Magnus Hirschfeld: Film History Series

Magnus Hirschfeld, “Different from the Others”, 1919, Directed by Richard Oswald, Cinematography by Max Fassbender, Richard Oswald Film, Berlin

Video Soundtrack: “Meditation de Thais” by Joshua Bell

Born in May of 1868 in Kolberg, Prussia, Magnus Hirschfeld was a German physician and sexologist educated primarily in Germany, earning his doctoral degree in 1892. Observing the suicide rate of his gay patients, he became an outspoken advocate for sexual minorities. In May of 1897 Hirschfeld founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, a campaign for social recognition of gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women, and against their legal persecution. Under Herschfeld’s leadership, the Committee gathered over five thousand signatures on a petition to overturn Paragraph 175, the section of the German penal code that criminalized homosexuality. It received little support in the Reichstag in 1898, made some progress later, until its demise with the Nazi Party took power.

With the rise of the national socialist party in Germany, Magnus Hirschfeld was badly beaten by a group of võlkisch activists who attacked him on the streeet. In 1933, his Institute for the Research of Sexuality was sacked, the staff beaten, and its contents of books and documents burned on the street. At the time of the book burning, Hirschfeld was on a world speaking tour. He never returned to Germany, eventually near the end of his life, settling in Nice, France. Magnus Hirschfeld died in Nice on May 14, 1935 and is buried in the Caucade Cemetery.

Enacted in 1871, the German penal code’s Paragraph 175 sentenced thousands of accused German homosexual men to jail terms for “unnatural vice between men.” In 1919, director Richard Oswald and psychologist Dr.Magnus Hirschfeld created a film intended to expose the unjust Paragraph 175 and help liberate the “third sex” from legal persecution and public scorn. It was the first movie to portray homosexual characters beyond the usual innuendo and ridicule.

“Different from the Others” casts Conrad Veidt as Paul Korner, a gay concert pianist blackmailed by a closeted crook named Bollek. When Korner’s budding romance with Kurt Sivers, a handsome young music student, played by Fritz Schulz, runs afoul of Bollek’s extortion, Korner goes to the German courts for protection. But the draconian Paragraph 175 makes criminals out of both accuser and accused, ultimately costing Korner his career, his freedom, and his life.

One of the first gay-themed films in the history of cinema, “Different from the Others” was banned at the time of its release, later burned by the Nazis and was believed lost for more than forty years. Using recently discovered film segments, still photos and censorship documents from different archives, Filmmuseum Muenchen has resurrected this truly groundbreaking silent film for DVD.

Second Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Magnus Hirschfeld with his partner, Li Shiu Tong in Nice, France”. 1934-1935, Gelatin Silver Print

Third Image Insert: Magnus Hirschfeld, on the right, with his partner Tao Li, at the fourth conference of the World League for Sexual Reform in 1932. Tao Li’s father, Li Kam-tong, a wealthy Hong Kong business man, approved of his son’s relationship with Hirschfeld.

Film video reblogged with thanks to: https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/732

Sean Lìonadh

Sean Lìonadh, “Homophobia in 2018: Time for Love”, 2018

“Time for Love” is a short film written, directed and performed by Sean Lìonadh, It is taken from his written poem that explores homophobia in modern society, and also the concept of normality. It questions whether the pressures of convention turn us against one another, at the cost of love. This visually poem won a Royal Television Society Award in 2019, has acieved extensive viewing online, and has been translated into five languages.

Sean Lìonadh is a poet, writer, filmmaker and musician from Glasgow, Scotland. He worked with the Royal Opera House as the libretist on the modern opera”Honest Skin”. His band ‘Lìonadh’ creates dark pop music which explores the themes in his film. Sean Lìonadh is currently working with producers Alfredo Covelli and Ross McKenzie to develop his first feature film “Nostophobia”, exploring the adolescent intimacy and trauma through a gay relationship. His first book, a poetry collection entitled “Not Normal Anymore”, was published in 2019 by Speculative Books.

Sean Lìonadh has written and produced several films dealing with struggles and strengths in one’s life, including the 2017 short film for the BBC The Social series “Social Circles, “The handover” in 2018 dealing with the distance between parents, the 2018 “The Oppression of the Left”, dealing with the stigma of left-handedness, “Us and Them-Rhys’ Story” in 2019, and the 2019 “I Wonder if She Smiles”, the winner in 2020 of a John Byrne Award, Scotland’s online exhibition and competition.

