DVD

Average customer rating:

Boring, Tedious and Unfunny
second time around
Slapstick and Destruction! Wow!!
Don't judge a movie by the names on the box...
1941-Review

1941 (Collector's Edition)
Starring: Dan Aykroyd , Ned Beatty , John Belushi , Lorraine Gary , and Bobby Di Cicco
Director: Steven Spielberg
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Continental Divide
Duel (Collector's Edition)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
The Sugarland Express
Empire of the Sun

ASIN: 0783231032
Release Date: 1999-03-23

Amazon.com

Watching this director's cut, it's finally possible to see why the studio made Spielberg mercilessly hack up this comedy: it's a screaming movie (everyone screams a lot), and screaming movies do not need character development. So all those character-development scenes hit the cutting-room floor and, surprise, they were all critical to Spielberg's pace for the humor in this film. The screaming wasn't that funny then--and it still isn't--but what is funny are the reinserted development scenes, showcasing the now-evident sense of hysteria in the Los Angeles community, post-Pearl Harbor. A bunch of certified nitwits, and a few certified lunatics, act as if Tojo Hideki's entire Imperial force is just off the mainland. Actually, one Japanese submarine is, and it helps fuel the frenzy. John Belushi is Wild Bill Kelso, an insane fighter pilot, and Dan Aykroyd plays a conciliatory tank commander. Robert Stack's performance as General Stilwell, one of the best of the film, finally makes sense. Also fun for the numerous cameos, Spielberg's inside jokes, and John Williams's great score. --Keith Simanton

Customer Reviews:

Boring, Tedious and Unfunny.......2007-06-20

As with another user who wrote in a review, I found this in a discount bin at Wal-Mart. I'd always been aware of the movie, at least from a musical point of view, because John Williams recorded the march and "Swing! Swing! Swing!," his Benny Goodman pastiche, when he was with the Boston Pops Orchestra. (Both are wonderful pieces of music.) But I'd never seen the film. Now I wish I hadn't.

I'm sorry, but this thing misfires in almost every gag. There are some wonderful concepts here, and some hysterical situations (in both senses of the word). And some fine slapstick visuals. But the whole thing is so incredidbly heavy-handed and forced that whatever humor should have been there is crushed to death. In his comments in the bonus material for this DVD (taken quite obviously from a laser-disc version released many years ago), even Spielberg admits that the film should have been funnier. I'll see his bet and raise it: It should have been funny.

Laurel & Hardy could have done the destruction bit in far less time and on a shoestring budget and it would have been funny. The same thing happened a few years ago with a film called MOUSE HUNT, in which an entire mansion is destroyed. Again, L&H did it better in less time. Woody Allen, I believe, once said that any comedy over 90 minutes is doomed to failure. A "comedy" like this, running two hours and 20-some minutes, is sheer torture.

second time around.......2007-06-13

First dvd we got was flawed, replacement is perfect. thanks for quick turnaround!

Slapstick and Destruction! Wow!!.......2007-06-07

I "discovered" this funny movie on theatrical cut VHS many years ago and laffed alot. The directors cut does not diminish the pace. The DVD re-issue of the old Laser Disc in widescreen is OK but Universal gave the public a non-anamorphic version for 16x9 televisions (BOO on Universal!!). This is a collectors version???? Phooey! The zoom setting on projection TVs mess with the period style photography so I watch it on the 4x3 and the picture is sharper despite the purposeful soft, foggy 60 years ago "look". Everyone in this production does a fine job, it's too bad the more positive reviews in Europe were not included.

Don't judge a movie by the names on the box..........2007-05-23

This was in the cheap bin at Wal-Mart, so I thought I'd give it a chance, seeing as how it 'featured' Dan Akroyd and John Belushi directed by Steven Spielberg. Towards the end of the movie, I found myself crying out for the pain to end. Most of the humor lies in the ridiculous slapstick category, which would make it a great children's movie if not for the constant sexual references (honestly, the funniest joke was the innuendo about the B-17). My only hope is that you see this review while trying to decide if you should purchase the DVD, and it makes you decide not to buy it. Epic Failure in the truest sense of the term.

1941-Review.......2007-05-13

Very pleased with the condition of the dvd and the timeframe that the dvd was received.
Thanks

Walt Disney Treasures - The Chronological Donald, Volume One (1934 - 1941)

Average customer rating:

my son prefers it to cartoon network
Donald Duck "The Boy Rascal"
GREAT collection!
Not Exacerbating at All
Great presentation of great cartoons. But enough with those menus already!!!

Walt Disney Treasures - The Chronological Donald, Volume One (1934 - 1941)
Starring: Clarence Nash , Florence Gill , Pinto Colvig , and Billy Bletcher
Director: Jack King
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Animation | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video

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Similar Items:

Walt Disney Treasures - The Chronological Donald, Volume Two (1942-1946)
Walt Disney Treasures - The Complete Pluto, Volume One
Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Living Color, Volume Two
Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Volume Two
Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Living Color

ASIN: B0000BWVAG
Release Date: 2004-05-18

Amazon.com

Although the book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse (1931) listed Donald Duck as one of Mickey's friends, he didn't appear on screen until the "Silly Symphony" "The Wise Little Hen," three years later. Donald's personality began to gel in "The Orphan's Benefit" (1934, on Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Black and White), when he threw his first temper tantrum. He began as dumpy-looking character with a long beak and thick legs, but was soon redesigned and made more appealing.

Donald's firecracker temper made him a favorite with audiences--and the Disney artists. By the late '30s/early '40s Mickey was no longer allowed to kick someone, break a window, or get into a really embarrassing situation. Donald was, and he did. If Donald encountered a mechanical device, from an outboard motor to a waffle iron to a riveting gun, the results were sure to be disastrous. He was routinely outwitted by chipmunks, ants, bees, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, who came to visit in 1938 and stayed for more than 60 years.

The Donald Duck shorts featured some of the broadest slapstick comedy the Disney studio ever produced. They lack the razor-sharp timing, extreme takes, and wild gags the animators at Warner Bros. and MGM were developing at this time. But they're still funny and retain a nostalgic charm, especially such classics as "Don Donald," "The Autograph Hound," "Mr. Duck Steps Out," and "Put-Put Troubles." (Rated G, suitable for ages 8 and older: cartoon violence, tobacco use, minor ethnic stereotyping) --Charles Solomon

Description

It was 1934 when the irascible Donald Duck came to life in a teeny bit of a part in "The Wise Little Hen" and proceeded to steal the show. From that point on nobody could hold him back, and the much loved cranky character went on to be the most prolific of Walt's "fabulous five." Now for the first time, you can enjoy the Donald in all of his solo starring shorts from "Donald And Pluto" in 1936 to "Chef Donald" in 1941. This volume also includes a loving tribute to the man who achieved immortality by inventing the voice of Donald Duck -- and performing as his alter ego for 50 years -- Clarence "Ducky" Nash. Featuring exclusive introductions by film historian Leonard Maltin, this is a timeless collection from generations past for generations to come. .

Customer Reviews:

my son prefers it to cartoon network.......2007-03-27

which tells a lot about the relevance and quality of the donald cartoons (we own both volume 1 and 2, 4 DVDs in total)
donald is funny, and captivating and never gets boring for either of us (my son is 4.5, i am 39 :)) i especially like old disney cartoons (donald, mickey, goofy, pluto, chip&dale) for the little violence they contain. goes to prove that you CAN make a kid laugh without blowing someone's head off..
i agree with the others on "politically correct" commentaries on all the DVDs. people are not idiots and maybe should not be treated as they were?! especially for foreigners (and we live in croatia) such "correctness" is completely irrelevant.

Donald Duck "The Boy Rascal".......2006-08-14

The Donald Duck during these years showcases a more juvenile character than the one during his golden years (1945-1955). Donald is more boyish and less domestic than in his later cartoons.

Some gems to watch out for: "Donald Duck Steps Out", "Good Time For a Dime", "The Riveter", and "The Autograph Hound".

GREAT collection!.......2006-05-18

Fantastic collection! Sharp picture.

Leonard Maltin is the reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars. He is rediculously annoying. However, in this DVD, unlike the Volume 2, you can skip and fast forward his blab. Also unlike Volume 2, he talks for a few seconds BEFORE each possibly offensive cartoon. But like I said, you can use your handy dandy skip button and go strait to the next cartoon.

I did learn something from him though. In Disney's paranoia not to offend anyone, they had him explain all the little cultural things that would go over our heads in this day and age. In one cartoon Pluto is wrestling with a spring and it gets stuck on his neck. Aparently that was supposed to represent an African neck band. I never got that until Leonard Maltin put that idea in my head. Maybe I should write to Disney and tell them how insulted I am ;)

Not Exacerbating at All.......2005-10-20

The Walt Disney Treasures series has been a gold mine to Disney lovers who want to own the old classics from the early days. Having previously focused on Mickey and Goofy, the series now turns to Donald Duck for the first of what promises to be many volumes.

