Author Archive: Retro

In this film, set in Old California, William Norton Bailey plays a rancher who saves his lovely neighbor from a vile Spaniard. This film was part of a series of low-budget oaters, all directed by the veteran Louis Chaudet.

Social worker and soldier yearn for a society where all are equals. To cure his son of such idealistic views, the soldier’s father sets up a commune on an island off the Florida coast to prove it could never work.

Mad scientist attempts to put all of Paris in a trance, and succeeds, except for six people! Written by Rene Clair. English titles. Dir. Rene Clair.

In the year 1550, Sir George Vernon agrees to have his young daughter Dorothy betrothed to John Manners, the son of the Earl of Rutland. Sir George signs a contract, promising that the marriage will take place on Dorothy’s 18th birthday, or else he will have to pay a large penalty to Rutland. But when the two children have grown older, rumors of John’s wild behavior in France provoke Sir George to call off the engagement, and to pledge his daughter instead to her cousin Malcolm. Rutland now claims the forfeit from Sir George, and meanwhile, John has befriended Mary Stuart, the sworn enemy of Elizabeth, who is now Queen of England.

A WWI English officer is inspired the night before a dangerous mission by a vision of Joan of Arc, whose story he relives.

Mary Moreland discovers the photograph of a woman not her mother in her father’s suitcase and sets out to find her in hopes of returning her father to his rightful place in the family.

Desperate for money, a rancher decides to trap and sell wild horses, using barbed wire. The local Navajo tribe tries to persuade him not to do it.

Young girl of royal descent is kidnapped and raised by bandits in Scotland. Dir. Basil Dean.

In 1911, as part of his massive undertaking, famed Northwest photographer Edward S. Curtis travelled to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to visit the Kwakwaka’wakw. By the next year, needing money for his project and to add to his research and still photography work, Curtis decided that the best way to record the traditional way of life and ceremonies of the Kwakwaka’wakw was to make one of the first feature motion pictures. Curtis had already shot footage in 1906 of the Hopi Snake dance, which he had previously showed during his talks, but this was to be on a grander scale. It took three years of preparation for this one film including the weaving of the costumes; building of the war canoes, housefronts, poles; and the carving of masks. Assisting on the film was George Hunt, a Kwakwaka’wakw who had served as an interpreter for the famous anthropologist Franz Boas nearly twenty years before. Hunt helped [...]