'Pandora's Box'

As much as The Smiling of Madame Beudet was a groundbreaking film in terms of being made by a female director and having a feminist theme, Pandora's Box pushed its fair share of envelopes.

Let this film be a lesson to all of us. If you go around messing around with a bunch of guys, you are bound to be gutted by Jack the Ripper.

That's the lesson here: Lulu was a free-living socialite piece of ass who played every rich guy for the fool until it all caught up with her and she winds up as a prostitute. The film has everything from lesbian overtones, double crossing and Jack the Ripper gutting the main character.

Lulu was portrayed by American actress Louise Brooks, who partied, drank and philandered more than any male counterpart in film at the time. She had any number of lovers, even quite a few lesbian affairs. She was a heavy drinker since 14. Even during the filming of Pandora's Box, she frustrated director Georg Pabst by going out partying every night with her boyfriend of the time.

Brooks acted sparingly after Pandora's Box as her career failed to flourish with films with sound. Her final film was in 1938. She would die in 1985.

'The Smiling Of Madame Beudet'

This film is notable because it is considered the first feminist film. Certainly, it had to be a film directed by one of the first female directors, Germaine Dulac.

Dulac was a military brat eventually winding up in Paris living with her grandmother before the turn of the 20th century. She grew up as an artist, but eventually turned to journalism and criticism writing for the feminist publication La Française, where she later became a theater critic.

Dulac was visiting Italy before World War I when a friend of her was scheduled to be in a moving picture. Here, she learned the ins and outs of the artform and industry. She returned to France as a filmmaker and hit the ground running.

The Smiling of Madame Beudet was released in 1922 or 1923. It is just 54 minutes long. It is about a husband, who threatens to shot himself in the head to his wife. Pissed, the wife puts bullets in the chambers ready for the next time he thinks he is faking the end of his life. Unfortunately, things go all screwy.

With the unveiling of talkies, Dulac's took a bad turn and she spent the rest of her life doing movie newsreels. Dulac died in Paris in 1942. Such an important figure and not one "feminist" espousing The Feminine Mystique in a college classroom today knows her name.

'The Phantom Carriage'

Victor Sjöström directed and starred in The Phantom Carriage. He directed 50-60 films a majority of which were released during the infant years of cinema and was instrumental in making the country a cornerstone for filmdom.

He was taken by his family at an early age to Brooklyn and moved back at age seven when his mother died. A decade later, he'd join a touring theater group. How different would his life have been had he stayed in the United States? He probably would have been poor. Would he have the time and money to act? Is going to Sweden, where his native tongue is spoken, the lynchpin in him making it in acting?

Sjöström undertook adapting a number of novels from Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf. In fact, there was an agreement between Lagerlöf and a production company to adapt a novel per year. That was a pretty sweet agreement, although at the time I don't know, financially, how that might have helped the writer.

The Phantom Carriage (and Sjöström) was a huge influence on the greatest Swedish director of all time, Ingmar Bergman. Clearly, the concept of visualizing death was a big influence as Bergman would do the same for Seventh Seal. He would also caste Sjöström as the grandfatherly professor in The Wild Strawberries.

'The Golden Age'

This 1930 surrealist picture was written by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel; however, the former had a falling out with Bunuel and had nothing to do with the actual production.

The film is a scathing comment on the Catholic church's ideas on sex and the bourgeois society, as only Bunuel can do.

An interesting note: the film was financed by a member of that bourgeois society, Vicomte Charles de Noailles. He was actually a bisexual man that had little care or worry for sexual norms as he was married but often had homosexual affairs right in front of his wife.

He was also a patron of the arts and he would finance a different film for his wife's birthday. Another film included one by noted photographer Man Ray.

'The Kid Brother'

The Kid Brother is Harold Lloyd's best film. It is about the town of Hickoryville and its sheriff, Jim Hickory, and his three sons, the youngest and weakest being Harold.

By far, the most interesting aspect of the film are the "gags," the bits that the writers and Lloyd would write into the film. For example, the chase scene of Lloyd as he's getting chased and the series of elaborate hiding opportutnies. Or how Lloyd washes the clothes, drying on the tail of a kite.

Lloyd was one of the most prolific actors of the silent era rivalling Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Lloyd made 12 films in the 1920s compared to Chaplin's three. Furthermore, Lloyd made about $15 million in his career, while Chaplin barely paid the cable bill at $10 million.

He know how to spend it, certainly. His Beverly Hills home -- Greenacres -- took four years to build and included 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardents and a nine-hole golf course.

A small price for stardom.

'Foolish Wives'

In 1922, Foolish Wives was the most expensive film ever, apparently breaking the $1 million mark. It was also originally intended to be 10 hours long, which is ridiculous. At more than two hours, it was a total beating of a film. At 10 hours, I would've passed it up. That would've been a travesty in filmmaking.

