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Joe Vitus
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:31 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 14498 Location: Houston
This must be the movie Molly Haskell refers to in From Reverence to Rape, which she considers to have the most insightful image of male-female relationships. Keaton is about to hit her over the head (with a rock?) but at the last minute completely reverses himself and kisses her.

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Trish
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:49 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
I've only seen a handful (if that) of silent films - basically a while back on Marilyn's urging - a few Buster Keaton films (The General and a 2-3 more that I can't recall the names of - they were shorter films), Pandora's Box - which I really liked and strongly recommend and Birth of a Nation (which my stepfather had on DVD) which I sort of loathed (the blatant, ugly ugly racist content ruined any appreciation I might have had for the landmark film, sorry)

Do they show any silent films on cable or reg TV - otherwise I have to get it for a fee from my library or local video store
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dlhavard
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 1352 Location: Detroit (where the slow are run over)
The Wind - starring Lillian Gish - has got to be one of the scariest psychological movies of the silent era. A young woman marries a man she scarcely knows. He leaves her and two men break in to terrorize her - one leaving, one staying behind to rape her. She manages to kill him and then terrified, buries the body only to have the wind (which keeps blowing throughout) "dig him up". (Think Tell Tale Heart and you'd probably come close.) Really weird wonderful movie. And Gish is TERRIFIC!

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Trish
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:54 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
dlhavard wrote:
The Wind - starring Lillian Gish - has got to be one of the scariest psychological movies of the silent era. A young woman marries a man she scarcely knows. He leaves her and two men break in to terrorize her - one leaving, one staying behind to rape her. She manages to kill him and then terrified, buries the body only to have the wind (which keeps blowing throughout) "dig him up". (Think Tell Tale Heart and you'd probably come close.) Really weird wonderful movie. And Gish is TERRIFIC!


Wow - they did some racy stuff back then - I'll have to look that one up
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Trish
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:01 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
okay I orderd that from my library (video -rats) - let you know what I think when it comes in
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Marilyn
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:38 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8210 Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
Trish, there's not a lot of silent film on TV, but every Sunday night, Turner Classic Movies shows a silent. This past week they showed Hitchcock's The Lodger. They tend to pick the essential silent films. TCM also holds a Young Composers Contest every year, and the winner writes a new score for a silent from the TCM collection. Last year, they did the very excellent Garbo film, The Temptress. They usually show all of the winners' films/scores around that time. I don't know when the contest is decided, actually.Go to www.turnerclassicmovies.com for more details.

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Trish
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:54 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 2438 Location: Massachusetts
Marilyn wrote:
Trish, there's not a lot of silent film on TV, but every Sunday night, Turner Classic Movies shows a silent. This past week they showed Hitchcock's The Lodger. They tend to pick the essential silent films. TCM also holds a Young Composers Contest every year, and the winner writes a new score for a silent from the TCM collection. Last year, they did the very excellent Garbo film, The Temptress. They usually show all of the winners' films/scores around that time. I don't know when the contest is decided, actually.Go to www.turnerclassicmovies.com for more details.


Damn - I don't get TCM (just AMC - American Movie Classics) - they don't offer it (via Comcast cable) in my area
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Marilyn
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:03 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8210 Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
I wouldn't be without TCM. While I've seen a lot of the films they show, the commentary from the film hosts and the unexpected gems they dig up are essential. Sundance is my documentary channel. IFC and Trio are the wild-card stations. I put up with the commercials on Trio just because their programming is so interesting.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:04 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Marilyn wrote:
Trish, there's not a lot of silent film on TV, but every Sunday night, Turner Classic Movies shows a silent. This past week they showed Hitchcock's The Lodger. They tend to pick the essential silent films. TCM also holds a Young Composers Contest every year, and the winner writes a new score for a silent from the TCM collection. Last year, they did the very excellent Garbo film, The Temptress. They usually show all of the winners' films/scores around that time. I don't know when the contest is decided, actually.Go to www.turnerclassicmovies.com for more details.


I think it's in the spring - April-ish or so.

It's a great contest, because it gives young musicians some exposure and because they tend to pick movies that aren't easy to find otherwise. A few years back they did Ace of Hearts, starring Lon Chaney, which was really fun. (I always feel sorry for Lon Chaney 'cause he just doesn't do well with getting the girl in the end.)
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Marilyn
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:06 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8210 Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
One of the winners, a woman from NYC, killed herself.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:09 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Yes, very sad.
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Marilyn
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:13 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8210 Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
This is the Silent Sunday line-up for November:

The Battle of the Sexes (1928)

Michael (1924)

Desert Nights (1929)

La Boheme (1926)

Michael looks particularly interesting:

Synopsis: Master painter Claude Zoret's close relationship with his "adopted son," the handsome Eugene Michael, is threatened when a displaced aristocrat, Princess Zamikow from Russia, attracts the young man's attention. Zoret refuses to see the problem even though Michael is spending large sums of money and even selling valuable paintings by Zoret to keep her. This story is paralleled by Mrs. Adelsskjold's adulterous affair with the dissolute young Duke de Monthieu. Even as Zoret paints what he intends to be his last great masterpiece, he finds himself increasingly isolated and despairing.

Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael (1924, also known as Mikael) represents not only a major stylistic breakthrough in Dreyer's career, but also a significant, early example of gay-themed cinema. Dreyer was able to direct the film in Germany thanks to the support of Germany's leading producer at the time, Erich Pommer. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Herman Bang (1857-1912), a noted Danish writer; it was adapted once before in 1916 by the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller under the title of Wings.

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lady wakasa
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 2:56 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 21 May 2004 Posts: 5911 Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
Marilyn wrote:
Carl Theodor Dreyer's Michael (1924, also known as Mikael) represents not only a major stylistic breakthrough in Dreyer's career, but also a significant, early example of gay-themed cinema. Dreyer was able to direct the film in Germany thanks to the support of Germany's leading producer at the time, Erich Pommer. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Herman Bang (1857-1912), a noted Danish writer; it was adapted once before in 1916 by the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller under the title of Wings.


There a whole genre (well, maybe subgenre - there aren't that many) of homosexuality in silents, of which Michael is part. Different From the Rest is one, and I think Sex in Chains is in the group as well.

Lubitsch did an early film (before he left Germany), I Don't Want to be A Man (Ich möchte kein Mann sein), in which a spoiled tomboy who's more or less grounded by her family dresses up as a man in order to go out and party with a male friend (who doesn't recognize her). It's a little surprising in its openness (they get really drunk, and...), but not too wild - and this was the start of the Weimar Republic, anyway.
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censored-03
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 3058 Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
Not to go off subject, but, I was wondering if anyone in here knows what types of films FOX Movie Channel shows. I'm about to finally go digital as opposed to regular cable and it is one of the additional channels I will be getting. (Silents?)

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Marilyn
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 8210 Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
Not sure, but I saw a film on the channel the other night that I enjoyed. Damned if I can remember what it was, though.

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