Author Archive: Retro

Zvenigora stars Nikolai Nademsky (Earth), as the grandfather of Timoshka (Semyon Svashenko), whom he alerts to secret treasure buried in the mountains and the boy spends the rest of his life trying to find. The film wonderfully blends both lyricism and politics and uses its central construct to build a montage praising Ukrainian industrialisation, attacking the European bourgeoisie, celebrating the beauty of the Ukrainian steppe and re-telling ancient folklore. Zvenigora is a most remarkable avant-garde film, which has a unique style in its approach and disregards the more traditional storytelling devices.

A fisherman thought drowned returns to find that his wife is expecting his best friend’s baby. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. His last silent film.

Tom takes a backseat to his scene-stealing horse Tony, as the Legendary Cowboy trains a wild horse to find the man who shot him. Dir. Tony Mordente.

Story of Nathan Hale, a revolutionary who quickly rises through the ranks of the American militia, eventually becoming a spy against the British.

A lighthouse keeper and his daughter are in trouble on two fronts–if the authorities find out he is going blind they will remove him, and a gang of liquor-smugglers is trying to destroy the lighthouse so they can land their illegal cargo on shore without being spotted.

John Benson is an inventor, but not a particularly successful one, and spends a lot of time drinking. His son Billy, in turn, spends a lot of time defending his father, often with his fists, and consequently has few friends. One day, however, one of John’s inventions actually works, and crooked lawyer Sidney Martin and his cohort, Walter Howe, think it can make money so they plan to steal it. They frame Benson and get him thrown in jail. Billy has to clear his father’s name, get him out of jail and take the invention back from the two crooks.

Happy-go-lucky cowboy must go after his best friend when the latter joins an outlaw gang. Based on the novel and play by Owen Wister.

A young woman finds herself trapped by a bandit gang. Rather than be raped by the gang, she commits suicide. When her brother finds out what happened, he turns to a life of banditry, hoping to find the gang responsible for his sister’s death.

Down on his luck high school student takes a job as a potato-peeler at the Naval Academy, hoping that he may one day attend the institution. Dir. William Witney.