Reading Room

City Lights movie review & film summary (opens rogerebert.com in a new tab)

Ebert's essay on Chaplin's masterpiece and its lyrical romanticism and defiance of sound cinema.

Roger Ebert Great Movies

On City Lights

Battling Butler - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival documentation of Keaton's personal favorite and commercially successful comedy.

On Battling Butler

City Lights (1931) (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion release with comprehensive essay on this greatest achievement of Chaplin's career.

Criterion Collection

On City Lights

A Farewell to Arms: a greater film than Hemingway knew — BFI (opens bfi.org.uk in a new tab)

Critical essay examining Frank Borzage's 1932 adaptation and how it differs from Hemingway's vision.

On A Farewell to Arms

A Page of Madness - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival documentation of Kinugasa's pioneering avant-garde masterpiece.

On A Page of Madness

Love and Death in Hollywood: Desertion and Redemption in Film Adaptations of A Farewell to Arms — Literature Film Quarterly (opens lfq.salisbury.edu in a new tab)

Academic essay analyzing themes of desertion and redemption across film adaptations of Hemingway's novel.

On A Farewell to Arms

Beginner's Guide to Alfred Hitchcock: Juno and the Paycock (1930) (opens talkfilmsociety.com in a new tab)

Guide to Hitchcock's adaptation of Sean O'Casey's play and his frustrations with theatrical material.

Talk Film Society

On Juno and the Paycock

Bird of Paradise (1932): King Vidor's Exotic Adventure, Starring Dolores del Río and Joel McCrea (opens emanuellevy.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Vidor's exploration of forbidden desires around race and sexuality in pre-Code Hawaii.

Emanuel Levy

On Bird of Paradise

Caught in a Cabaret (27 April 1914) (opens chaplinfilmbyfilm.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Critical essay on Chaplin's early comic performance and character development.

Chaplin: Film by Film

On Caught in a Cabaret

WEEK 10: Juno And The Paycock (1930) (opens weeklyhitch.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Analysis of Hitchcock's second talkie and its theatrical staginess in cinematic adaptation.

Weekly Hitch

On Juno and the Paycock

Riders of Destiny (1933), with John Wayne as a singing cowboy (opens publicdomainmovies.info in a new tab)

Essay on this early Wayne western musical and its influence on the singing cowboy genre.

Public Domain Movies

On Riders of Destiny

M (1931) | The Definitives (opens deepfocusreview.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Lang's masterpiece and its prescient warnings about mass justice.

Deep Focus Review

On M

Mother (1926) - Writers Without Money (opens writerswithoutmoney.com in a new tab)

Critical perspective on Soviet cinema's approach to revolutionary narrative.

Writers Without Money

On Mother

Morocco (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion release with essay on Sternberg's direction of Dietrich in her triumphant American debut.

Criterion Collection

On Morocco

HOT SATURDAY ( 1932 ) (opens cinemavensessaysfromthecouch.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Essay on Seiter's pre-Code examination of small-town morality and rumors about women's sexuality.

CineMaven's Essays from the Couch

On Hot Saturday

Shanghai Express (1932) (opens criterion.com in a new tab)

Criterion's analysis of this visually poetic Sternberg-Dietrich collaboration.

Criterion Collection

On Shanghai Express

Fun Facts And Murky Legends About 'The Arrival Of The Train At La Ciotat Station' (1896) (opens silentology.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Critical examination of legends surrounding the film and analysis of its composition and reception.

Silent-ology

On The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat

Film essay for Morocco — Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board (opens loc.gov in a new tab)

Official preservation essay on this milestone film in Dietrich and Sternberg's collaboration.

On Morocco

The General - San Francisco Silent Film Festival (opens silentfilm.org in a new tab)

Festival resource on one of cinema's greatest comedies.

On The General

Judge Priest (opens seeingthingssecondhand.com in a new tab)

Essay on Ford's Will Rogers comedy and its complex legacy of humor alongside racial insensitivity.

Seeing Things Secondhand

On Judge Priest

The Enchanted Drawing: Blackton's Early Animation (opens themarginalian.org in a new tab)

Analysis of J. Stuart Blackton's pioneering proto-animation techniques and their influence on cinema.

The Marginalian

On The Enchanted Drawing

MoMA | Josef von Sternberg's Morocco — Museum of Modern Art (opens moma.org in a new tab)

Essay on Sternberg's visualizations of obsessive desire and cinematic exoticism.

On Morocco

A Trip to the Moon | Spectacular Attractions — Spectacular Attractions (opens drnorth.wordpress.com in a new tab)

Scholarly essay examining the film's theatrical traditions and special effects innovations.

On A Trip to the Moon

Even Incomplete, the First Alice in Wonderland Film Charms (opens trettleman.medium.com in a new tab)

Critical analysis of Hepworth's adaptation and its innovative special effects for fantasy cinema.

Medium

On Alice in Wonderland