This set focuses on his early solo career with 36 cartoons from 1934-1941. It actually starts with "The Wise Little Hen," a Silly Symphony retelling of the classic fable where Donald only plays a small part. He's a co-star in "Donald and Pluto," and finally gets solo billing in the third short, 1937's "Don Donald." That short also introduces an early version of Daisy, who only shows up again one other time in this set, "Mr. Duck Steps Out" on disc two. His nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, make many appearances in this set in such shorts as "Donald's Nephews" (their first), "Hockey Champ," "Good Scouts," and "Truant Officer Donald."

I must admit, Donald has always been my least favorite of the Disney characters. My first complaint has been that I never could understand a word he's saying. I watched every cartoon in the set with the closed captions on, and let me tell you, it made quite the difference. Unfortunately, sometimes it spoiled a joke by letting you guess something was coming, but it was still worth it.

My other problem with Donald is more fundamental. He gets provoked way too easily and has a mean streak. There are some cartoons where I find myself rooting for him to fail, like when he tries to drown a bee for fun in "Window Washers." Of course, I find myself sympathizing with him more often then not, such as when a fly buzzes him for no reason in "Old MacDonald Duck." And sometimes it's just a case of funny bad luck, as is "Donald's Lucky Day" or "Chef Donald."

Leonard Maltin continues to host this series. As usual, we get an informative introduction on both discs. He also gives us a warning before any cartoon that might be considered offensive today. Like many, I find his breaking in more annoying then anything in the cartoons itself, but if that's what it takes to get these cartoons released, I'll live with it. The cartoons have obviously been restored as the picture is sharp and the sound is wonderful. Still in mono and nothing spectacular by today's standards, but you can easily hear everything. The bonus material seems a little light. Disc one has a photo gallery of stills, books, and other merchandise featuring Donald from the period. Disc two features a five-minute mini-biography on Clarence "Ducky" Nash, the voice behind the duck for over 50 years. There are some fun Easter Eggs to hunt for as well.

Ultimately, this set won me over to the exacerbated Duck. Which is fortunate since volume two of this collection is set for this year's wave of Treasure titles.

Great presentation of great cartoons. But enough with those menus already!!!.......2005-10-16

Chronological Donald features 35 shorts starring the iconic Duck from 1934 to 1941. Considering the age of these cartoons they have been kept in perfect shape and look absolutely startling on this DVD box set with hardly any dirt or scratches on the prints at all. Kudos to Disney on this.

But what really grinds my gears is the zillion menus you have to suffer through before you actually get to the screen listing the cartoons in order. Honestly, you'll be sitting there for about a whole minute just pushing the forward button on your remote waiting for it. Grr!

Another thing that proves how disgustingly PC Disney has become is the fact that they use Leonard Maltin (who I actually respect quite a bit) as a way of apologizing to over-weight, middle-class, narrow-minded, home-maker moms for anything that might seem the tiniest bit controversial, innappropriate or mean-spirited by having an intro to certain cartoons where he pleads us not to take offence. Oh, come on! This is too much!

Walt Disney built his empire on free speech and having an edge to his animation and projects. Many Americans grew up with this. But the Disney of today feeds us mass-produced direct-to-DVD drivel that Walt would be ashamed of. Disney of the 21st Century has played a huge part in the dumbing down of America's open-mindedness and tolerance (the Hallmark channel has contributed greatly to this also). And now when they offer us a collective look back at their older work they tell us not to be offended? That fact that you're telling me not be offended is what REALLY offends me!

That aside, I really enjoyed this set and loved watching each short and reviewing them individually on the IMDB. It's a fun hobby that only take up about 15 minutes if you do one each day.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941)

Average customer rating:

The two Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde versions
Exploring the Dark Side of Human Nature
a split review (4 stars for march but 2 stars for tracy) of a split personality
What Is The Nature Of Man?
3 Stars For The 1941 Version

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Double Feature (1932/1941)
Starring: Fredric March , Miriam Hopkins , Rose Hobart , Holmes Herbert , and Halliwell Hobbes
Director: Rouben Mamoulian , Victor Fleming , and Friz Freleng
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Invisible Man - The Legacy Collection (The Invisible Man/Invisible Man Returns/Invisible Agent/Invisible Woman/Invisible Man's Revenge)
The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
House of Wax

ASIN: B0000EYUD4
Release Date: 2004-01-06

Amazon.com

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed Dracula and Frankenstein into theaters by a few months, and it stands well with those horror classics--and it's a darn sight more fun (and much more down and dirty) than the 1941 MGM version of Stevenson's tale. --Robert Horton

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Classy MGM was not the studio most likely to make a horror movie in 1941, and in fact its production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ended up looking more like a glossy costume drama than a B-movie frightfest. The mood of Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of a divided doctor is ably captured in Joseph Ruttenberg's Oscar-nominated cinematography--more so, perhaps, than in Spencer Tracy's lead performance. Tracy wasn't especially happy about playing the role, although his transformations from good Dr. Jekyll to evil Dr. Hyde are convincing enough. One of the main reasons to see this version of the story is the young, impossibly beautiful Ingrid Bergman, then still a year shy of Casablanca. Bergman was cast in the good-girl part, but proved a shrewd judge of material, even this early in her Hollywood career; she finagled her way into playing the floozy instead, thus securing a more colorful acting platform than Lana Turner, who ended up in the more respectable role. Director Victor Fleming's previous movie was a little number called Gone with the Wind, and the Big Picture approach to that project may have influenced his work here--this Dr. Jekyll is just a bit too stately, too polished to really engage. The picture is so dignified it never cuts loose with the kind of wild invention that marked the 1932 version of the story, which won Fredric March an Oscar. It's the tale as imagined by Jekyll, rather than Hyde. --Robert Horton

Description

The classic tale about a scientist's investigation into the nature of good and evil will become a double feature for this title. The original 1932 Paramount uncut long version starring Frederic March - for which he won the Oscar - and the 1941 MGM remake with Spencer Tracy in the title role as well as Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner will be offered together.

Customer Reviews:

The two Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde versions.......2007-06-20

Both 1932 and 1941 versions of this oft-told classic make for worthwhile viewing, with my own preference the earlier pre-Code entry starring Fredric March. It's the more frightening of the two, with stark, expressionist sets and ghoulish Hyde make-up accentuating Jekyll's turn from good to evil. The second entry has a gorgeous MGM gloss, and assured direction by Victor Fleming. It also has Spencer Tracy, a fabulous actor whose Hyde is a subtler rendition, a man with a heavier brow and leering expression, whose change seems more behavioral than physical. The second version also boasts the luminous Ingrid Bergman, playing against type as a streetwalker. See both entries, and make up your own mind. You won't go far wrong either way.

Exploring the Dark Side of Human Nature.......2007-06-14

This 1932 film begins with a man playing an organ in a mansion. He is to speak to the university, they have a full audience for him. Dr. Jekyll speaks of the duality of man's nature, the good and the bad side which are always in conflict. If the bad side of man could be eliminated how much better for mankind? Are our beliefs crippling us? Does Dr. Jekyll spend too much time in the charity ward? His life seems just perfect. But his wedding is pushed back to a future date. A street quarrel attracts Dr. Jekyll, he helps a young woman, and she invites him back. Dr. Jekyll continues to experiment in his laboratory, he is obsessed with his theory. He experiments with the elixir on himself (no objective observer!). The effect is to free the bad side of his nature.

Dr. Jekyll has a setback in his plans, and his elixir transforms him into Mr. Hyde. He returns in search of that young woman. [The make-up of Hyde tells you something about the outlook of that time.] Hyde acts beastly, but his money makes him attractive to the young woman Ivy Pearson. General Carew agrees to Jekyll's early marriage to his daughter. Then Ivy Pearson comes to Dr. Jekyll for help against Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll promises Ivy she will never see Hyde again. But there is an unintended consequence to Jekyll's experiments, and Hyde returns involuntarily.! There seems to be no return to Jekyll's peaceful past. Muriel still loves Jekyll, and goes against her father's wishes. Jekyll sets Muriel free from her promise. But there is another transformation! The police and a crowd of people chase Hyde to his refuge. A shot puts an end to Hyde, and Jekyll returns at the end.

I thought this story was an argument for Prohibition (alcohol can release the beast in man).

a split review (4 stars for march but 2 stars for tracy) of a split personality.......2006-09-06

this dvd contains both the frederic march and spencer tracy versions of the robert louis stevenson novella. i had only seen the march film in a severely truncated print, and was always curious as to why this was deemed so good a movie; herein the dvd restores almost 20 minutes and i now agree to the quality: a nuanced performance by the leads (whither miriam hopkins?) and a splendid production under rouben mamoulian. the later spencer tracy version is a bore. revisionists are now trying to acclaim it as a misunderstood flawed masterpiece, but i disagree -- its just dull, featuring terrible miscasting of tracy, ingrid bergman, and lana turner. watch the movie to compare it with its far better predecessor.

