A happy discovery! This is a major late- silent-era gem on the order of Von Sternberg’s Docks of New York — a special treat that will please fans of director William Wellman — he revisited parts of it in a later talkie. It’s also a key movie in our education/adoration of the maverick actress Louise Brooks, the erotic sensation too hot and too independent for Hollywood.
Beggars of Life
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1928 / B&W / 1:33 Silent Aperture / 81 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Louise Brooks, Blue Washington, Roscoe Karns, Robert Perry, Guinn ‘Bog Boy’ Williams.
Cinematography: Henry Gerrard
Film Editor: Alyson Shaffer
Assistant Director: Charles Barton
Music: The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Written by Jim Tully and Benjamin Glazer from a novel by Jim Tully
Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, Adolph Zukor, William A. Wellman
Directed by William A. Wellman
Director...
Beggars of Life
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1928 / B&W / 1:33 Silent Aperture / 81 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Wallace Beery, Richard Arlen, Louise Brooks, Blue Washington, Roscoe Karns, Robert Perry, Guinn ‘Bog Boy’ Williams.
Cinematography: Henry Gerrard
Film Editor: Alyson Shaffer
Assistant Director: Charles Barton
Music: The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Written by Jim Tully and Benjamin Glazer from a novel by Jim Tully
Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, Adolph Zukor, William A. Wellman
Directed by William A. Wellman
Director...
- 8/8/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Utilizing a tremendous premise in the most laborious way possible, Josef von Sternberg’s The Last Command has to rank among his least dynamic and interesting films. Taking inspiration from an actual Russian general who fled the motherland and was forced to work as a day-player extra in early Hollywood, the 1928 film only treats its present-day setting as a framing device to house a too-familiar tale. Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings), grand duke and army commander, had a special fervor for quashing revolutionary movements, but, as he’s living on the brink of the Russian Revolution, this task is sure to overwhelm him. Stretching this exposition across an hour of screentime, even someone of Sternberg’s genius cannot find purchase in anything of interest. There’s nothing distinctive about Sergius’s fall from glory, nor the manner in which he wields his power. Nothing in this section is a fraction as...
- 8/12/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
The Blue Angel
Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller, Robert Liebmann
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Germany, 1930
It’s strange that the work of Josef von Sternberg has not been better represented in the realm of Blu-ray production. Aside from 1930’s The Blue Angel, available now on a new Kino Classics 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, not a single Sternberg film exists on the format. For such a stylish director, one who was expressly concerned with the ornate visual texture of his films, the enhanced images that go along with the standard digital restorations of Blu-ray titles would seemingly be ideal. That said, with at least The Blue Angel, it does become clear that this format and this filmmaker are indeed made for each other.
While not as deliberately composed to accentuate frames bursting to their edges with fore- and background elements (see The Scarlet Empress, for example), The Blue Angel nevertheless...
Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller, Robert Liebmann
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Germany, 1930
It’s strange that the work of Josef von Sternberg has not been better represented in the realm of Blu-ray production. Aside from 1930’s The Blue Angel, available now on a new Kino Classics 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, not a single Sternberg film exists on the format. For such a stylish director, one who was expressly concerned with the ornate visual texture of his films, the enhanced images that go along with the standard digital restorations of Blu-ray titles would seemingly be ideal. That said, with at least The Blue Angel, it does become clear that this format and this filmmaker are indeed made for each other.
While not as deliberately composed to accentuate frames bursting to their edges with fore- and background elements (see The Scarlet Empress, for example), The Blue Angel nevertheless...
- 12/20/2013
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
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Lost - The Complete Collection Well, this TV show is finally over and I never watched anything beyond the fourth season. I was just sort of over it. "Oh, hey! Look! A boat!" Yeah, seen one of those before. "Lost" just became mundane and one giant gimmick. Oh well. The Back-Up Plan Here's the prequel to The Switch. This one made $37 million and opened with $4 million more than The Switch though. Sort of surprising J-Lo and Alex O'Loughlin can pull in better numbers than Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. The Square This was a decent movie (my review), but at the best I'd say it's worth a rental. Survival of the Dead Zombies, along with vampires, appear to be a couple of horror categories that will never die and George A. Romero has exploited that fact more than any other filmmaker I can name.
Lost - The Complete Collection Well, this TV show is finally over and I never watched anything beyond the fourth season. I was just sort of over it. "Oh, hey! Look! A boat!" Yeah, seen one of those before. "Lost" just became mundane and one giant gimmick. Oh well. The Back-Up Plan Here's the prequel to The Switch. This one made $37 million and opened with $4 million more than The Switch though. Sort of surprising J-Lo and Alex O'Loughlin can pull in better numbers than Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. The Square This was a decent movie (my review), but at the best I'd say it's worth a rental. Survival of the Dead Zombies, along with vampires, appear to be a couple of horror categories that will never die and George A. Romero has exploited that fact more than any other filmmaker I can name.
- 8/24/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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