Flicker Alley (Firm)

STRIDE, SOVIET! is a film intended to publicize, in the run-up to local elections, the work and accomplishments of the Moscow municipal council or "soviet." Dziga Vertov attempts a different kind of lecture film, one that disposes of staid commentary in favor of sharp visual conflicts that mimic the impact of a fiery orator. Developing the plan in 1925, Vertov envisioned the film proceeding as a montage of contrasts. For him, advertisement was best...

When a pair of film noir icons like Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea collide, sparks are sure to fly. Jane Palmer (Scott) and her husband Alan (Arthur Kennedy) mysteriously have

A film entitled '1960'

Rene Clair’s sparkling comedy of manners is a witty, delicate, inspired satire on propriety and behavior in the bourgeois mind-set. Transposing the action of the perennial stage farce from 1851 to a summer wedding day in 1895 – the birth of cinema – Clair recalls detail, costume and design captured by the first movies. The Italian Straw Hat (Un Chapeau de paille d’Italie) triumphantly survives its 1927 journey from stage to screen; a dozen...

Easy Street, his ninth film for Mutual and the most famous of the twelve, Chaplin ordered the first of the T-shaped street sets to be built that he would consistently utilize to provide a perfect backdrop to his comedy. The look and feel of Easy Street evoke the South London of his childhood (the name "Easy Street"suggests "East Street,"the street of Chaplin’s birthplace).

Bardelys the Magnificent is based upon the novel by Rafael Sabatini. In France "in an age of light loves and lively scandals,"the Marquis de Bardelys, casual womanizer and accomplished swashbuckler, is entranced by Roxalanne de Lavedan; and against a background of knavery and intrigue, he sets out to woo and win her. Lavishly mounted and superbly directed with spectacular action scenes, Bardelys is a hugely entertaining action romance given an A-plus...

In Chaplin’s second effort for Mutual, he portrays an inept firefighter at Fire Station 23. Charlie, still asleep, mistakes a drill bell for a fire alarm and single-handedly drives out the horse-drawn fire engine. When he discovers his error, he simply backs up the engine into the fire station, with horses galloping backward (an early instance of camera tricks—cameramen Foster and Totheroh skillfully cranked the cameras in reverse and Chaplin...

The most popular of the Mutuals, The Adventurer begins and ends with a chase. It is the fastest-paced film of the series, and although it has more slapstick than Easy Street and The Immigrant, it is redeemed by its construction, characterization, and Chaplin’s balletic grace.

A charming pastoral about two unwanted children finding acceptance and love, Timothy’s Quest (1922) is a rare, cinematic gem based on a novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm), who was then known as “America’s best loved author of stories about children.”*. The only production of the Dirigo Film Company, established in order to make films in the state of Maine adapted from works by Maine authors, Wiggin loaned her own home...

Saved From The Flames is a unique and wonderful collection of 54 rare and restored short films from the inflammable years of cinema. Movies were once made on nitrate film stock, which has a chemical composition similar to gunpowder and is highly vulnerable to fire and decay. This remarkable seven-hour anthology, organized in eight thematic groups presents amazing treasures from the vaults of Lobster Films in Paris and from the Blackhawk Films Collection,...