Leonard Maltin

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BLANCANIEVES

By Leonard Maltin
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March 28, 2013 5:48 PM
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1 Comment

Reviews

It’s almost impossible to write about this black & white silent film without mentioning last year’s sleeper "The Artist." Some critics have chosen to praise the Spanish import at the expense of its Oscar-winning predecessor—perhaps because it was drummed into the front ranks by Harvey Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning.

By Leonard Maltin
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January 18, 2013 1:00 AM
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2 Comments

Blogs

UCLA Film and Television Archive is giving film buffs in Los Angeles an unprecedented opportunity to view six pictures from the transitional period from silence to sound in dual versions, back to back.

By Darwyn Carson
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September 17, 2012 1:00 AM
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2 Comments

Festivals

It’s official: The Denver Silent Film Festival is now an annual event! An opening gala—at the Seawell Ballroom on September 21st—heralds the start of its second year.

By Leonard Maltin
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September 3, 2012 1:00 AM
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4 Comments

Blogs

The first movie book I ever read was Mack Sennett’s autobiography 'King of Comedy', borrowed from my local library. I’ve bristled ever since when other people have claimed that title, but Turner Classic Movies is setting things right by devoting four Thursdays in September to Sennett films.

By Leonard Maltin
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March 26, 2012 4:03 AM
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20 Comments

Features

“Thrilling” is the only word to describe the experience of watching Abel Gance’s 5½ hour epic 'Napoleon', at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California this weekend, accompanied by Carl Davis and the Oakland East Bay Symphony. There are two more performances next weekend, and if you don’t make an effort to be there you’ll miss one of the great moviegoing events of your life.

By Leonard Maltin
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March 21, 2012 8:31 PM
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5 Comments

Features

Cinefest is a feast of rare silent and early-talkie pictures, with three rotating pianists (all of them gifted) providing accompaniment. If the only surviving print of a film is incomplete, like the appealing Clara Bow-Buddy Rogers romantic comedy Get Your Man (1927), directed by Dorothy Arzner, we’re happy to see what remains. If the only way to watch an early silent feature from theatrical producers Klaw and Erlanger is in a 16mm version copied from a paper print (originally deposited at the Library of Congress for copyright purposes), we’re curious. That particular film, Classmates (1914), turned out to be an interesting one, too, featuring Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Marshall Neilan, and Lionel Barrymore.

By Leonard Maltin
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March 20, 2012 7:23 PM
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3 Comments

Features

The weather was unseasonably warm, but it scarcely mattered to the hundreds of diehard film buffs who gathered just outside Syracuse, New York last weekend for the 38th annual Cinefest. Inside the Holiday Inn in Liverpool there were rare short subjects and features, including two “re-premieres” of movies unseen in their original form since 1929 and 1930, 'His Captive Woman' and 'Mamba'.

By Leonard Maltin
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January 30, 2012 1:00 AM
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11 Comments

Features

Alexander Payne is once again an Oscar-nominated director, for his wonderful film 'The Descendants' (still my favorite picture of 2011), but you may not be aware that his love of cinema runs deep. When he agreed to introduce Lon Chaney in 'He Who Gets Slapped' at last year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival, he talked about his lifelong passion, and his love of silent film, with such eloquence that I later asked if he would allow me to reprint his speech. This seems as good a time as any.

By Leonard Maltin
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February 7, 2011 5:30 AM
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3 Comments

History is where you find it, ranging from rare film clips of early Technicolor, silent-era Disney and more, newly posted online, and works of true scholarship, to amazing discoveries hiding in plain sight.

Walt Disney’s early short Clara Cleans Her Teeth—now online from George Eastman House.

Last week Film Forum in New York City screened Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die (1943), the story of the notorious Nazi “Hangman” Richard Heydrich. The indefatigable Bruce Goldstein, who runs their retrospectives, followed up on a tip that the German DVD had about one minute of footage that was cut from the movie’s U.S. release. Bruce dutifully projected those rare moments for his audience after the movie’s conclusion, and says, “According to Patrick McGilligan it would have been Hollywood’s first depiction of Nazi atrocities.” Fascinating.

By Leonard Maltin
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December 3, 2009 1:19 AM
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0 Comments

An Illustrated History and Catalog of Songs Inspired by the Movies and Stars,
with List of Recordings by Ken Wlaschin

This book is right up my alley: I love silent movies, I collect sheet music related to films, and I’m fascinated with the way Tin Pan Alley songwriters chronicled the birth and growth of movies as part of our culture.Ken Wlaschin has captured all of that and more in this loving, well-informed, profusely illustrated volume.

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Categories

BLANCANIEVES

SEEING DOUBLE: RARE FILMS IN ALTERNATE VERSIONS

Denver's 2nd Silent Film Festival Celebrates Early Cinema

The True King Of Comedy

Napoleon, Triumphant

More Cinefest Adventures…

Buried Treasure Unearthed at Cinefest—Part One

Alexander Payne, Silent Film Aficionado

Links To Movie History

The Silent Cinema In Song, 1896-1929:

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