GabinBlanchette Brunoy


Old pro Jean Gabin plays a Cherbourg restaurateur and cinema owner who takes his mistress Odile home for her father’s funeral, only to fall in love with her younger sister Marie. Far more mature than her 18 years, Marie wants more out of life than Odile, for she wants not only security, but a husband as well. Gabin thinks marriage is a tie that binds so will have none of it. How the two circle each other warily and give in at last to l’amour et mariage. Creates truly wonderful screen entertainment.— Corona/Sasha Gordine, France

Gabin, aging but still dynamic, is excellent as the tight-lipped self-sufficient restaurateur who finds his values late in life. Carné directs in a firm and at times slow-paced manner. A well-made film that deals in adult emotions and should do well in art house and sure-seater situations. Combo of the pick of French technicians and actors gives the film an impressive technical polish.— Variety




Valkoinen Peura(US: The White Reindeer)1953

Written, directed and photographed byErik BlombergBased on a Finnish Legend

Music byEinar Englund

StarringMirjami KuosmanenKalervo NissiläÅke LindmanArvo Lehesmaa

75 minutes, 35mm, B&WFinnish with English subtitles

An ancient legend of Lapland tells of a cursed woman who is transformed into a white reindeer who wanders the snowfields of the Midnight Sun, luring all hunters who cross her path to their deaths. She cannot be stopped by bullets, but the spell is finally broken when her husband attacks and kills the white reindeer with cold steel. The exotic mood of romance, magic and myth about the beautiful Lapp girl who is both woman and witch so impressed the critics that it won Awards both at Cannes and Karlovy Vary. — Junior-Filmi, Finland

Awards: — Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film— Hollywood Foreign Press Association Gran Prix for Best Film Based on Legend— Cannes International Film Festival Critics’ Award— Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Finland and Sweden

Det Händer I Natt(US: It Happens Tonight aka Babes and Hoodlums)1952

Written and directed byArne Ragneborn

Presented byGustaf Hakim

StarringArne RagnebornIngrid ThulinLars Ekborg

74 minutes, 35mm, B&WSwedish with English subtitles

Ingmar Bergman star Ingrid Thulin lends her luminous beauty to this Fifties import about a cabaret singer (Thulin) whose brother Gunnar (Ragneborn) decides to rob a manufacturing plant. To find out how to circumvent the alarm systems, he gets himself engaged to the night watchman’s daughter, ascertains the size of his expected haul by shoehorning his sister into the bed of the factory accountant, and hires an ex-con drug addict to crack the safe. American movies couldn’t get away with plots that incorporated drug use or the kind of suggestive scenes and dialogue used here, so to American intellectuals, productions such as this one seemed sophisticated, urbane and adult by comparison. — Metronome Studios, Sweden

The Witch1955

Directed byRoland af Hällström

Written byMika WaltariBased on his play

Photography byElko Toryi

StarringMirja ManeToivo MäkeläHillevi Lagerstam

70 minutes, 35mm, B&WFinnish with English subtitles

The Witch is a Finnish gothic with roots in pre-Christian times with a strong undercurrent of the old-time magic and superstition in the tradition of the trolls and the elves that were a natural part of Scandinavian folklore. Based on the successful play by Finnish author Mika Waltari (The Egyptian). Its macabre tale revolves around a young woman, spurning the advances of the local Count is murdered by him and is buried with a stake driven through her heart to prevent her from returning to haunt the living. When a contemporary archeologist discovers her remains 300 years later, he ignores the protests of the villagers, pulls the stake from her heart and she is reincarnated as a saucy strumpet determined to wreak vengeance upon the Count’s descendants.

Contemporary audiences are unfailingly amused by the fact that the Fifties US Customs people would not let the picture into the country until the two or three long shots of the witch’s undraped breasts were inked out at the nipples. — Fennada-Filmi, Finland

Vicious Breed(aka No Time for Shame)1956

Written and directed byArne Ragneborn

Music byLes Baxter

StarringArne RagnebornMaj-Britt Lindholm

86 minutes, 35mmB&W, Swedish with English subtitles

Contemporary violence against gays was first exploited as a plot theme in this Swedish import starring writer-director Arne Ragneborn. Two male hustlers deliberately encourage the attentions of a gay man in a Stockholm park, notorious as a place for sexual assignations. They accept his advances and then murder him savagely.— Metronome Studios, Sweden

The crime wave that a 19-year-old boy embarks upon after he’s released from reform school shows Sweden, too, has its problems with juvenile delinquents. Aside from the story’s criminal aspects, there’s sex by the shovelful and a homosexual scene apparently tossed in for good measure.— Variety

The Scarlet Week1956

Written and directed byMatti Kassila

Photographed byOsmo Harkimo

StarringMatti OravistoGunvor SandkvistToivo Mäkelä


Torrid, bold, definitely titillating for Fifties audiences, this Swedish import bares all in its steamy story about Usko, a young laborer on weekend holiday who picks up a young married woman and spends the following week making love to her. By the end of the “scarlet” week, three lives are at risk.— Suomen Filmiteollisuus, Sweden

Assault!(aka Crime with Passion, We Are Guilty)1957

Written and directed byAarne Tarkas

StarringVeijo PasanenAino-Maija TikkanenPia Hattara


When Assault! hit the theatres in the late Fifties, the ads credited neither director nor stars, for the real interest was in the fact that US Customs had held the picture hostage for four months while officials decided whether or not American audiences might be allowed to see it. The problem was its controversial story. A young boy grows up in a sordid environment in which both parents indulge themselves in adulterous affairs. When the boy experiences his own sexual awakening, the results are catastrophic.— Fennada-Filmi, Sweden

The Flame(aka Girls Without Rooms) 1957

Written, produced and directed byArne Ragneborn

Subtitles bySeymour Stern

StarringCatrin WesterlundArne Ragneborn


The first film to portray prostitutes as people. The heroine is a beautiful intellectual young woman nicknamed “the flame” because she attracts men like moths to the flame. Arrested by the police and charged with corrupting society, she asks tartly, “How can I corrupt that which is already thoroughly corrupted? What ‘crime’ have I committed? I have robbed no one, injured no one, murdered no one.” The Flame reached American audiences amidst considerable controversy. Seymour Stern, author of The Griffith Index and authorized biographer of D. W. Griffith, saw a link between Griffith’s attack against Puritanism in Way Down East (1920), and the attack here against anti-sexual priggishness and puritanism of contemporary conservative society. — Metronome Studios, Sweden

Assault!1957

Death Day1933




Der Student von Prag(US: The Student of Prague)1913

Directed byStellan Rye

Written byPaul WegenerHanns Heinze Ewers

StarringPaul WegenerJohn GottowtLyda SalmonovaGrete BergerLothar Korner


Paul Wegener made this pioneering work with Hanns Ewers, borrowing from E.T.A. Hoffmann, the Faust legend and Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson.” It exploits the deepest of German fears: the deep and fearful concern with the foundations of one’s self. Here, Wegener and Ewers use the dramatic device of giving the protagonist a “doppelganger,” a double, who ultimately destroys him. Baldwin, a poor student in medieval Prague, is approached by the sorcerer Scapinelli who offers him wealth and power in exchange for his mirror reflection. The wizard then lures the reflection out of the looking-glass and transforms it into a real person who sets about to frustrate Baldwin at every turn. The reflection is Baldwin’s greedy self who threatens to destroy the good self it has betrayed. Finally, Baldwin chases the reflection to the attic where it first appeared, fires on it and kills only himself. Scapinelli returns, rips up their agreement and the pieces fall to cover Baldwin’s corpse.— Bioscop, Germany

By separating Baldwin from his reflection and making both face each other, Wegener’s film symbolizes a specific kind of split personality.Instead of being unaware of his own duality, the panic-stricken Baldwin realizes that he is in the grip of an antagonist who is nobody but himself — a dreamlike transcription of what the German middle class actually experienced in its relation to the feudal caste running Germany. The current phrase, “the two Germanys,” applied in particular to the differences between the ruling set and the

Germany middle class differences deeply resented by the latter, but they had to admit that they identified themselves with the very ruling class they opposed. They represented both Germanys.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

Carmen(US: Gypsy Blood)1918

Directed byErnst Lubitsch

Written byHans KralyNorbert FalkFrom the story by Prosper Merimee

StarringPola NegriHarry LiedtkeMagnus StifterFritz Richard


Of all those who have presented Carmen, Lubitsch alone follows the original story by having Don Jose tell the tale in flashback to a friend who visits him in prison.— Union-UFA Productions, Germany

Lubitsch’s first international screen hit for which Pola Negri was hailed as ‘Germany’s foremost screen actress.’ Sets were highly evocative of 19th-century Seville, the streets and corners of the Spanish town being cleverly conjured up with the barest of means. Realistically dirty gypsy hovels, wild craggy sierras through which the smugglers passed, the seething waterfront at Gibralter (especially striking in its composition); it was all there, done on the UFA backlot at Tempelhof.— Herman G. Weinberg, The Lubitsch Touch

Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari(US: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)1919

Directed byRobert Wiene

Produced byErich Pommer

Written byCarl MayerHans JanowitzEnglish intertitles from the original 1920 Goldwyn Pictures US release

StarringWerner KraussConrad VeidtLil DagoverFriedrich Feher

60 minutes (24 fps), 35mm, B&WSilent with Music and Effects Track

Caligari probably remains the ultimate expression of narrative through set design: even the exquisitely-chiseled face of Conrad Veidt seems cut to reflect the angled shadows and interiors through which he somnambulistically slips under the control of the evil Caligari. Der Sturm expressionist painters Rohrig and Reimann and the designer Hermann Warm contributed to the design. With roots in fantasy, romanticism, and medieval stories, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is also intensely modern, and like the best science-fiction carries a warning for the future. Its chilling tale of mind control and murder was written by Janowitz and Mayer out of a shared hatred for militarism and authoritarianism. A decade before Hitler’s rise, the fictional Caligari wrote in his diary: ‘Now I shall be able to prove whether a somnambulist can be compelled to do things he would never do himself and would abhor doing, whether it is true that one in a trance can be driven to murder.’ A Prologue attached at the insistence of producer Erich Pommer helped to re-route Janowitz and Mayer’s charged political themes into a psychological (and pseudo-scientific) tale of personal madness.— Pacific Film Archive— Decla-Bioscop, Germany

Four Star.— Leslie Halliwell

Awards: One of the 12 Most Important Films of All Time— Critics Prize, Brussels World’s Fair, 1958

Caligari embodies the tendency of the German war government to use its unlimited authority to idolize power as such, and to satisfy its lust for domination, to violate all human rights and values ruthlessly. Functioning as a mere instrument, Cesare is not so much a guilty murderer as Caligari’s ‘innocent victim.’ He symbolizes the common man who, under the pressure of compulsory military service, is trained to kill and to be killed. In the end, reason overpowers unreasonable power, insane authority is symbolically abolished.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

Genuine(US: A Tale of a Vampire)1920

Directed byDr. Robert Wiene

Written byCarl Mayer

Designed byCesare Klein

StarringFern AndraErnst GronauHarald PaulsenAlbert BennefeldJohn GottowtHans Heinrich von Twardowski


Robert Wiene made this second expressionist film in 1920 to cash in on Caligari’s success the year before. An elaborate fantasy in which an exuberant decor competes with a bizarre story, it marks the turning point thematically for writer Mayer as he turns his attentions from the “tyrant” films to the “instinct” films that emphasize the surge of disorderly lusts and impulses in a chaotic world. Genuine, a sanguinary priestess for sale in an Oriental slave market, is bought by a strange old man (Gronau), who jealously confines her in a sort of glass cage inaccessible to visitors. But Genuine lures a young barber into cutting the old man’s throat and freeing her, after which she becomes a supervamp who preys on all the men around her. — Decla-Bioscop, Germany

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (US: The Golem)1920

Directed byPaul WegenerCarl Boese

Written byPaul WegenerHenrik Galeen

Photographed byKarl FreundGuido Seeber

Art Direction byHans Poelig

StarringPaul WegenerAlbert SteinruckErnst Deutsch


An ancient cabalistic legend tells of a rabbi in 16th century Prague who took clay and fashioned it into an avenging giant “without a soul” to defend his people from the pograms. Of the five filmed versions of the story, Leslie Halliwell votes this one the best. “Its splendid sets, performances and certain scenes all being clearly influential to later Hollywood films, especially Frankenstein.”— UFA, Germany


The ghetto is a dream-like maze of crooked streets and stooped houses. Here reason avails itself of brute force (the Golem) to liberate the oppressed.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

A masterpiece. The legend is presented with a sweep and a sincerity of purpose that thrills and amazes. It is, racially, Jewish; artistically it is international. A picture that is a credit to the screen.— Photoplay

Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari1919

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam1920




Othello1922

Directed byDimitri BuchowetzkiBased on the play by William Shakespeare

StarringEmil JanningsWerner KraussLya De Putti


Like Feodor Ozep, director Dimitri Buchowetzki left Russia after the Revolution to make films in Germany. He used the Shakespearean tragedy to explore a popular theme of the day — how the evil in a single man can affect the lives of everyone around him. Othello (Jannings) is the Moorish commander of the armed forces of Venice who marries Desdemona, daughter of a local political leader. Iago (Krauss), an ensign under Othello’s command, is angered when he is passed up for a promotion, and takes his revenge by convincing Othello that Desdemona has been unfaithful. Without waiting for proof, the enraged Othello strangles her, and upon discovering Iago’s treachery, plunges a dagger into his own heart in remorse. — UFA, Germany

A triumph. The Moor of Emil Jannings is a superb piece of acting. Nothing was spared to make the sets stupendous.— Variety

Schatten — Eine nächtliche Halluzination (US: Warning Shadows — A Nocturnal Hallucination)1922