Many thanks to http://irreverentpsychologist.blogspot.com

Olivia de Havilland: Film History Series

Scotty Welbourne, “Olivia de Havilland”, 1935, Publicity Shoot, Silver Gelatin Print

Born in July of 1906 in Tokyo, Japan, Olivia de Havilland was an American motion-picture star remembered both for the lovely, gentle roles of her early career and the later, more substantial roles she secured. With a cinematic career spanning from 1935 to 1988, she appeared in forty-nine feature films, becoming one of the leading actresses of her time.

Olivia de Havilland moved, along with her mother and younger sister Joan Fontaine, to California in 1919, settling in the village of Saratoga. After graduating from high school in 1934, she attended Mills College in Oakland, hoping to pursue a career as a teacher. De Havilland was chosen from the cast of a community theater production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by director Max Reinhardt to be first the understudy, and then the star of his theater production of the play.

Impressed by her performance, Reinhardt offered Olivia de Havilland the same role of Hermia in his upcoming Warner Brothers film version of the stage production. She signed a five-year contract with Warner Brothers in November of 1934, beginning her professional acting career. De Havilland appeared in many costume adventure movies with then little-known actor Errol Flynn in the 1930s and 1940s. Their first film together was the 1935 “Captain Blood”, the success of which resulted in four Academy Awards nominations, including Best Picture.

De Havilland appeared in Mervyn LeRoy’s 1938 historical drama “Anthony Adverse” playing the role of peasant girl Angela opposite actor Fredric March. The film earned six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, giving de Havilland good exposure and a chance to renegotiate her contract with Warner Brothers for a seven year term with higher salary.

De Havilland worked again with Errol Flynn in the 1938 “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and the 1939 Technicolor western, her first, entitled “Dodge City”. In early 1939, De Havilland exerted her influence to get the role of Melanie Wilkes/Hamilton in the upcoming David O’Selznick film “Gone with the Wind”, giving her the opportunity to play a substantial role she understood, and resulting in her first nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Winning a precedent-setting case in 1945 against Warner Brothers Studios, Olivia de Havillland was released for a six-month penalty obligation added onto her contract. The result of extending greater creative freedom to performers enabled her to take more challenging roles. She gave an Academy Award-winning performance as an unwed mother in the 1946 “To Each His Own”, played twin sisters in the 1946 psychological thriller “The Dark Mirror”, and won an Academy Award nomination for her role as a psychiatric ward patient in the 1948 “The Snake Pit”.

Olivia de Havilland was the recipient of numerous honors: the American National Medal of Arts in 2008, an appointment as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 2010 in France, and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017, shorty before her 101st birthday. Olivia de Havilland passed away peacefully of natural causes on July 26, 2020, at her residence in Paris, France.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Olivia de havilland”, 1940, Studio Publicity Shot, Gelatin Silver Print, Warner brothers Studio

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Olivia de havilland and Erol Flynn”, 1938, Still Shot from “The Adventures of Robin Hood”, Director Michael Curtis and William Keighley, Warner Brothers

Sergei Eisenstein: Film History Series

Sergei Eisenstein, “The Battleship Potemkin”, The Odessa Steps Scene, December 1925, Starring Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barksy, and Grigori Aleksandrov, Cinematography by Eduard Tisse and Vladimir Popov, Produced by Mosfilm

Born in January of 1898 in Riga, Latvia, Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was a film director, scriptwriter, film theorist, and a pioneer in the theory and development of montage. Using his technique of montage film editing, he portrayed the rapid developments of events on the screen, separating each scene into fragments and rearranging them into his preferred order.

Eisenstein studied engineering at the Petrograd Institute of Civil Engineering, leaving in 1918 to join the Red Army in the revolution. Still a member of the Red Army after the Bolshevik seizure of power, he took part in many theater productions and was eventually assigned to organizing productions and ensembles. In 1920 Eisenstein returned to Moscow and worked with the Proletkult Theater, becoming co-director and later the most noteworthy theater director in the USSR.

While still a theater director, Eisenstein wrote a manifesto, “Montage of Attractions,” for the literary journal “Lef”, rejecting the idea that dialogue is the dominant element in theater and claiming that all the elements function on equal terms, forming a fusion or montage that made the entire work. Montage in film, as Eisenstein understood it, means that a film should be constructed not in narrative fashion but from brief segments that serve to reinforce and counterpoint one another. The meaning of the film arises from the interplay of these elements, leading the audience into new recognitions.

