Archive for April, 2010
German expressionist silent film by the director of Nosferatu.
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. Most prints of this movie are from the 1929 reissue version. This version is from 1925.
Cheng Huan is a missionary whose goal is to bring the teachings of peace by Buddha to the civilized Anglo-Saxons. Upon landing in England, he is quickly disillusioned by the intolerance and apathy of the country. He becomes a storekeeper of a small shop. Out his window, he sees the young Lucy Burrows. She is regularly beaten by her prizefighter father, underfed and wears ragged clothes. Even in this deplorable condition, Cheng can see that she is a priceless beauty and he falls in love with her from afar. On the day that she passes out in front of his store, he takes her in and cares for her. With nothing but love in his heart, he dresses her in silks and provides food for her. Still weak, she stays in his shop that night and all that Cheng does is watch over her. The peace and happiness that he sees last only until Battling Burrows finds out that his daughter is with a foreigner.
This film anticipates some of the subject matter of The Birth of a Nation, in simpler terms and with some sympathy to the north. A father bids a sad farewell to his family as he goes off to join the Union forces. Soon after he leaves, a frightened Confederate soldier arrives at the farm and asks for help from the young daughter that he finds there — she protects him from the pursuing Union soldiers but tells him to leave because he is a Confederate
The Adventures of Dollie is a 1908 film directed by D. W. Griffith. It was Griffith’s debut film as a director. A print of the film survives in the Library of Congress film archive. The film tells the story of a young girl who, after being kidnapped by a gypsy pedlar, ends up trapped in a barrel as it floats downriver toward a waterfall.
