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  • Hollywood's Great Voices Part II: The Women

    Lights of New York was the first '100% talking' feature, arriving in midsummer 1928 in theaters wired for sound. In the space of the following year, every Hollywood studio created a sound department and began releasing talkies.The microphone did not simply add live sound; it dictated camera work, forced the creation of the modern screenplay, and called on film actors to project their personalities in dramatic speech. This piece surveys the accomplishments of actresses in ...

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  • Ten Valentines for Your Valentine's Day

    Valentine's Day is just around the corner and below are ten suggestions of favorite romantic films that have just the thing to chase away the winter doldrums.The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) - Ronald Colman and Gary Cooper both love Vilma Banky in this well-told Western romance. This silent movie is a visual masterpiece, with scenes tinted in amber, blue, and red, and there's an exciting flood sequence as well. This is a great film for those uncertain about wat...

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  • Silent Cinema: American Epics - Silent Film on a Large Scale

    We are right in the middle of an age of epics with the biggest films involving superheroes, spaceships and worlds in the balance. There were other ages of epics, of course, most notably the biblical epics of the 1950s and 1960s, but the Hollywood silent movie epic is a special breed with real sets, real casts of thousands and, in some case, real danger. Yes, later films did sometimes have these elements but there is a lovely grit and opulence to the silent versions.Let's talk abou...

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  • TV TIME: Top-Rated TV Episodes, Part 1

    Wesley Hyatt's Television's Top 100: The Most Watched American Broadcasts 1960-2010 is an excellent book exploring television history through an unofficial ranking of sorts. It's no mere list, though, but an entertaining and informative read with write-ups on each of the 100 broadcasts. In this column and the next, we'll examine episodes included in the book belonging to the ClassicFlix era that are available on DVD.A few caveats: To avoid making a book consisting of a bu...

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  • Hollywood's Great Voices Part I: The Men

    'You can dish it out, but you got so you can't take it no more.'Most film buffs can identify the above quote (Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar) and many can hear it in their heads; Robinson’s jeering voice, ripe with false bonhomie and sharp with menace. Stars of the sound era cultivated a vocal style for their roles. Some had natural tone and timbre that provided character.Wallace Beery's slow delivery and casually rolling syllables matched the slove...

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  • The 2015 Palm Springs Classic Sci-Fi Festival

    I was fortunate to enjoy a wonderful weekend at the first-ever Palm Springs Classic Science Fiction Film Festival this year. This inaugural sci-fi event was held at the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs, where six months previously I had attended the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival.Both festivals were expertly produced and hosted by Alan K. Rode, and it's safe to say that, thanks to Alan's great work, I'm a convert to the Palm Springs festival experience! It's a relaxed and congeni...

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  • Classics 101: Harry Langdon - The Fourth Clown

    Our story so far: on September 5, 1949, Life magazine published a cover story entitled Comedy's Greatest Era, by James Agee. Virtually overnight, twenty years after its heyday ended, great silent comedy as a genre was rediscovered and placed on a pedestal that's been revisited by each ensuing generation. Agee's article crowned four Kings of Silent Comedy; we previously looked at Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd; in this concluding article, we'll turn to the one that's frequently cited as a...

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  • Silent Cinema: Cheery Silent Films to Cure the Winter Doldrums

    Winter is coming, which means hot beverages and baked goods, but it can also mean grey, dreary weather. What better way to cure the winter blues than by watching a cheerful movie? I've gathered a small selection of silent films guaranteed to make you feel all warm and gooey inside. Enjoy!That Certain Thing (1928)Director Frank Capra's distinct touch is all over this charming little romantic comedy about a would-be gold-digger (Viola Dana) and the rich ...

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  • TV TIME: Party Like It's 1959 - Celebrating New Year's with Classic TV

    What better way to welcome the future than by revisiting the past? Inspired by some of your favorite classic television shows, we've assembled some tips on how to ring in the New Year the right way.Get your New Year's resolutions squared away: Let's start, as more discussions of vintage TV should, with Davey & Goliath. In addition to producing the 15-minute stop-motion animation shorts we saw in reruns for years, the Lutheran Church of America created...

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  • Distinguished Achievements in Slapstick

    Film buffs take sides over many genres: B-westerns, horror films, the works of Maria Montez or Lum and Abner. Slapstick is another divider, and the division is stark. To the anti's, slapstick is lowbrow, unimaginative, and unfunny. To its fans, slapstick, done by experts, is a comic exaggeration of the extremes of human behavior, fitting the definition of comedy as bad things happening to other people.A buff who scrupulously avoids slapstick must forego the pleasures of Chaplin's ...

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