The Year 1906 in Film: The Debuts of Éclair, Feuillade, Bosetti and Finland
A review of significant events in the year 1906 in film and profiles of the principle players behind them. Includes a YouTube playlist of nearly 20 hours.
Author: Dan Willard
The Year 1907 in Film: The Debuts of Éclair, Essanay and Kalem
A review of significant events in the year 1907 in film and profiles of the principle players behind them. Includes a YouTube playlist of nearly 18 hours.
The Year 1896 in Film: The Debuts of Georges Méliès, Pathé frères, American Mutoscope, and Gaumont
A review of significant events and principle players in the year 1896 in film. Includes a YouTube playlist of 256 films.
The Year 1908 in Film: The Debuts of Detective Films, Film d’Art, Peplum, Griffith and the Russian Film Industry
The Year 1908 in Film: The Debuts of Detective Films, Film d’Art, Peplum, Griffith and the Russian Film Industry. Includes a YouTube playlist.
The Birth of Cinema, 1874-1895
The Birth of Cinema: a review of the events and players who contributed to the development of the film industry from 1874-1895. Includes a YouTube playlist.
Seven Days in May (1964)
“Every now and then a man on a white horse rides by, and we appoint him to be our personal god for the duration. For some men it was a Senator McCarthy, for others it was a General Walker, and now it’s a General Scott.”
The Petrified Forest (1936)
I really enjoyed watching this film and looked forward to some scholarly insights on the commentary track by Eric Lax, co-author of a Humphrey Bogart biography and several other books.[…]
Shanghai Express (1932)
A film like this that deals openly with the subject of prostitution and pokes fun at conventional morality would be impossible to make in Hollywood after the Hays Code began to be rigidly enforced in 1934.
The Machinist (2004)
Though it seems sacrilegious to say so, I think this is a better film than anything Hitchcock made.
The Unbeliever (1918): Edison Bows Out of the Film Business
A wealthy young atheist finds God, love, and loses his sense of class distinction in one the Edison company’s final productions.
