I saw No Man of her Own thanks to Alison. It's a great little precode. I liked Carol Lombard's chemistry with Clark Gable, it's real of course. I liked her right away, but I'll admit it took me a while to warm up to Gable. Here he plays a similar character to Rett Butler in Gone With the Wind, or at...

Yes, kudos. We sold iron to the Germans and let them send troops through our land. That probably means our neutrality wouldn't count in Bill's eyes anyway. He's a man who likes to call people "pinheads" on national television. I've read other sentiments that amount to the same thing. We ha...

In regards to Fairbanks and The Mark of Zorro , it must be remembered that Fairbanks originated the part on screen. It came from a short story, which, if memory serves, Mary Pickford showed her husband. With Zorro , Fairbanks created a genre--the swashbuckler--and if it has a bit too much foppish h...

I saw the Douglas Fairbanks version of The Three Musketeers yesterday. I must say, I was positively surprised. I have always heard that this is one of his slower films, and that it moves at an uneven pace. Well, that is undoubtedly true, but the second half of the film, once the plot points have bee...

I agree. Joan Blondell is one of my favourite actresses of the 30's. I don't know what it is about her, but she's always wonderful.

This set looks like it will include some great films though. I think I'll buy this one before volume 2.

Dear Fernando, I also really hope you'll get well soon!

Hedvig

So what do you in Sweden say for the 1600s - do you call it the 16th Century? But it isn't, you know. Those years are the seventeenth group of hundreds, by modern (i.e., not ancient) time reckoning. Everyone tends to forget about those wonderful years from AD 1 (or maybe AD 0) to 100 -- that was th...

Hilda Borgström. She also played the title character in Ingeborg Holm. She's really moving in The Phantom Carriage. It's one of my favourite movies and I'm glad you liked it, Fernando.

Re. Peter Pan, I think I've read that both Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish were after the part. Lillian Gish certainly seemed to resent not getting it. She mentions in her autobiography on two separate occasions that Sir James Barrie had actually chosen her for the part. Still, I think it's lucky the...

That's interesting, I hadn't thought about that so much but I remember the discussions at the turn of the century. Here, I hear people say both. I know my grandfather was very vehement about it being the twenty-hundreds. English is a beautiful language which is much richer than mine. There's just on...

You know Synnove, I was lucky enough to see The Black Pirate on a big screen at the National Film Theatre in 1996. The print on the Kino DVD is really disappointing compared with the gorgeous 35 mm BFI-restored print I saw then. The colors were designed to look like a children's book, muted and pas...

I got a Douglas Fairbanks film set for Christmas, so now I've been acquainting myself with the third most popular star of the silent era. First I re-watched Robin Hood , which I had seen once before in a slightly sub-par print. This is an film with fantastic sets, lovely forest scenery and plenty of...

I love both Hollyowwd and Cinema Europe. The Parade's Gone By is an essential book for silent film fans. I almost prefer the documentaries though, because you get to see and hear the stars, directors, cameramen and stuntmen tell their own stories, and you get a sense of the way film developed throug...

Thank you for this fantastic review of the films from the box set, coopsgirl! Synnove: Interesting thoughts about No Country and Sir Arne. When I saw No Country it reminded me of A Simple Plan (1998 film by Sam Raimi), but I think you are right, that the basic story about blood money bringing doom t...

Rogerskarsten, The winter looks appealing? How? Still, I get what you mean. We've had snow here for a couple of days at the end of November, but it's all gone now and it's autumn weather outside. I stopped hoping for a snowy Christmas years ago. So it's nice to watch Gösta Berlings Saga. Herr Arnes ...