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Home | Tag Archives: Silent

Tag Archives: Silent

Key Genre Films 1920s

The coming of sound to the movies meant a great deal to the development of the fantasy genre. Although science fiction and particularly horror films had been produced since the earliest days of the medium, the addition of dialogue and, more importantly, special effects, greatly enhanced the creative abilities of filmmakers. As early as the turn of last century, Frenchman …

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Film Review: The Lost World (1925)

SYNOPSIS: “Explorer Professor Challenger is taking quite a beating in the London press thanks to his claim that living dinosaurs exist in the far reaches of the Amazon. Newspaper reporter Edward Malone learns that this claim originates from a diary given to him by fellow explorer Maple White’s daughter, Paula. Malone’s paper funds an expedition to rescue Maple White, who …

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Film Review: The Phantom Of The Opera (1925)

Rate This MovieSYNOPSIS: “At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What’s his goal? What’s his secret?” (courtesy IMDB) REVIEW: This week I’m extremely pleased …

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Film Review: Nosferatu (1922)

Rate This Movie SYNOPSIS: “Count Orlok moves to Wisburg bringing the plague, which reveals his connection to the realtor Thomas Hutter, and the Count’s obsession with Hutter’s wife, Ellen – the only one with the power to end the evil.” (courtesy IMDB) REVIEW: Back in the twenties, German director F.W. Murnau was so impressed with Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula, he …

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Film Review: The Golem (1920)

Rate This MovieSYNOPSIS: “In 16th-century Prague, a Jewish rabbi creates a giant creature from clay, called the Golem, and using sorcery, brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.” (courtesy IMDB) REVIEW: The Gothic tradition had always been stronger in Germany than anywhere else, ever since the Romantic Movement at the beginning of …

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Georges Méliès

Horror cinema is almost as old as cinema itself, for the very good reason that fantasy is implicit in the very nature of film. Action can be slowed down or speeded up, people can be made to appear or disappear, scale can be altered so that people can become giants or mannequins, double-exposure allows one actor to play two roles …

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The Barrymores

You know, my old friend John Barrymore was one of the most fascinating characters in film and theatre during the last century. He was son of stage actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgiana Drew Barrymore, and his siblings Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore also had extensive film careers. John made his stage debut in 1900, and quickly became a matinee idol. …

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Film Review: The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari (1920)

Rate This MovieSYNOPSIS: “A horror film that surpasses all others. Alan relates the story of traveling magician Doctor Caligari and Cesare. Their arrival in a town coincides with savage killings. Secretly Caligari was an asylum director who hypnotizes Cesare to murder. But the final reel contains something which will leave an audience shattered. It blows away all your moral certainties …

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