Author Archive: Retro

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 [...]

Romantic comedy about an aging dressmaker with amorous designs on a tough-guy sailor she hopes to make her husband.

Swedish silent classic about treasure and betrayal.

Mannish ultra-efficient A.B. is the real force behind the Bancroft paint business. But on a weekend house-party when she overhears the boss’s grandson (Jimmy)’s unflattering opinion of her (unseen) lack of charms, she’s hurt. Jimmy’s grandmother takes her under her wing, makes her over, and teaches her to flutter her eyelashes and only say the two phrases to win a man: “Do go on!” and “Aren’t you wonderful?”. And Jimmy falls hard, not knowing his darling girl is the dreaded A.B. But can A.B. maintain her girlish guise while setting Jimmy on the right track to financial security and a proposal?

Wealthy, avaricious miser forces his wife and daughter to suffer in poverty, while trying to put a stop to his daughter’s affair with a rich young dandy. Dir. John Baxter.

A man traveling through a small western town meets a girl who is the daughter of the local land agent. To please her, he buys a parcel of land from her father. Then he finds himself involved in a plot to cheat him out of his land.

Early Tyler western that defined his cowboy character as he falls for outlaw gangleader’s daughter.

Norma Talmadge plays a pretty young secretary who must dress dowdily to avoid the licentious overtures of her male employers. She takes a job as the social secretary to a wealthy woman, whose daughter is about to marry a nasty foreign count. Talmadgepulls a few strings to set the daughter on the right course. Out of gratitude, Talmadge’s employer grants permission for the girl to marry her handsome son. A straightforward, unadorned comedy-drama, The Social Secretary is of interest today for the presence of Erich von Stroheim, cast as one of Talmadge’s predatory former bosses (he should have played the count).