Directed byArthur RobisonAdapted from an idea by Albin Grau

Photographed byFritz Arno Wagner

StarringFritz Kortner


A rare and rarely seen film, Warning Shadows belongs to the “instinct” as opposed to the “tyrant” school of filmmaking as outlined by Siegfried Kracauer. It resembles Carl Mayer’s screen poems in that it involves nameless characters in an almost titleless narration. Similar to Pabst’s Secrets Of A Soul, it is concerned with a mentally unbalanced character cured by psychoanalytical or, in this case, quasi-psychoanalytical methods. While the Pabst film investigates its character with detachment, Robison’s expressive screen fantasy fairly quivers with excitement.The film opens as a jealous Count sees his wife more than respond to the blandishments of another character known as The Lover. A passing juggler asks to perform shadow plays, but senses in the course of his performances impending doom. He removes the shadows cast by those seated at the table, hypnotizes them and, in their trances, they act out the events dictated by their rising passions: the Count forces his guests to stab his fettered wife and the guests throw the Count out of the window. When the shadows return to the hypnotized party, they awaken from their nightmare and, freed from their obsessions by their new apprehensions, they are cured. The Count becomes a composed adult, his wife a loving spouse, and the Lover takes his leave. — Germany

Phantom1922

Directed byFriedrich W. MurnauBased on the novel by Gerhard Hauptmann

StarringAlfred AbelFrieda RichardHans Heinrich von TwardowskiLil DagoverAud Egede-NissenLya De Putti


The story of a man destroyed by a phantom — his own dreams of glory. Egged on by the flattery of his friends, Lorenze (Alfred Abel) begins to take himself seriously. He comes to believe that he is a great poet and that by publishing his works he will become wealthy. On the strength of that, he borrows a great sum of money from a rich relative and then foolishly fritters it away. When no publisher will touch his poems, he is unable to repay the money and goes to jail, a broken man.— Uco-Decla-Bioscop, Germany

Murnau was fascinated by the motif of the character who breaks away from the social conventions to grasp life, but the conventions prove stronger than the rebel and force him either into submission or suicide.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari To Hitler

Among the masterpieces of the German screen, Warning Shadows passed almost unnoticed. Contemporaries may have felt that any acknowledgement of the healthy shock effect of reason was bound to result in an adjustment to the ways of democracy.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

Magical and magnificent.— Variety

Die Straße(US: The Street)1923

Written and directed byKarl Grune

StarringEugen KlöpferLucie HöflichAud Egede-NissenLeonhard HaskelAnton EdthoferMax Schreck

90 minutes (24 fps) 35mmSilent with Music Track, B&W

Eugen Klöpfer plays a drab but pompous little nonentity, hopelessly mired in mediocrity and an ordinary marriage. As he looks out onto the busy city outside, it begins to symbolize for him all the thrills and adventures he is missing. Unable to endure the uncertainty any longer, he ventures forth into the thoroughfare. The reality of the experience sobers him. At first his own daring makes him dizzy with excitement, but then he discovers there are actually no adventures of any consequence to be had on the outside, so he returns to the warmth and comfort of his family.— UFA, Germany

A nonpolitical avant-garde film with psychological roots in the films of Carl Mayer and the genuine expressionist films. Director Karl Grune, a former Reinhardt disciple, told how he happened to discover the cinema. He lived for years among foreign soldiers, but instead of learning their language, he simply watched their gestures and faces so as to become familiar with their intentions. His experiences aroused his desire to develop on the screen a pictorial language as communicative as the spoken one. This may help explain why The Street, made completely without titles, was particularly rich in significant pictures. It ingratiated itself with a rather broad public composed mainly of intellectuals.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett(US: Waxworks)1924

Directed and designed byPaul Leni

Written byHenrik Galeen

Photographed byHelmar Lerski

StarringWilhelm DieterleEmil JanningsConrad VeidtWerner KraussOlga BelajeffJohn GottowtErnst Legal


Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt star in this classic of German Expressionism, set like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, in a fairground atmosphere where strange possibilities abound. A starving poet, asked to write about the figures in the fantastic waxworks, invents four portraits of cruelty. His subjects are Harun-al-Rashid (Jannings), Jack the Ripper (Krauss), Ivan the Terrible (Veidt) and Rinaldo Rinaldini (Dieterle). The film is visually striking, with tortured sets and ingenious lighting effects. — Neptune-Film, Germany

Leni developed a decor which, in its attempt to create a fantastic atmosphere, borrowed much from expressionism — episodes seize upon types of tyrants haunting a bygone period. The Jack the Ripper episode arouses suspicion that Jack and his confreres are not merely figures of the past but tyrants still among us. The poet and the girl hurry past the constantly circling merry-go-round, while Jack the Ripper himself, Caligari and Cesare in one, pursues them on miraculous dream paths, hovering through a gigantic Ferris wheel that also turns without pause.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler

Die freudlose Gasse(UK: The Joyless Street US: Streets of Sorrow)1925

Directed byG. W. Pabst

Written byWilly Haas

StarringGreta GarboAsta NielsenWerner Krauss


The film that marked the change in German cinema from Expressionism to Realism and rocketed both G. W. Pabst and Greta Garbo to international fame. It examines the lives of people living in Vienna after World War I and what happens to them after Kaiser Wilhelm’s defeat and the economic and social orders disintegrate. — Sofar-Film-Produktion, Germany

Contrasts tough profiteers and destitute middle-class people; expensive restaurants sparkling with light and dim-lit homes visited by hunger; noisy effervescence and silent withdrawal into sadness. Elaborates upon the interrelationship between enforced economic decay of the middle class and the selling-out of its moral values.— Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari To Hitler



Vampyr(Germany: Der Traum des Allan Gray, US: The Strange Adventures of David Gray) 1931

Directed byCarl Theodor Dreyer

Written by Dreyer and Christen JulBased on Carmilla, from In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu

Produced byBaron Nicolas de Gunzburg(aka Julian West)

Photographed byRudolph MateKarl Freund

Music byWolfgang Zeller

English subtitles byHerman G. Weinberg

This strange, unique film is the supreme example of horror sensed rather than seen, evil suggested rather than exposed. The story concerns a young man, David Gray, who comes to spend a night in a lonely inn. The location is vague but has a somewhat Swiss or Austrian (Transylvanian?) character. In the middle of the night, a weird, non-dark, creeping night, a stranger slips into his room and gives him a parcel, telling him to open it should the stranger die. No outline of the vague, deliberately confused story can convey anything of the extraordinary atmosphere engendered by Vampyr. The conventional trappings of horror are not displayed, except in one or two incidents; all else is done by hints and suggestions. Shadows have apparently no solid counterparts. Weird unexplained sounds are heard, such as barking dogs and crying children, where none exist; characters move and disappear without reason or motive; at any moment, one feels buildings and persons are liable to dissolve into mist. Only evil itself is real — and that is invisible.— Ivan Butler, The Horror Film— Tobis Klangfilm, Germany/France

Preys upon our subconscious, our unformulated fears: the mood is mystical, evocative, dreamy, spectral. Dreyer has no need for paper-mache monsters, he achieves his effects by means of the camera. Psychological surprise, dread and obsession are the substance of the film: death hovers over everyone.— Pauline Kael, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Vampyr and Gertrud have become increasingly recognized as the most nearly flawless pearls Dreyer created.— Richard Roud, Ed., Film: A Critical Dictionary

StarringJulian West (the stage name of Baron Nicolas de Gunzberg)Henrietta GerardJan HieronimkoMaurice SchutzRena MandelSybille Schmitz

70 minutes35mm, B&W, German/English subtitles

Olympia I & II1936–38

Produced, directed and edited byLeni Riefenstahl

Photographed byWilly ZielkeHans ErtlGuzzi LantschnerWalter Frentz

Music byHerbert Windt

Olympla I: 120 minutesOlympia II: 85 minutesDiving Sequences: 5 minutes

B&W, English

The best sports film ever made — a magnificent film documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Commissioned by Hitler, given unlimited funding and a fair amount of artistic freedom, Riefenstahl and her crew use equipment ranging from small Leicas to huge telescopic cameras mounted on every kind of apparatus and shooting from every angle conceivable. The poetic editing makes every event a thing of unforgettable beauty. Part I includes the carrying of the torch from Olympia to Berlin and track and field events starring America’s Jesse Owens. Part II includes gymnastic and aquatic events, sailing and rowing, equestrian events, bicycling and the decathlon events. The Diving Sequences are available also alone as a short film.— Olympic Film GmbH, Germany


Only incidentally a record of the actual games… shots were selected for their beauty rather than for a documentary record.— Pauline Kael, Kiss Bang Bang

The Great British Train Robbery1967

Directed byJohn OldenClaus Peter Witt

Story screenplay byHenry Kolarz

Photographed byGerald Gibbs

StarringHorst TappertHans CossyGunther Neutze

104 minutes, 35mm, B&WDubbed in English

The most spectacular robbery in the annals of crime, the robbery of an English Royal Mail Train on August 8, 1963, involving the theft of seven million dollars, has been dramatically recreated in this exciting film. The train, which leaves Glasgow, Scotland every evening and is due to arrive early the next morning in London, is stopped by a hooded gang thirty miles short of its destination. The planning of the crime is done almost in documentary fashion, but the high point is the robbery itself when the train is boarded and the daring, criminal blueprint becomes a reality. — Pendennis Films Ltd., Germany


Remarkably well constructed — have rightfully followed a semi-documentary style. Gerald Gibbs’ crisp black-and-white photography has a well-made newsreel quality about it. The English soundtrack, whether dubbed or post-synchronized, is excellent.— Variety

Olympia I & II1936–38

The Great British Train Robbery1967

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett1924

Vampyr1931

Avant-Garde: France


242 Avant-Garde: France

Le Voyage dans la Lune(US: A Trip to the Moon)1902

Written, produced and directed byGeorges Méliès


Georges Méliès’ landmark film uses special effects and fantastic sets to fool turn-of-the-century audiences into believing they were seeing a manned space voyage. The prints have been step-printed to simulate 18 fps. — Star Films, Paris, France

Méliès created a whole unique and peculiar universe. He made images of this world as well as of lands of fairies and witches and demons. He recreated the present. He recreated the past. He created the future in Le Voyage dans la Lune. He himself painted every house and every tree and every leaf.— Davld Robinson, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The Magic of Méliès1903–04

Written, produced and directed byGeorges Méliès


As early as 1896 the trick films of French magician/filmmaker Georges Méliès were being shown on a regular basis at New York’s Eden Musée. Here are three such films: Jupiter’s Thunderbolts (1903), in which old Zeus tries in vain to get a handful of thunderbolts to behave themselves instead of blowing up Olympus; The Mermaid (1904), in which a magician changes a fish swimming in an aquarium into a mermaid and then into a normal woman; a magician constructs The Magic Lantern (1903) from bits and pieces and projects movies onto a wall to produce real dancing girls out of thin air.— Star Films, France

Georges Méliès

Le Voyage dans la Lune1902



Le Ballet Mécanique1924

Directed byFernand Léger

Photography byDudley Murphy

10 minutes (24 fps) 35mm, B&W

One of the key films of the avant-garde movement, Le Ballet Mécanique, anticipates later Surrealist films and is Cubist painter Fernand Léger’s only film. It is the first completely abstract film to be photographed (as opposed to the drawn abstractions of Richter and Eggeling). Léger’s objects flash onto the screen with no logic or order to them; there is no theme, and if any thought-associations link them they are certainly not the obvious ones of Man Ray’s L’Étoile de mer. Léger lit his objects with highly contrasting light and shadow, to ‘reveal their personality.’ His adherence to Cubism can be seen in his angular fragmentation and multiplication of images.— David Curtis, Experimental Cinema, France

One of the most influential works in the history of experimental film.— American Film Institute

Fernand Léger



246 Avant-Garde: France Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library


The Dimitri Kirsanoff Collection1924–54


The films of Dimitri Kirsanoff are still largely unknown in the United States. He was a Russian émigré who went to Paris to study music in 1919. There he became interested in film and in 1923 made L’ironie du destin. Unfortunately, no prints survive. While isolated from the contemporary French avant-garde filmmakers, many of his own films are remarkably similar, indeed, superior in their techniques. Prior to his death in 1957, he produced a number of shorts and two features. He nearly always worked alone and, in the early films, his elaborate dissolves and montages were made in the camera itself. The stories were simple, a framework for the poetic images. Following are four of his most important and his own favorite works. — France

Ménilmontant1924

Written, produced and directed byDimitri Kirsanoff

Photography byLéonce CrouanDimitri Kirsanoff

StarringNadia SibirskaïaYolande BeaulieuGuy Belmont

25 minutes (24 fps), 35mm

Often called “the nearly perfect film,” Ménilmontant is told without titles, uses natural sets and is filmed with a handheld camera. In it, Kirsanoff presages both Russian montage techniques and the style of the Italian neo-realists. Nadia Sibirskaïa is the woman. — France

A masterpiece of its genre. The film opens with a violent ax murder, shown in a succession of fragmented images lasting less than one minute. Shots of the murderer: his hands, his arms dealing the blows; the murder weapon, striking, swinging again, dropping; the faces of the man and woman attacked, horror struck, falling lifeless, are intercut in an original and intuitive montage, which owes nothing to the Russian achievements of the same year, e.g., Strike, Potemkin. The story develops to show the blighting effect of the murder on the girl and her sister as they grow up. It is told with an economy rare in the silent film: whenever possible the action is telescoped to indicate only the essentials. Ménilmontant was premiered at Le Vieux Columbier and enjoyed immediate popular success.—David Curtis, Experimental Cinema

Dimitri Kirsanoff

Brumes d’ Automne(US: Autumn Mist)1928

Written, produced and directed byDimitri Kirsanoff

Photography byJean de Miéville

StarringNadia Sibirskaïa

12 minutes (24 fps), 35mm

Almost a poem dedicated to Nadia Sibirskaïa’s face, the film conveys a single mood throughout. A woman recalls her past. As she burns some old letters, her memories are shown on the screen. Outside it is raining, leaves drop from trees and the landscape is distorted as it reflects in pools of water. The delicate photography makes a subtle essay in atmosphere.— Mentor-Film, France

Arrière-Saison(US: The End of Autumn) 1952

Directed byDimitri Kirsanoff

Photography byAndré Costey

Music byArthur Hoérée

StarringGilliane SarnoPierre Lobreau

17 minutes, 35mm

As in Autumn Mist, a mood of quiet is sustained as a woman leaves a lonely and boring life with her woodcutter husband, only to return after one day. The entire sound-track consists of music, with the exception of a few seconds when the woman returns. As she reaches the door, the music stops and the axes and shouts of the woodcutters are heard in the background.

