Camille (1936) Director: George Cukor “Don’t you believe in love, Marguerite?” ★★★★★ An elegant and beautiful example of MGM’s soaring heights during Golden Age Hollywood, George Cukor’s Camille offers a true Greta Garbo classic. It is a story about a love-triangle, based on an 1842 story by Alexandre Dumas fils (the Younger),…
Month: July 2019
Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927) Film Review
Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927) Director: Walter Ruttman ★★★★☆ Some may call it avant-garde and excessive, while others hail it as a marvel, Berlin is the quintessential “city symphony” film, of which there were a variety of other minor films made in Paris and Manhattan. In my view, Berlin is a…
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) Film Review
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) Director: Wallace Worsley ★★★☆☆ The Hunchback of Notre Dame presents a mix of gothic horror as well as pity for the underclass of medieval Paris, particularly in the figure of the deformed character Quasimodo. The medieval set constructions for this film are extraordinary, it…
The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) Film Review
La Chute de la maison Usher (1928) Director: Jean Epstein ★★★☆☆ Apparently there were two highly stylized avant garde silent films focused on this Edgar Allan Poe short story, both released in 1928. In some ways I prefer the loose structure and surrealist version of James Sibley Watson and Melville…