In the spring of 1924, Eisenstein proposed that Proletkult undertake a series of films portraying the Russian revolutionary movements before 1917. Working with cameraman Eduard Tisse, a Latvian newsreel photographer who would go on to be the cameraman on all his films, he took on the making of “Strike”, the fifth film in the series. In 1925, Eisenstein made his second and probably his greatest film “Battleship Potemkin”, examining the mutiny carried out by sailors of the Russian warship, Prince Potemkin, stationed in the Black Sea fleet near Odessa.

Sergei Eisenstein’s film “The General Line”was an experiment in presenting the feeling of ecstasy in film. Directed by both Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov, the film, centering on a rural heroine instead of a group of characters, was a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, a policy championed by Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Eisenstein used his montage method with great success in the filming of the milk coop, its sequence conceived as a enthralling spectacle of raptured faces and the triumphant introduction of new farm machinery. After Trotsky’s fall from grace, the film was quickly re-edited and released in 1929 as “The Old and the New”.

Eisenstein’s vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Stalin. Frequent attacks on Eisenstein and then subsequent rehabilitation would be a repeated pattern throughout his life. His popularity and influence in his own land thus waxed and waned with the success of his films and the passage of time. In 1930, Eisenstein was approached with offers from Paramount Studios for several films; however, because of his artistic approach and disagreements with scripts, the contract was declared void by mutual agreement.

Eisenstein came back into prominence with the 1938 “Alexander Nevsky”, in which Eisenstein exchanged his montage style for one that focused and developed the individual characters to a greater extent. This was due to the rise of Socialist Realism in the arts which was becoming the cultural and artistic policy of the state. Well received, the film won Eisenstein the Order of Lenin and the Stalin Prize.

Eisenstein’s 1944 “Ivan the Terrible, Part One”, a film presenting Ivan IV as a national hero, also won the approval of Stalin and a Stalin Prize. However, the sequel “Ivan the Terrible, Part Two, although finished in 1945, was criticized by the government and not released until 1958. All footage from the unfinished Part Three was confiscated by the state and mostly destroyed, with only a few scenes still existing.

Sergei Eisenstein suffered a heart attack in February of 1946, recovered, but died from a second heart attack in February of 1948, at the age of fifty. His body laid in state in the Hall of the Cinema Workers, was cremated two days later, and his ashes buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Second Insert Image: Sergei Eisenstein, “The Battleship Potemkin”, 1925, The Odessa Steps Sequence

Third Insert Image: Sergei Eisenstein, “Que Viva Mexico!”, 1932, Directed by Eisenstein and Gregory Aleksandrov

Bottom Insert Image: Sergei Eisenstein, “Strike”, 1925, Cinematography by Eduard Tisse, Vladmir Popov, Vasili Khvatov

Ramón Novarro: 1925 Ben-Hur

Photographers Unknown, “Ramón Novarro”, Vintage Photographic Cards, 1925 “Ben-Hur”, Ross Verlag Company

Ramón Novarro was Ben-Hur to moviegoers long before Charlton Heston appeared in the role. The 1925 film of author Lew Wallace’s epic novel made Novarro one of Hollywood’s most beloved silent film idols. His impressive and varied career spanned silent films, the ‘talkies’, the concert stage, theater, and television..

Ross Verlag was first known as the ‘Ross Bromsilber Vertriebs’ company , a seller and distributor of photographic postcards located in Berlin. The company later became the publisher as well. The familiar ‘Ross Verlag’ logo first appeared in the early 1920s. On the front of the cards were the words ‘Verlag “Ross” Berlin SW 68’. (Verlag: publishing company; “Ross”: company name; Berlin SW 68: southwest Berlin with the area code).

Usually a set of cards of one or more actors would be from the same film or photographer. Some of the film-scene sets would contain twenty cards; but generally most series would have fewer. In 1941 there was a name change by the company to “Film-Foto-Verlag”, which remained until the cessation of its card publishing in 1944.

Sergei Parajanov: Film History Series

Sergei Parajanov, “The Color of Pomegranates”, 1969, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

The 1969 Soviet art film “The Color of Pomegranates”, written and directed by Sergei Parajanov, is a visual, poetic treatment of the life of the eighteenth-century Armenian musician and poet Sayat-Nova. The film is presented in a series of chapters depicting the poet’s life in active tableaux, presented with little dialogue. Each chapter, framed through Sayat-Nova’s poems, is indicated by a title card: Childhood, Youth, Prince’s Court, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death, and Death. Narration on the film was done by Armenian-born renowned actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, known for his role in the 1979 “The Meeting Place Can Not Be Changed”.

