A Film/Book Review by Tony Williams. While we eagerly await the Criterion release of The Sound of Music with audio-commentary by Quentin Tarantino, joking aside, it is pleasurable to see Kino-Lorber’s latest contribution to a prestigious film repertoire needing release to a wider audience rather than already seen “usual suspects.” […]
“Sin Lust Evil” in America: Louise Brooks and the Exhibition History of Pandora’s Box (1929)
April 23, 2023
Thomas Gladysz
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By Thomas Gladysz. Though celebrated today, Pandora’s Box experienced one of the more troubled exhibition histories of just about any film of its time.” Today, Pandora’s Box is considered one of the great films of the silent era, as well as a masterpiece of Weimar cinema. It is still regularly […]
Marion Davies’ Slow-Burn Revival: Zander the Great (1925) and Beverly of Graustark (1926)
By Thomas Gladysz. Davies was at her delightful best in comedies with a contemporary setting…. Nevertheless, her earlier costumes dramas and period pieces, like Zander the Great and Beverly of Graustark as well as the 2019 Undercrank release, Little Old New York, still have considerable charm.” The inherent contradiction in […]
Ukrainian Film and Restorations at Silent Film Festival
By Thomas Gladysz. Arrest Warrant (1926), an Ukrainian film directed by Heorhii Tasin, is a briskly paced gem. It tells the story of Nadia (played by Vira Vareckaja), who’s revolutionary husband flees the city in the midst of civil war, leaving her behind with a cache of secret documents. Expressionist […]
Lulu Forever: the 2020 Louise Brooks FilmPodium Retrospective (Zurich)
Fritz Kortner and Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box (G.W. Pabst, 1929) By Thomas Gladysz. Louise Brooks has been described as a “cult actress”…. But as both the Melbourne and Zurich retrospectives show, there is a good deal more to this singular performer.” Last October, the Melbourne Cinémathèque in Melbourne, Australia […]
Buster Keaton’s Genius, Derailed: The Cameraman (Criterion Collection)
By Thomas Gladysz. Film history is littered with the stories of stars whose careers were derailed by their studios, and themselves. Orson Welles and Erich von Stroheim are two of the best known examples. Each saw their careers go off the tracks for reasons that had as much to do […]
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(Re)considering Rudolph Valentino
March 4, 2020
Thomas Gladysz
By Thomas Gladysz. We are going to see why Rudolph Valentino got his first star billing, in a picture called Blood and Sand…. In 1922, when that picture was released, it was considered the absolute epitome of adult entertainment. Well, it is still a good show. Before this picture, his […]
Marion Davies: Gifted Actress and Impossible Boy
December 23, 2019
Thomas Gladysz
By Thomas Gladysz. I rejoice in this opportunity to record something which today is all but forgotten except for those lucky enough to have seen a few of her pictures: Marion Davies was one of the most delightfully accomplished comediennes in the whole history of the screen. She would have […]
Never the Victim: Louise Brooks and The Chaperone
April 16, 2019
Thomas Gladysz.
By Thomas Gladysz. The Chaperone, the first theatrical release from PBS Masterpiece, is a story of beginnings as well as a kind of origin story. Its plot revolves around the summer the 16-year-old Louise Brooks (Haley Lu Richardson) – four years before she found fame as a film star – […]
Reopening Pandora’s Box in San Francisco
By Michael T. Toole. It was quite the celebration for both Louise Brooks fans and silent cinéastes in general when the 17th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival presented a restored print of Pandora’s Box last month. G.W. Pabst’s ever engrossing and eminently stylish examination of pure sexuality and the […]