RolloTredway

Those Obscure Objects of Desire

They sure were barking up the wrong tree with that one.

As silent film historian Kevin Brownlow has stated, the fundamentals of "film grammar" - the editing techniques, long shot/closeup shifts, etc. - was firmly in place by the early 1920s. And as many would agree, film technique was reaching some sort of perfection by the late 1920s, just as talkies were coming in and taking over. I might recommend that you try some of those later silents, for example Wings, Show People, The Wedding March, The Cat and the Canary, and work your way backwards, as it were. Some DVD's of classic era talkies come with an option of hearing the isolated music an

That Swedish poster for Zenobia bills Oliver Hardy as "HELAN" which looks quite odd without the "HALVAN" (Stan Laurel) - the two local nicknames are inextricably linked.

Exiled German author Klaus Mann edited the short-lived cultural journal Decision from New York. Among many distinguished contributors was Erich von Stroheim who offered this review of Citizen Kane: http://www.fredcamper.com/M/VonStroheim.html As noted in the intro, Stroheim wrote another article for the same periodical, titled "Movies and Morals". Anyone who can whip up a copy of that one wins extra karma points.

Who sez writers don't get no respect? (Say, 3rd row, left - isn't that Lurch of the Addams Family?)

"You're taking the fall, sweetheart."

In keeping with his slightly unusual character in the film, an innocent "Mama's boy". The film emphasizes its moral that young men ought to spend their evenings at home with their mother and not go running after fascinating society editors - that spells big time trouble. But to balance that image: Can't blame John for being fascinated, though: I've seen it in a 15th-generation copy ... One for the restoration dept.? On a more light-hearted note, My Lady of Whims (1925) also moralizes against the wild life, in typical 1920s having-your-cake-and- eat-it fashion. I

It's MacMurray's head grafted onto Tyler's body. The original Captain Marvel of the comic books was modeled on Fred.

The first one below is the program for the original Broadway production. What's FDR doing there? The French one wins no award for facial likenesses.

With apologies to Tom Tyler:

Funeral service for Ford Sterling, October 1939. L-R Harold Lloyd, Mack Sennett, Barney Oldfield, Charlie Chaplin, (unknown), Douglas Fairbanks, Donald Crisp, Charlie Murray. Charlie's finger is bandaged after getting it slammed in a gate while filming a scene from The Great Dictator.

Wait, don't tell me - Kaspar Gutman, right? It may well have been the McBride book you read, as he is indeed favorably disposed towards that film. But I'll forgive that revisionist lapse in a tome that on the whole is well written, balanced and informative, and definitely not an uncritical fanboy's hagiography.