Four actors took the role of Sayat-Nova at different stages in his life, with Soviet Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli, notably playing six roles in the film, both female and male. The film was shot at numerous historical sites in northern Armenia, many being medieval churches in the Lori Provence, including the Sarahin Monastery and the St. John church at Ardvi. Filming was also done at the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijani, and in the countryside near the David Gareja Monastary in Eastern Georgia.

Objections were made by the Communist Party and the Soviet censors to Parajanov’s poetic, stylized treatment of the poet’s life, citing that it failed to educate the public. As a result, the original title “Sayat-Nova” was changed to “The Color of Pomegranates” and any references to Sayat-Nova’s name was removed from the credits. The Soviet officials also objected to the amount of religious imagery in the film and removed a substantial portion of it. Although the State Committee for Cinematography initially refused to allow the film to be shown outside Armenia, it did allow the film, now with a seventy-seven minute running time, to premiere inside Armenia in October of 1969.

Filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich, the 1962 People’s Artist of the USSR and a script-reader on the State Committee, recut the film by a few minutes to appease the authorities and created Russian-language chapter titles for easier understanding by the public at large. He also changed the order of some of the sequences in the film. This seventy-three minute version ultimately received only limited distribution in the rest of the Soviet Union.

The digital restoration of “The Color of Pomegranates” was completed in 2014 by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation with the help of Cineteca di Bologna. It was re-edited as close as possible to the Sergei Parajanov’s original version, with its premier held at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. Parajanov’s film premiered in the US at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September of 2014 and the 52nd New York Film Festival in October of 2014.

Marlene Dietrich: Film History Series

Marlene Dietrich, “Lili Marleen”, 1945, Decca Records

Marlene Dietrich was born on December 27th of 1901 in Berlin, Germany, with the given name Maria Magdalene Dietrich. Growing up, she studied French, English, and the violin at a private school, with the aspiration of becoming a professional violinist. Later in her teen years, Dietrich decided to explore acting, enrolling in Austrian-born theater director Max Reinhardt’s drama school, eventually acting in small parts on stage and in films. Because of her family’s disapproval of theater as a profession, she changed her name to Marlene Dietrich.

Dietrich married Rudolf Sieber in 1923 and, with his help, was able to get the small role of ‘Lucy’ in director Joe May’s 1923 “Tragedy of Love”. After the birth of their only child Maria in 1924, the marriage began to fail, leading to a separation but not a divorce. During this time, Paramount Studios signed to a contract director and filmmaker Josef von Sternberg, who already had produced a number of notable films. In 1929, Sternberg was sent to UFA, Paramount’s studio in Berlin, to direct the sound production of “The Blue Angel” based on Heinrich Mann’s book “Professor Unrat”.

Sternberg cast the little-known Marlene Dietrich in the female lead role of Lola Lola, the cabaret singer and dancer whose allure would attract and lead to the decline of Professor Unrat. With her sophisticated manner and sultry looks, Dietrich naturally fit into the role and became a star. The 1930 “Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)”, the first talking picture in Germany, became a big hit, eventually making Dietrich an international star with its English language version in the United States.

In April of 1930, Marlene Dietrich moved to America. Working once again with Sternberg, she starred in the 1930 romantic-drama “Morocco” with actor Gary Cooper. The film received four Academy Award nominations; Dietrich was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role, her one and only Academy Award nomination.She continued in her next films to play the femme-fatale roles, creating new more-masculine fashion trends for women and challenging accepted views of the female image.

Dietrich made several more films working with director Sternberg: the 1931 successful spy film “Dishonored”, “Shanghai Express” in 1932, “The Scarlet Empress” in 1934, and her personal favorite film “The Devil is a Woman”, a 1935 romance film set in Spain in which she played a cold-hearted temptress. A strong opponent of the Nazi government in Germany, she disassociated herself from the German film companies and became a US citizen in 1939, resulting in the banning of her films in Germany. During the war, Dietrich traveled extensively, entertaining the troops, selling war bonds, and recording anti-Nazi messages to broadcast in Germany.