Criticisms of the film were based around the cost. Winding up costing $1.2 million, I'm sure that was seen as incredibly ridiculous. It seems ridiculous now even though an actor of any decent popularity costs you $15 million. Not to mention other actors, sets, CGI and all the varying costs going into a film. Also, it took 11 months to film. Eleven months! Blockbusters these days take a couple of months. Indie films take even less. Weeks perhaps.

This film is pretty ridiculous. It's too long, has a boring plot and does absolutely nothing for nobody.

Production note: Lead actor Rudolph Christians died of pneumonia in the middle of shooting and they had to pull in another actor to finish it, all with his back to the camera for whatever was needed. In comparison, Heath Ledger died in the middle of that Terry Gilliam film and they had Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell step in. With their faces to the camera.

'Earth'

Silent, Russian propaganda. When does this end? No more! Please!

'Sunrise'

Blech. More silent films. This one boring.

Despite it being a critical favorite, Sunrise was a flop. It forced producers to put F.W. Murnau on a leash for his next several movies.

Sunrise was also released right after The Jazz Singer, the first talkie. Sunrise is kind of the swan song for an incredibly overrated and boring time for filmmaking.

'Dr. Mabuse The Gambler'

There are 10 Dr. Mabuse films. This is the first. Luckily I only needed to watch one of them.

I'll certainly be thrilled when all of the three-hour silent films are out of the way because they are by a million miles the most difficult things to watch in the history of mankind.

'Storm Over Asia'

One of the major inaccuracies of this film (which is Russian) is that the British never invaded Mongolia.

Of course, the film focuses on a Mongolian herdsman who is thrust into a battle between the Russian and British forces as they angle for control of this region.

The herdsman is caught and executed by the British. But once they learn the herdsman is the descendent of Genghis Khan, they retrieve and rehabilitate the man to be the face of the British puppet regime.

Of course, the British were never around. The Russians were.

In 1928, of course, Russia was mired deep into an oppressive communist regime and were not allowed to make real films in lieu of propaganda. This film endears the Russian government to the indegenous peoples of their land, which is very diverse. Russia's a weird country. You don't get stuck on the Asian and European continents and not collect a diverse melting pot of people. Asians of mongoloid background are a large part of the Russian tapestry.

Maybe the Russians were trying to reach out to these people. Maybe they were just trying to run down the imperialist England and, in turn, Americans.

'Tabu'

I totally understand why these old movies are part of the 1,001 films I should watch before I die. They established an art form and a certain standard that was adopted by filmmakers through the generations.

They evolved the filmmaking process by leaps and bounds over a 20-year period eventually adopting better ways to film, gain better shots, edit, direct and provide some form of production value and effects. For example, look at F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh for some awesome effects.

However, I tend to think that between 1931 (when Tabu was released) and 2005 (the last year represented on by 1,001 list), there had to be a better film. It definitely wasn't Murnau's best and it's sort of just a nothing film.

Some fun facts:

Murnau died in a car crash before the film was ever released.

The rights to the film were handed over to Murnau's mother in the 1930s. The original film was destroyed during World War II in Germany. The rights were then sold to Rowland and Samuel Brown, who re-released the film in 1948, but were forced to cut about five minutes of nudity in order to get approval by the censors.

Thankfully, all the bare breasts of the native women (and some "half-castes") were restorted once it was released on DVD.

'Man With A Movie Camera'

The premise is simple: Mother Russia is the character. Life is its plot.

I don't know if this is the first ever documentary, but it has to be close. Silent, "Man With a Movie Camera" is purely people walking about and doing whatever they do on a regular day.

It's filled with a ton of innovative film techniques like slow motion, freeze frames, fast motion, double exposure and split screens. All sound like campy comedy titles. "This summer. Tim Allen in Fast Motion!"

I think about life and death a lot nowadays and all I could really think about while watching this film is that a vast majority of these people are dead. Then I wonder how many died in World War II on the eastern front or how many perished in Stalin's gulags or starved to death in the country.

It's a portrait into a civilization that had no fucking clue the number of figurative atom bombs about to be dropped on them. Just smiling, hamming it up going to work and drinking beer and coffee. Clueless.

'The Thief of Bagdad'

Quite the spectacle. I would guess if I were a 10-year-old kid in 1924, I would've been agog at this film because it was unlike anything that had come before it.

It brings to life the mystical world of the Middle Eastern -- flying carpets, baggy pants, damsels, distress, big sets, camels and the like. At that point --1924 -- unless you'd been to the mideast, the only way you realized the culture was through Sinbad and literature.

But "The Thief of Bagdad" brought all this to life in a medium that was still very new and very raw.

This film was also one of the first in filmdom to introduce the swashbuckling leading man. Name an earlier movie in which you know the names of the stars? Douglas Fairbanks automatically creates a twinge of recognition. Other than Lillian Gish, I can't think of one and no one nearly on the same level of good looks, personality and Hollywood hunkiness than Fairbanks. Then he created his son, who's equally as hunky.

