Author Archive: Retro

Hawk of the Hills (1927), a ten episode serial, re-edited into a five-reel feature length version

The film that made Garbo famous. Young married woman becomes the object of a defrocked priest’s affections. English titles. Dir. Joseph Kane.

Maynard’s first western has him at the mercy of a dissolute banker who wants Maynard’s land deed and will stop at nothing to get it! Dir. Clifford S. Elfelt

Early version of the Wister novel, as a ranch hand must bring down local cattle rustlers. Dir. Tom Forman.

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.