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From 1913 to 1916, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rose from the ranks of bit player to writer, director and star of comedies for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company. Because of Sennett's belief that...

From 1913 to 1916, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rose from the ranks of bit player to writer, director and star of comedies for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company. Because of Sennett's belief that actors were interchangeable, he lost Arbuckle to producer Joseph M. Schenck, who not only paid the comedian handsomely, but also permitted him complete creative control. To help in the new venture, Arbuckle recruited Buster Keaton, popular star of a knockabout vaudeville act; Keaton took a large pay cut...

Sexy, jazz-loving, and dressed to kill, Roxie Hart (Phyllis Haver) is living a life of drama (if not stardom). She has a doting, handsome husband (Victor Varconi); a rich lover whose pockets are...

Sexy, jazz-loving, and dressed to kill, Roxie Hart (Phyllis Haver) is living a life of drama (if not stardom). She has a doting, handsome husband (Victor Varconi); a rich lover whose pockets are never quite deep enough (Eugene Pallette); and, soon, a full-blown murder charge. When Roxie secures the services of lawyer Billy Flynn (Robert Edeson) equal part mob "mouthpiece" and publicity agent and starts to make national headlines, the courtroom theatrics begin. Like the musical CHICAGO that won...

The last of the three great films that V.I. Pudovkin directed in the 1920s, Storm over Asia (1928) is an acknowledged classic of Soviet silent cinema. Filmed largely on location in Mongolia, the...

The last of the three great films that V.I. Pudovkin directed in the 1920s, Storm over Asia (1928) is an acknowledged classic of Soviet silent cinema. Filmed largely on location in Mongolia, the film has an authentic documentary feel, though the story is a stirring melodrama. It concerns a young fur trapper (Valeri Inkizhinov) who, after being captured and sentenced to death by British occupying forces, is mistaken as a descendant of the great warrior Genghis Khan. He then becomes a puppet...

Daring for its time - or any time - Bed And Sofa is the story of a love triangle between a woman and two men living together in a one-room basement apartment in 1927 Moscow. When Liuda becomes...

Daring for its time - or any time - Bed And Sofa is the story of a love triangle between a woman and two men living together in a one-room basement apartment in 1927 Moscow. When Liuda becomes pregnant and no one knows which man is the father, she must determine her own future. With an involving plot, comic invention, pathos, naturalistic performances, and highly-charged use of space and objects, director Abram Room illuminates the lives of the characters but without offering a simplistic...

Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac was a triumph from the moment of its premiere on December 28, 1897. It has become the most popular play of the modern French theater, and Cyrano, despite an ugly...

Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac was a triumph from the moment of its premiere on December 28, 1897. It has become the most popular play of the modern French theater, and Cyrano, despite an ugly visage dominated by an enormous nose, has become a world-beloved symbol of generosity, magnanimity of spirit and beauty of soul. The wonderful Cyrano of this film, Pierre Magnier, understudied Coquelin in the original stage production. He toured with Coquelin and Sarah Bernhardt in 1900, playing...

For the five years between 1908 and 1913, D.W. Griffith directed some 450 films for the Biograph Company, delivering at a rate of two or three films per week. These films, one and two reels in...

For the five years between 1908 and 1913, D.W. Griffith directed some 450 films for the Biograph Company, delivering at a rate of two or three films per week. These films, one and two reels in length, are sometimes regarded as apprentice works, films in which Griffith borrowed, invented, and perfected the forms and techniques that he later used to such memorable effects in The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), and Isn't Life...

Four of the films in this collection arrived after the release of the much larger anthology Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 had gone to press; they are such beautiful...

Four of the films in this collection arrived after the release of the much larger anthology Masterworks of American Avant-garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 had gone to press; they are such beautiful and extraordinary works that deserve to be seen after decades of unavailability. All are brilliant and true color copies mastered in high definition from original Kodachrome master copies or camera films. Abstract in Concrete (1952). John Arvonio shot footage for this stunning pattern film of New...

ROBERT FROST This lovely color film from 1961 was shot over the course of a year, mostly in the region of Robert Frost's solitary mountain cabin in Vermont. Probably the most celebrated American...

ROBERT FROST This lovely color film from 1961 was shot over the course of a year, mostly in the region of Robert Frost's solitary mountain cabin in Vermont. Probably the most celebrated American poet of the twentieth Century, Frost in his mid eighties is seen in three seasons walking the landscape while he is heard reading from about twenty-five of his poems inspired by what is shown. We hear all or part of "October," "The Sound of Trees," "Unharvested," "Birches," "The Road Not Taken,"...

Cecil B. DeMille directed this risque all-star revue of decadence which must have been jaw-dropping in 1921 and which remains astonishing today, although for entirely different reasons. Anatol de...