La Mort du Cerf(US: The Death of the Stag)1954

Directed byDimitri Kirsanoff

Music byMaurice Thiriet

14 minutes, 35mm

Kirsanoff was commissioned to do this film, which takes a satiric look at a conventional stag hunt. The film begins and ends with impressions of old prints of the hunt, then follows the frenzied chase, contrasting the grace and elegance of the stag with its pursuers. Suddenly the music stops, the stag standing still is surrounded by the dogs; a shot rings out and the stag falls. The music begins, building to a climax of hunting horns as the stag is dragged ignominiously behind a tractor, slaughtered and its carcass left to the dogs while ladies munch their sandwiches.

Romance Sentimentale1930

Written and directed bySergei EisensteinG. V. Alexandrov

Produced byVicomte de Noailles

Photographed byEduard Tisee

StarringMara Griy


Eisenstein’s first sound film, shot in Paris, built around an old Russian love song sung by the wife of the man who commissioned the film. The song is paralleled by an intercutting of shots of nature, beginning with a storm at dusk, dissolving into a moody rain at night, and jubilantly bursting through the next morning’s daybreak in the resplendent sunlight. The black grand piano the singer played now is a white one. Her sadness is now joy and no longer is she in that closed-in chateau, but out in the open in a field rapturous with grain swaying heavily in the wind as the song ends.— Herman G. Weinberg, France

Sergei Eisenstein

Brumes d’ Automne1928



250 Avant-Garde: France Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library


Retour à la Raison(US: Return to Reason)1923

Produced and directed byMan Ray

StarringKiki of Montparnasse

2 minutes, 35mm

The surviving fragment of Man Ray’s first “underground” film produced in France. Using animated “Ray-O-Grams,” which allow the direct registration of objects onto film by physically placing them on the photographic surface and exposing them to light, Ray produces surreal imagery through an inconsequential assemblage of Ray-O-Gram images (nails, springs, etc.) intercut with shots of his Dada mobiles and strips of film with nude torsos printed on them (which in projection appear as a kind of superimposition). First exhibited for a special Dada evening entitled “Soirée du Cœur à Barbe” (Evening of the Bearded Heart) at the Theâtre Michel.

Man Ray

Emak Bakia(US: Leave Me Alone)1926

Written and directed byMan Ray

StarringKiki of MontparnasseJacques Rigaut

13 minutes, 35mm

Ray said he made this one in strict conformity with Surrealist principles. It opens with a series of apparently unrelated shots: grain on film; flowers moving; drawing pins in negative; points of light out of focus, which order themselves into lines; a sign writer spelling out incomplete sentences; a prism reflecting bars of light rotating at different speeds; car headlights with a huge single eye superimposed over the radiator between them: it blinks; and so on. As the film progresses the car theme becomes dominant; the driver wears goggles (which mimic the car’s headlights). There follows a series of conventional shots of the car driving down an avenue, intercut with close-ups of sheep (in complete tonal contrast). The car stops — a woman’s legs are seen getting out — the shot is repeated three times, the fourth time it fades and is replaced by a stepped superimposition of all four shots, one following closely on the other. Individual images are striking for their humor and originality, but Ray still apparently felt it necessary to impose a conventionally readable theme — the car ride — to hold the film together.

L’Etoile de Mer(US: Star of the Sea)1928

Produced and directed byMan Ray

StarringKiki of MontparnasseAndré de la RivièreRobert Desnos

12 minutes, 35mm

A more integrated and consciously surrealistic work inspired by Robert Desnos’ poem. A love affair thematically unites the whole film. The images are more obviously linked by (sexual) association: a collapsing factory chimney; starfish tentacles; a newspaper blowing in the wind; the view from a speeding train; a montage of a liner nudging its dock; its funnels; New York’s foggy skyline. Recurring shots show the woman naked in bed (through frosted glass) and the film’s central metaphor: the starfish. Desnos’ poem appears as a series of interrupting ironic titles. Kiki, the famous Parisian model of the day, is the woman.

Les Mystères du Château de Dé(US: The Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice)1929

Written and directed byMan Ray

Produced byLe Vicomte de Noailles

Photography byMan RayJ. A. Boiffard

StarringGeorges AuricLe Comte de BeaumontLe Vicomte de NoaillesMarie-Laure de Noailles

16 minutes, 35mm

The Vicomte de Noailles, who later funded Buñuel’s L’Âge d’or and Cocteau’s Le Sang d’un Poète, sponsored this last Man Ray film. It reverts to the anecdotal. Man Ray and J. A. Boiffard explore an art connoisseur’s ‘modem’ chateau and construct a number of visual jokes around it. Strips of film are shown backwards and in negative; people play strange games on the lawn, kicking around two giant dice in an allusion to ‘chance procedures.’ The film is measured by disorienting shots of an empty landscape.



La Glace à Trois Faces(US: The Three-Panelled Mirror)1927

Produced and directed byJean Epstein

Narrated byJean-Pierre Aumont

StarringSuzy PiersonJeanne HelblingOlga DayRené Ferté

33 minutes (24 fps), 35mm, Silent with Music Track/Narration, B&W

Premiering at the Studio des Ursulines in November, 1927, La Glace à Trois Faces was one of the first narrative films produced exclusively for and distributed through the circuit of specialized alternate cinemas and film clubs that originated in France and then spread throughout Europe. A bold departure from the films that Epstein made with the Pathe-Consortium or the string of commercial successes he made during his two years with Films Albatros, La Glace marked a return to the experimentation that had marked his earliest films. In it he manages to tell seven different stories by means of the most complicated film narrative structure of the Twenties.— Les Films Marie Epstein, France

Employs virtually all that Epstein had developed in strategies and techniques over his five years of filmmaking. Consequently, Noel Burch and Jean-André Fieschi have argued, La Glace represents a culmination of much of the narrative avant-garde film practices and clearly anticipates the later films of Alain Renais.— Richard Abel, French Cinema

La Chute de la Maison D’Usher(US: The Fall of the House of Usher)1928

Written and directed byJean EpsteinAn amalgam of The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeia, Berenice, Silence, Man of the Crowd and The Oval Portrait by Edgar Allan Poe

Art direction byPierre Kefer

StarringMarguerite GanceJean Debucourt

55 minutes (24 fps), 35mm, Silent with Music Track/Narration by Jean-Pierre Aumont, B&W

Low-key photography, slow-motion and what some critics called Caligari-esque sets create an atmosphere of doom in this famous avant-garde expressionist film. Luis Bunuel worked with Jean Epstein on this one just before shocking the avant-garde world with Un Chien Andalou. As Roderick Usher paints his wife’s portrait, she (Marguerite Gance, wife of French director Abel Gance) succumbs steadily to an unknown malady. Thought to have died, she is buried alive, but returns from the dead to set the house ablaze. The newly restored prints have been step-printed from a new negative constructed by Marie Epstein.— Les Films Marie Epstein, France

A classic of the early avant-garde cinema and a vindication of Epstein’s commitment, not to the excitement, but to the visual potential of cinema as a medium of beauty rather than of storytelling.— The New York Times

Unconventional as ever and unusually sophisticated, Usher represents a kind of culmination of Epstein’s work. Much of the film is visually saturated with an eerie light; the relationship between images is complex. — Richard Abel, French Cinema

Jean Epstein

Le Tempestaire1947

Written and directed byJean Epstein

Photographed byMilton Schneider

23 minutes, 35mm French with English subtitles, B&W

A poetic tale of the sea in which a young woman prevails upon a wise old man to calm the storms that threaten her man’s safety as he fishes for sardines.— Jean Epstein Films, France

Striking in its profound poetry, its human quality and the exquisite balance of its composition. It is a daring work in the sense that it tries not at all to please, and that in it experiments were attempted that have been awaited for more than 20 years.— Henri Langlois, Cinémathèque Française

Sound, or rather the changes wrought in film aesthetics by the mass production of sound, put an end to (Epstein’s) creative drive. Not until 1947, with Le Tempestaire, was there a revival of the ambitions so long repressed: here the slow-motion soundtrack suggests — almost to the point of caricature — a voice in exile, ghostly, testamentary, imprisoned in old phantasms in search of embodiment.— Richard Roud, Ed., Film: A Critical Dictionary

La Glace à Trois Faces1927



60 Minutes de la Vie Intérieure d’un Homme(US: Closed Vision)1954

Produced, written and directed byMarc’O

Photo-montage and art byPoucette

70 minutes, 35mm, B&W, Dubbed in English

Screened out-of-competition at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival, this French film was hailed by the French news media as the most important avant-garde film since Jean Cocteau’s La Sange d’un Poète. Appropriately, Cocteau himself presented it. Surreal in its exposition, it expresses itself with “stream of consciousness” techniques as it investigates 60 Minutes of the Inner Life of Man. A man strolls down a beach and the film spins a scenario in sight and sound, singly and in combination (just as one’s own mind partitions sound and visuals, treating them separately or together) to create a complete monologue made up from the association of ideas and the way external realities affect them. Probably baffling to ordinary audiences, it is a wonderful example of avant-garde film making and is open to as many interpretations as there are to those who see it. — France

Marc’O

60 Minutes de la Vie Intérieure d’un Homme1954

Avant-Garde: US


258 Avant-Garde: US Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

259 Avant-Garde: US

The Fall of the House of Usher1928

Directed and photographed byDr. James Sibley Watson

Written and designed byMelville WebberBased on the story by Edgar Allan Poe

Music byAlec Wilder

StarringHerbert SternHildegarde WatsonMelville Webber


American avant-garde filmakers Watson and Webber produce their atmospheric effects with expressionist shadows and optical distortions created by mirrors, prisms and multiple exposures. Show it alone or with their Lot In Sodom, or program both with Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr, for all three films illuminate the darker forces through the use of elaborate visual effects. — USA

College professors Dr. James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber, working in Rochester, New York, were the first truly avant-garde American filmmakers. They reduced the story to its essentials, the impact being largely transmitted through the careful use of silhouette, multiple exposure and rhythm, which successfully evoke the disembodied atmosphere of the piece. Sets are suggested by light and by the patterns made by folded paper rather than by painted or three-dimensional props.— David Curtis, Experimental Cinema

Lot in Sodom1933

Directed and photographed byDr. James Sibley Watson

Written and produced byMelville Webber

StarringMelville WebberHerbert StemHildegarde Watson


Beginning with the synthesis of Sodom, wickedest of moral cities, we are shown the orgies of the sodomites — semi-nude young men, fair of countenance and strong of limb, as they carry on their bacchanals. Pleasure and pain, ecstasy and despair are mingled in these faun-like, evil faces that glide like apparitions in a mist before us. I have never seen light manipulated so eloquently as in these expressive lights and shadows, which sometime form men or fragments of a body, sometime coagulate into flowers or break up their particles into water — and all times make Lot In Sodom a moving and arresting film.— Herman G. Weinberg, Close Up, 1933., USA

Awards: One of the Ten Best Films of 1933— Movie Makers, Amateur Cinema League

One of the first American sound experimental films. Significantly, Watson and Webber avoided a direct representation of the sexual conflict implicit in the Biblical story and showed instead a series of symbolic quasi-erotic tableaux that emphasize the elemental qualities of the story. Its handling of sexuality now seems painfully obscure; at the time, however, its subject matter was considered too much in advance of popular taste to permit commercial distribution. Shot on 35mm, it was not available to amateur (16mm) markets either. — David Curtis, Experimental Cinema

Watson and Webber

Autumn Fire1931

Written, produced and directed byHerman G. Weinberg

Music byLee Erwin

StarringErna BergmanWilly Hildebrand


Late author, critic and CCNY film professor Herman G. Weinberg said he shot this now legendary, avant-garde mood-piece as a marriage proposal to Erna Bergman, its star. Its love story is paralleled by the changing of the seasons. — USA

American counterpart to the work of Dimitri Kirsanoff— Henri Langlois

An early American experimental film, one of the first that still glows with its original fire.— Hans Richter

Herman G. Weinberg

The Bridge(US: The Spy)1932

Directed byCharles VidorBased on An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

StarringNicholas BelaCharles Darvas


Best remembered for films like A Farewell to Arms and Cover Girl, Hungarian expatriate Charles Vidor made this early avant-garde film at about the time he left his native land for Hollywood. It was the first screen treatment of the Bierce story, exhibiting skillful editing and influenced heavily by Soviet film techniques. One of the most unusual attributes is Vidor’s use of “flash forward” to tell the story of a man about to be hanged and the fantasies which go through his mind as he is dying.— USA

Charles Vidor



261 Avant-Garde: US

The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (aka The Suicide of a Hollywood Extra)1927

Written, produced and directed bySlavko VorkapichRobert Florey

Photographed bySlavko Vorkapich Gregg Toland

Edited and designed bySlavko Vorkapich

StarringJules RaucourtGeorges Voya


The first of the American films to show the influence of German Expressionism and the French avant-garde films of the Twenties. A satirical fantasy about a man who wants to become a Hollywood movie star. He gets a number – 9413 – stamped on his forehead and begins his career. In spite of visions of grandeur, he is a failure, dies of starvation and ascends to heaven where an angel wipes the number from his forehead and he again becomes human. Slavko Vorkapich, later renowned for his montage work with major studios, designed the sets in the style of Caligari. Gregg Toland, who later photographed Citizen Kane, assisted Vorkapich in shooting; and Robert Florey, who wrote the screenplay for Frankenstein and directed Cocoanuts and Beast With Five Fingers, co-directs with Vorkapich from their own screenplay. Their success is described unwittingly by the Variety reviewer below.— USA