What Is The Nature Of Man?.......2006-08-25

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (DVD)

What Is It?

This is the monster movie classic from 1941. It has a cast of big stars that your kids (and maybe you) will not recognize. The "Father of the Bride" Spencer Tracy plays the good doctor and the monster that haunts Ingrid Bergman & Lana Turner. It was directed by Victor Flemming after his 1939 hits "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With The Wind." Shot in black and white, this film looks and sounds wonderful on the new "re-release" DVD that also includes the 1930's version.

How Was It?

This was a good film, but I think I would have been more impressed in 1941. The story was strong and interesting. Unfortunately the pacing of the film is just very slow.

Mr. Hyde becomes more "monstrous" as the film goes on. Each time he changes, it's uglier. This is a poetic choice, but at the beginning, it's hard to understand why Dr. Jekyll's friends don't see the amazing resemblance between him and Mr. Hyde.

Is It Good For Kids?

First of all, it is in Black and White. Most kids today have not been exposed to "good" black and white films, so most are turned off by it.

Secondly, it is still "Very Slow."

Finally, the issues are very heady. As "Mr Hyde", he has weird fantasies that are decidedly adult in there symbolism. Then it is a monster move with murder, ugly creators, and screaming women.

[...]
How about Spiritual Issues?

This is one of the most exciting parts of the film. The film starts in a church and ends with a Psalm being recited. Dr. Jekyll is trying to control the sin nature of the human soul with chemicals instead of God. (This is clearly stated at the beginning of the film.) When the Doctor realizes that he has an evil nature that he can not control, he dedicates all his time to breaking the bond in his soul to separate out his warring factions. The result is the personification of both halves. He names his evil side Hyde (or Flesh) and becomes him to indulge in sin. The sin starts at fantasies and watching "daring" shows, but then escalates to full consummation of evil. The problem of the soul is truly revealed when the Doctor decides to stop becoming Mr. Hyde, but then finds himself changing without the chemicals. He has not suppressed his evil, he has fed it, and now it is literally a Monster he can not control.

What Is Your Recommendation?

If you can get around the slowness of this picture, it is very interesting. Here we see that trying to live your life separate from God produces monsters, and the monsters may be us.

Otherwise, maybe it's time for a re-make... have you ever considered producing?

3 Stars For The 1941 Version.......2005-12-28

Although I thought it was good, Spencer Tracy in the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is not as good as the l932 version with Fredrich March. I found it unusual that the character was called "Harry" instead of "Henry." The make-up of Mr. Hyde was not very scary, unlike the hairy Frederich March. They put a lot more effort into the end of the film than the rest of the movie.

Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941

Average customer rating:

Rare Film Festival in a Box!
A collection of films you'll find nowhere else for the serious film history buff
A great collection for anyone seriously interested in film history and it's language
Awesome -- must be seen
Massive Art-exhibition-in-a-box Collecfion of Avant-garde titles

Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941
Starring: Orson Welles
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Classics | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Classics | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

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( U ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Classics | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s
Treasures From American Film Archives - Encore Edition
Maya Deren: Experimental Films
More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894-1931
Edison - The Invention of the Movies (1891-1918)

ASIN: B000AYEIJA
Release Date: 2005-10-18

Amazon.com

Avant-garde cinema remains unseen for all sorts of reasons. Because it's rare. Because it's elusive. Because the mainstream distribution and exhibition apparatus is not designed to serve it (and, arguably, to a large extent is designed to suppress and deny it). Because people--that vast army of us proud to be unpretentious "regular moviegoers"--basically don't want to see it, fearing that it's esoteric and challenging and probably boring. These are excellent--which is to say, very real--reasons. Except that, as of autumn 2005, they're obsolete. All but the personal-resistance part, anyway. Now, thanks to Anthology Film Archives, curator Bruce Posner, and the cooperation of the world's foremost film museums, anybody with a DVD player can make the acquaintance of 20some hours of definitive avant-garde film experiences through this often dazzling seven-disc set. And whaddaya know: a lot of "unseen cinema" turns out to be fascinating, thrilling, spectrally beautiful, tantalizingly mysterious--in a word, eye-opening, to both the art of film and the world we all share.

Moreover, it's not all precious, artist(or would-be artist)-in-a-garret stuff. Some of it has glimmered on regular movie screens, from nickelodeon days through the golden age of Hollywood, doing its avant-garde thing (often without knowing it's avant-garde) as one- and two-reel narratives or astonishing sequences in commercial Hollywood pictures. A 1910 D.W. Griffith two-reeler that compresses several decades (including the Civil War) into 16 minutes. Prologue and transitional montages that goosed up pedestrian feature films with lunges into jagged surrealism and abstraction. The erotically crazed, visually dynamic, sometimes nightmarish phantasmagoria that are Busby Berkeley's "By a Waterfall" and "Lullaby of Broadway."

In Posner's own words: "American experimental film has existed since the technological inception of cinema ... The background against which the experimentalists toiled provides a fascinating review of Americana coupled with numerous cross-currents ... and an unfailing desire to create on film an image that can be viewed as an independent and provocative art.... The goal [of this set] is to present the broadest possible spectrum of experimental films produced between the 1890s and 1940s."

Each of the seven discs is organized around a central theme, and which one you first reach for will be determined by individual curiosity and susceptibility. The Devil's Plaything: American Surrealism steps off with Edwin S. Porter's 1902 Jack and the Beanstalk, its visionary transformations of settings and now-you-see-'em, now-you-don't appearances and disappearances of cast members the more remarkable for having been entirely achieved in the shooting, without postproduction optical trickery. Griffith's cameraman-to-be Billy Bitzer sends time scurrying dreamily backwards in Impossible Convicts (1905), while such classic 1920s experiments as The Fall of the House of Usher and The Telltale Heart seek to meet Edgar Allan Poe halfway by portraying distorted/demented worlds via stylized lighting and decor. The ambitious Robert Florey, whose feature-directing career would be almost entirely confined to the B zone, collaborates with montage maestro Slavko Vorkapich on The Life and Death of 9413--A Hollywood Extra and with premier production designer William Cameron Menzies on The Love of Zero.

Inverted Narratives: New Directions in Storytelling includes Suspense, a 1913 two-reeler by Lois Weber that emulates and occasionally tops her august contemporary, D.W. Griffith; the adventurous selection of camera angles and big, then still-bigger closeups continue to amaze. Charles Vidor's The Bridge, a 1929 rendering of the Ambrose Bierce story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," is starker than but not inferior to the more poetic French version that won an Oscar in the 1960s. Josef Berne's Black Dawn, aka Dawn After Dawn, weaves a Gothic spell with its account of love and death on an isolated farm, including a startling passage of sunstruck eroticism. And twelve minutes of Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand's agitprop, allegorical docudrama of American corporate fascism Native Land, narrated by Paul Robeson, inspires an urgent wish to see the entire film.

Light Rhythms: Music and Abstraction moves from surrealist milestones such as Man Ray's Le Retour à la raison, Fernand Léger's Ballet mécanique, and Rose Sélavy's Anémic cinéma (an anagram many times over) to never-seen full-length versions of montages created by Slavko Vorkapich for such films as Crime Without Passion and The Firefly. Vorkapich's mesmerizing nature poem Moods of the Sea, set to Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave, is among the most relentlessly stunning passages on celluloid. An ecstatically extended bal sequence from Ernst Lubitsch's So This Is Paris inspires, again, a craving to see that unavailable 1926 feature film, while George L.K. Morris' Abstract Movies is an encyclopedic and hilarious amateur re-creation of fond cliches and tropes of generic filmmaking.

Still, if one had to pick a single DVD to luxuriate in (and one can: it's the only disc available separately), it would have to be Picturing a Metropolis: New York City Unveiled. The Blizzard, a Gotham panorama grabbed by an unknown cameraman standing outside the Mutoscope film company office one day in 1898, is one of the most enchanting moments you'll ever experience on film, with an urban crowd sharing the bemusement of a winter day slipping into evening, and the fairy-tale vastness of a nearby park softened by falling snow: an absentminded documentary record become sheer poetry. Bitzer's Interior New York Subway, 14th Street to 42nd Street, an unbroken take from the front of an onrushing train (with supplementary illumination supplied by lights mounted on another train on a parallel track!), was shot in 1905, though the itinerary looks exactly the same today; only the crowds have changed. (One comical, endearing touch: a mother and her children, caught in passing at Grand Central, stop in their bustling journey to stare at the camera.) The 1901 Demolishing and Building Up the Star Theatre uses time-lapse photography to chronicle the taking down, and then to imaginatively ordain the resurrection, of an urban show palace. And Robert Flaherty's 24 Dollar Island (c. 1926) is so razor-sharp and judiciously observed that it remains the definitive portrait of Manhattan on film--truly a portrait of the city itself as a living, dynamic space, with scarcely any intrusion of humankind to distract us from the place, its light and shapes and rhythms.