Cecil B. DeMille directed this risque all-star revue of decadence which must have been jaw-dropping in 1921 and which remains astonishing today, although for entirely different reasons. Anatol de Witt Spencer (Wallace Reid), as incredibly wealthy as he is naive, and his child-like bride, Vivian (Gloria Swanson), are on their honeymoon. At a posh speakeasy he spies his high school sweetheart, Emilie (Wanda Hawley), from Pompton Lakes, New Jersey (DeMille's own hometown), who is obviously the...

A sly, bouncy comedy set in the back alleyways and sunlit avenues of 1930s Paris, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed) is the remarkable directorial debut of Billy Wilder, the sharp-witted, inimitable creator...

A sly, bouncy comedy set in the back alleyways and sunlit avenues of 1930s Paris, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed) is the remarkable directorial debut of Billy Wilder, the sharp-witted, inimitable creator of such American classics as Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment and Double Indemnity . Shot in France during Wilder's migration from Germany to the U.S., Mauvaise Graine centers around Henry Pasquier (Pierre Mingand), the spoiled son of a wealthy doctor, who discovers high-octane thrills, jazz-era...

Evincing Cecil B. DeMille's unequaled flair for glamorized decadence and wry social comment, Male and Female is a tongue-in-cheek morality play that playfully examines the codes of conduct of...

Evincing Cecil B. DeMille's unequaled flair for glamorized decadence and wry social comment, Male and Female is a tongue-in-cheek morality play that playfully examines the codes of conduct of class-conscious Britain when the film was made in 1919. In the role that made her a star, Gloria Swanson stars as Lady Mary Lasenby, complacent in her status and happy when being pampered by handmaids in her luxurious boudoir and bath. Less certain that merit and social rank are equivalent is the...

Sergei Eisenstein's Strike , with the possible exception of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane , marks the most outstanding cinematic debut in the history of film. Triggered by the suicide of a worker...

Sergei Eisenstein's Strike , with the possible exception of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane , marks the most outstanding cinematic debut in the history of film. Triggered by the suicide of a worker unjustly accused of theft, a strike is called by the laborers of a Moscow factory. The managers, owner and the Czarist government dispatch infiltrators in an attempt to break the workers' unity. Unsuccessful, they hire the police and in the film's most harrowing and powerful sequences, the unarmed...

Curtis Harrington is widely regarded as one of the most important avant-garde directors of the 1940s, as well as an early influential figure in what would come to be known as 'New Queer Cinema.'...

Curtis Harrington is widely regarded as one of the most important avant-garde directors of the 1940s, as well as an early influential figure in what would come to be known as 'New Queer Cinema.' This publication is a joint effort between Flicker Alley and Drag City featuring restorations carried out by the Academy Film Archive on a single-disc Blu-ray, comprised of six short films by the late experimental filmmaker, as well as bonus interview footage and rarely-seen early works. Curtis...

Flicker Alley, in partnership with the Blackhawk Films Collection and Paramount Pictures, presents Children of Divorce. The film begins in a "divorce colony" in Paris after WWI, where parents would...

Flicker Alley, in partnership with the Blackhawk Films Collection and Paramount Pictures, presents Children of Divorce. The film begins in a "divorce colony" in Paris after WWI, where parents would leave their children for months at a time. Sourced from the original nitrate negative held by the Library of Congress, as well as their 1969 fine grain master, this restoration was scanned in 4K resolution, is the result of over 200 hours of laboratory work by the Library of Congress. This MOD...

Long before he became known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney quickly gained attention for being one of Hollywood's prominent character actors as these outstanding early examples of...

Long before he became known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney quickly gained attention for being one of Hollywood's prominent character actors as these outstanding early examples of Chaney's unique talents in acting and makeup clearly attest. A visual treat from gifted director Maurice Tourneur, Victory features Chaney as the villainous Ricardo who is out to steal not only another man's fortune, but also the lovely Seena Owen. The first of ten films Lon Chaney made with director Tod...

This enormously interesting DVD, produced in cooperation with the Fort Lee Film Commission, is perhaps the most detailed look we shall ever have at early Fort Lee film production, a center of the...

This enormously interesting DVD, produced in cooperation with the Fort Lee Film Commission, is perhaps the most detailed look we shall ever have at early Fort Lee film production, a center of the American film industry when Hollywood was still orange groves. Thomas Hanlon's 1964 documentary Before Hollywood There was Fort Lee, New Jersey uses rare still photographs, almost-complete versions of such films as Edison's Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1907) and Biograph's The Curtain Pole (1909) and...

