My favorite part of watching silent movies is the variability of the experience depending on the format. While it’s true that every movie should be experienced on the big screen, it is doubly true for films from the silent period. Oftentimes, if these films exist at all, they have not been well preserved, or even […]
TCM Classic Film Festival
TCM Classic Film Festival: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
“People will think what I want them to think!” – Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time according to many people, including the American Film Institute, Sight & Sound magazine, and film critic Roger Ebert. It seems Kane’s commandment for people to think what he wants […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood, 1935)
Watching the Marx Brothers’ 1935 comedy classic A Night at the Opera is always an enjoyable experience. Watching it on the big screen with a theater full of delighted film fans is a special treat. But, watching A Night At The Opera with Groucho Marx’s grandson is a little slice of heaven. I had the […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: The Devil Is A Woman but Dietrich is a Goddess
In The Devil is a Woman Marlene Dietrich’s eyes are constantly moving: searching, darting, batting flirtatiously. By their fifth and final film collaboration, Dietrich and director Joseph von Sternberg had perfected the formula for exotic, onscreen seduction: just keep the camera on Dietrich. As Concha Perez, an enterprising destroyer of men’s souls, Dietrich is as […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: The Devil Is A Woman (Josef von Sternberg 1935)
Marlene Dietrich, a siren of the screen in early Hollywood. Dietrich was originally from Germany where she performed on the stage and in silent films in the 1920s. She was “discovered” by Josef Von Sternberg and cast in his film The Blue Angel (1930). The success of the film led to her contract with Paramount […]
