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On New Year’s Eve, do the sugar foot strut!
To round out 2015, here’s some instruction on the dance sensation that’s sweeping the nation. Of 87 years ago, that is. From Fox News of 1928, here’s the sugar foot strut! Louis Armstrong would record...
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Mistinguett on film: three shorts
Mistinguett must be considered one of France’s great entertainers. Born Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois in 1875, in the early twentieth century she was a huge star of the French music hall, lighting up...
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Pictorial emotion: the moods of Makowska
I always enjoy sets of photographs where an actor is pictured expressing a variety of emotions: ‘passion’, ‘hatred’, ‘sorrow’, ‘love’, ‘grief’, ‘surprise’, etc. A famous example of this phenomenon is...
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A visual tour of the Shanghai Film Museum
Last year I was fortunate enough to visit Shanghai, and naturally indulged in some film-related activities while I was there. Checking out the beautiful Art Deco cinemas that still exist in the city...
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Book review: “The Film Explainer” by Gert Hofmann
My grandfather Karl Hofmann (1873-1944) worked for many years in the Apollo cinema on the Helenenstrasse in Limbach/Saxony. I knew him towards the end of his life, with his artist’s hat, his walking...
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Silent cinema from the vaults to the world: an interview with film archival...
Film programme, Dryden Theatre at George Eastman Museum: Tribute to Gloria Swanson (May 1966) Silent cinema is gaining more prominence and availability than ever before—but how does the work of...
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Romance of celluloid: celebrating nitrate film
via George Eastman Museum Nitrate film: shimmering, unstable, explosive. Very shortly, the second annual Nitrate Picture Show will kick off at George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York. Billing...
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Researching and restoring Universal’s King of Jazz (1930): an interview with...
1930 saw the release of a film that Universal Pictures expected to be a smash hit: King of Jazz, a musical revue starring Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. Shot in two-strip Technicolor, King of Jazz...
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Stacia Napierkowska in Italy (and beyond)
Stacia Napierkowska in La modella (1916) As dancer Marfa Koutiloff in Les Vampires (FR 1915-16), Stacia Napierkowska gave the silent cinema one of its most iconic images: a woman in a black...
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In search of Astrea, mysterious ‘strongwoman’ of the Italian silent cinema
Astrea. Postcard from my collection The silent era was something of a golden age for athletic female stars. American serial queens were beloved by audiences around the world—it would be hard to...
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Previewing Il Cinema Ritrovato
In a week’s time, the 30th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato will kick off in Bologna, Italy—and for the first time, I’m going to be there! It goes without saying that I’m really pumped to be...
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Live cinema: experimental shorts in Modena
Poster via Facebook A quick despatch from Italy! It seems that silent cinema finds me wherever I am: I’m currently staying in Modena, Italy, and what should be taking place but an open-air...
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Image, light, sound – magic: Reporting back on Il Cinema Ritrovato 2016
The Boys from Feng Kuei ( 風櫃來的人, 1983) There was a time when cinema came out from behind trees, burst forth from the sea; a time where the man with the movie camera arrived in town squares, entered...
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Casa Lyda Borelli in Bologna
Lyda Borelli was already a celebrated theatrical actress and fashion icon when she burst into film with the seminal Ma l’amor mio non muore! (But my love will never die!; 1913). Her cinematic career...
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Varieté at the NZIFF: An interview with composer Johannes Contag
Varieté (also known as Variety, Vaudeville and Jealousy) is one of the most prominent works of the Weimar cinema. Directed by E. A. Dupont for UFA in 1925, it is as famous for Karl Freund’s...
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More question marks in Italian film advertising of the teens
Late last year, I published a post of adverts I’d come across in silent-era Italian film journals that prominently used question marks. But there is a lot more material where that came from—so now, I...
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Diva December delayed!
Regular readers will know that in December, I usually publish a series of articles on the films of the Italian divas. Due to a heavy workload right now, I have to postpone this until early next year –...
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Diva ‘December’ returns – Fabienne Fabrèges in Signori giurati … (1916)
Welcome to (the now well-misnamed) Diva December! In this series, I look at examples of the Italian diva film, a genre that proliferated in 1910s Italy—for an overview, click here. This first...
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Lina Cavalieri in Sposa nella morte! | The Shadow of Her Past (IT 1915)
Known as “the most beautiful woman in the world”, opera singer Lina Cavalieri starred opposite Caruso, was fêted by D’Annunzio, and was painted by Boldini. She began her career singing in the...
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I act, therefore IAM: Italia Almirante Manzini in Notte di tempesta (1916)
Italia Almirante Manzini was a major diva of the Italian silents who has, so far, been mentioned on this blog only briefly. I like her a lot—she’s always fun and engaging to watch. Despite a stately...
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