"The first full-length gangster picture ever made," according to its director, Raoul Walsh, who would later make The Roaring Twenties , High Sierra , The Bowery and White Heat , Regeneration is a...

"The first full-length gangster picture ever made," according to its director, Raoul Walsh, who would later make The Roaring Twenties , High Sierra , The Bowery and White Heat , Regeneration is a powerful slum melodrama produced in 1915 on location on the Lower East Side of New York City, with a gaggle of authentic lowlife types performing alongside professional actors. It's in the tradition of The Musketeers of Pig Alley , directed by D.W. Griffith from whom Walsh learned his craft as an...

Cecil B. DeMille's 1926 production of The Clinging Vine is a recent rediscovery and perhaps the ultimate '20s gender-bender. Leatrice Joy plays "The President's Assistant - known as A.B. - who...

Cecil B. DeMille's 1926 production of The Clinging Vine is a recent rediscovery and perhaps the ultimate '20s gender-bender. Leatrice Joy plays "The President's Assistant - known as A.B. - who hired, wired and fired men - but had never kissed one." Based on the 1922 Broadway musical by Zelda Sears, the movie mocks male stereotypes of women while playfully exploring ideas of gender and romantic love in relation to female professionalism. When expert businesswoman A.B. dutifully fires Jimmie...

Flicker Alley, in partnership with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation is proud to present, F.W. Murnau's Phantom. Phantom marked a major turning point in the influential career and the...

Flicker Alley, in partnership with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Foundation is proud to present, F.W. Murnau's Phantom. Phantom marked a major turning point in the influential career and the groundbreaking style of cinema poet F.W. Murnau. In this beautifully reconstructed and restored edition from an amazingly detailed, original 1922 negative, Alfred Abel (Metropolis, Dr. Mabuse) plays Lorenz Lubota, a man obsessed with his own desires to achieve fame and wealth, who must confront the barriers...

Both pioneering films on this DVD depict well known incidents in the life of Jesus Christ. In quite different ways, both were also ambitious milestones of the young, relatively untried cinema; both...

Both pioneering films on this DVD depict well known incidents in the life of Jesus Christ. In quite different ways, both were also ambitious milestones of the young, relatively untried cinema; both won world fame, huge audiences and a screen life of decades when most secular films of the time measured their commercial life in weeks. La Vie et la passion de Jesus-Christ was begun in 1902 by Ferdinand Zecca (1864-1947) for Pathe Freres in Paris, then the most important film company in the world....

Carl Theodor Dreyer has long been exalted by film connoisseurs for The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath, and Ordet . With The Parson's Widow , we meet a different Dreyer: a director who...

Carl Theodor Dreyer has long been exalted by film connoisseurs for The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, Day of Wrath, and Ordet . With The Parson's Widow , we meet a different Dreyer: a director who engages with broad humor, then gradually guides to a wise, bittersweet resolution. Sofren, an aspiring parson, is engaged to Mari, but her father won't allow them to marry until Sofren gets a ministry. He's hired by a small rural congregation only to discover that according to local custom, the...

"It might reasonably be contended that Humphrey Jennings is the only real poet the British cinema has yet produced." - Lindsay Anderson, Director These astonishing films show and explain essential...

"It might reasonably be contended that Humphrey Jennings is the only real poet the British cinema has yet produced." - Lindsay Anderson, Director These astonishing films show and explain essential news and propaganda functions of the movies during the Great War of 1914-1918. In those days before television and even before radio, fiction films in movie theaters were the most widely shared public experience, while news films were the most potent and detailed public images of armament, military...

The tone is set from the opening scene as legendary director Ernst Lubitsch effortlessly sets up the duality of one perfectly happy marriage contrasted with another couple in a perpetual state of...

The tone is set from the opening scene as legendary director Ernst Lubitsch effortlessly sets up the duality of one perfectly happy marriage contrasted with another couple in a perpetual state of grimly endured misalliance. The Marriage Circle is full of scenes with a sense of unspoken formality, of a mutually antagonistic marital standoff that has been going on for years. The move/countermove rhythm slightly anticipates the slow, tit-for-tat rhythms of Laurel and Hardy, but instead of...

Described by Dziga Vertov, its director, as an "experiment in the language of pure cinema," The Man With the Movie Camera is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated work not only of Soviet, but...

Described by Dziga Vertov, its director, as an "experiment in the language of pure cinema," The Man With the Movie Camera is perhaps the most dazzling and sophisticated work not only of Soviet, but of world silent cinema. In part it is a "city symphony," although its urban landscape is actually a film synthesis of shots taken in Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and elsewhere. In part, it is a panorama of and a manifesto on the nature of socialist society in the late 1920s. But it is especially a...