Following the war, Marlene Dietrich worked with director Billy Wilder on his 1948 film “A Foreign Affair” and the 1957 film “Witness for the Prosecution” with actor Tyrone Power, based on the book by Agatha Christie. She also played strong supporting roles in director Orson Welles’ famous 1958 film-noir “Touch of Evil” and in Stanley Kramer’s 1941 courtroom drama “Judgement at Nuremberg”. As her acting career faded, Dietrich began a successful singing career in the mid-1950s performing from Las Vegas to Paris, and finally singing in Germany in 1960, her first visit since the war.

Marlene Dietrich gave up performing in the middle of the 1970s, moving to Paris and living in near-seclusion. She did agree to provide some audio commentary for the documentary “Marlene”, filmed by Maximillian Schell in 1984; however, she would not appear on camera for the film. Marlene Dietrich, one of the most glamorous leading ladies of the 1930s and 1940s, died in her Paris home on May 6th of 1992 and was buried next to her mother in Berlin.

The song “LiLi Marleen” is a German love song that became popular during WWII throughout Europe and the Mediterranean among both Axis and Allied troops. Written in 1915 as a poem of three verses by Hans Leip, a school theacher, it was set to music by Norbert Schultze in 1938 and recorded for the first time by Lale Andersen in 1939. In 1944 the Morale Operations Branch of the US Office of Strategic Services initiated the Muzak Project. Marlene Dietrich recorded a number of songs in German for the project, including “Lili Marleen”, which became a massive success. This version of the song with Dietrich singing eventually became recorded as a single by Decca Records in 1944 and released in 1945.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Marlene Dietrich”, 1948, Gelatin Silver Print, Encyclopedia Britannica

Second Insert Image: Eugene Robert Richee, “Marlene Dietrich”, Publicity Photo for 1931 “Disnonored”, Gelatin Siver Print, Paramount Pictures

Third Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Marlene Dietrich in Uniform for USO Camp Shows, London”, September 25, 1944, Gelatin Silver Print, Associated Press

Bottom Insert Image: Clarence Sinclair Bull, “Marlene Dietrich”, 1944, Publicity Shoot for “Kismet”, Gelatin Silver Print, Metro Goldwyn Mayer

Busby Berkeley: Film History Series

Artist Unknown, Busby Berkeley,’s “By A Waterfall” Scene, Computer Graphics, “Footlight Parade” Film Gifs

Lyricist Irving Kahal and composer Sammy Fair had a sixteen year collaboration which started in 1926 and lasted until Kahal’s death in 1942. Among their many notable songs was the 1933 “By a Waterfall”, written for Warner Brothers Picture’s “Footlight Parade”, the third film in the 1933 Gold Diggers Trilogy. The vocal performances were done by actor-singer Dick Powell and actress-singer Ruby Keeler.

Directed by Lloyd Bacon and presenting great cinematography by George Barnes, “Footlight Parade” contained opulent musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley whose routines contributed to the film’s success. Berkeley’s extravagant arrangement features his trademark human waterfall with its synchroniised water ballet of diving and swimming chorus girls, who produce elaborate, geometric patterns in the water.

One entire sound stage was filled with a twelve by twenty-four meter swimming pool with walls and floor made of glass. Two weeks were required for the one hundred chorus girls to practice their routines in it before shooting began. The six days of actual filming for the waterfall scene required that twenty thousand gallons of water per minute be pumped across the set to produce the required effects.

Besides the placement and movement of the dancers, the cameras also had to be positioned to film the entire scope of the choreography. Berkeley set his cameras in motion on monorails and custom-built booms to get the correct angle of shot. Since Berkeley was not hampered by the need to shoot multiple images at once for continuity, he was able to expand his creative potential by fluid camera motion and the use of intricate editing, creating fantasy out of the movement..

Pierre Emō: Film History Series

Pierre Emō: Scenes from Vann Gonzales’s “Un Couteau dans ke Coeur (Knife + Heart)”

French model and actor Pierre Emō first came to the attention of audiences in Germany and France with his appearances in the 2013 film “Only the Fire” by director and cinematographer Christophe Pellet and the 2014 film “While the Unicorn is Watching Me”, by director Shanti Masud, known for her 2013 “Pour la France”. Emō’s first appearance in a film by director Noel Alejandro was the short award-winning LBGT film “Call Me a Ghost” shown at the 2017 Chéries-Chéris film festival in Paris.