A suspicion this is an unannounced foreign-made short. Everything looks foreign. It’s a fantastic sort of picture, perhaps conceived as a moral to the picture fan or symbolic of the film studios.— Variety

This avant-garde experimental short was shot largely in Vorkapich’s kitchen using cut-out miniatures; it is a masterpiece of low-budget art and a timepiece of Hollywood cynicism.— Pacific Film Archive

Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey

House of Cards1947

Written and directed byJoseph Vogel

Assisted byJohn and James Whitney

StarringCrane WhitleyGail RobertsHarriette Ann Gray


Modern painter/filmmaker Vogel defines that delicate sense of reality that keeps one sane in the face of the pressures of a modern society. A “crisis” newspaper headline provokes a young man’s stream-of-consciousness journey into violence. — USA

Vogel’s pictorial elements stem from his experience as a painter and graphic artist, film writer and director.— Lewis Jacobs

Joseph Vogel Chester Kessler

Plague Summer1951

Written and directed byChester KesslerBased on The Journal of Albion Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen


Chester Kessler’s avant-garde film in which six allegorical characters take a philosophical journey through war-brutalized landscapes. — USA

The Artist(The Knife Thrower)1951

Directed byEric ArthurMaxwell Weinberg

Written byEric ArthurBased on a story by Guy de Maupassant

StarringDavid Kurlan


A circus knife thrower suspects his wife, who is also his target in his act, is having an affair with a magician.— USA

Eric Arthur

Autumn Fire1931

The Bridge1932



265 Avant-Garde: US

The Voices1953

Written, produced and directed byJohn Schmitz


Steeped in pure Freud, this underground film studies a young man who develops a sexual-religious paranoia that affects both his waking hours and his dream-filled sleep. He is seen as he perceives himself and as others perceive him as he becomes a voyeur who is killed by the conflict that arises within himself. — USA

John SchmitzFrank Stauffacher

Notes on the Port of St. Francis1952

Written and directed byFrank StauffacherAdapted from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Spoken byVincent Price


Author Robert Louis Stevenson lost his heart to San Francisco way back in 1882 and captured his emotions and feelings in an essay spoken here by Vincent Price and accompanied by images of the city photographed by Frank Stauffacher.— USA

Renunciation1958

Written, produced and directed byJohn Schmitz

Music byBela Bartok


Schmitz’s intriguing avant-garde film about a young man who chooses to die rather than live in a modern society. — USA

Uirapuru1959

Written, produced and directed bySam Zebba

Music byHector Villa-Lobos

StarringThe Urubu Indians, Maranhoa, Brazil


Brazilian composer Hector Villa-Lobos’ tone poem Uirapuru inspires this unusual dramatization of a primitive Brazilian Indian legend. A group of Indians hunt and kill a love-bird, which is transformed magically into a handsome youth. He in turn is murdered by an ugly and envious old man, becomes the love-bird once more and flies away forever.— Sam Zebba Films, Brazil

Dramatizes the conflict between the native population and authority, which has revealed itself throughout history and, irrespective of economics, as far more evil than good.— Seymour Stern, Cinematic Documentations

Sam Zebba


266 Avant-Garde: US

Dementia/Daughter of Horror1953/1957

Produced, written and directed byJohn Parker

Photographed byWilliam C. Thompson

Music byGeorge AntheilPerformed by Shorty Rogers and His Giants

StarringAdrienne BarrettBruno DeSotaBen Roseman


Using only sound effects and an eerie score to plumb the mind of a psychopathic killer, experimental filmmaker John Parker foreshadows Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). The audience is caught up in an intriguing situation as fantasy and reality struggle for control in a young woman’s mind. Unable to rest after awakening in a dingy apartment, she wanders the streets in what may be a hallucination through a nightmarish landscape of mutilations, patricide and paranoia, awakening in her apartment once more amidst clues that suggest it really wasn’t a dream. Made before film study became de rigeur in America, much of Parker’s visual imagery completely baffled Fifties’ audiences, so the picture was reissued in 1957 as Daughter of Horror and incorporated a sparse voice-over to help moviegoers over the hard spots. Both versions are available. — USA

Stylish — classy. Music score quite good with Marni Nixon haunting a good deal of the soundtrack with an eerie siren’s call. Condemned by the Board of Censors as being inhuman, indecent, and the quintessence of gruesomness.— R. F. Young, Magick Theatre

A work of art. It stirred my blood and purged my libido.— Preston Sturges

John Parker

Towers Open Fire1963

Directed byAnthony Balch

Written byWilliam Burroughs

StarringWilliam BurroughsMichael PortmanAlex TrocchiIan SomervilleAnthony BalchBachoo SenJohn GilletLiam O’Learyand a photograph of Bela Lugosi

11 minutes, 35mm, B&W with Color Sequences

Balch’s Towers Open Fire is a direct film equivalent of William Burroughs’ writing. It has the same apparent formlessness and the same scabrous humor. The two keys to the film are the cut up verse and the dream machine pioneered by Brian Gysin and Burroughs. Four-word summary of message content: life is an orgasm. Accordingly, Balch provides two. One is directorial, self-induced decelerated and real. The other is part of the orgasm attack. Man dressed as a commando jumps through the window (twice, once twofold, superimposed back to back) holding gun which fires ping pong balls at a Balch’s family photograph collection. The film is made with considerable skill. I can think of no other far-out avant-garde film in which the director has been so completely in control of his means and been able to produce so exactly the effects he wants.— Ian Cameron, Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism

Anthony Balch and William Burroughs

Dementia/Daughter of Horror1953/1957

The Documentaries


270 The Documentaries Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

271 The Documentaries

Adventures of a Submarine1913

Directed byJ. Ernest WilliamsonGeorge Williamson


Remember how thrilled you were when you saw your first Jacques Yves-Cousteau film? Well, imagine you were part of the 1913 audience who saw this film — reputed to be the first underwater movie. The famed Williamson brothers sailed to the crystal waters of the Bahamas, dropped a diving bell with a cameraman on board and shot movies of a spectacular underwater world of silence that astounded everyone who saw it.— Lawrence Photoplays, USA

The Scopes Trial1925

Newsreel of the Monkey Trial, with Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryanand John T. Scopes.


This newsreel goes to Dayton, Tennessee to cover the famous trial of John T. Scopes, the high school teacher indicted for teaching that man evolved from the lower animals. The second half of the picture adds to the hoopla, surrounding the event by comparing man to ape, as side by side they are shown smoking, eating and being fingerprinted to show the similarities between the two.— A Universal Picture, USA

The Documentaries

Krakatoa1933/1965

Produced and directed byJoe Rock

1933 version narrated byGraham McNamee

1965 version narrated byJoseph Cotten


In August, 1883, the Pacific Island of Krakatoa was rocked by a volcanic eruption of the intensity of 1,000 hydrogen bombs. Krakatoa was blown from the face of the earth, a monster tidal wave killed 36,000 people in Java and Sumatra, and ripples were detected as far away as the English Channel, 11,000 miles away. This Academy Award winning documentary recounts the event, explains how volcanic action works, shows modern examples of volcanic activity and how volcanic action is slowly rebuilding Krakatoa itself.— A Joe Rock Production, USA

Academy Award: Krakatoa for Best Short Subject (Three-reel Special) 1933

Other Awards: Chicago International Film Festival finalist, 1965

Thrilling! Fascinating!— New York World Telegram

More About Me1935

Written, produced and directed byGeorge Bernard Shaw

StarringGeorge Bernard ShawJohn Drinkwater


Here is one of the rare opportunities to see and hear GBS himself, on screen. It is fascinating, also delightful. Shaw looks and sounds just the way you’d expect, shooting his magnificent white eyebrows as he exchanges barbs with poet-playwright John Drinkwater on such subjects as Ireland — the drama, the decline and fall of the British Empire. ‘The first performance of Candida was in 1895: my father played Marchbanks.’ Drinkwater reminds him, ‘You were 40 years ahead of your time.’ ‘Not a bit of it,’ replies Shaw. ‘The theatre was 50 years behind the times. If you want to be completely behind the times, just go to the House of Commons.’— Jerry Tallmer, The New York Post, December 8, 1983, Great Britain

White Flood1935

Written byLionel BermanRoger StebbinsDavid Wolff

Photographed byW. O. Fields JrWith additional scenes by Sherman Pratt

Music byHans Eisler

Commentary byDavid Wolff


Stunning black and white cinematography captures the life and death of an Alaskan glacier and in so doing recounts the story of the advance and retreat of the Ice Age. — Frontier Films, USA

Churchill’s Island1941

Directed byJohn Grierson

Produced byThe National Film Board of Canada


The first documentary film to win an Academy Award. Renowned documentary filmmaker John Grierson tells the story of Britain’s defense during the early days of World War II. One of the brilliant war-time series.— The World in Action/United Artists, Canada

Academy Award: Churchill’s Island Best Documentary Film, 1941

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms1940

Directed byD. I. Yashin

Written and supervised byS. S. BryukhonenkoDoctor of Medical Science

Commentary byProfessor J. B. S. Haldane, FRS


This historic film documents Soviet research into the revival of animal organisms by means of an artificial blood circulation system, anticipating heart/lung machines, kidney dialysis and other contemporary medical tools. It fascinates even today. Among the many memorable examples shown is one in which all vital signs cease following the removal of the blood from a laboratory animal. After ten minutes, equipment reinjects oxygen-enriched blood; the heart begins to beat, the animal begins to breath and within a few days is fully recovered. — Soviet Film Agency, USSR


272 The Documentaries Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library


The Private Life of a Cat1942/1981

Produced and directed byAlexander Hammid

Music performed byLee ErwinOn the mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ, Carnegie Hall Cinema


Filmed originally in 1942 by German documentary film maker Alexander Hammid. It’s a poetic story of two house cats from their first meeting through the birth and early training of their kittens. Purr-fect entertainment for cat lovers and their kitties.— USA

A masterpiece of its kind — perhaps the most captivating and enjoyable feline film available today, prepared by a true artist who obviously was intent on preserving the realistic drama and sincerity of the felines.— Linda Walton, Editor, Cats Magazine

Les Fils de l’Eau(UK: Children of the River)1949–1951

Produced, directed and narrated byJean Rouch


Jean Rouch, the famous French anthropologist whose Chronique d’un Ete was one of the earliest examples of cinema verite, photographed Les Fils de l’Eau in French Equatorial Africa during his long stay there, living among the natives and observing their customs closely. Taking the water of the River Niger as his connecting theme and studying the various peoples settled along its north bank, Rouch manages simultaneously to convey the diverse elements of their existence and to illuminate the particular meaning they draw from life — their sense of a sacred bond uniting them with the world.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Originally a group of short films describing various aspects of the lives of tribesmen along the banks of the Niger: prayers for rain, the coming of rain, the sowing and harvesting of millet, burial rites, circumcision, a hippopotamus hunt. Images apparently without frills, a commentary derived from the local dialect (in sentence structure, the incantatory manner, the repetition and variation of simple words), and tribal chants and music all combine to create the illusion — at times perfect — of a total absence of white men.— Jean-Andre Fiesch, Film: A Critical Dictionary

The War for Men’s Minds1943

Directed byJohn Grierson

Produced byThe National Film Board of Canada


Another in the World In Action series, this fine documentary shows how film is used as propaganda. — The National Film Board of Canada, Canada

Van Meegeren’s Faked Vermeers1950

Directed byJan BotermansG. A. Magnall

Adapted from the book Van Meegeren’s Faked Vermeers and De Hooghs

Music byCorelli and Handel

Narrated by Frank Phillips


Art devotees will be fascinated by this art detective story that documents how scientists discovered and proved many paintings hanging as authenticated Vermeers in museums around the world actually were astounding counterfeits painted in 1941–1943 by Han Van Meegeren, a Dutch painter who did it to revenge himself on critics who dubbed his own works “third rate.” — Netherlands

Seven Years in Tibet1957

Directed byHans Nieter

Written byWalter UlbrichBased on the book by Heinrich Harrer

Photographed byHeinrich HarrerSir Basil Gould

Narrated byAnton DiffringRooney PelletierHenrich Harrer


Austrlan mountain-climber Heinrich Harrer found himself interned in an Indian prison camp at the outbreak of World War II. He escaped, crossed the Himalayas at great peril and privation and entered not only the forbidden country of Tibet, but also its holy capital Lhasa, where he made friends with the new Dalai Lama. Smuggled out of Tibet, his own films are included in this reconstructed account of his long mountainous trek and actual record of the Dalai Lama’s escape to India with the Red Chinese Army hot on his heels.— Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Breathtaking views of the world’s highest peaks — First-hand pictures of Tibetans. A remarkable and historic screen document.— The Cinema

Fincho1958

Written, produced and directed bySam Zebba

Music byAlexander Laszlo

Prologue withHarry Belafonte

StarringPatrick AkponuComfort AjiloGordon Parry-Holroyd


A docu-drama about how people cope with change. In the remote reaches of Nigeria, villagers live in fear of the Jujuman and the ancient taboos, but when a Western logging company comes to cut timber, the sudden demand for labor and good pay attacks the social order, creates economic independence and thrusts the villagers headlong into the 20th century. — Sam Zebba Productions, Nigeria

Photographed in color with its jungle background in exotic prominence, the picture very tentatively dramatizes the evolution of a primitive outpost.— Howard Thompson, The New York Times

Adventures Into Space1958

Written byJack Glenn

With the cooperation ofThe US Department of DefenseNational Archive and Record ServiceNational Film Archives (England)The National Geographic Society

Narrated byBasil Rathbone


The sort of heroism, courage and the will-to-survive that is required of astronauts is very similar to the challenges that faced the Earth-bound explorers of the unknown Polar regions. This astounding film uses archival footage and still photographs to re-stage and dramatize the awful perils they faced. They share the terrors of the unknown, the enormous odds and the elements battled by Charles A. Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and the rest.— A Trinity Production, Great Britain

A Fortune in Pictures1970

Directed byMichael Gill

Produced byC. Buckland-Smith


This is a portrait of how Britain’s most famous picture gallery, The National Gallery, works. It shows many of the masterpieces that make up the most comprehensive collection of European paintings in the world and penetrates behind the scenes to show the director and his staff at their daily work. — A presentation of BBC-TV, Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Les Fils de l’Eau1949–1951

Seven Years in Tibet1957



Shakespeare’s Island1971

Directed byLorna PegramIan Holm

Produced byG. Buckland-Smith

StarringBen KingsleyIan RichardsonEstelle KohlerChristopher GableMembers of The Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company, Stratford-on-Avon


This marvelous BBC special takes you behind the scenes at the Royal Shakespeare Company and treats you to scenes from The Tempest.— A presentation of BBC-TV, Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

The Truth About Houdini1970

Directed byDavid Read

Produced byG. Buckland-Smith

StarringHarry Houdini


Harry Houdini was the greatest escape artist of all time. This fascinating documentary examines his life and illuminates the real-life, extraordinary man and his magic.— A presentation of BBC-TV, Pendennis Films Ltd., Great Britain

Les Fils de l’Eau1949–1951

Animation


280 Animation

Gertie the Dinosaur1909

Produced, directed and animated byWinsor McCay


New York Times cartoonist Winsor McCay produced this landmark cartoon by drawing and photographing nearly 10,000 individual cells.