There's additional, virtually prehistoric contemplation of urban spaces--including the 1900 Paris Exposition and the Eiffel Tower--in The Mechanized Eye: Experiments in Technique and Form. The Amateur as Auteur: Discovering Paradise in Pictures celebrates the intentional and inadvertent sublimities of home movies. And Viva la Dance: The Beginnings of Ciné-Dance collects everything from the various Annabelle Dances of 1894-97 through Mexican footage shot for Sergei Eisenstein's Que viva México to one more bravura sequence by Busby Berkeley (from Wonder Bar) and the avowedly avant-garde Tarantella and Spook Sport by Mary Ellen Bute in 1940.

It cannot be overstated that much of this footage is beautifully preserved, whether transferred from paper prints or exhumed from still-luminous nitrate footage cached in a European archive. And the brief headnotes by such authoritative commentators as Jan-Christian Horak, David Shepard, Kevin Brownlow, and Bruce Posner himself are marvels of lucidity and concision, supplying just the right context--in a mere 50 words or so--to enable the uninitiated viewer to appreciate the film he or she is about to witness. Unseen Cinema is not just (just!) an awesome collection of film landmarks--it's a landmark achievement in its own right. --Richard T. Jameson

Description

7 DVDs - 20 Hours - 155 Classics of Avant Garde Cinema! "Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1894-1941" reveals hitherto unknown accomplishments of American filmmakers working in the United States and abroad from the invention of cinema until World War II, and offers an innovative and often controversial view of experimental film as a product of avant-garde artists, of professional directors, and of amateur movie-makers working collectively and as individuals at all levels of film production. Many of the films have not been available since their creation, some have never been screened in public, and almost all have been unavailable in copies as good as these until now. Sixty of the world's leading film archive collections cooperated with Anthology Film Archives to bring this long-neglected period of film history back to life for modern audiences.

Customer Reviews:

Rare Film Festival in a Box!.......2007-01-18

As a Cinephile who travels literally thousands of miles a year in search of
amazing old films at classic film festivals & conventions, it is my opinion
this is the best box set of films I've ever seen. Whether you're a new film
fan or an old one looking for new kicks, this is the set for you. From the
surreal dream sequence in Douglas Fairbanks 1919 masterpiece "When the Clouds
Roll By" to Neil McGuire & William A. O'Connor's dreamy short "Moonland",
you'll see where Hollywood has gone to steal ideas for some of its best (and
most well-loved) sequences. I've personally paid more than the cost of this
set on a 16mm film print of just one of the short films it contains. If I could have
only one collection of these films on dvd, it would be this all-encompassing
box set. I've never written a review before but really wanted you true film
fans out there to know about this amazing set. It is my opinion that you
won't be sorry you bought it. Good Luck and Happy Filmwatching!

A collection of films you'll find nowhere else for the serious film history buff.......2006-12-13

If I was getting a gift for TCM host and film historian Robert Osborne, and I knew he didn't already have this DVD set I would (a) be very surprised and (b) buy it for him. This DVD set is for film buffs who aren't satisfied with the essentials that everyone knows about - "Birth of a Nation", "The Jazz Singer", "Frankenstein", etc., which are great films, but don't tell the whole story of early cinema. The set was organized by Bruce Posner and runs to some nineteen hours, and is an astonishing achievement. The set consists of seven discs each of which explore a different aspect of early cinema.

Among the films included are Douglass Crockwell's "Simple Destiny Abstractions", plus some animations with some very good detail on the level of Windsor McCay. The 1928 version of "The Fall of the House of Usher" focuses more on displaying some complex optical work than the story, reducing Poe's tale to only ten minutes in length. "Night on Bald Mountain" is an example of pinboard animation, in which a film is made completely using shadows from a pin screen. This technique continued to be used for decades. Suspense - a 1913 melodrama in which a housewife and her baby are nearly attacked by a knife-wielding drifter - is included because of its split-screen techniques. However, it is also interesting as the beginnings of what became the psycho-thrillers that exist to this day.

For the budget conscious, the disc entitled "PICTURING A METROPOLIS, New York City Unveiled" is the only disc available for individual purchase. This particular disc is great for history buffs as well as film buffs for all of its views of New York City life during the period from 1890-1940. The New York City disc moves from early footage of the city, including the Edison Company's famous and poetic Coney Island at Night, to Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's well-known Manhattan, to some work by Rudy Burckhardt, the film-maker, photographer, and painter who was also one of de Kooning's earliest friends in New York.

There are also some films financed by the depression-era WPA. Among them, Elia Kazan makes an appearance in a rather odd socialist movie about the poor of New York. There are some pictures sponsored by Labor Unions that offer 'alternative newsreels' that expose illegal business thuggery and a reactionary murder cult known as The Black Legion. Entertainment figures that are later blacklisted for their political beliefs and actions also make an appearance here - most notably, Paul Robeson, an actor often forgotten because of this. Robeson can be seen narrating a film on organized labor in this collection.

The disc entitled "The Beginnings of Ciné-Dance" has quite a bit of variety, but is still clearly delimited, opening with Annabelle Moore's "Butterfly Dance" and offering near its end David Bradley's Peer Gynt of 1941, starring a teenage Charlton Heston.

Some of the best material on the set is from Hollywood, probably due to the larger budgets involved. Included in this category would be some of the original montages of Slavko Vorkapich that were done for some MGM movies. This includes a bit of film in which the entire Napoleanic war appears to play out in just two minutes. Also included is Vorkapich's opening montage to "Crime Without Passion" in which three banshees fly about and terrorize the streets of Manhattan. The Ernst Lubitsch "touch" also apparently includes montages, and there is an excerpt from 1926's "So This is Paris" that shows a flapper dance in montage. It does a good job of conveying the wildness of the place at that time, which is part of the central theme of the movie. Also included are Busby Berkeley's numbers "Lullaby of Broadway" and "By a Waterfall", which are light compared to the other pieces with their more hidden deeper meanings.

I could go on forever describing the contents of this DVD set, but these were the pieces that stood out the most to me, anyway. The label of "Avant Garde" does not really fit this collection as we know the meaning of the term today. After all, there is work here by the Edison Company, D.W. Griffith, and a host of other people who have secure places in mainstream motion picture history. The "Avant Garde" label is more of an indication that film as an artform during the time period covered was inherently avant-garde just because it was new. The quality of the video is quite good considering the probable shape of the originals. I personally love this set and think it is well worth the price.

A great collection for anyone seriously interested in film history and it's language.......2006-09-24

Unseen Cinema is a fascinating collection of films, that shows the development of (and the experiment with) the film language in America from its beginning there and half a century onward.

It's title is a little misleading. Many of the films are not really Avant Garde, unless sound testing and family films showing children opening Christmas gifts is Avant Garde. The goal of the collectors is to prove that there was an Avant Garde film making from the beginning of cinema in America (America meaning films made by Americans anywhere in the world and films made by foreigners in America). They say that this was a needle-in-a-haystack search and I have to admit that sometimes I felt that they mistook the hay for a needle. So if you want to get to know early Avant Garde film making (in general) then I rather recommend "Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s". It has many of the best bits from this collections plus others not found here.

But if you are interested in film history and it's language then this is your thing. There are many fantastic films here, some of them not available anywhere else (to the best of my knowledge), such as The Telltale Heart (Charles Klein: 1928), Portrait of a Young Man in Three Movements (Henwar Rodakiewicz: 1931) and Footnote to Fact (1933: Lewis Jacobs). Portrait of a Young Man in Three Movements (54 min) is one of the greatest cinema poems I have ever seen, a must see.

There are also some great classics, here, like:
Autumn Fire (1930-33)-Herman Weinberg (a 22 min. version!).
The Fall of the House of Usher (1926-27)-J.S. Watson, Jr. & Melville Webber
The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1927)- Robert Florey & Slavko Vorkapich
The Love of Zero (1928)-Robert Florey & William Cameron Menzies
H20 (1929)-Ralph Steiner

The collection is on 7 disks, some of them more interesting than others. My personal favorite where the first four of them. The New York disc is probably interesting to people who live there or have been there. It did little for me and I think that the Amateur disk was a waste of time.

The transfer is quite good, often surprisingly good. The music varies. Some of it is quite fitting while others are just tiring. I for one liked the music on "Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s" better (comparing the films that both of the collections share).

The real downside to this collection is the extra material. The notes at the beginning of the films are way to short and the extra information on the PDF files are not so great either. I would like to see a better bio with filmography, and some commentaries would have been nice.

So this is a great collection for anyone seriously interested in film history and it's language. Others might want to stay away.