At the age of twenty-four in early 2017, Pierre Emō had already appeared in five movies, He next co-starred with French actress and singer Venessa Paradis and actor Félix Maritaud in director Vann Gonzales’s 2018 LBGT murder mystery thriller “Un Couteau dans le Coeur (Knife + Heart)”, which premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

In 2018, Emō appeared in several films including “Lemon Taste” by Nicky Miller and “Les Fantômes”, a horror thriller directed by Alexandre Vallès. Director Noel Alejandro again cast Emō in two more of his films, the 2018 “The Seed”, a short erotic art film, and the short 2018 drama film “The End”. Emō appeared in a small role for Latvian director Rosa von Praunheim’s 2019 crime thriller “Darkroom”, which was based on a true story and filmed in Germany.

Pierre Emō lives and works in both Paris and Berlin. On stage, he has played small parts with the prestigious Berliner Ensemble, a German theater company established in 1949 by actress Helene Weigel and playwright Bertoit Brecht.

The photo Images and gifs are from “Un Couteau dans le Coeur” by director Vann Gonzales. The film was shot on 35mm under the direction of cinematographer Simon Beaufils, who oversaturated some scenes in shades of blue and red. The soundtrack features the Gallic band M83.

The images and gifs were reblogged with many thanks to: https://doctordee.tumblr.com

The Lumière Brothers: Film History Series

Auguste and Louis Lumière, (Paris Scenes), “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900”, Film Gifs

The Belle Époque was a period in the history of Paris between 1871 to 1914, from the beginning of the Third French Republic until the first World War. The nostalgic term came into use, after the despair and deaths of World War One, for what seemed a simpler time of elegance, optimism and progress. This “Beautiful Age’ brought dramatic advancements in art, culture, and technology.

In the field of architecture, Paris saw the construction of the Paris Metro, the completion of the Paris Opera House, the building of the Eiffel Tower, and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre. During the three Universal Expositions of 1879, 1889, and 1900, millions of visitors came to Paris to see the latest marvels in commerce, the arts, and science. Paris was also the birthplace of the Ballets Russes, the most influential ballet company of the twentieth century, and the new art movements of Impressionism and the experimental Modern Art.

One particularly important technological invention that emerged at this time was the projected motion picture, patented in 1895 by Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean Lumière. With this new technology, the Lumière brothers captured contemporary life in 19th-century Paris, culminating in the priceless black and white footage we can still see today.

Shot between 1896 and 1900, the compilation “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” takes viewers on a journey back in time to Paris. In six minutes, it showcases several sites around the French capital, including still-standing landmarks like Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Élysées, and the ten-year-old Eiffel Tower. In addition to featuring specific locations, it also offers a glimpse of daily life, from a scene showing firefighters on horseback to footage of children playing with little boats in the Tuileries Garden.

In order to set a lifelike scene, film restorer Guy Jones slowed the footage to a natural speed and added ambient noise. When coupled with the video’s strikingly high quality, these alterations make it possible for people today to wander through the Golden Age of Paris.

The complete film “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” by the Lumière brothers with restoration and soundtrack can be found, along with other restored works, at Guy Jones’s Youtube site:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bebopsam1975/videos

Greeks Come True

Konstantinos Rigas by Vangelis Kyris, “Greeks Come True”, 2019

“Greeks Come True” is a movie filmed by Vangelis Kyris in conjunction with a photo shooting for the Greeks Come True annual print calendar which is available every December. Filmed entirely on a Greek mountain farm, the eighty minute film follows the fifteen men and athletes involved in the calendar shoot. The film’s multi-genre sooundtrack features some of Greece’s promising musical artists.

Gloria Grahame: Film History Series

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Gloria Grahame, “Human Desire”, 1954, Director Fritz Lang, Cinematographer Brunett Guffey

Gloria Grahame Hallward, born November 28, 1923, was an American film star, singer, and stage and television actor. After appearing on Broadway for several years, she was signed to a contact with MGM Studios in 1944 . Two years after her film debut in “Blonde Fever”, she was given the role of flirty Violet Bick, saved from disgrace by Stewart’s George Bailey, in the 1946 “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Her contract was then sold to RKO Studios in 1947 which featured her in several film noir pictures, portraying beautiful, flawed but seductive, women.

Gloria Grahame received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role portraying Ginny Tremaine in the 1947 “Crossfire”, a film noir drama based on the theme of anti-Semitism. In 1950 she appeared with Humphrey Bogart in Columbia Pictures’ film “In a Lonely Place”, garnering praise from critics. Her very short role of nine minutes playing southern belle Rosemary Bartlow in the 1952 “The Bad and the Beautiful” won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Grahame appeared in two films directed by Fritz Lang: the 1953 film noir “The Big Heat”, a crime drama co-starring Lee Marvin and Glenn Ford; and the 1954 film noir “Human Desire”, playing the femme fatale Vicki Buckley opposite her jealous film husband played by Broderick Crawford. As her film career began to wane, Grahame returned to the stage and made several guest appearances on television, including “The Twilight Zone” and “The Fugitive”.