Sets an astonishingly high standard for smooth movement and graceful, if simple line drawings. Gertie was designed to be seen in tandem with an on-stage performer who talked to her, gave her instructions and sometimes joined her on screen. It was almost as much vaudeville as film, and surviving Gertie prints, with little indication of the live collaboration from the stage, seem rather pointless to the uninitiated.— William K. Everson, American Silent Film

Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell1961

Created byMax Fleischer

Produced by Hal Seeger

Directed byMyron Waldman

Featuring the voice creations of Larry Storch

StarringKoko the ClownKoketteKokonutMean Moe

100 animated 5-minute cartoons5 minutes each, 35mm, Color

One of the earliest and most imaginative cartoonists in the cinema, Max Fleischer was born in Austria in 1885, emigrated to America with his family at an early age and began drawing cartoons for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and later for Popular Science Monthly. In 1921 he made a cartoon called Out Of the Inkwell, featuring Koko the Clown, a character he created before your eyes from lines drawn with a pen which, as soon as they began to resemble Koko, became animated with an independent life. Fleischer then created other characters, including Betty Boop and Popeye the Sailor, both of whom became classics. These cartoons are from the enormously popular television series from the early Sixties.— Seven Arts Associated, USA

Animation

Mac Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell1961


282 Index: Titles Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

283 Index: Titles

AAbraham Lincoln 71Accidents Will Happen 144Accused 164Action for Slander 181Adventures Into Space 273Adventures of a Submarine 270African Dodger, The 142After Seben 160Albert R.N. 200Alibi 98All for the Band 160All Night Long 38All Sealed Up 148Always a Gentleman 149Amateur Gentleman, The 164Amazing Adventure 181Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss, The 181America 70Angela 201Another Man’s Poison 194Antique Shop, The 141Arabian Shrieks, The 144Around the World in 80 Minutes 57Arrière-Saison 247Artie Shaw’s Class in Swing 161Artist, The 261Ashes of Vengeance 75Assault! 227At the Stroke of Nine 202Auto Intoxication 149Autumn Fire 259Autumn Mist 246Avenging Conscience, The 61

BBabbling Book 141Babes and Hoodlums 226Bachelor Brides 104Backstage 33Back to the Woods 36Badman’s Gold 124Bad One, The 109Ballet Class 160Balloonatic, The 18Barbershop, The 91Battle Hell 171Battle of the Sexes, The 71Battling Butler 24Be Like Me 158Be Yourself 108Beachcomber, The 185Bedelia 188Before I Wake 201Bell Boy, The 33Belle of the Night 149Big Fella 97Big Fibber, The 136Big Splash, The 149Billboard Girl 154Birth of a Nation, The 61Bitter Sweet 168Black and Tan 156Black Pirate, The 51

Blacksmith, The 17Blind Husbands 81Blood and Sand 85Blue of the Night 154Blues in the Night 155Boat, The 16Body and Soul 94Body Said No, The 200Boobs in the Woods 39Boogie Woogie Dream 161Borderline 94Bosambo 95Boyhood Days 160Breakfast at Sunrise 77Breaking Even 142Bridge, The 259Bring ‘Em Back Sober 132Broadway Highlights 161Broadway Romeo, A 146Broken Barrier 194Broken Blossoms 64Broth of a Boy 208Brumes d’ Automne 246Bubbling Over 161Buffalo Bill Rides Again 117Bundle of Blues, A 156But Not in Vain 195Butcher Boy, The 32

CCab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho 155Cab Waiting 146Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The 231Caliente Love 134Call of the Blood 188Capital Punishment 103Carmen 230Carnegie Hall 117Cast a Dark Shadow 204Cat and the Canary, The 108Chaser, The 43Children of the River 272Churchill’s Island 271City of the Dead, The 213Cleaning Up 147Clinching a Sale 160Closed Vision 254Coast of Skeletons 214Code 7, Victim 5 214Cold Turkey 150College 24Coney Island 32Conspiracy in Teheran 189Convict 13 12Cops 17Corridor of Mirrors 190Corsair 98Courting Trouble 132Crime Control 139Crime Over London 164Crime with Passion 227Crowning Touch, The 203Cruise of the Jasper B 104

Index: Titles

DDaddy Knows Best 134Daffodil Killer, The 212Dancing with Crime 188Dante’s Inferno 224Dark Journey 176Dark Sands 97Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari 231Das Wachsfigurenkabinett 235Daughter of Horror 266Day Dreams 18Day the Earth Caught Fire, The 213Death Day 220Death of Manolete, The 221Death of the Stag, The 247Decoy 213De Luxe Annie 74Dementia 266Dentist, The 90Derby Decade 157Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam 231Der Student von Prag 230Der Traum des Allan Gray 236Detective Tom Howard of The Suicide Squad 142Det Händer I Natt 226Devil’s Daffodil, The 212Diamond, The 200Diamond Wizard, The 200Die freudlose Gasse 235Die Straße 235Dinner at the Ritz 181Don Q, Son of Zorro 51Don’t Play Bridge with Your Wife 134Door Knocker, The 148Double Crime in the Maginot Line 165Double Trouble 46Dove, The 77Down Memory Lane 91Down to Earth 49Dream House 154Dream Street 69Dream Stuff 135Du Barry, Woman of Passion 80D. W. Griffith: An Interview 71

EEagle, The 85El Torero de Cordoba 221Electric House, The 18Ella Cinders 104Ella Goes to Hollywood 39Emak Bakia 250Emperor Jones, The 95End of Autumn, The 247Escape of the Amethyst 171Experiments in the Revival of Organisms 271Expresso Bongo 210

FFace in the Night 203Face Value 105Fake, The 195Fall, The 220Fall of Babylon, The 65Fall of the House of Usher, The 252, 258False Alarm Fire Company, The 144False Impressions 132Farewell Again 184Fatal Glass of Beer, The 91Favorite Melodies 157Fighting Love 105Fincho 273Fire Over England 178Fit to Be Tied 141Flame, The 227Flirting with Fate 47Flying Deuces 112Foolish Wives 81For Alimony Only 104Forever and a Day 112Forgotten Man, The 139Fortune in Pictures, A 273Four Dark Hours 184Foxhole in Cairo 212Frog, The 169Frozen North, The 17Fun on a Weekend 117

GGaucho, The 56Gay Duelist, The 166General, The 28Gents of Leisure 147Genuine 231Gertie the Dinosaur 280Getting a Ticket 146Gigolo 105Girl in Distress 165Girl Who Stayed at Home, The 65Girls Without Rooms 227Glorifying the American Girl 108Go Ahead and Sing 142Go West 24Goat, The 16Golden Madonna, The 189Golem, The 224, 231Golf Specialist, The 90Good Bad Man, The 47Good Night, Nurse! 33Great British Train Robbery, The 236Great Gabbo, The 82Great Pants Mystery, The 144Great Stone Face, The 25 Greatest Question, The 65Greatest Thing in Life, The 64Green Cockatoo, The 184Guilty? 202Gypsy Blood 230

HHabit of Happiness, The 46Half Breed, The 48Hands of a Strangler 212Hands of Orlac, The 212Hangmen Also Die 114Hard Luck 13Harem Scarem 148Haunted House, The 13Haunted Spooks 36Hawkins and Watkins, Inc. 133Headin’ Home 102Hearts of the World 61Her Future 158Her Man O’ War 105Her Night of Romance 76Her Sister from Paris 76High Sign, The 13Highlowbrow 149His First Flame 42His Majesty, the American 49His Marriage Wow 39Hoagy Carmichael 161Hold Your Breath 102Hollywood Barn Dance 117Hollywood on Parade Series 151Hollywood Rhythm 161Home Is the Hero 209Home Sweet Home 60Hoodlum 125Horror Hotel 213Hot Air Merchant, The 149Hotel Sahara 194House of Cards 260How to Take a Vacation 139Humorous Flights 149Hunchback of Notre Dame, The 88Husbands’ Reunion 135

II Killed Geronimo 124I Surrender Dear 154Idiot, The 225Idol Dancer, The 68Idol of Paris 188In Again, Out Again 48In the Wake of a Stranger 208Installment Collector 149Insurance 146Intolerance 62Introduction of Mrs. Gibbs, The 143Ireno 158Iron Mask, The 56Isn’t Life Wonderful? 70It Happened Tomorrow 113It Happens Tonight 226

JJamaica Inn 175Jeannie 165Jericho 97Jet Storm 209Jigsaw 213Jimmy’s New Yacht 133Jitterbug Party 155Jolly Bad Fellow, A 214Josephine Baker at the Folies-Bergère 161Joyless Street, The 235Judith of Bethulia 60Julius Caesar 224Jump for Glory 165

KKeeping in Shape 140Kiki 77King’s Rhapsody 170Knickerbocker Holiday 113Knife Thrower, The 261Knockout Kisses 135Knowmore College 159Korea Patrol 125Krakatoa 270

LLa Caida 220La Chute de la Maison D’Usher 252Lady, The 76Lady Windermere’s Fan 103La Glace à Trois Faces 252La Marie du Port 225Lamb, The 46La Mort Du Cerf 247La Schnaps, Inc. 144Lease Breakers, The 147Leave Me Alone 250Le Ballet Mécanique 244Le Baron Fantôme 225Le Golem 224Le Puritaine 225Les Fils de l’Eau 272Les Mystères du Château de Dé 251Lesson in Love, A 160Lessons in Love 74Le Tempestaire 252Le Voyage dans la Lune 242L’Etoile de Mer 250Let’s Dance 141Let’s Make Up 170L’ Idiot 225Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra, The 260Lilacs in the Spring 170Living Idol, The 125Lodger, The 180London Melody 169Lonedale Operator, The 60Long Night, The 122Long Pants 43Lot in Sodom 258Lottery Bride, The 109Loud Mouth, The 133Love and Sacrifice 70

Love Flower, The 68Love from a Stranger 181Love in the Suburbs 149Love Nest, The 18Lucky Stars 39Luke’s Movie Muddle 35Lured 120

MMagic of Méliès, The 242Mama’s Affair 74Man from Painted Post, The 49Man in the Road, The 202Man’s Angle, The 140Mark of Zorro, The 50Masterplan, The 208Matrimaniac, The 48Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell 280Meet Me at Dawn 166Meet the Boyfriend 160Meet the Senator 133Melody in May 157Menace in the Night 203Ménilmontant 246Merry-Go-Round, The 81Miracle Can Happen, A 124Miss Pilgrim’s Progress 194Missing Ten Days 185Mlle. Irene the Great 148Mollycoddle, The 50Moonlight Sonata 184More About Me 271Mother and the Law, The 65Mozambique 215Mr. Drake’s Duck 195Mr. Robinson Crusoe 57Mr. W’s Little Game 150Murder at the Windmill 189Musical Doctor 159Musical Justice 159Mysteries of the Chateau of Dice, The 251Mystery at the Burlesque 189Mystery of the Leaping Fish, The 47Mystery Submarine 213My Wife’s Jewelry 142My Wife’s Relations 17

NNaked Evil 215Navigator, The 19Navy Lark, The 171Nearly a Nasty Accident 209Neighborly Neighbors 143Neighbors 12New Orleans 124Night with Charlie Chaplin, A 34No Funny Business 180No Parking 170No Road Back 203No Time for Shame 227Notes on the Port of St. Francis 264Nothing But Nerves 140Nurse Edith Cavell 168Nut, The 50


285 Index: DirectorsCohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

284 Index: Titles

OObi, The 215Office Blues 160Oh, My Operation 141Old Dark House, The 106Old Man Blues 158Ol’ King Cotton 160Olympia I & II 236Once Over, Light 141One Exciting Night 69100% Service 141One More Chance 154One Week 12On Our Merry Way 124On the Fire 36Orphans of the Storm 69Othello 234Our Fighting Navy 169Our Hospitality 19Out West 32