Awesome -- must be seen .......2005-11-22

Old weird Americana takes a bow in the sprawling and richly rewarding DVD set "Unseen Cinema." Running almost 20 hours, the collection provides ample evidence that bold experimental filmmaking thrived in the early days of moving pictures -- decades before the avant-garde torch-bearer "Un Chien Andalou" seared its way onto screens in 1929.

"Unseen" curator Bruce Posner says his goal was to "provide the broadest possible spectrum of experimental films produced between the 1890s and 1940s" -- roughly, the period from Thomas Edison to WWII. And so we have everything from home movies to lavish production numbers; wispy dance performances to strident union propaganda; gothic horror to languid studies of life on a farm. Many of these films have not been seen in decades and some were never screened for the public. Others, surprisingly, were products of the Hollywood studios.

The best of the early works are triumphs of the imagination over technical limits and creaky acting -- in quite a few, the wow factor remains potent. Watching the many bits of fantasy and cinematic sleights of hand, it's easy to draw a loopy line to the works of cinematic descendants such as Ray Harryhausen, Tim Burton and George Lucas.

Plenty of big names are represented in "Unseen" -- Welles, Sergei Eisnenstein, Ernst Lubitsch, Charles Vidor, Victor Fleming, Douglas Fairbanks, Busby Berkeley, Elia Kazan -- but the set shows that much of the heavy lifting in cinema's toddling years was done by inspired amateurs and free-thinking artists known for their work in other media.

The individual discs are arranged by theme, with titles such as "The Devil's Plaything" (surrealism and fantasy), "The Amateur as Auteur" (home movies) and "Inverted Narratives" (storytelling). New York City merits its own disc, with 29 films set in the metropolis (this fascinating time capsule is available separately, retail $24.99).

For orientation, there are informal but to-the-point on-screen notes before the films. The lack of commentaries undercuts the set's many obvious academic applications -- even so, it's a mind-expanding film course in a box. For extra credit, filmographies and biographical information can be accessed via DVD-ROM.

Some of the 155 shorts and excerpts have new recordings of their original music, some have newly written scores and others remain totally silent. In the case of the mind-bending "Ballet mecanique" (1923-24) the complex original score wasn't recorded as the filmmaker intended until five years ago. The DVD set's audio tracks sound as if they came from the same shop, cutting down on jarring transitions and smoothing the way for extended viewing.

The source materials -- rounded up from 60 or so archival collections around the globe -- were restored from 35mm and 16mm prints. The full-screen images are often surprisingly good but quality proves case-by-case, of course.

Massive Art-exhibition-in-a-box Collecfion of Avant-garde titles.......2005-11-03

The contents below are from unseen-cinema; they include the contents of a 160-page softcover Series Catalog, which is sold separately, but I think you would want. This is clearly a labor of love; though I can't imagine trying to watch all this in a month of Sundays, I could see dipping into it from time to time.

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Disk 1: THE MECHANIZED EYE
Experiments in Technique and Form

The dynamic qualities of motion pictures are explored by cameramen and filmmakers through novel experiments in technique and form. Early cinematographers James White, "Billy" Bitzer, and Frederick Armitage display experimental shooting styles that wowed audiences. Other independent companies further image manipulation through creative staging, editing, and printing, such as a stunning three-screen film that predates Gance's Napoleon. Experiments by photographer Walker Evans, painter Emlen Etting, musician Jerome Hill, and the film collectives Nykino and Artkino record the world in a continual process of flux. A most extreme approach is realized by Henwar Rodakiewicz with Portrait of a Young Man (1925-31), a monumental study of natural and abstract motions.

18 FILMS:
5 Paris Exposition Films (1900)-James White
Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Palace (1900)
Palace of Electricity (1900)
Champs de Mars (1900)
Panorama of Eiffel Tower (1900)
Scene from Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower (1900)
Captain Nissen Going through Whirpool Rapids, Niagra Falls (1901)-creators unknown
Down the Hudson (1903)-Frederick Armitage & A.E. Weed
The Ghost Train (1903)-creators unknown
Westinghouse Works, Panorama View Street Car Motor Room (1904)-G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
In Youth, Beside the Lonely Sea (c. 1924-25)-creators unknown
Melody on Parade (c. 1936)-creators unknown
La Cartomancienne (The Fortune Teller) (1932)-Jerome Hill
Pie in the Sky (1934-35)-Nykino: Elia Kazan, Ralph Steiner & Irving Lerner
Travel Notes (1932)-Walker Evans
Oil: A Symphony in Motion (1930-33)-Artkino: M.G. MacPherson & Jean Michelson
Poem 8 (1932-33)-Emlen Etting
Storm (1941-43)-Paul Burnford
Portrait of a Young Man (1925-31)-Henwar Rodakiewicz

Disk 2: THE DEVIL'S PLAYTHING
American Surrealism

Edwin S. Porter and other early filmmakers used bizarre sets, fantastic costumes, and magic lantern tricks to illuminate their fantasy films. American parody supplied Douglas Fairbanks with enough unusual material to produce the truly surreal When the Clouds Roll By (1919). The expressionistic Cabinet of Dr. Calagari (1919) influenced American sensibilities throughout the 1920s as seen in Beggar of Horseback (1925), The Life and Death of 9413-A Hollywood Extra (1927) and The Telltale Heart (1928). The emphasis shifted when amateurs J.S. Watson, Jr., Joseph Cornell, and Orson Welles crafted a unique variety of American surrealism on film unfettered by European concerns.

17 FILMS:
Jack and the Beanstalk (1902)-Edwin S. Porter
Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)-Edwin S. Porter
The Thieving Hand (1907)-creator unknown, Vitagraph
Impossible Convicts (1905)-G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
When the Clouds Roll By (1919)-Douglas Fairbanks & Victor Fleming (excerpt)
Beggar on Horseback (1925)-James Cruze (excerpt)
The Fall of the House of Usher (1926-27)-J.S. Watson, Jr. & Melville Webber
The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1927)- Robert Florey & Slavko Vorkapich
The Love of Zero (1928)-Robert Florey & William Cameron Menzies
The Telltale Heart (1928)-Charles Klein
Tomatos Another Day (1930/1933)-J.S. Watson, Jr. & Alec Wilder
The Hearts of Age (1934)- William Vance & Orson Welles
Unreal News Reels (c. 1926)-Weiss Artclass Comedies (excerpt)
The Children's Jury (c. 1938)-attributed Joseph Cornell
Thimble Theater (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell
Carousel: Animal Opera (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell
Jack's Dream (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell

Disk 3: LIGHT RHYTHMS
Music and Abstraction

The rhythmic elements of cinema are explored by artists and filmmakers fascinated by the abstract qualities of light. The American authors of avant-garde classics Le Retour á la raison (1923), Ballet mécanique (1923-24), Anémic cinéma (1926), and Une Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (1934), are finally acknowledged for their seminal artistic achievements made in Europe. Pioneer abstract films by Ralph Steiner, Mary Ellen Bute, Douglass Crockwell, Dwinnell Grant, and George Morris are compared and contrasted with Hollywood montages created by Ernst Lubitsch, Slavko Vorkapich, and Busby Berkeley. For the first time on video, composer George Antheil's original 1924 score accompanies Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy's film Ballet mécanique, a truly avant-garde cacophony of image and sound.

29 FILMS:
Le Retour à la raison (1923)-Man Ray
Ballet mécanique (1923-24)-Fernand Léger & Dudley Murphy
Anémic cinéma (1924-26)-Rrose Sélavy (Marcel Duchamp)
Looney Lens: Anamorphic People (1927)-Al Brick
Out of the Melting Pot (1927)-W.J. Ganz Studio
H20 (1929)-Ralph Steiner
Surf and Seaweed (1929-30)-Ralph Steiner
7 Vorkapich Montage Sequences (1928-37)-Slavko Vorkapich
The Furies (1934)
Skyline Dance (1928)
Money Machine (1929)
Prohibition (1929)
The Firefly- Vorkapich edit (1937)
The Firefly-MGM release version (1937)
Maytime (1937)
So This Is Paris (1926)-Ernst Lubitsch (excerpt)
Light Rhythms (1930)-Francis Bruguière & Oswell Blakeston
Une Nuit sur le Mont Chauve (Night on Bald Mountain) (1934)-Alexandre Alexeieff & Claire Parker
Rhythm in Light (1934)-Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth & Melville Webber
Synchromy No. 2 (1936)-Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth
Parabola (1937)-Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth
Footlight Parade - "By a Waterfall" (1933)-Busby Berkeley
Glen Falls Sequence (1937-46)-Douglass Crockwell
Simple Destiny Abstractions (1937-40)-Douglass Crockwell
Abstract Movies (1937-47)-George L.K. Morris
Scherzo (1939)-Norman McLaren
Themis (1940)-Dwinell Grant
Contrathemis (1941)-Dwinell Grant
1941 (1941)-Francis Lee
Moods of the Sea (1940-42)-Slavko Vorkapich & John Hoffman

Disk 4: INVERTED NARRATIVES
New Directions in Story-Telling

Early directors D.W. Griffith and Lois Weber develop the radical language of cinema narrative through audience-friendly melodramas made for nickelodeon theaters. Experimental fantasies are depicted in such independent productions as Moonland (c. 1926), Lullaby (1929), and The Bridge (1929-30). Depression era films by socially-conscious filmmakers reshape drama as demonstrated in Josef Berne's brooding Black Dawn (1933) and Strand and Hurwitz's biting Native Land (1937-41): each pictures a raw reality. Parody and satire find their mark in Theodore Huff's Little Geezer (1932) and Barlow, Hay and Le Roy's Even as You and I (1937). David Bradley's Sredni Vashtar by Saki (1940-43) boasts an inadvertent post-modern attitude.