'Within Our Gates'

I can't imagine a film made in 1920 that depicted African Americans in a positive light being well responded to. The idea that it was played south of the Mason-Dixon line seems preposterous.

Of course living in the idiom that I've suffered through the last 30 years, imagining this film getting not regarded at all 90 years ago seems pretty obvious. And I think the director points this out.

It's not enough to not be racist, but to a point someone needed to do something about what was happening in this country. Instead, some threw money at the problem and others shrugged it off.

The travesty of a lynching and how graphically the filmmaker made that scene would send chills down your spine. It's not comfortable and as much as the point was to change the minds of a bunch of hillbillies in Alabama, this film was made for the rich northerner who thinks good things and money tend to fix intra-cultural issues.

'The Gold Rush'

Nobody makes good movie posters anymore.

'The Passion of Joan of Arc'

A great film.

It's greatness can be kinda realized in the photo I've embedded here. This movie was released in the 1920s, not too long after D.W. Griffith and others were making silent films with one camera showing one landscape shot and everything happening within that one frame.

"The Passion ..." is a series of extreme close-ups: From Joan to her judge and jury. No make-up was applied. Thus, you get the dimples and wrinkles in faces. You see the stubble and slope of noses, cheeks, chins, eyes and jaw lines. You see the fat hanging down the priests' faces.

So close up, the contrast is so beautiful and it makes it feel like a film made 30 years later, not in 1928.

Also, the film has an interesting history. The original was destroyed in a fire. Carl Dreyer worked until his death to piece together a second version with outtakes and cut scenes.

Then, in 1981, a complete version was found inside a janitor's closet in an Oslo mental asylum. Needless to say, it was an odd twist to the film's legacy.

'Modern Times'

Some fun facts:

1. Only three actors/actresses in this film have photos on their IMDB pages. Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard and Bobby Barber who played an uncredited worker. Barber has 181 film/TV credits, mostly bit parts. His most extended work came with Abbott and Costello who hired him to basically keep everyone happy, laughing and focused.

2. Chaplin produced, composed the music and co-edited "Modern Times."

3. Goddard is extremely interesting. She started in The Ziegfeld Follies, was a Goldwyn Girl and eventually got involved with Chaplin, who cast her in "Modern Times." The two were married the same year before separating in 1940.

4. Goddard apparently was the leading candidate for Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wing" but apparently couldn't provide a marriage license to prove her nuptials with Chaplin and then Vivien Leigh showed up and that's all she wrote.

5. Goddard left $20 million to NYU at her death.

6. She was married four times, no kids. One marriage was to Chaplin. Her third was to The Penguin, Burgess Meredith.

'Seven Chances'

Love me some Buster Keaton.

But I wonder what he'd think about Chris freakin' O'Donnell basically making a really bad re-make of "Seven Chances."

I think it's funny (or tragic) that somehow Keaton and Co. -- 74 years prior -- made a far superior film than O'Donnell and Co. could in 1999.

Plus, how could filmmakers in 1925 could find a handful of women who were 100 percent more attractive than Renee Zellweger? It's amazing.

I do, also, enjoy subtle racism. Goooooooooooooooo racism!

'Steamboat Bill Jr.'

Again, Buster Keaton is amazing. His physical prowess coming from such a runt of a guy is extraordinary to watch, especially considering I don't know how many (if at all) stunt men they had back in the early days of film.

Also, you have to consider probably the lack of insurance, healthcare and how much of his own health and career did Keaton take into his own hands. If he broke a leg, was the production company footing the bill or insurance? All of this so people can be entertained for 70 minutes.

'The General' & 'Our Hospitality' & 'Sherlock Jr.'

I think my friend Garrison looks like Buster Keaton.

Anyway, when I first mentioned to a friend that I was going through some Keaton films, he noted how much of an athlete Keaton was. Boy, isn't that the truth. Watch the train sequence when he's trying to fire the cannon from the back of his engine in "The General." The physical prowess of the man is remarkable. Anyone can be a physical comedian (look at the Three Stooges), but not many can pull off the raw physicality of carrying an entire action scene for 10+ minutes.

"Sherlock Jr." is probably my favorite from these three. It's really funny, which is only odd because I've not taken a lot from the silent films I've viewed. I recognize what they meant to the medium, but I never came away thinking, "Wow, what an awesome movie!"

Keaton's film are legitimately funny. The scene where he's sweeping out the trash from the theater and finds the dollar only to have the women come and claim it. When the tall, thick man comes around, he assumes he's looking for his dollar so Keaton's character gives him cash out of his own pocket. Unfortunately, the man had lost his entire wallet with a handful of money in it.

Keaton comes off as the lovable loser without having to hear a word. His hang dog face just oozes empathy.