PPaleface, The 16Pandora and the Flying Dutchman 196Part-Time Wife 212Perfect Alibi, The 98Perfect Understanding 180Pest, The 142Phantom 234Phantom Baron, The 225Phantom Fiend, The 180Phantom of the Opera, The 88Pharmacist, The 91Picking Peaches 38Plague Summer 261Playhouse, The 16Plot to Kill Roosevelt, The 189Plumber and the Lady, The 136Poacher’s Daughter, The 209Pool Sharks 90Poppin’ the Cork 150Private Life of a Cat, The 272Professional Correspondent 180Pulling a Bone 141Puritan, The 225Put Up Job, A 147Puttin’ on the Ritz 108

QQueen of Destiny 170

RRace Gang 184Radio Rhythm 159Reaching for the Moon 49, 56Red, Green and Yellow 143Reggie Mixes In 47Renunciation 265Retour à la Raison 250Return to Reason 250Rhapsody in Black and Blue 161Roadhouse Queen 135Roaming 158Robin Hood 51

Romance and Riches 181Romance of Happy Valley, A 64Romance Sentimentale 247Rookie, The 142Roseland 157Runaway Bus 200

SSaga of William S. Hart, The 84Sail into Danger 203Sally of the Sawdust 70Sally’s Irish Rogue 209Salome 102Salvation Hunters 101Sanders of the River 95Saphead, The 19Saturday Afternoon 42Scandal in Paris 116Scarecrow, The 13Scarlet Days 64Scarlet Week, The 227Schatten — Eine nächtliche Halluzination 234Scopes Trial, The 270Sea Shall Not Have Them, The 201Sea Squawk, The 38Second Chorus 112See You Tonight 136Seven Chances 24Seven Years in Tibet 273Sex Life of the Polyp, The 138Shakespeare’s Island 276She 109Sherlock, Jr. 22Shove Off 147Sidewalks of London 176Sign on the Door 75Silent Playground, The 214Sing, Bing, Sing 154Singapore Sue 161Sixty Glorious Years 17060 Minutes de la Vie Intérieure d’un Homme 254Slow Poke 161Smilin’ Through 75Soldier Man 42Somewhere in Turkey 35Son of the Sheik 86Song for Miss Julie 116Song of Freedom 95Song of Love 75Sorrows of Satan, The 70South Riding 184Southerner, The 116Spoilers, The 84Spy, The 259Spy in the Pantry 185S.S. Malaria, The 144Star of the Sea 250Star Reporter Series 151Steamboat Bill, Jr. 25St. Louis Blues 160St. Martin’s Lane 176Storm in a Teacup 176Strange Adventures of David Gray, The 236Strange Guests 220

Street, The 235Streets of Sorrow 235Strong Man, The 40Struggle, The 71Student of Prague, The 230Studio Sap, The 147Sudden Fear 128Suicide of a Hollywood Extra, The 260Summer Daze 147Surgeon’s Knife, The 208Swan, The 103Sweet Cookie 136Swing Your Partner 35Symphony in Black 156

TTale of a Vampire, A 231Tales of Manhattan 97Talk About Jacqueline 165Taming of the Shrew, The 56Taxi Tangle 146Teheran 189Ten Days in Paris 185That Party in Person 146They All Died Laughing 214They Came to a City 185Thief of Bagdad, The 52Thirteenth Alarm, The 147This Was a Woman 166This’ll Make You Whistle 168Three Ages, The 19Three Maxims, The 169Three Musketeers, The 51Three-Panelled Mirror, The 252Three’s a Crowd 43Thunder Over Mexico 220Thunderstorm 201Tillie’s Punctured Romance 34Tony Draws a Horse 189Too Many Highballs 137Towers Open Fire 266Traffic Regulations 149Tramp Tramp Tramp 42Treasurer’s Report, The 138Trip to the Moon, A 242Tristana 222Troopship 184Trouble with Husbands, The 138True Heart Susie 68Truth About Houdini, The 276

UUirapuru 265Under the Red Robe 185

VValkoinen Peura 226Vampyr 236Van Meegeren’s Faked Vermeers 272Vessel of Wrath 185Vicious Breed 227Voice in the Night, A 166Voice in the Wind 113Voice of Hollywood Series 151Voices, The 264

WWaiting for Baby 139Walking the Baby 141Wanted for Murder 166War for Men’s Minds, The 272Warning Shadows — A Nocturnal 234Waxworks 235Way Down East 68We Are Guilty 227Wedding Song 103What Price Pants 144When the Clouds Roll By 50When Thief Meets Thief 165White Corridors 195White Flood 271White Reindeer, The 226White Rose, The 69White Zombie 109Wild and Woolly 48Windfall 202Wings of the Morning 186Witch, The 226Within the Law 76Witness, The 140Woman Disputed, The 77Wrestler’s Bride, A 134

YYangtse Incident 171Young Widow 116Your Hat 141

AAlexandrov, G. V. 247Anderson, Michael 171Annakin, Ken 194Arbuckle, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ 32, 33Arliss, Leslie 188Arthur, Eric 261

BBalch, Anthony 266Becker, Vernon 25Bertolini, Francesco 224Blache, Herbert 19Blomberg, Erik 226Blumenstock, Mort 142Blystone, Jack 19Boese, Carl 231Borzage, Frank 76Botermans, Jan 272Boulder, Stanley 214Brenon, Herbert 75Bretherton, Howard 160Brice, Monte 90Brown, Clarence 77, 85Brown, Harry Joe 113Bruckman, Clyde 28, 91, 137Bryant, Charles 102Buchowetzki, Dimitri 103, 234Buñuel, Luis 222

CCabanne, W. Christy 46, 47Cambria, Frank 160Cantor, Eddie 142Capra, Frank 40, 43Carné, Marcel 225Carstairs, John Paddy 188, 189Cass, Henry 202Chaffey, Don 209Chalmers, Thomas 138Chrisander, Nils Olaf 105Clair, Rene 112, 113Clements, John 188Cline, Eddie 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 142, 147, 148Comfort, Lance 188, 202, 203Cook, Fielder 209Cozine, Ray 149, 160Crisp, Donald 19, 51Crowley, William 135, 136Cruze, James 82

DDalrymple, Ian 176de Polgny, Serge 225Dearden, Basil 185DeMille, William C. 95, 104Dreyer, Carl Theodor 236Duvivier, Julien 97, 224Dwan, Allan 46, 47, 48, 51, 56

Index: Directors

EEady, David 203, 208Edwards, Harry 38, 39, 42, 147Eisenstein, Sergei 220, 247Elvey, Maurice 180Emerson, John 47, 48, 49Emmes, Michael 133Endfleld, Cy 209Epstein, Jean 252

FFairbanks, Douglas 57Fenton, Leslie 124Fitzmaurice, George 86, 109Fleming, Victor 50, 57, 74Florey, Robert 105, 260 Franklin, Chester 75Franklin, Sidney 75, 76Freeland, Thornton 97, 108, 164, 166French, Harold 165Freshman, William 189

GGandera, Feliz 165Gardner, Cyril 180Gascon, Ricardo 203Gilbert, Lewis 200, 201, 204Gill, Michael 273Goulder, Stanley 215Goulding, Alfred J. 35, 36Goulding, Edmund 56, 112Grayson, Godfrey 195Green, Alfred 39, 104Gréville, Edmond T. 195, 202, 212Grierson, John 271, 272Griffith, D. W. 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71Grune, Karl 235Guazzoni, Enrico 224Guest, Val 189, 194, 195, 200, 210, 213Guillermin, John 201

HHale, Alan 103Hällström, Roland af 226Halperin, Victor 109Hamer, Robert 214Hammid, Alexander 272Hanbury, Victor 180Hardwicke, Cedric 112Henabery, Joseph 49Hitchcock, Alfred 175Hoffman, John 124Hogan, James P. 103Holden, Lansing C. 109Holm, Ian 276Horne, James W. 24, 104Howard, William K. 104, 105, 178Hume, Kenneth 203Huntington, Lawrence 166Huston, John 124

JJackson, Pat 195Jones, F. Richard 56Julian, Rupert 81, 88

KKarlson, Phil 91Kassila, Matti 227Kaufman, S. Jay 160Keaton, Buster 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 28Kenton, Erle C. 38Kessler, Chester 261King, Henry 77Kirsanoff, Dimitri 246, 247Korda, Zoltan 95

LLampin, Georges 225Lang, Fritz 114Langdon, Harry 43Lee, Rowland V. 181Léger, Fernand 244Leni, Paul 108, 235Lewin, Albert 125, 196Litvak, Anatole 122Lloyd, Frank 75, 76, 112Lord, Del 133, 147, 150, 154Lubin, Arthur 124Lubitsch, Ernst 103, 230Lynn, Robert 214, 215

MMacPherson, Kenneth 94Magnall, G. A. 272Marc’O 254Marin, Edwin 116Marion, Frances 75Marshall, George 134, 135, 136McCay, Winsor 280Méliès, Georges 242Mendes, Lothar 184Menzies, William Cameron 184Micheaux, Oscar 94Middleton, Edwin 90Miller, David 128Mirams, Roger 194Moxey, John 212, 213Murnau, Friedrich W. 234Murphy, Dudley 95, 156Musso, Jeff 225

NNiblo, Fred 50, 51, 85Nieter, Hans 273Nilsson, Leopoldo Torre 220Nosseck, Max 125

OO’Keefe, Dennis 201Olden, John 236O’Shea, John 194


287 Index: ActorsCohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

286 Index: Directors

PPabst, G. W. 235Padovan, Adolfo 224Parker, Albert 51Parker, John 266Parry, Gordon 171Pearce, Leslie 90, 132, 134, 135, 154Pegram, Lorna 276Pennington, C. M. 213Perry, Gordon 208Pichel, Irving 109Pollack, George 208, 209Pommer, Erich 185Potter, H. C. 112Powell, Paul 48

RRagneborn, Arne 226, 227Raker, Hugh 208Rapper, Irving 194Rathony, Akos 212Ray, Albert 149Ray, Bernard B. 117Ray, Man 250, 251Raymond, Jack 169, 170Read, David 276Reed, Ted 50Renoir, Jean 116Riefenstahl, Leni 236Riesner, Charles 25Ripley, Arthur 91, 113, 134Roach, Hal 35, 36Robinson, Casey 144Robison, Arthur 234Rock, Joe 270Rogell, Al 201Rouch, Jean 272Roush, Leslie 138, 139, 140, 161Rowland, William 116Rye, Stellan 230

SSaville, Victor 112, 176, 184Schmitz, John 264, 265Schuster, Harold 181, 186Sennett, Mack 34, 42, 154Shaw, George Bernard 271Sidney, Scott 102Sirk, Douglas 116, 120Sjöström, Victor 185Sloman, E. B. 108St. Clair, Malcolm 16, 17, 77Stafford, Babe 132, 134, 136, 154Stafford, John 180Stanley, Joseph 160Stauffacher, Frank 264Stein, Paul 109Stevens, George 124Stevenson, Robert 112Stone, Andrew L. 117Sutherland, A. Edward 57, 112

TTansey, Robert 124Tarkas, Aarne 227Taurog, Norman 144, 149, 160Taylor, Sam 56, 77, 80Tierney, Lawrence 125Tully, Montgomery 200, 203

UUlmer, Edgar G. 117Urson, Frank 105

VVajda, Ladislas 188, 189Varnel, Max 212Vidor, Charles 259Vidor, King 124Vogel, Joseph 260von Sternberg, Josef 101von Stroheim, Erich 81Vorkapich, Slavko 260

WWaldman, Myron 280Walker, Norman 169Walsh, Raoul 52, 165Watson, James Sibley 258Webb, Millard 108Wegener, Paul 231Weinberg, Herman G. 259Weinberg, Maxwell 261West, Roland 74, 77, 98Whale, James 106Whelan, Tim 166, 176, 181, 184, 185Wiene, Robert 231Wilcox, Herbert 112, 168, 169, 170Williamson, George 270Williamson, J. Ernest 270Wills, J. Elder 95, 97Windom, Lawrence C. 102Withey, Chet 74Witt, Claus Peter 236Worsley, Wallace 88

YYashin, D. I. 271Young, Terence 190

ZZebba, Sam 265, 273Zeisler, Alfred 164, 181

Index: Actors

AAbbey Players, The 208, 209Abel, Alfred 234Adams, Jimmie 105Adler, Larry 176Adoree, Renee 18Aherne, Brian 112Aiken, Spottiswoode 61Aimos, Raymond 224Ainley, Anthony 215Ajilo, Comfort 273Akponu, Patrick 273Alba, Maria 57Alber, Frank 136Albertier, Luigi 160Alderson, Erville 70Alexander, Ben 61, 134Alexander, Chester A. 94Allan, Elizabeth 180Allen, Steve 91Allgood, Sara 112, 176Allworth, Frank 149Alvarado, Don 71, 77, 109Ames, Robert 103Anderson, Eddie 97Anderson, Jean 214Andra, Fern 231Annabella 181, 185, 186Arbuckle, Roscoe ‘Fatty’ 25, 32, 33Archerd, Bernard 214Arlen, Richard 117Armstrong, Louis 124Armstrong, Robert 108Arthur, Charlotte 94Arthur, Gavin 94Arthur, George K. 76, 77, 101Astaire, Fred 112Astaire, Marie 39Astor, Gertrude 40, 77, 108Astor, Mary 51Attenborough, Richard 188, 209Audley, Maxine 214Auric, Georges 251Austin, William 98Aylmer, Felix 169, 170, 212Ayres, Agnes 86

BBach, Vivi 215Baddeley, Hermione 209, 210Baker, Nellie Bly 101Baker, Stanley 209Bakewell, William 71Bakus, George 46Balch, Anthony 266Balfour, Michael 200Ball, Lucille 120Ball, Vincent 203Banks, Leslie 95, 169, 175, 178, 184, 186Banky, Vilma 85, 86Barker, Lex 214Barnes, Barry K. 188Barnes, Ray 24Barr, Patrick 202