12 FILMS:
The House with Closed Shutters (1910)-D.W. Griffith & G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Suspense (1913)-Lois Weber & Philips Smalley
Moonland (c. 1926)-Neil McQuire & William A. O'Connor
Lullaby (1929)-Boris Deutsch
The Bridge (1929-30)-Charles Vidor
Little Geezer (1932)-Theodore Huff
Black Dawn (1933)-Josef Berne & Seymour Stern
Native Land (1937-41)-Frontier Films: Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand (excerpt)
Black Legion (1936-7)-Nykino: Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke
Even As You and I (1937)-Roger Barlow, Harry Hay & Le Roy Robbins
Object Lesson (1941)-Christoher Young
"Sredni Vashtar" by Saki (1940-43)-David Bradley

Disk 5: PICTURING A METROPOLIS
New York City Unveiled
Only Unseen Cinema DVD released as a SINGLE

The DVD depicts dynamic images of New York City and scenes of New Yorkers among the skyscrapers, streets, and night life of America's greatest city during a half century of progress, while at the same time showing changes in film style and the history of cinema experiments. Avant-garde moments pop up in the most unlikely of places including turn-of-the-twentieth-century actualities, commercial and radical newsreels, and Busby Berkeley's "Lullaby of Broadway" from Gold Diggers of 1935. Included are spectacular prints of Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand's Manhatta (1921), Robert Flaherty's Twenty-four-Dollar Island (c. 1926), Robert Florey's Skyscraper Symphony (1929), Jay Leyda's A Bronx Morning (1931), and Rudy Burckhardt's Pursuit of Happiness (1940).

26 FILMS:
The Blizzard (1899)-creators unknown
Lower Broadway (1902)-Robert K. Bonine
Beginning of a Skyscraper (1902)-Robert K. Bonine
Panorama from Times Building, New York (1905)-Wallace McCutcheon
Skyscrapers of NYC from North River (1903)-J.B. Smith
Panorama from Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge (1903)-G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Building Up and Demolishing the Star Theatre (1902)-Frederick Armitage
Coney Island at Night (1905)-Edwin S. Porter
Interior New York Subway 14th Street to 42nd Street (1905)-G.W. "Billy" Bitzer
Seeing New York by Yacht (1902)-Frederick Armitage & A.E. Weed
2 Looney Lens: Split Skyscrapers (1924) and Tenth Avenue, NYC (1924)-Al Brick
4 Scenes from Ford Educational Weekly (1916-24)-creators unknown
Manhatta (1921)-Charles Sheeler & Paul Strand
Twentyfour-Dollar Island (c. 1926)-Robert Flaherty
Skyscraper Symphony (1929)-Robert Florey
Manhattan Medley (1931)-Bonney Powell
A Bronx Morning (1931)-Jay Leyda
Footnote to Fact (1933)-Lewis Jacobs
Seeing the World (1937)-Rudy Burckhardt
Pursuit of Hapiness (1940)-Rudy Burckhardt
Gold Diggers of 1935 - "Lullaby of Broadway" (1935)-Busby Berkeley (excerpt)
Autumn Fire (1930-33)-Herman Weinberg

Disk 6: THE AMATEUR AS AUTEUR
Discovering Paradise in Pictures

These home-made films incorporate avant-garde strategies and techniques to achieve a true sense of cinematic intimacy. Glimpses of life caught unawares are found in the home movies of Elizabeth Woodman Wright, Archie Stewart, Frank Stauffacher, and John C. Hecker. Poetic lyricism finds a voice in city symphonies: Lynn Riggs and James Hughes' A Day in Santa Fe (1931) and Rudy Burckhardt's Haiti (1938). Professionally minded films, like Theodore Case's sound tests (c. 1925) and Lewis Jacobs' Tree Trunk to Head (1938), operate from a similar home-spun perspective of sincerity. Joseph Cornell offers an enigmatic but lovely homage to childhood with Children's Trilogy (c. 1938).

20 FILMS:
7 Case Sound Tests (c. 1924-25)-Theodore Case & Earl Sponable
Windy Ledge Farm (c. 1929-34)-Elizabeth Woodman Wright
A Day in Santa Fe (1931)-Lynn Riggs & James Hughes
4 Stewart Family Home Movies (c. 1935-39)-Archie Stewart
Children's Party (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell
Cotillion (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell
The Midnight Party (c. 1938)-Joseph Cornell
Haiti (1938)-Rudy Burckhardt
Tree Trunk to Head (1938)-Lewis Jacobs
Bicycle Polo at San Mateo (1940-42)-Frank Stauffacher
1126 Dewey Avenue, Apt. 207 (1939)-John C. Hecker

Disk 7: VIVA LA DANCE
The Beginnings of Ciné-Dance

Dance and film have shared the aspiration to creatively sculpt motion and time. Some of the first films ever made featured Annabelle's skirt dance, hand-painted in glowing colors. Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis' innovations found their way into Diana the Huntress (1916) and The Soul of the Cypress (1920). Highly cinematic renditions of dance evolved in Stella Simon's Hände (1928), Hector Hoppin's Joie de vivre (1934), and Busby Berkeley's "Don't Say Goodnight" from Wonder Bar (1934). In counterpoint, ciné-dances by Mary Ellen Bute, Douglass Crockwell, Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, Ralph Steiner, and Slavko Vorkapich dispensed with actual dancers in favor of color, shape, line, and form choreographed into abstract light-play.

33 FILMS:
7 Annabelle Dances and Dances (1894-1897)-W.K.L. Dickson, William Heise & James White
Davy Jones' Locker (1900)-Frederick Armitage
Neptune's Daughters (1900)-Frederick Armitage
A Nymph of the Waves (1900)-Frederick Armitage
Diana the Huntress (1916)-Charles Allen & Francis Trevelyan Miller (excerpt)
The Soul of the Cypress (1920)-Dudley Murphy
Looney Lens: Pas de deux (1924)-Al Brick
Hände: Das Leben und die Liebe eines Zärtlichen Geschlechts (Hands: The Life and Loves of the Gentler Sex) (1928)-Stella Simon & Miklos Bandy
Mechanical Principles (1930)-Ralph Steiner
Tilly Losch in Her Dance of the Hands (c. 1930-33)-Norman Bel Geddes
2 Eisenstein's Mexican Footage (1931)-Sergei Eisenstein (excerpts)
Oramunde (1933)-Emlen Etting
Hands (1934)-Ralph Steiner & Willard Van Dyke
Joie de vivre (1934)-Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin
Wonder Bar: "Don't Say Goodnight" (1934)-Busby Berkeley (excerpt)
Dada (1936)-Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth
Escape (1938)-Mary Ellen Bute & Ted Nemeth
An Optical Poem (1938)-Oskar Fischinger
Abstract Experiment in Kodachrome (c. 1940s)-Slavko Vorpapich
NBC Valentine Greeting (1939-40)-Norman McLaren
Stars and Stripes (1940)-Norman McLaren
Tarantella (1940)-Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth & Norman McLaren
Spook Sport (1940)-Mary Ellen Bute, Ted Nemeth & Norman McLaren
Danse Macabre (1922)-Dudley Murphy
Peer Gynt (1941)-David Bradley, starring Charlton Heston (excerpt)
Introspection (1941/46)-Sara Kathryn Arledge

SERIES CATALOG
"Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant-Garde Film 1893-1941"

Unseen Cinema catalog features 30 essays, articles, and documents and 65 annotated photographs. Authors are scholars, critics, and filmmakers whose knowledge of the early avant-garde derives from either direct experience as a participant or years of scholarly research. Many hard-to-find photographs and sources detail the first decades of American experimental cinema in the United States and abroad.

