The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a 1912 American short drama and a gangster film. It is directed by D. W. Griffith and written by Griffith and Anita Loos. It is also credited for its early use of follow focus, a fundamental tool in cinematography. The film was released on October 31, 1912 and re-released on November 5, 1915 in… Read more →
Daydreams is a 1922 American short comedy film directed by and featuring Buster Keaton. The film is most famous for a scene where Keaton finds himself on the inside of a riverboat paddle wheel. Plot: Buster wants to marry a girl, but her father disapproves. Therefore Keaton vows he will go the city and get a job, or commit suicide…. Read more →
A Woman was Charlie Chaplin’s ninth film for Essanay Films. It was made in Los Angeles at the Majestic Studio and released in 1915. Plot: A well-to-do family of three is asleep on a park bench. The father (Charles Insley) is awakened when a pretty girl (Margie Reiger) trips over his outstretched feet. The father is an incorrigible womanizer and… Read more →
The Wizard of Oz is a 1925 American silent fantasy-adventure comedy film directed by Larry Semon, who also performs in the lead role as a Kansas farmhand and later in the story disguised as the Scarecrow. This production, which is the only completed 1920s adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, costars Dorothy Dwan as Dorothy,… Read more →
The Silent Command is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by J. Gordon Edwards featuring Bela Lugosi as a foreign saboteur in his American film debut. The film, written by Anthony Paul Kelly and Rufus King, also stars Edmund Lowe, Alma Tell, and Martha Mansfield. The film depicts the story of Benedict Hisston (Lugosi), who is part of a… Read more →
The Adventurer is an American short comedy film made in 1917 written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, and is the last of the twelve films made under contract for the Mutual Film Corporation. Plot: Charlie Chaplin plays an escaped convict from the state penitentiary who, clad in his striped prison uniform, is on the run from prison guards. He skillfully… Read more →
The Merry Frolics of Satan (French: Les Quat’Cents Farces du diable, literally The Four Hundred Tricks of the Devil) is a 1906 French silent film directed by and starring Georges Méliès. The film, an updated comedic adaptation of the Faust legend, follows the adventures of an engineer who barters with the Devil for superhuman powers and is forced to face… Read more →
Ghosts is a 1915 silent film drama based on the famous play Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen. It was directed by George Nichols. D. W. Griffith produced the film and Erich von Stroheim served in several capacities as technical advisor, wardrobe assistant and costume designer. George Siegmann was an assistant director. The film had an alternate or working title The Wreck…. Read more →
Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay’s employer William Randolph Hearst curtailed… Read more →
Alice’s Wonderland is a 1923 Walt Disney short silent film, produced in Kansas City, Missouri. The black-and-white short was the first in a series of Walt Disney’s famous Alice Comedies and had a working title of Alice in Slumberland. The film was never shown theatrically, but was instead shown to prospective film distributors. It was included as a bonus feature… Read more →