Barrault, Jean-Louis 225Barrett, Adrienne 266Barrie, Wendy 112Barry, Leon 51Barrymore, Lionel 70Barthelmess, Richard 64, 65, 68Barton, James 160Baskomb, A. W. 180Bass, Alfie 203Baumer, Jacques 165Baur, Harry 224Bayler, Terence 194Beatty, Robert 200Beaulieu, Yolande 246Beebee, Marge 132, 134, 135, 136, 137Beery, Noah 77, 108, 169Beery, Wallace 19, 50, 51, 75Bela, Nicholas 259Belajeff, Olga 235Bellamy, Madge 109Belmont, Guy 246Belmore, Lionel 19Benchley, Robert 139, 140Bennefeld, Albert 231Bennett, Belle 56, 71Bennett, Enid 51Bennett, Joan 108Benny, Jack 146Benson, Martin 215Beranger, George 47Berger, Grete 230Bergman, Erna 259Berry, Noah 50Besserer, Eugenie 64Best, Edna 184Billington, Francella 81Blake, Meredith 161Blore, Eric 112Blue, Monte 69Blystone, Stanley 149Bogarde, Dirk 188, 201, 204Bolger, Ray 112Bond, Derek 189Bondi, Beulah 116Booker, Beulah 19Borden, Christine 188Borden, Eddie 77Boulton, Betty 50Bow, Clara 103Boyce, Helen 117Boyd, William 105Brace, Kate 64Bracken, Eddie 117Brazzi, Rossano 201Brennan, Walter 114Brent, Romney 181, 185Breon, Edmund 180Brian, Mary 181Brice, Fanny 108Bridges, Roland 215Brockwell, Gladys 43Brogan, Harry 208, 209Brook, Clive 104, 181Brook, Lyndon 208

Brown, Joe E. 109Browne, Irene 166Browning, Tod 62Bruce, Kate 61, 64, 68Bruce, Nigel 109, 112Brunoy, Blanchette 225Buchanan, Jack 168Bums, Edmund 132Burke, Joseph 74Burke, Marie 149Burns and Allen 141Burroughs, William 266Busch, Mae 81, 98Butterworth, Charles 112Byrne, Eddie 203Byron, George 133Byron, Marion 25

CCadell, Jean 181Caine, Michael 212Calloway, Cab 155Calthrop, Donald 181Calvert, Phyllis 189Campeau, Frank 49, 50Cantor, Eddie 108, 146Carew, Arthur Edmund 75Carew, James 97Carmen, Jule 47Carmichael, Hoagy 161Carminati, Tullio 169, 189Carpenter, Johnny 124Carpenter, Paul 203Carrel, Danny 212Carson, Charles 170Casson, Lewis 170Castellani, Bruto 224Catlett, Walter 134, 135, 136Cavanagh, Paul 164Cavanna, Elise 90, 91, 136Cavender, Glen 28Cawthorn, Joseph 150, 164Chandler, George 91Chaney, Lon 88Chaplin, Charlie 34, 50Chase, Charley 34Chenault, Lawrence 94Chisholm, Robert 109Christian, Linda 201Christiansen, Arthur 213Cilento, Diane 209Clark, Frank 84Clark, Petula 195, 200Clements, John 184, 185, 188Clifford, Kathleen 50Clifton, Elmer 65Cline, Eddie 12, 13, 16, 17Coburn, Charles 112, 113, 120Cochran, Steve 215Cody, Lew 75, 76Coleman, Richard 215Collins, Monty 17Colman, Ronald 76, 77, 103Compson, Betty 82


288 Index: Actors Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

289 Index: Actors

Compton, Joyce 134, 135, 136Conklin, Chester 34, 147Conklin, Heine 133Connery, Sean 203Connor, Kenneth 209Cook, Elisha, Jr. 122Cooke, Ray 133Cooper, Gladys 112Cooper, Miriam 60, 65Cornwall, Anne 24Corri, Adrienne 208Cortez, Ricardo 70, 103Cosgrove, Jack 61Cossy, Hans 236Court, Hazel 166Coward, Noel 61Cramer, Richard 91Crandall, Edward 108Crane, Ward 22Crane, William H. 19Crawford, Anne 189Crawford, Joan 42, 128Crisp, Donald 51, 60, 61, 64, 112Cromwell, Richard 169Crosby, Bing 56, 91, 154Crowe, Eileen 209Crowell, Josephine 61Cruickshank, Andrew 188Culver, Roland 165, 194Cummings, Irving 19Cummings, Robert 112Cuny, Alain 225Curram, Roland 214Currie, Finlay 170Cusack, Cyril 202

DDagover, Lil 231, 234Dainton, Patricia 202, 203Daisy 124Dallas, Julian 195Dane & Arthur 147Daniel, Elsa 220Daniels, Bebe 35, 36, 56Darnell, Linda 113Darvas, Charles 259Daumery, Carrie 103Davidson, Max 102Davis, Bette 194Davis, Edward 74Davis, Mildred 36Daw, Marjorie 49Day, Olga 252de Beaumont, Le Comte 251De Brulier, Nigel 56, 102De Carlo, Yvonne 194De Grasse, Sam 47, 48, 81de Gunzberg, Baron Nicholas 236 De La Motte, Marguerite 50, 51, 56de la Rivière, André 250de Mille, Agnes 160de Noailles, Le Vicomte 251de Noailles, Marie-Laure 251 De Putti, Lya 70, 234

Debar, Andree 202Debucourt, Jean 252Del Rio, Dolores 109, 164Delaney, Charlie 135Dell, Wheezer 17Demarest, William 124Dempster, Carol 64, 65, 68, 69, 70Deneuve, Catherine 222Dent, Vernon 38, 39, 42Depew, Joseph 103Desmond, Florence 164Desnos, Robert 250DeSota, Bruno 266Deutsch, Ernst 231Devore, Dorothy 102Dieterle, Wilhelm 235Digges, Dudley 95Dignam, Basil 215Dione, Rose 102Donald, James 195Donell, Alla 225Donlan, Yolande 194, 195, 200, 210Donlevy, Brian 114Doorn, Helga 94Dorat, Charles 224Dorziat, Gabrielle 225Douglas, Don 82Douglas, Melvyn 106Douglas, Robert 169Dove, Billie 51Dowling, Constance 113Drache, Heinz 214Dresdel, Sonia 166Dresser, Louise 85, 105Dressler, Marie 34, 77Drinkwater, John 271Driscoll, Martha 117Dunbar, Helen 103Duprez, June 112Dvorak, Ann 122Dwyer, Ruth 24

EEaton, Mary 108Eaton, Shirley 208, 209Eddy, Nelson 113Edthofer, Anton 235Edwards, Jimmy 209Edwards, Snitz 24, 52, 88, 104Egede-Nissen, Aud 234, 235Ekborg, Lars 226Ellington, Duke 156Ellison, James 124Emerton, Roy 97Emney, Joan Fred 95Emory, Richard 125Esmond, Jill 180Etting, Ruth 157Evans, Clifford 202Eyes, Brown 24Eythe, William 166Eytons, Bessie 84

FFabre, Fernand 165Fair, Elinor 104Fairbanks, Douglas 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57Fairbanks, Douglas, Jr. 164, 165, 195Farmer, Michael 180Farnum, William 57, 80, 84Farr, Derek 166, 189, 202Farrar, David 170Farrar, Jane 116Farrell, Charles 181, 184Fawcett, George 46, 61, 64, 68, 74, 86Feher, Friedrich 231Ferguson, W. J. 69Ferrer, Mel 212Ferté, René 252Feuillere, Edwige 225Field, Betty 116Field, George 85Fields, W. C. 70, 90, 91Finch, Flora 74, 108Finlayson, James 91, 112Fitzgerald, Barry 208Fitzgerald, Walter 166Flynn, Errol 170Fonda, Henry 122, 124, 186Fong, Benson 125Ford, Harrison 75Ford, Wallace 97Forest, Helen 161Forrest, Lottie Pickford 51Forrest, Steve 125Fox, Virginia 12, 13, 16, 17, 18Francen, Victor 165Francis, Alec B. 42, 75Fraser, Ronald 214Freeman, Mona 201Fresnay, Pierre 225Friend, Philip 200

GGabin, Jean 225Gable, Christopher 276Gadd, Renee 185Gahagan, Helen 109Gance, Marguerite 252Garbo, Greta 235Gardner, Ava 196Garnett, Tay 40Garrick, John 109Gastoni, Lisa 203Gaye, Howard 47Geddes, Barbara Bel 122Gemora, Charles 133Genn, Leo 185George, Maud 81Gerard, Henrietta 236Gerrard, Charles K. 103Gibbon, Eddie 134Gilbert, Billy 136Gilbert, Mercedes 94Gillet, John 266Gillie, Jean 168Gish, Dorothy 60, 61, 69

Gish, Lillian 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 69Gleason, James 108Goddard, Paulette 112, 124Goddard, Willoughby 208Goodliffe, Michael 213Goring, Marius 196, 212Gottowt, John 230, 231, 235Goudal, Jetta 105Gowing, Gene 105Gowland, Gibson 81Graavey, Fernand 168Grahame, Gloria 128Grahame, Margot 164Granger, Dorothy 132Grant, Cary 181Grant, Eldon 97Graves, Peter 170Graves, Ralph 64, 65, 69Gravey, Fernand 168Gravina, Cesare 81Gray, Coleen 195Gray, Dulcie 166Gray, Harriette Ann 260Green, Barry 108Greene, Barbara 184Greene, David 189Griffith, D. W. 71Griffith, Eleanor 98Griswold, Grace 75Griy, Mara 247Gronau, Ernst 231Guerin, Bruce 101Guinan, Texas 108Gurie, Sigrid 113Guthrie, Tyrone 176, 185Gwenn, Edmund 112, 184Gynt, Greta 203

HHackathorne, George 103Hale, Alan 51, 165Hale, Binnie 181Hale, Creighton 68, 108Hale, Georgia 101Hall Johnson Choir, The 97Hamilton, Lloyd 137, 149Hamilton, Neil 69, 70Hammond, Kay 71, 165, 168, 188Harding, Ann 181Hardwick, Cedric 120Hardy, Oliver 112Harker, Gordon 164, 169, 170Harlan, Kenneth 74Harlan, Macy 46Harris, Julie 209Harris, Marcia 70Harris, Mildred 104Harrison, Irma 69Harrison, James 74Harrison, Kathleen 170Harrison, Rex 176, 185Harron, John 109Harron, Robert 60, 61, 64, 65, 68Hart, Caroline 190

Hart, Ferdinand 224Hartnell, William 171Harvey, Laurence 210Haskel, Leonhard 235Hattara, Pia 227Haupt, Ullrich 80, 109Haver, Phyllis 18, 71, 91Hawkins, Jack 169, 180Hayter, James 203Hayward, Helen 43Hayward, Louis 116Hazell, Hy 200Helbling, Jeanne 252Hemingway, Richard 135Henabery, Joseph 61Hepburn, Barton 116Herbert, Sidney 69Herman, Woody 124Herrick, Virginia 124Herring, Aggie 132, 137Herring, Robert 94Hersholt, Jean 51, 71, 76Hiatt, Ruth 42Hickman, Cordell 97Hickson, Joan 181Hieronimko, Jan 236Hiers, Walter 102Higby, Wilbur 48Hildebrand, Willy 259Hill, Bonnie 17Hobson, Valerie 165Hodges, Horace 169Höflich, Lucie 235Holiday, Billie 124Holliday, John 180Holloway, Stanley 166Holmes, Stuart 101Holt, Jany 225Holt, Jennifer 117Homeier, Skip 203Horner, Penelope 212Horton, Edward Everett 56, 112Houdini, Harry 276Houston, Donald 171, 208Howard, Frances 103Howard, Joyce 165Howard, Tom 142Howerd, Frankie 200Hubschmid, Paul 215Hughes, Lloyd 104Hull, Henry 69Hunt, Marsha 117Hunt, Martita 170 Hunter, Edna 74Hunter, Glenn 75Hunter, Ian 188Huntley, Raymond 185Hurst, Brandon 76Huston, Walter 71Hytten, Olaf 101

IIngram, Rex 95

JJackie the Lion 132Jackson, Peaches 64Jaimison, William 43James, Harry 124Jamison, Bud 35, 36, 42Jannings, Emil 234, 235Jeffries, Lionel 202Jerrold, Mary 165Jessel, Patricia 213Johann, Zita 71Johns, Glynis 184Johns, Mervyn 189Johnson, Katie 166Johnson, Noble 19Johnston, Julanne 52Jones, Emrys 166Jones, Griffith 203Joy, Leatrice 103, 104Joyeux, Odette 225Judd, Edward 213Justice, James Robertson 125, 212, 213Justin, John 188, 202

KKahn, Otto 108Kane, Babe 90, 91, 133Kane, Margie (Babe) 82Kane, Marjorie 133Karl, Roger 224Karloff, Boris 49, 106, 120Kearn, Sam 142Keaton, Buster 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 28, 32, 33, 112Keaton, Buster, Jr. 19Keaton, Joe 12, 13, 19, 22Keaton, Joe, Myra and Louise 18Keefe, Cornelius 43, 134Kellino, Pamela 196Kelly, Dermot 208Kelly, John 97Kendall, Henry 181Kendall, William 168Kennedy, Arthur 209Kennedy, Edgar 34, 113Kennedy, Joyce 97Kent, Arnold 77Kent, Crauford 68Kent, Jean 201Kerry, Norman 81, 88Kiki of Montparnasse 250Kilbride, Percy 113, 116Kingsley, Ben 276Kingston, Natalie 39, 133Kirkwood, Jack 60Klöpfer, Eugen 235Knef, Hildegard 215Koch, Marianne 214Kohler, Estelle 276Kohler, Fred 98Kokette 280

