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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”

Finally after 40 years I got to see what Kevin Brownlow was talking about in his groundbreaking tome on silent cinema THE PARADE’S GONE BY. French director Abel Gance IS a genius! His greatest work however is not his 1927 film NAPOLEON on which his fame today is based, it is his 1923 epic LAContinue reading “LA ROUE (1923): The APEX Of Silent Cinema”

This 4-DVD set has been a long time in coming and should go a long way in helping to restore Roscoe Arbuckle to his rightful place in the history of film comedy. One of its most rewarding aspects is the tracing of Arbuckle’s development as a comic genius and having the opportunity to see theContinue reading “ROSCOE “FATTY” ARBUCKLE: At Long Last A Proper Retrospective”

I have headlined my review this way because, in a nutshell, it perfectly sums up the appeal of this new box set from Flicker Alley. This collection of films will be of interest primarily to those who are already interested in silent films rather than those who have just discovered the medium. It is alsoContinue reading “EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS Is A Must For Anyone Interested In Cinema History”

This D.W. GRIFFITH: YEARS OF DISCOVERY DVD set comprises the 3 VHS tapes released by Kino International a few years back. It consists of 22 shorts made by Griffith for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company (now known as simply Biograph) between 1909 and 1913 when he left to make feature films. Although only aContinue reading “YEARS OF DISCOVERY Is The Best Of D. W. Griffith”

This second set of early films from the Gaumont Studios takes up where the first one left off. Not chronologically, as these films date from 1908-1916, but artistically as they focus on other contributors working there around the same time as Guy, Feuillade, and Perret who were the focus of the first set. The realContinue reading “GAUMONT 2 – Another Treasure Trove Of Early Cinema”