Table of Contents
Foreword-Jan-Christopher Horak
Words and Pictures-annotated photographs
1. The Grand Experiment-Bruce Posner
2. Hollywood Extras: One Tradition of `Avant-Garde' Film in Los Angeles- David James
3. Emlen Etting: Three Films-R. Bruce Elder
4. The Attraction of Nature in Early Cinema-Scott MacDonald
5. "Le Retour á la raison": Hidden Meaning-Deke Dusinberre
6. Music for "Ballet Mécanique": 90s Technology Realizes a 20s Vision-Paul D. Lehrman
7. Sara Kathryn Arledge: "Introspection"-Terry Cannon
8. Busby Berkeley and America's Pioneer Abstract Filmmakers-Cecile Starr
9. Joseph Cornell: An Exploration of Sources-Lynda Roscoe Hartigan
10. Discussing D.W. Griffith-Jay Leyda
11. Maurice Tourneur and "The Bluebird"-Jan-Christopher Horak
12. Diva of Decadence: "Salome"-Kenneth Anger
13. W.K.L. Dickson: Pioneer Filmmaker-Paul Spehr
14. Elizabeth Woodman Wright: "Windy Ledge Farm"-Karan Sheldon & Bruce Posner
15. Robert Florey and the Hollywood Avant-Garde-Brian Taves
16. Working on "The City"-Henwar Rodakiewicz
17. Warren Newcombe: "The Enchanted City"-Stephen J. Schneider
18. My Films-J.S. Watson, Jr.
19. J.S. Watson, Jr.: "Nass River Indians"-Lynda Jessup
20. ...And Melville Webber-Dale Davis
21. Making "Twenty-four Dollar Island"-Robert Flaherty
22. Avant-Garde Production in America-Lewis Jacobs (excerpts)
23. Rutherford Boyd and "Parabola"-Douglas Dreishpoon
24. Notes on New Cinema of 1929 and 1930-Harry Alan Potamkin
25. Herman G. Weinberg: "Autumn Fire"-Robert A. Haller
26. Unanswered Questions: Eisenstein's "Qué Viva México!"-Herman G. Weinberg
27. My First Movie and "The Hearts of Age"-Orson Welles interviewed by Peter Bogdanovich
28. Highway 66: Montage Notes for a Documentary Film-Lewis Jacobs
29. The American Vanguard: Flux and Experience-R. Bruce Elder
30. New Artistic Process-Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff

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Winston had to be an incorrigible romantic
A TALE OF STAR COROSSED LOVERS...
I thought it was great too
Two loves stories bring truth to light

That Hamilton Woman (1941)
Starring: Laurence Olivier
Director: Alexander Korda
Manufacturer: Buddha Video Co.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Waterloo Bridge
Anna Karenina (1948)
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
Wuthering Heights (1939)
Caesar and Cleopatra (1946, Vivien Leigh) [ Import, ALL Regions]

ASIN: B000AQOER4

Product Description

Possibly one of the best historical romances of all time! Based on a true story, That Hamilton Woman tells the tale of a lower-class girl named Emma Hart who rises out of poverty through her own determination, beauty and will power. Soon after, she weds Lord William Hamilton, the British ambassador to Naples (and becomes known as Lady Hamilton). Lady Hamiltons life takes a dramatic turn yet again when she meets Admiral Horatio Nelson and immediately falls in love with him. The love affair of these two star-crossed lovers is publicized and induces a vast scandal.

Customer Reviews:

Winston had to be an incorrigible romantic.......2006-08-15

Released in early 1941 during the time when England was at its most beleaguered, THAT HAMILTON WOMAN is reputed to have been Prime Minister Winston Churchill's favorite film, which, if true, is prima-facie evidence that he was an old softie at heart.

A frothy historical romance as only Hollywood could create, the film is broadly faithful to the facts. Low-born Emma Hart (Vivien Leigh), the courtesan lover of the English aristocrat Charles Greville, is shipped off in 1786 to Naples to be, unbeknownst to her, the mistress of Greville's uncle, England's envoy to the Kingdom of Naples, Sir William Hamilton (Alan Mowbray). But, William is so smitten by Emma's beauty as to marry her, and the latter becomes Lady Emma Hamilton in 1791. In that capacity, she first meets Horatio Nelson (Laurence Olivier) in 1793, when he anchors his ship in Naples to officially seek the kingdom's help in providing reinforcements against the French. They don't meet again until five years later, after Nelson's famous victory in the Battle of the Nile, by which time he's lost an arm and his health. The latter is restored to the Admiral while under the Hamiltons' roof and Emma's care, during which time Nelson and his nurse fall in love. The rest is history. The Hamiltons and the Admiral returned to England where, in 1801, all three - or four, if you count Horatia, Nelson's daughter by Emma - moved into a house near present day Wimbledon purchased by Horatio after spurning his legal wife, Frances. William Hamilton died in 1803. Nelson died a national hero at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Ignored by the British government, Emma became destitute and died an alcoholic in Calais in 1815. Indeed, it's in Calais that THAT HAMILTON WOMAN opens and closes; Emma tells her story in flashback form to a fellow prison inmate (Heather Angel) after being arrested for public disorderliness.

THAT HAMILTON WOMAN is perhaps typical of the genre of the time. It's a good film, not great. The chief reason to watch is to discern its appeal to Churchill, who obviously found inspiration and a kindred spirit in the Tinseltown Nelson, whose impassioned speeches against the continental tyrant (Napoleon) and the need for his country to fight the dictator even if England stood alone reflected Winston's own feelings about the battle against Hitler and Nazi Germany in the months before Pearl Harbor and America's entry into the war, the salvation so desperately sought by the PM.

From an historical point of view, the serious or casual student of the Trafalgar naval confrontation between the British and Franco-Spanish fleets will likely find fault. The battle scenes, using ship models, show vessels blowing up in great cataclysms of fire and smoke, and one actually capsizes. Trafalgar wasn't like that. Tactics dictated that opposing battleships maneuver up close and personal and fire withering volleys of hard, non-explosive shot at each other at point blank range to take down masts, reduce the decks (above the waterline) to kindling, and kill as many opposing sailors as possible. Only then would a ship surrender and be taken and converted to prize-money by the victorious captain and crew. To this end, actual sinking of an opponent was counterproductive. For a better understanding of Trafalgar and naval tactics of the period, I recommend Adam Nicolson's excellent book, Seize the Fire : Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar.

Any Vivien Leigh fan will find much to like in THAT HAMILTON WOMAN though, since GONE WITH THE WIND had been released only a couple of years prior, I kept half-expecting Leigh's character to break into a southern accent and pine for Tara. I especially liked the melodramatic ending when, after Captain Hardy (Henry Wilcoxon) rides his gallant steed off-camera after breaking the news of Nelson's death to Emma, the latter shuts the drapes across a massive window and collapses in a faint - a nice allusion to "the final curtain" closing on an epic love story. How "Hollywood" can you get?

Since this DVD was produced by Buddha Video in Taiwan, there's the unusual (to American audiences) availability of Chinese subtitles. Turn them "on" to view with Chinese take-out.

A TALE OF STAR COROSSED LOVERS..........2006-05-16

This film is based upon the real life love affair between Lord Admiral Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of the British Ambassador to Naples. Real life husband and wife team, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, as the star crossed lovers, give magnificent performances. Ms. Leigh is absolutely enchanting in the role of Lady Hamilton. Mr. Olivier is likewise effective in his role, though Ms. Leigh is definitely the star of this show. The supporting cast also gives superb performances, particularly Alan Mowbray in the role of the cuckolded husband, Lord William Hamilton.

The story tells the viewer of the rise of Emma Hart, a blacksmith's daughter with a scarlet past, who by dint of her beauty and determination rose out of poverty and obscurity to become the wife of Lord William Hamilton, the British Ambassador to Naples. After their marriage, she is known as Lady Hamilton and becomes the toast of Naples. She then meets Admiral Horatio Nelson and her life changes, yet again. Defying social conventions, she and the also married Nelson begin a love affair that was to become public knowledge and lead to great scandal. What happened to them is memorably dramatized.

This is a wonderful film that all who love period pieces and historical dramas will enjoy.

I thought it was great too.......2006-03-28

I have been dying to see this movie since last fall, and was disappointed when mom and dad didn't get it for me for x-mas. I just love history and I really love reading about Admiral Nelson. What I didn't like about the movie was some of what was portrayed about Lord Nelson in the film wasn't quite accurate, but I still loved it. I almost cried when he was killed. I really liked the fact that they were married in real life.