Koko the Clown 280Kokonut 280Koontz, Melvin 132Korene, Vera 165Korner, Lothar 230Kortner, Fritz 234Korvin, Charles 201Kossoff, David 209Krauss, Werner 231, 234, 235Kroger, Otto 113Kruger, Harold “Snubby” 149Kuosmanen, Mirjami 226Kurlan, David 261

LLa Plante, Laura 108La Verne, Lucille 69Laage, Barbara 202LaBarr, Marta 189Lagerstam, Hillevi 226Lake, Alice 33Lamaison, Lydia 220LaMarr, Barbara 50, 51Lamour, Dorothy 124Lanchester, Elsa 112, 185Landi, Ellissa 164Landis, Carole 116Lane, Lapino 70Lane, Mara 201Lane, Nora 134, 135, 136Lane, Priscilla 117Langdon, Harry 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 104Langdon, Lillian 49Lardner, Ring 108LaRocque, Rod 104, 105Laughton, Charles 106, 112, 175, 176, 185Laurel, Stan 112Laurie, John 97, 196Lawrence, Gertrude 180Lawrence, Lillian 19Lawson, Wilfrid 165, 210Leahy, Margaret 19Lederer, Francis 113Lee, Ann 114Lee, Christopher 190, 212, 213Lee, Lila 85Legal, Ernst 235Lehesmaa, Arvo 226Lehmann, Carla 165Leigh, Vivien 176, 178Lester, Bruce 195Lestina, Adolphe 61, 64, 65, 68Lewis, Blanche 94Lewis, Mitchell 102Lewis, Ralph 61Lewis, Ronald 213Lewis, Vera 65, 104Li, Sung 125Liedtke, Harry 230Lieven, Albert 165, 194, 212Lincoln, Elmo 62, 64, 65Lindholm, Maj-Britt 227Lindman, Åke 226Lindroth, Helen 103

Littlefield, Lucien 133Livesey, Jack 189Livingston, Margaret 103Lloyd, Alison 98Lloyd, Harold 35, 36Lloyd, Norman 116Lobreau, Pierre 247Lockhart, Gene 112, 116Lockwood, Alyn 124Lockwood, Margaret 164, 188, 204Lotis, Dennis 213Love, Bessie 47, 62Lovell, Raymond 195Lowe, Arthur 202Lowe, Edmund 109Lowell, Helen 70Lowery, William E. 46Lugosi, Bela 109Lukas, Paul 181Lunt, Alfred 70Lupino, Ida 112Lyon, Joe 142Lytell, Bert 103

MMacDonald, Jeanette 109MacDonald, Wallace 76Mack, Charles Emmett 69Mack, Marion 28Macken, Walter 209MacMurray, Fred 124Mäkelä, Toivo 226, 227Malleson, Miles 188Mandel, Rena 236Mander, Miles 168Mane, Mirja 226Marcus, James 85Marsh, Garry 189, 194Marsh, Mae 60, 61, 62, 65, 69Marshall, Alan 168Marshall, Herbert 112Marshall, Tully 102, 108Martindel, Edward 103Marzia, Duilio 220Maskell, Virginia 209Mason, James 196Massey, Raymond 106, 185Matlesen, Otto 101Mattalia, Irene 224Matthews, A. E. 185Maude, Joan 190Maxwell, Edwin 56Mayble, Jackie “Moms” 95McAvoy, May 103McCallum, Neil 212McConnell, Gladys 43McConnell, Lulu 143McCormack, John 186McDonald, Francis 24McGuire, Kathryn 19, 22McHugh, Frank 98, 117McHugh, Matt 133McIntosh, Ellen 214McKern, Leo 213, 214


290 Index: Actors Cohen Film CollectionThe Rohauer Library

291 Index: Actors

McKinney, Nina May 95McLaglen, Victor 112McQuarrie, George 68Mean Moe 280Menjou, Adolphe 51, 70, 103Meredith, Burgess 112, 124Merkel, Una 71Merman, Ethel 158Merrill, Gary 194Methot, Mayo 98Middleton, Guy 165Milla, Augusto 224Milland, Ray 112Miller, Jack 149Miller, Patsy Ruth 88Mills, John 184Minnevitch, Borrrah 160Monet, Carlos Lopez 220Montana, Bull 48Montevecchi, Lilliane 125Moore, Colleen 39, 104Moore, Eva 106Moore, Owen 60Moore, Tom 136Moreno, Marguerite 225Morgan, Helen 108Morris, Chester 98Morris, Wayne 208Mozart, George 95Mulhall, Jack 56, 76Mullen, Barbara 165, 190Munro, Janet 213, 214Murray, Barbara 189Murray, Charles 34, 91, 132Murray, Stephen 202Muse, Clarence 97Myers, Kathleen 24

NNagel, Conrad 80Naish, J. Carrol 97, 113, 116Naldi, Nita 85Nattier, Nathalie 225Nazimova, Alla 102Neagle, Anna 112, 168, 169, 170Negri, Pola 230Nero, Franco 222Neutze, Gunther 236Neve, Suzanne 215Newton, Robert 175, 184, 185Ngarimu, Kay 194Nielsen, Asta 235Nissilä, Kalervo 226Niven, David 181Normand, Mabel 34, 91Novelli, Amleto 224Novello, Ivor 69, 180

OOakie, Jack 113Oberon, Merle 112O’Brien, John 19O’Connor, Una 112O’Dea, June 160O’Hara, Joan 209O’Hara, Maureen 175O’Keefe, Dennis 114, 195, 200, 201, 203Oland, Warner 51O’Leary, Liam 266Oliver, Edna May 168Olivier, Laurence 178, 180O’Neil, Sally 24, 71Oravisto, Matti 227Ormonde, Eugene 49Ory, Kid 124Owen, Seana 46

PPaderewski, Ignacy Jan 184Padovani, Lea 188Paget, Alfred 65Palance, Jack 128Palette, Eugene 51Pangborn, Franklin 91, 133, 135, 136Papa, Salvatore 224Parker, Cecil 171, 176, 189Parker, Frances 65Parry-Holroyd, Gordon 273Pasanen, Veijo 227Patrick, Nigel 196, 201Paulsen, Harald 231Payne, Laurence 213Payson, Blanche 133Percy, Eileen 48, 49, 76Percy, Esme 95, 168, 169Perrins, Leslie 170Pertwee, Jon 189Peterson, Pat 168Philbin, Mary 81, 88Philipe, Gérard 225Phillips, Leslie 171Pickford, Jack 60Pickford, Mary 51, 56Piel, Edward 64Pierson, Suzy 252Pirovano, Arturo 224Pitoeff, Ludmilla 225Pitts, Zasu 109, 168Playfair, Nigel 180Pleasence, Donald 212Pollard, Daphne 133Pollard, Snub 35, 36Porter, Nyree Dawn 212Portman, Eric 166, 184, 190Portman, Michael 266Powell, Dick 113Power, Tyrone 69Powley, Bryan 181

Pretty, Arline 48Price, Dennis 214Price, Kate 17Price, Vincent 122Priestley, J. B. 185Prince, William 117Pringle, Aileen 108Puglia, Frank 70

RRagneborn, Arne 226, 227Raines, Ella 202Rains, Claude 112Ralston, Jobyna 105Rand, Sally 104Randolf, Anders 51, 68Randolph, Elsie 168Rathbone, Basil 181Raucourt, Jules 260Rawlings, Margaret 203Ray, Rene 164, 184Ray, Ted 203 Raymond, Cyril 166Redgrave, Michael 165, 201Reed, George 97Reed, Maxwell 201Reid, Wallace 61Renick, Ruth 50Rennie, Michael 188, 189, 194, 200Rey, Fernando 222Rhodes, Marjorie 166Rich, Irene 103Richard, Cliff 210Richard, Frieda 234Richard, Fritz 230Richardson, Ian 276Richardson, Ralph 184Richman, Charles 75Richman, Harry 108, 160Ridgeway, Fritzi 105Rigaut, Jacques 250Rigby, Edward 189Rilla, Walter 170, 214Roberts, Gail 260Roberts, Joe 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19Robertson, Dale 214Robeson, Eslanda 94Robeson, Paul 94, 95, 97Robson, Flora 178, 184Robson, May 168Rodgers, Anton 212Rogez, Marcel 97Roland, Gilbert 77Romance, Viviane 225Rome, Stewart 186Romney, Edana 190Ronque, John 214Rosanova, Rosa 85

Roscoe, Al 43Roseman, Ben 266Ross, Shirley 116Rossiter, Leonard 214Rowbotham, Bill 188Rubens, Alma 47, 48Russell, Jane 116Russell, Julia Theresa 94Ruth, Babe 102Rutherford, Margaret 97, 166, 200Ryan, Kathleen 203

SSalmonova, Lyda 230Sanders, George 116, 120, 168Sandkvist, Gunvor 227Santschi, Tom 84Sarno, Gilliane 247Schildkraut, Joseph 69, 75Schmitz, Sybille 236Schoenherr, Dietmar 215Schreck, Max 235Schutz, Maurice 236Scott, Margaretta 181Scott, Randolph 109Scott, Zachary 116Secombe, Harry 209Seely, Sybil 12, 13, 16Seely, Tim 209Sellars, Elizabeth 209Sen, Bachoo 266Sennett, Mack 91Seton, Bruce 181, 184Seymour, Clarine 64, 65, 68Shannon, Effie 70, 74Shaw, Artie 112, 161Shaw, George Bernard 271Sheridan, Margaret 200Sherman, Lowell 68Shiner, Ronald 171Short, Florence 68Sibirskaïa, Nadia 246Siegmann, George 51, 61Sim, Sheila 188Simpson, Ronald 95Sinclair, Upton 220Singleton, Joseph 47Singleton, Penny 116Skelly, Hal 71Smith, C. Aubrey 112, 170Smith, Cyril 170Smith & Dale 144Smyrner, Ann 214Snowden, George 160Somerville, Ian 266Southern, Eve 56St. John, Al 13, 32, 33, 148St. John, Betta 213Standing, Wyndham 75Stanley, Forrest 108

Stanton, Fred R. 74Steel, Anthony 194, 200, 201Steinruck, Albert 231Stem, Herbert 258Sterling, Ford 149Stern, Herbert 258Stevens, Ronnie 209Stewart, James 124Stifter, Magnus 230Stone, Arthur 132Strong, Porter 69Stuart, Gloria 106Sullivan, Ed 149Sullivan, Francis L. 181Sutton, Grady 91, 134, 135, 136Swain, Mack 34, 91Swanson, Gloria 91, 180Sweet, Blanche 60, 61Swinburne, Nora 180, 181Sydney, Basil 164, 166, 212Sylvie, Lucien Coedel 225Syms, Sylvia 210

TTafler, Sidney 208Talbott, Lori 117Talmadge, Constance 48, 65, 74, 76, 77Talmadge, Natalie 19Talmadge, Norma 74, 75, 76, 77, 80Tamiroff, Akim 116, 171Tappert, Horst 236Tashman, Lilyan 104Teagarden, Jack 161Tearle, Conway 75Tearle, Godfrey 195Tempest, Marie 184Terry-Lewis, Mabel 185Thamar, Tilda 208Theby, Rosemary 91Thomas, Jane 69Thompson, Carlos 201Thompson, Ray 24Thomson, Al 149Thorburn, June 208Thorndike, Dame Sybil 209Thulin, Ingrid 226Thundercloud, Chief 124Tierney, Edward 125Tierney, Lawrence 125Tikkanen, Aino-Maija 227Tincher, Fay 60Todd, Ann 181, 184Todd, Richard 171, 214Todd, Thelma 98Tomlinson, David 194Toomey, Regis 98Torrence, Ernest 25, 88Trocchi, Alex 266Truesdale, Howard 24Tubb, Ernest 117Turpin, Ben 91

UUstinov, Peter 194

VValentino, Rudolph 85, 86Vallee, Rudy 108, 159van Bergen, Ingrid 212Van Derman, Carol 195van Eyck, Peter 212Varconi, Victor 105Veidt, Conrad 176, 185, 231, 235Velez, Lupe 56Verne, Karen 185Villard, Frank 202von Seyffertitz, Gustav 49, 56, 109von Stroheim, Erich 49, 62, 81, 82von Twardowski, Hans Heinrich 231, 234Voya, Georges 260Vroom, Frederick 19

WWalbrook, Anton 170Walcott, George 103Walker, Jimmy 108Wallace, Morgan 69Walsh, Dermot 202Walsh, Kay 204Walsh, Raoul 61Walthall, Henry B. 60, 61, 71Ward, Alice 42Ware, Irene 170Warner, H. B. 168, 169Warner, Jack 200, 213Warren, Kenneth J. 212Warrick, Ruth 112Warwick, John 165Washburn, Bryant 77Washington, Fredi 95Waterman, Ida 103Waters, Ethel 97Watling, Jack 202Watson, Barry 91Watson, Hildegarde 258Wattis, Richard 209Webb, Chic 160Webber, Melville 258Wegener, Paul 230, 231Weissmuller, Johnny 108, 149Welch, Elisabeth 95, 97West, Dorothy 46West, Julian 236Westerlund, Catrin 227White, Barbara 166Whitley, Crane 260Whitty, Dame May 112Wilcoxon, Henry 97Williams, Arthur 95Williams, Emlyn 175, 194Williams, Hugh 164, 165, 168Williams, Kathlyn 84

Wilson, Frank 95Wilson, Margery 46Wilson, Tom 17Winters, Shelley 113Withers, Googie 164, 165, 185, 195Wolfit, Donald 202, 212Wolheim, Louis 69, 70Wong, Anna May 52Wood, Freeman 17Wooland, Norman 202, 203, 208Worthing, Helen Lee 103Wright, Tony 208Wymore, Patricia 170Wynters, Charlotte 71

YYoung, Roland 112Younger, Eddie 160Yurka, Blanche 116

ZZetterling, Mai 209Ziegfeld, Florenz 108Zouka, Princess 97Zukor, Adolph 108

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