After an initial bout with breast cancer in 1974, which had gone into remission, Gloria Grahame was again diagnosed with its return in 1980. Despite her failing health, she continued to work on stage in England and the United States. At the age of fifty-seven in 1981, Gloria Grahame was admitted to Saint Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, where she passed a few hours after admittance. She is buried at the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. For her work in the film industry, Gloria Grahame has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. An account of Grahame’s final years of life, based on recollections of actor Peter Turner, was presented in the 2017 film “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool”.

Main Image reblogged with thanks to http://doctordee.tumblr.com

Tope Insert Image: Burnett Guffey, “Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart”, 1950, “In a Lonely Place, Film Still

Bottom Insert Image: Charles Lang, “Gloria Grahame”, 1953, “The Big Heat”, Film Still

Calendar: December 26

A Year: Day to Day Men: 26th of December

Double Stars

The day of December 26th was a great day for film buffs. the date marked the premiers of two major films in the genres of comedy and horror.

On December 26, 1940, the romantic comedy film, “The Philadelphia Story” directed by George Cukor, based on the Broadway play of the same name, premiered in New York City. The film starred Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart; it also featured Ruth Hussey in her Academy Award-nominated role of photographer Elizabeth Imbrie.

The film is considered one of the best examples of a comedy of remarriage, a genre popular in the 1930s and 1940s, in which a couple divorce, flirt with outsiders and then remarry—a useful story-telling ploy at a time when the depiction of extramarital affairs was blocked by the Production Code.

The film was Hepburn’s first big hit following several flops, which had led to her being included on a 1938 list that Manhattan movie theater owner Harry Brandt compiled of actors considered to be “box office poison”. She acquired the film rights to the play, which she had also starred in, with the help of Howard Hughes, in order to control it as a vehicle for her screen comeback. After MGM purchased the film rights they were skeptical about Hepburn’s box office appeal, so Louis B Mayer took an unusual precaution by casting two A-list male stars (Grant and Stewart) to support Hepburn. Nominated for six Academy Awards, the film won two; James Stewart for Best Actor and Donald Ogden Stewart for Best Adapted Screenplay.

On December 26, 1973, “The Exorcist” was released theatrically in the United States by Warner Brothers. The film was initially booked in only twenty-six theaters across the U.S., although it soon became a major commercial success. The film earned ten Academy Award nominations, winning Best Sound Mixing and Best Adapted Screenplay. It became one of the highest-grossing films in history, grossing over $441 million worldwide in the aftermath of various re-releases, and was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The film was adapted by William Peter Blatty from his 1971 novel of the same name and starred Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow and Jason Miller. The book, inspired by the 1949 exoticism of Roland Doe, deals with the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and her mother’s attempts to win back her child through an exorcism conducted by two priests. The film experienced a troubled production; even in the beginning, several prestigious film directors including Stanley Kubrick and Arthur Penn turned it down. Incidents, such as the toddler son of one of the main actors being hit by a motorbike and hospitalized, attracted claims that the set was cursed. The complex special effects used as well as the nature of the film locations also presented severe challenges.

Calendar: December 23

Year: Day to Day Men: December 23

The Blue Leather Armchair

December 23rd of 1912 marks the release of director Mack Sennett’s comedy short “Hoffmeyer’s Legacy”, notable for being the first Keystone Cops comedy. There are no known existing copies of this film; it is now considered a lost work.

Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor and studio head. Born in Danville, Quebec in 1880, he started his career in films with the Biograph Company of New York City, which during the height of the silent era was the most prominent and respected film studio in the United States. In 1912, Sennett, with backing from the owners of the New York Motion Picture Company, opened Keystone Studios in California. This studio possessed the first fully-enclosed film stage and studio ever constructed.

At Keystone Studios in 1912, Sennett created the slapstick antics of the Keystone Kops. The idea for the Keystone Kops came from Hank Mann, a Russian-American comedian who became one of the first Keystone Kops. Mann played the police chief Tehiezel in the group’s first film, “Hoffmeyer’s Legacy”. The popularity of the Keystone Kops began with the 1913 comedy short “The Bangville Police” which had comedian Ford Sterling in the role of chief.