Two loves stories bring truth to light.......2005-10-27

Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier star in this wonderful film and their off screen love affair still makes this true story shine. Emma Hart and Lord Nelson are two historical figures who were so in love, their affair almost cost Nelson his career. Emma was considered the most beautiful woman of her time and this could also be said of Vivien Leigh when she made this film. Olivier and Leigh were newly in love when they made this film. The viewer can feel the sparks of their love, and that of Emma and Lord Nelson, as you watch these two brilliant stars bring their story to life. Although Leigh and Olivier were married for many years, they unfortunately divorced later on, primarily due to Leigh's bipolar disorder (mis-diagnosed in those days). Olivier remained loyal to Leigh until she died, trying in vain to protect her from the prying eyes of the world.
As you view this film, you are witnessing romance come alive two fold. It reminds us truth is stranger than fiction. I know of no other love story in history to top this one, and Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier obviously put their heart and souls into bringing Emma and Lord Nelson's love alive on screen - and off.
You are watching two true artists at their best. As Leigh brings Emma Hart to life, you understand why she was later chosen to star in "Gone With the Wind".
Hollywood made feeble attempts to tell this story in subsequent films, but none compare to "That Hamilton Woman". Be careful as you watch. You may find that one viewing isn't enough. I've been watching this film for over 40 years and it still comes across fresh and beautiful, aging well like a fine wine.

Harlem Double Feature: Blood Of Jesus (1941) / Lying Lips (1939)

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Harlem Double Feature: Blood Of Jesus (1941) / Lying Lips (1939)
Starring: Heavenly Choir , Kathryn Craviness , Eddie de Buse , Alva Fuller , and Rogenia Goldthwaite
Director: Spencer Williams
Manufacturer: Alpha Home Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

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Drama | Independently Distributed | Stores | DVD | Video

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Similar Items:

Harlem Double Feature: Girl in Room 20 (1942) / God's Step Children (1938)
Harlem Double Feature: Go Down Death! (1944) / Sunday Sinners (1940)
Harlem Double Feature: Gang War/Broken Strings
Harlem Double Feature: Paradise in Harlem (1940) / Burlesque in Harlem (1949)
Harlem Double Feature: Harlem Rides The Range (1939) / Murder In Harlem (1935)

ASIN: B000HXDEVC
Release Date: 2006-10-24

Product Description

All Black Cast Double Feature! A dead woman is sent back to earth by Satan only to follow the road to degradation / A deceitful young woman frames an innocent man of rape.

Average customer rating:

Japanese Invade and Occupy Hong Kong
Warning on English subtitles!
i heart this movie
What was it like back then?
Not as great as the reviews would have you believe.

Hong Kong 1941
Starring: Yun-Fat Chow , Cecilia Yip , Alex Man (II) , Kien Shih , and Ma Wu
Director: Po-Chih Leong
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Peace Hotel
The Corruptor (New Line Platinum Series)
City on Fire
Farewell My Concubine
Rich and Famous

ASIN: B00008WJE0
Release Date: 2003-07-22

Amazon.com

The effortlessly charismatic Chow Yun-Fat stars in this excellent historical drama about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. Yip Fai (Chow), a young man living with his aunt and hostile uncle, befriends a local tough named Kong (Alex Man). Fai wants to flee the city for Australia or America, but Kong is too attached to his home, as well as to the daughter of a local rice importer, Anna (Cecelia Yip). Passions shift among the three as the Japanese invade, creating a tortured world of collaborators, rebels, and black market thugs. Half Jules & Jim, half The Deer Hunter, Hong Kong 1941 successful juxtaposes the conflicted emotions of the three friends with the larger social chaos of the occupation; the personal and the political intertwine powerfully. Chow Yun-Fat, young and handsome, radiates a compelling mix of intelligence, integrity, and doubt. --Bret Fetzer

Description

With a powerful ensemble cast including Chow Yun-fat (Anna and the King, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and acclaimed actress Cecilia Yip-tong, director Leong Po-chi delivers a hard hitting drama portraying the lives of three young friends as they struggle to fulfil their dreams when faced with the physical terrors or war. Set against a backdrop of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong from 1941 to 1945, this highly acclaimed film reveals the the harrowing effects of a conflict that shattered the dreams of a nation during almost four years if bitter repression. A story told with breathtaking cinemaography and compelling characters, the riveting action and stiking moral understones of Hong Kong 1941 celebrate the resilience of the human spirit.

Customer Reviews:

Japanese Invade and Occupy Hong Kong.......2005-06-21

1984 unrated WWII film set in Hong Kong. A love triangle drama set against the background of war. Also known as "Dang Doi Lai Ming," "Waiting for Daybreak," "Waiting for Dawn."

DVD Features: The DVD contains the movie, trailers, and some special features. The movie can be heard in English or Chinese (Cantonese) and can be read (subtitles) in English or Chinese. The trailers are for: 1) City Hunter (Jackie Chan, PG-13), 2) Naked Killer, 3) Magnificent Warriors (R-rated, Michelle Yeoh, WWII movie), 4) Magnificent Butcher (PG-13, Sammo Hung), 5) Heart of the Dragon (R, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan), 6) Kiss of the Dragon (R, Jet Li, Bridge Fonda), and 7) The Transporter (PG-13, Jason Strathon as Frank Martin). The Special Features include: 1) this film's trailers (two), 2) photo gallery, 3) Interviews (two, one with Cecilia Yip (had been a model), and one with Paul Pui, actor ("film was very realistic, not dramatic"), 4) Chow Yun-Fat Movie Photo Gallery and Biography (born May 18, 1955 in Hong Kong; won the "Best Actor Awards at both Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards and the Asian Pacific Film Festival for" his role in this film; starred in "City on Fire . . . served as the inspiration for much of Quentin Tarrentino's, "Reservoir Dogs""), 5) Promotional Materials (posters and stills), and 6) Production Notes (synopsis, cast/crew list, and Chow Yun Fat Filmography). One final note, the music on the DVD menu screens sounds like something out of the Twilight Zone.

Credits: Chow Yun-Fat (Yip Fai, or as the synopsis credits the part as "Yip Kim-fay"; "The Killer"), Alex Man (Huang Kong, or as the synopsis credits the part as "Wong Hale Keung"; "The Con Man in Vegas"), Cecilia Yip (Anna Shin, or as the synopsis credits the part as "Ha Yuk-Nam"; "May and August"), Paul Chu (Fa Wang), and Sai-Kit Yung (General Kanezawa). Directed by Po-Chih Leong ("Out of Reach"). The movie is written by Koon-Chung Chan ("Kiss Me Goodbye").

Plot: The movies opens before the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, with the British attempting to send the women to safety in Australia. Food is rationed, and a minor riot occurs when the rice warehouse owner refuses to pay his workers. Then the Japanese invade and occupy Hong Kong. Before and during the occupation, three friends struggle to survive, with each attempting a different method of survival (Kong, Fai, and Anna). At the beginning of the movie Fai is living with his aunt and uncle (and attempts to stow-away on a boat to Australia), while Kong works for the rice people, and Anna wanders around screaming (apparently she has some genetic disorder, and is the daughter of a rich man that owns the rice warehouse and who is attempting to marry off his daughter (arranged marriage) to his new business partner's son (even though she and Kong have some kind of relationship). The three friends decide to try to leave for Australia, but the day they attempt to leave, the Japanese attack. Fai makes it onto a boat, but the other two do not. He decides that he cannot leave without them.

Review: The movie opens with a woman remembering her darkest days, which occurred in 1941 in Hong Kong. The woman occasionally offers some narration during the movie. A strange movie that opens slowly and, for the most part, continues to be slow. The movie picks up, a little, when the Japanese invasion starts and the Hong Kong citizens riot and loot.

Interesting movie about a strange time in Hong Kong history. The inhabitants either collaborate (and some do it to help others), attempt to hide in the shadows, or actively work against the occupation. Some of the collaborators really take advantage of the situation, torturing others, stealing money, and generally being overall evil.

The spoken English and subtitle English seems to be the same (except the profanity which is only in the subtitles, and I believe that occasionally a couple words are different). The dubbing isn't the best, though it is harder to tell considering that it isn't always easy to see their mouths.

The slow movie has a somewhat strange story-line (not enough of the resistance action shown, not enough of any action, really, shown). The acting appears to be good. The music is good. Overall, I would give the movie 3.40 stars.

Warning on English subtitles!.......2005-05-19

I will leave the other reviewers of 'Hong Kong 1941' to analyze the film for you. I have written this review to inform potential customers that the English subtitles on this Fox Home Entertainment edition are not up-to standards, especially for a major movie company such as Fox. There are some spelling (!!) errors but the most annoying aspect of them are that there are basic English grammatical mistakes. I watched the movie in the original Chinese audio with English subtitles and was duly disappointed.

The movie itself is ok and quite enjoyable, yet the subtitles are a major nuisance. Not only are they poorly done, but there are times throughout the movie where conversation is heard for quite a while, and you are certain subtitles are needed, but they never appear! Thus, the inevitable consequence is that at times, the movie lacks fluidity if you want to watch the movie in its original audio (The English dubbed version is very bad as well).

The picture and sound 'quality' on the DVD are great, but the subtitles simply ruin it.

i heart this movie.......2005-04-29

I adore this film. I have watched it millions of times, and it never gets old. I started watching it because i wanted to learn to speak Cantonese, but i soon realized that this movie is actually quite a masterpiece. There is romance, action, and a bittersweet twist at the end. You really need to see this movie!