Tag Archives: film history

The fallibility of film history: Valeria Creti unmasked as Filibus

Posted on 31 May 2019 by silentsplease

I wrote about the delightful 1915 action caper Filibus a few years ago: a wonderful gender-bending tale of intrigue and adventure, one of my favourite silents. In particular, I praised the performance of Cristina Ruspoli as the title character Filibus, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, Misc | Tagged , , , , , , | 28 Comments

Researching and restoring Universal’s King of Jazz (1930): an interview with James Layton and Crystal Kui

Posted on 10 May 2016 by silentsplease

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 featured a grand set-piece in … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, interview, Misc | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Silent cinema from the vaults to the world: an interview with film archival scholar Grazia Ingravalle

Posted on 22 April 2016 by silentsplease

Silent cinema is gaining more prominence and availability than ever before—but how does the work of archives and cinémathèques drive the way we perceive it? Grazia Ingravalle is a doctoral student at the University of St Andrews in Scotland whose … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, interview | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Book review: Jean Desmet’s Dream Factory: The Adventurous Years of Film (1907-1916)

Posted on 4 April 2015 by silentsplease

The Desmet collection is a key jewel in the crown of EYE Filmmuseum: a huge and relatively intact corpus of films, posters, promotional materials, and company records deriving from the business activities of Jean Desmet, a key film distributor and theatre … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Book roundup! Film histories: Italy, Japan, pre-Revolutionary Russia; mid 1920s US culture; copyright & the US film industry

Posted on 3 March 2015 by silentsplease

I’ve been meaning to write up my thoughts on silent film histories more often. Here, have a roundup of what I’ve been reading over the last two or three months! The Magic Mirror: Moviemaking in Russia, 1908-1918 by Denise J. … Continue reading →

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Silent film histories: The Player of Games – James Card’s “Seductive Cinema”

Posted on 12 June 2014 by silentsplease

The first entry in an occasional series in which I look at writings on silent film from a twenty-first-century perspective.  As they say, hindsight is 20/20 … James Card was instrumental to the formation of the film archive at George … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments