Everyone has already said it better than I, so simply drop everything...and purchase this remarkable film.
And thank you, again, KINO, for allowing us the chance to behold these masterworks.
Visual Eloquence
Baes on Victor Hugo's 1869 novel, "The Man Who Laughs" is the morbid tale of Gwynplaine, an English clown doomed to a life adorned with a perpetual grin. His surgical smile was implanted on him by devilish gypsies. Gwynplaine is raised beside lovely Dea, whom we rescued as a baby. Dea is blind and can see only the beauty of his soul. As a complication, the sexy Duchess Josiana is attracted to, and repelled by Gwynplaine, all at the same time. A sensual, robust epic, "The Man Who Laughs" involves court intrigue, secret scandals, and a simple boy's enduring true love. Conrad Veidt played the lead in 1919's "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". Lured to America in 1926 by actor John Barrymore, Veidt co-starred with him in the classic "Beloved Rogue". Then Universal's Carl Laemmle tapped him for the lead in "The Man Who Laughs". Years later, in 1941, Veidt played Major Strasser in "Casablanca". Just 6 months after it's release, Conrad Veidt died of a heart attack playing golf(8th hole) in Los Angeles, Calif.. The director of "The Man Who Laughs" was also a German import. Paul Leni's production of "Cat and the Canary" installed him as Universal's reigning terror-director. In Leni's "The Man Who Laughs", light is not so important as shadow. Backgrounds unveil misty fog and swirling smoke. Paul Leni finished one more film before an infected, ulcerated tooth caused his early death from blood poisoning. Kino's exceptional DVD of "The Man Who Laughs" represents the successful American-Italian joint restoration of the 75-year-old movie. Slowed by a creaky second-half, "The Man Who Laughs" bogs down in a final melodramatic chase. But don't misunderstand. Silent horror-film fans will relish Leni's macabre art design and relentless animal passion. Just 3 years later, Universal once again photographed a tall, mysterious black-caped stranger; strolling European streets through a dark, swirling fog. This time they called it "Dracula".
Amazing!
This has to be one of the most amazing silent films ever made! Tragically, it appeared in l928, right at the end of the silents and was quickly forgotten for generations. Thanks to a masterful restoration by Kino International, we're able today to get an idea of how this magnificent work of art must have looked in the eyes of audiences nearly 70 years ago. Conredit Vedit is astonishing as the tragically deformed Gwynplane, but matching him is a once-in-a-lifetime cast: Olga Baclanova as the nymphomaniacal siren, Mary Philbin as the glowing love interest. Camera work, lighting, decor is all astonishing. This is a movie to be cherished and viewed again and again.
Let me just go on record of saying that the closest equivalent to Lon Chaney that we have working today is Robert DeNiro. Think about it - Chaney went to extraordinary lengths to achieve authenticity (60 pound hump on his back to play Quasimodo, wires to pull his face back in the Phantom's death's-head grin, DeNiro gains weight for Raging Bull, etc), Chaney had a tough, strong, solid physical presence that lends his every appearance a weight and reality that most other actors lack, he often played the darker side of human nature but did so with sensivity, realism, and pathos, and Chaney was a hard working professional, a non-nonsense person who was dedicated to his craft. I've associated Chaneyt and DeNiro in my head for a long time now and have never read or heard that comparrison, so I... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Wallace Worsley DVD Release Date: Released the 28 October 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The silent PHANTOM OF THE OPERA has probably been available in dozens of VHS and DVD editions over the years. Virtually all are based on the very heavily re-worked 1929 reissue, the version almost everyone knows--probably even unaware that it isn't the original release and how unlike the original film it is. In fact, the original 1925 version doesn't seem to exist any longer in a decent print: only scratchy, blurred, grainy "play-at-home" 16mm prints survive. Sadly, the original version contained better camera set-ups, better editing, a more coherent story, more consistent acting and direction, and it runs 107 minutes to the reissue's 92 (at the same 20 frames-per-second projection speed of the period).
Consistently cited by critics worldwide as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's bittersweet drama of life, love, class, and the social code of manners and behavior ("the rules of the game") is a savage critique undertaken with sensitivity and compassion. Renoir's catch-phrase through the film, "Everyone has their reasons," develops a multilayered meaning by the conclusion. A young aviator (Roland Toutain) commits a serious social faux pas by alluding to an affair on national radio. To avert a scandal, the cultured Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio), husband to the aviator's mistress, Christine (Nora Gregor), and a philanderer in his own right, invites all to a weekend hunting party in his country mansion. The complicated maze of marriages and mistresses (social register... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nora Gregor - Marcel Dalio Director(s): Jean Renoir DVD Release Date: Released the 20 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Fredric March won an Oscar® for playing the protagonist (and antagonist) of Robert Louis Stevenson's story. Dr. Henry Jekyll is an honorable man of science, albeit frustrated at the enforced celibacy of a delayed wedding date. Hyde is the fearsome creature he turns into after drinking a potion, and Hyde's appetites (mostly expressed with Miriam Hopkins's Cockney dance-hall wench) are decidedly unrestrained. March's performance is pretty theatrical, but it's fun to watch; his Hyde twitches and squawks and lopes around like an ape in a tuxedo. Rouben Mamoulian's direction has plenty of the brio of early-thirties Hollywood, and the transformations from Jekyll to Hyde are ingenious for the time. This film followed Dracula and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Fredric March - Miriam Hopkins Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian DVD Release Date: Released the 06 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Some boxed sets claim to be definitive, but are haphazardly selected. Not this one. Four of the five titles here can legitimately lay claim to being essentials in the film noir canon, and the fifth, The Set-Up, is a terrific boxing picture with a strong noir atmosphere. If you're a fan of noir--or have no idea what it's all about--this collection is a treat.
Of course, none of these movies were made as "film noir." The term was coined later by French critics to describe the moody, anxious feel of postwar American movies, especially the genre that highlighted duplicitous dames and susceptible men lost in the criminal jungle. Indeed, the title The Asphalt Jungle conveys the edgy urban arena of these pictures. That film is John Huston's masterly 1950 account of a heist,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): James Whitmore DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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