Day Two of Il Cinema Ritrovato, in this sala at least, was filled with cinematographic splendour, and I am not just talking about Mr Grant’s dimple.
Today we’re dividing the films geographically rather than by era. Don’t @ me, I don’t make the rules. Well, I do make the rules but a) I make them up as I go along, b) I am usually too busy watching films to reply to constructive criticism.
Continue reading Home Cinema Ritrovato 2020 #2: Wish you were hereThere is no such thing as too many images of Louise Brooks. Even during her Hollywood years, she was more photographed than filmed – appearing in portraits in movie magazines more often than she did on the big screen. Now, a fascinating discovery by the BFI shows us Louise Brooks in the roaring twenties as we have never really seen her before. In glorious two-strip Technicolor, posing, laughing and fidgeting with her costume in and out-take from the lost film The American Venus (Frank Tuttle, 1926). Check out that beaming smile!
The clip was found in a collection of Technicolor fragments in the BFI archive. They are stunning to watch. As well as Brooksie, don’t miss Hedda Hopper in Mona Lisa an Karl Dane gurning with a pipe. To read more about the discover of these amazing images, listen to the commentary by Bryony Dixon in the video below – and pick up the June 2018 issue of Sight & Sound, which contains the full story of the fragments’ discovery and is out next week (it also includes a feature by me on Pabst’s women).
(Impatient people can skip to 1.07 to see Brooksie, but there are many more treasures in this reel.)
Continue reading The American Venus (1926): Louise Brooks discovered in Technicolor
Silent London 