Author Archives: chipkaufmann

have admired the films of Robert Flaherty since I first saw NANOOK OF THE NORTH back during my college days in the 1970s. I later saw his sound movies MAN OF ARAN (1934), ELEPHANT BOY (1937), LOUISIANA STORY (1948), and his abortive collaborative effort with F.W. Murnau TABU (1931). I had heard of and readContinue reading “MOANA: Beautiful To Watch But Hard To Listen to”

…are the two words I would use to describe this recent Flicker Alley release. Exhilarating in that there is now a quality copy of NANOOK on Blu-Ray. There is also the availability of the other rare films on Disc 2 although the visual quality doesn’t match that of NANOOK. No matter, just being able toContinue reading “NANOOK OF THE NORTH: Exhilarating And Depressing…”

I was looking forward to the release of THE QUIET ONES for a couple of reasons. 1) I’m a big fan of Jared Harris (and wish he could have replaced his father Richard as Dumbledore in the HARRY POTTER series) and 2) I’ve been following the movies of the revived Hammer Films with keen interestContinue reading “THE QUIET ONES: This 2014 Hammer Offering Is An Interesting Failure”

Read the various reviews and you’ll find that, for the most part, people were either impressed or weren’t with THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Put me in the former category for I love a good ghost story and there are way too few in the movies. THE WOMAN IN BLACK does exactly what it sets outContinue reading “THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012): Hammer’s Version Is Not As Good As The 1989 Original”

This movie went straight to DVD in the U.S and only recently opened in the U.K. Most of the U.S. reviews have ranged from fair to terrible and while I can understand that, I don’t agree with it. I think THE RESIDENT has a lot more to offer than it’s given credit for. Is theContinue reading “THE RESIDENT Is PEEPING TOM…50 Years Later”

WAKE WOOD is a Hammer Films production/presentation with Hammer CEO Simon Oakes one of the driving forces behind getting the film made. It’s officially listed as an Irish/Swedish co-production and features location shooting in Donegal with some studio work done in Sweden. Together they make up the fictional town of Wake Wood where it isContinue reading “WAKE WOOD: DON’T LOOK NOW Meets THE WICKER MAN”

Leave it to Flicker Alley to come up with a silent movie that I wasn’t aware of. I may have come across Marcel L’Herbier’s 1924 L’INHUMAINE (The Inhuman Woman) in some silent film reference book but I don’t recall it. I knew of the director’s later movie L’ARGENT (1928) but not this one. Having justContinue reading “L’INHUMAINE (1924): Fantastic Fusion Of The Arts Still Fascinates”

L’ARGENT is one of those movies whose reputation has soared over the last 50 years after being virtually forgotten shortly after it’s release in 1929. Some of that had to do with the coming of sound, some of it with the worldwide Great Depression which it foreshadows and some of it with the fact thatContinue reading “L’ARGENT (1929): Great Restoration But Film Is Not My Cup Of Tea”

I have long awaited a decent version of this anti-war classic which I first saw in college from a very bad 16mm print. Years later I got a Connoisseur Video Collection VHS copy of the film. It was slightly better in visual quality but it still suffered from subtitles that were incomplete as well asContinue reading “J’ACCUSE (1938): Abel Gance’s Sound Remake In A First Class Restoration”

There were plenty of anti-war films before Abel Gance released J’ACCUSE in 1919. Numerous short films were made circa 1911-1915 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the American Civil War (DRUMMER OF THE 8th from the CIVIL WAR FILMS OF THE SILENT ERA is a prime example) culminating in D.W. Griffith’s continually controversial THE BIRTH OFContinue reading “J’ACCUSE (1919): The First Great Anti-War Film”