 |
| Photo of the set for the film |
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Couple Of Melies Shorts: The Four Troublesome Heads (1898) & The Haunted Castle (1896)
The Four Troublesome Heads is one of hundreds (many of them, sadly, lost) of Melies' trick photography films--it employs straight out tricks, as so many of his films do. The Haunted Castle or House Of The Devil, in the other hand employs trick photography to get a narrative going. It is widely regarded as the very first horror film, featuring both a haunting and a vampire. It was remade a year later by British film maker George Albert Smith, thus making it the first film to inspire a remake as well claiming the title of first horror film produced.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Born Today October 6: Janet Gaynor
1906-1984
Born Laura Augusta, with either her last name spelled Gainor or Gainer, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, she was nicknamed "Lolly" as a child. Her father was a theatrical painter and paperhanger; it was he that began to teach her song and dance, as well as acrobatics when she was just a toddler. When she entered school, she then began to act in school plays. After her parents divorced and her mother remarried, the family eventually settled in San Francisco. When she graduated from high school there, she began doing stage work in Melbourne, Florida while on winter vacation. Upon her return to San Francisco, the whole family moved to Los Angeles so she could be pursue a career in acting. She, accompanied by her stepfather, began to present herself at studios there, where she eventually landed a role as an extra in a Hal Roach film. The film was Cupid's Rustler, the year was 1924. She continued to get work in roles as extras regularly until 1926, when she began to get small roles that she credited for, the first of which was The Johnstown Flood, a Fox film that she was hired for after Fox offered her a screen test. By 1927, she had blossomed into one of Hollywood's leading ladies. She played a lead role as "The Wife" in F. W. Murnau's 1927 feature Sunrise, for which she won one of the very earliest Oscars, in the category of Best Actress in a Leading Role--she was the very first winner for this category. She also won for her role in Street Angel (a partial sound film). The award, which was presented in the year 1929, combined the work. Another interesting fact is that she was only 22 years of age at the time; she would remain the youngest actress to win in the category until 1986, when at 21 Marlee Matlin won for Children Of A Lesser God. Her first full sound film came in 1928 with 4 Devils, which had an alternative silent print, and was also directed by Murnau. By 1929, she had made the transition to speaking roles and even starred in a film with early color sequences (Sunnyside Up). By the age of 33, she had been making films for almost 20 years and had made up her mind to retire, which she did in 1938. After this, she worked sporadically, and almost entirely in television. She found a new profession is painting however, becoming very accomplished in still life depictions of flowers and vegetables. She finally made her professional stage debut in 1980! She worked in the theater for 2 years. In September of 1982, a taxi in which she was a passenger was struck by a van that had run a red light; she was left with several very serious injuries, including 11 broken ribs. She passed away 2 years later on 14 September; with her long time doctor declaring that her death was brought on by the accident, from which she had never fully recovered. She is buried in the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery. [For anyone that interested in visiting, it is located in the Garden of Legends section, Lot 193)
Leave Virtual Flowers @ Find A Grave
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Born Today October 4: Jeremias Gotthelf
1797-1854
Writer Jeremias Gotthelf was born Albert Bitzius in the Swiss town of Murten into a family of the church. His father was a pastor. In 1804 the family moved to the small village of Utzendorf, where his education began. In 1812, he moved to Bern to complete his education, where he, in 1819, became a founding member of the Student Society Zofingig--it is the second oldest fraternity in Switzerland. In 1820, he became a pastor--the professional that he would remain in for the remainder of his life. He began writing later in life, publishing under the carefully held pen name of Jeremias Gotthelf, who, it was contended, was a real person--though this is probably not the case. His best known work is Die schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider), an allegorical fantasy horror tale involving a story of the plague told through the vehicle of a monster who has made a pact with the devil. It is this work that we are concerned with here in regards to silent film. In 1921 the German film company Turma Film made a film based the novella that was released on the 8th of August. The page for it on IMDb can be found here. The most recent version of this story (and apparently the most recent film based on his work) came in 1983, with a Swiss production company, IMDb page here. Bitzius (aka Gotthelf) died in the Swiss town of Lützeflüh on the 22nd of October in 1854, leaving behind a large influential ecclesiastical philosophy in the German speaking regions of Switzerland. He was 52 years of age. He is buried in the town cemetery there.
Monday, October 3, 2016
Countdown To Halloween: Melies' The House Of The Devil (1896)
Widely believed to be the first horror movie made.
Born Today October 3: Alphonse Winckler
1839-1925
Winckler was born on this date in Champanole France. He appears, along with 3 other men in one of the early Lumiére Brothers shorts from the 1890's. Partie d'écarté or The Messers. Lumiére at Cards (or Men Playing Cards as an alternative English title) was produced in 1896 and lasts for less that 1 minutes. Most of the cast is made up of members of the Lumiére family. The film appears as No. 73 in the Lumiére catalog. The still above is from the film. Winckler appears to be the man who is standing. Additionally, the Lumiére catalog lists him as appearing in the title number 48 Embarquement pour la promenade, but he is not currently credited with that on IMDb. Winckler died at the age of 82 on 21 April 1925 in Lyon, the home town of the Lumiére production facility.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
Born Today (Not So Silent Edition) October 1: Henry Clay Work
1832-1884
American composer Henry Clay Work was born in Middleton, Connecticut to an abolitionist family. The family's property actually became a stop on the Underground Railway. Naturally talented in music, he was a completely self taught musician and songwriter. During his lifetime, he worked in many aspects of the music profession. By the time he was in his early 20's, he had found work as printer in a shop that specialized in setting musical type. As it turns out, the sound of the machinery as it worked away, helped him keep time to musical compositions that he wrote in his head and committed to memory. He also had an ear for dialectical speech, using many negro wordings and terms that he over-heard from slaves passing through his parents property--he also had a fondness for Irish speech of the English language. This wound up being the reason that many of his songs became popular with late 19th century minstrels--and later became associated with the disgraced black face song and dance routine. There is not a shred of evidence that he was even slightly racist, however; he did grow up at stop for the smuggling of slaves from the south to help them to Canada and freedom. Most of his compositions were intended to bolster the Union. He was also known for penning at least one composition that became an anthem of the temperance movement. One of his compositions made it into an early all sound musical short film in 1929. "Kingdom Coming" was featured in Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats, a 9 minute film featuring the jazz group playing several popular tunes of the time (sound by Vitaphone). Later in 1929, that same song was featured in a black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon entitled When The Cat's Away (sound here provided by the little known Powers Cinephone Sound System). He is most well known for being a songwriter that sold a million copies of a song in 19th century--quite the feat at the time. Most recently his "Marchin Through Georgia" was featured in the 2013 film Saving Lincoln. Work passed away on the 8th of June in Hartford, Conn. at the age of 51. He is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford. Read more about his musical career at Wikipedia (listed below).
Leave Virtual Flower at Find A Grave
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)