Notable members of the Keystone Kops were comedic character actor Edgar Kennedy; Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, one of the most popular silent stars of the 1910s; William Frawley known for his later role as Fred Mertz in “I Love Lucy”; and Alfred St. John known for his scruffy character role in both the 1940 “Billy the Kid” and 1941 “Lone Rider” series. The casting of the Keystone police changed from one film to the next; many of the members were per diem actors who remain uncredited.

Mack Sennett continued producing films with the Keystone Kops through the 1920s but, with the arrival of sound films, the group became less popular. In 1935, Warner Brothers director Ralph Staub staged a revival of the group with his short film “Keystone Hotel” which featured the Kops’ frantic movements. Homages to the group appeared in the 1939 “Hollywood Cavalcade” which had Buster Keaton in a Keystone chase scene, and the 1955 “Abbot and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops” which include stuntmen dressed as the Kops in a lengthy chase scene. The “Abbot and Costello” film had cameo appearances by two of the original Kops, Hank Mann and Heinie Conklin, as well as a cameo by Mack Sennett. The master of comedy, Mel Brooks included a Keystone Kops-styled chase scene in his 1976 comedy “Silent Movie”.

Calendar: December 19

Year: Day to Day Men: December 19

The Green Door

On the 19th of December in 1971, Stanley Kubrick’s X-rated film “A Clockwork Orange” premiered in New York City. Based on author Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel of the same name, the film commented on juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, psychiatry and other social issues in a dystopian near-future England. The film received mixed reviews and had notable detractors including film critics Stanley Kauffman, Leslie Halliwell and Roger Ebert. In 1972, “A Clockwork Orange” won the New York Film Critics Award.

“A Clockwork Orange” was released a month later in the United Kingdom on the 13th of January in 1972. The film was passed in an uncut version for the UK cinemas despite British authorities considering the film’s sexual violence to be extreme. After reports of copycat acts of violence linked to the movie, Warner Brothers at the request of Kubrick withdrew the film from British release. As a result, it was difficult to see “A Clockwork Orange” in the United Kingdom for a period of twenty-seven years. After Kubrick’s death in 1999, the film was finally re-released in theaters.

In Ireland, “A Clockwork Orange” was banned on the 10th of April in 1973; Warner Brothers did not appeal the decision. Eventually, the film was passed uncut for cinema in December of 1999 and released in theaters in March of 2000. In Singapore, the film was banned for over thirty years and was finally shown uncut with an R21 rating on the 28th of October as part of the 2011 Perspectives Film Festival.

Under apartheid, the South African government banned it for thirteen years, finally releasing the film with one cut scene to people over the age of twenty-one. Brazil’s military dictatorship banned the film until 1978; it was released in a version with black dots covering the breasts and genitals of the actors in the nude scenes. In Spain, the film debuted at the 1975 Valladolid International Film Festival after students protested and closed the University of Valladolid for two months. Long queues of students formed at the festival and later commercial theaters and arthouses.

Author Anthony Burgess had mixed opinions about the film. He loved the acting of Malcolm McDowell and Michael Bates and Kubrick’s use of music. He was concerned though that the novel’s final redemptive chapter was missing, a fact he blamed on the American publisher who had omitted the chapter in all US editions prior to 1986. In fact, Kubrick claimed he had not read that chapter until he finished the screenplay; he felt it was unconvincing and inconsistent with the book.

“A Clockwork Orange” was nominated for numerous awards including four Academy Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and a Director Guild of America Award, among others. It won two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, and the Online Film & Television Association Award (Hall of Fame-Motion Picture).

Notes: Film collector Mark E. Phillips wrote an extensive article on “A Clockwork Orange” for his “NYC in Film” site. The article offers a concise list, in chronological order, of each filming location in London for Kubrick’s masterpiece. Each location, from the Korova Milk Bar to the final scene at Princess Alexandra Hospital, is illustrated by film stills and current photos. Phillips’ article is located at: https://nycinfilm.com/2023/06/04/clockwork/

Director Pedro González Bermúdez made a 2021 documentary entitled “A Forbidden Orange” which examines Spain’s Franco government’s banning of “A Clockwork Orange” and the efforts of a long-running religious film festival, the Seminci in Valladolid, to premiere the film. Produced in collaboration with actor Malcolm McDowell as narrator, this documentary is worth seeing if you are interested in the history of Kubrick’s film.