Cinema Revisited: Beyond the Rocks (1922)
Back in 2006, Milestone Film and Video released the long elusive film Beyond The Rocks, a 1922 silent drama based on a novel by Elinor...
Cinema Revisited: Steamboat Bill Jr.
In Steamboat Bill, Jr., Buster Keaton, for his final independently produced feature, enjoyed a level of complete creative control...
Cinema Revisited: Dixie Madcaps (1918)
It isn’t uncommon to find silent comedies playing upon stereotypes for humor. Sometimes it is amusing, but mostly it is, at the very...
Cinema Revisited: The Great Dictator (1940)
Released in 1940, a “Baker’s Dozen” years after the talking-picture revolution, The Great Dictator shows silent-screen icon Charlie...
Cinema Revisited: Safety Last (1923)
The Roaring 20s are often depicted as one of carefree exuberance, economic growth, exciting jazz, and youthful go-getters. At the...
Book Review: Time is Money: The Century, Rainbow, and Stern Brothers comedies
This massive, over 500-page, study of Julius and Abe Stern delves very deeply into an area of screen comedy that is very little known....
Blu ray review: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
My first encounter with The Hunchback of Notre Dame was a Super 8mm silent print from Blackhawk Films that I got from my public library...
Blu Ray Review: Lights of Old Broadway (1925)
I have always taken umbrage at those who dismiss actress Marion Davies as a semi-skilled wannabe thrust into the spotlight by her...
Book Review: The Rise and Fall of Max Linder: The First Cinema Celebrity
Back around 1970 there was an informative book entitled Clown Princes and Court Jesters that offered chapters on lesser-known comedians...
Book Review: Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy
In one of the most insightful books on a Hollywood star, Olympia Kiriakou’s Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy...