Posts

Showing posts from October, 2019

Picturing “La Boheme” – By John Gilbert (Screenland July 1926)

Image
Picturing “La Boheme” – By John Gilbert (Screenland July 1926) Screenland July 1926 “The Spirit of The Movies” Vol. XIII No.3 Books For Fans Picturing “La Boheme” By John Gilbert Whenever an actor is given a book to read that he knows will be made into a picture in which he will play, he looks at it with different eyes, than if he were merely reading it for pleasure. I remember, when I was a kid I used to lie abed at night reading Murger’s “La Vie de Boheme”. The gay, carefree lives that these people led intrigued me immensely and I was heartily in sympathy with them. Rudolphe particularly fascinated me and it was my delight to dramatise bits from the book in which Rudolpe played the hero. It was just a few months ago that I was told here at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio that I was to play Rudolphe on the screen and that the adaptation was to be taken from Murger’s book, rather than from Puccini’s opera, “La Boheme”. La Boheme – Lillian Gish, Gino Corrado and Jo

ORPHANS OF THE STORM—D. W. Griffith – Photoplay Magazine – March 1922

Image
ORPHANS OF THE STORM—D. W. Griffith – Photoplay Magazine – March 1922 Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish (Promo for Orphans of The Storm) Photoplay Magazine – March 1922 Photoplay’s selection of six best pictures of the month The Shadow Stage ORPHANS OF THE STORM—D. W. Griffith THIS production is so colossal in conception and in execution; its great moments move one so much; its thrills are so stirring, it is difficult to pin it to paper. Griffith has come back with a bang. After “Dream Street,” this great historical masterpiece brings again the Griffith of “The Birth of a Nation” and “Intolerance,” but with an added charm, a new softness, a fresh appeal. He tells an old, old story—the story of “The Two Orphans.” He has retitled it and remade it. Against the bloody background of the French Revolution, Griffith has painted a beautiful picture: a tender portrait of devotion and sacrifice. He has recreated history as no other living man has done. And this is his greatest triumph.

The Scarlet Letter – By Nathaniel Hawthorne (Screenland – May 1926)

Image
The Scarlet Letter – By Nathaniel Hawthorne (Screenland – May 1926) Screenland – May 1926 The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne This masterpiece of literature contains a number of passages so great and complete that a thrilling short story in Hawthorne’s own words is made by their narration, A few connecting explanations are added. The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. . . . 17th February 1926: Lillian Gish (1893 – 1993) is punished for bearing a child out of wedlock in the film ‘The Scarlet Letter’, a 17th century melodrama directed by Victor Sjostrom. The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his