sjj's - Rented List
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Variety (1925)Varieté / Jealousy
A key work of German silent cinema and an international smash on its release, E.A. Dupont's Variete (Variety) is an audacious revenge melodrama set under the canvas of the big top. When Boss Huller (the iconic Emil Jannings) meets the young emigre Berta-Marie (Lya De Putti), it kindles his desire to relaunch his career as a trapeze artist, stalled due to an injury and the pressures of domestic life. But with passion comes obsession, and with the involvement of the famed Artinelli into their act, tensions rise to a fever pitch. Visually astonishing, with some of the most inventive camerawork of the 1920s, and a typically intense and vivid central performance from Jannings. - Director:
- Ewald André Dupont
- Cast:
- Emil Jannings, Maly Delschaft, Lya De Putti
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Diary of a Lost Girl (1929)Tagebuch Einer Verlorenen
A masterwork of the German Silent Cinema whose reputation has only increased over time, 'Diary of a Lost Girl' traces the journey of a young woman from the pit of despair to the moment of personal awakening. Directed with virtuoso flair by the great G.W. Pabst, 'Diary of a Lost Girl' represents the final pairing of the filmmaker with screen icon Louise Brooks, mere months after their first collaboration in the now-legendary Pandora's Box. Brooks plays Thymian Henning, an unprepossessing young woman seduced by an unscrupulous and mercenary character employed at her father's pharmacy (played with gusto by Fritz Rasp, the degenerate villain of such Fritz Lang classics as Metropolis, Spione, and Frau im Mond). After Thymian gives birth to the child and subsequently rejects her family's expectations for marriage, the baby is stripped from her care, and Thymian is relegated to a purgatorial reform school that functions less as an educational institution and more like a conduit for fulfilling the headmistress's sadistic sexual fantasies. - Director:
- Georg Wilhelm Pabst
- Cast:
- Louise Brooks, Josef Rovenský, Fritz Rasp
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During a brief stay in Chicago, innocent farmer's son Lem falls for and weds Kate, a hard-bitten but lonely waitress. Upon bringing her home at the start of harvest time, the honeymoon soon turns into a claustrophobic struggle as they contend with the bitter scorn of his father and the invasive, leering jealousy of the farm's labouring community. - Director:
- F.W. Murnau
- Cast:
- Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan, David Torrence
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One of the most popular films from the silent era, director George Fitzmaurice's 'The Son of the Sheik' stars Rudolph Valentino who gives perhaps the finest performance of his career. Unfortunately it would be his last, he died suddenly at the age of 31, just days before the film's release. In this visually intoxicating sequel to Valentino's career-defining film 'The Sheik', the silent screen's greatest lover portrays a cultured yet untamed young man who is lured into a thieves trap by a beautiful dancer, Yasmin (Vilma Banky). After escaping, he kidnaps the damsel and holds her captive in his desert lair, dressing her in Arabian finery and threatening to unleash his violent passion upon her. Exotic romance saturates every frame of this Orientalist epic; its sadomasochistic fantasies are acted out against the lavish set design of William Cameron Menzies (The Thief of Bagdad) and lushly photographed by George Barnes (Sadie Thompson). - Director:
- George Fitzmaurice
- Cast:
- Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, George Fawcett
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One of the most visually striking of all the later silent films, 'The Man Who Laughs' reunites German Expressionism director Paul Leni and cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton from their horror hit the previous year, 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927). Both films are often considered to be among the earliest works of legendary horror classics from Universal Studios, yet the undeniably eerie 'The Man Who Laughs' is more accurately described as a Gothic melodrama. However, its influence on the genre and the intensity of the imagery - art director Charles Hall and makeup genius Jack Pierce would go on to define the look of those 1930's Universal horror landmarks - have redefined it as an early horror classic, bolstered by one of the most memorable performances of the period. Adapted from the Victor Hugo novel, 'The Man Who Laughs' is Gwynplaine (an extraordinary Conrad Veidt), a carnival sideshow performer in 17th-century England, his face mutilated into a permanent, ghoulish grin by his executed father's royal court enemies. Gwynplaine struggles through life with the blind Dea (Phantom of the Opera's Mary Philbin) as his companion - though she is unable to see it, his disfigurement still causes Gwynplaine to believe he is unworthy of her love. But when his proper royal lineage becomes known by Queen Anne, Gwynplaine must choose between regaining a life of privilege, or embracing a new life of freedom with Dea. The startling makeup on Veidt was the acknowledged direct inspiration for The Joker in the 1940 Batman comic that introduced the character, and film versions of The Joker have been even more specific in their references to Leni's film. While 'The Man Who Laughs' contains powerful elements of tragedy, doomed romance, and even swashbuckling swordplay, its influence on horror cinema is most pronounced. Leni died suddenly at the age of 44 a year after this film (with Veidt also unexpectedly passing away too soon in 1943), and 'The Man Who Laughs' endures as one of the most haunting and stylish American silent films, made just as that era was coming to a close. - Director:
- Paul Leni
- Cast:
- Mary Philbin, Conrad Veidt, Julius Molnar
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The Holy Mountain (1926)Der Heilige Berg
German filmmaker and doctor Arnold Fanck (1889-1974) made this beautifully photographed Berg film, or 'mountain film', in 1926. Written in three days and nights - especially for Riefenstahl - The Holy Mountain took over a year to film in the Alps with an entourage of expert skiers and climbers. Ostensibly a love triangle romance - between Riefenstahl's young dancer and the two explorers she encounters - Fanck relishes the glorious Alpine landscape by filming death-defying climbing, avalanche-dodging, and frenetic downhill ski racing. This restoration is a visual feast - a fascinating look at the origins of a genre. After learning the ropes from Fanck, Riefenstahl's own Bergfilme flowered at UFA during the 1930's, and Fanck became her editor. - Director:
- Arnold Fanck
- Cast:
- Leni Riefenstahl, Luis Trenker, Ernst Petersen
- Formats:
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Woman in the Moon (1929)Frau Im Mond
In this, Lang's final silent epic, the legendary filmmaker spins a tale involving a wicked cartel of spies who co-opt an experimental mission to the moon in the hope of plundering the satellite's vast (and highly theoretical) stores of gold. When the crew, helmed by Willy Fritsch and Gerda Maurus, finally reach their impossible destination, they find themselves stranded in a lunar labyrinth without walls - where emotions run scattershot, and the new goal becomes survival. A modern Daedalus tale which uncannily foretold Germany's wartime push into rocket-science, Frau im Mond is as much a warning-sign against human hubris as it is a hopeful depiction of mankind's potential. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Klaus Pohl, Willy Fritsch, Gustav Von Wangenheim
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Early Murnau: Five Films (1925)Schloß Vogelöd / Phantom / Der Letzte Mann / Die Finanzen des Großherzogs / Herr Tartüff
In the sinister mystery 'Schloß Vogelöd', terrible secrets from the past threaten a group of aristocrats' gathering at a country manor. In the delirious 'Phantom', an aspiring poet's chance encounter with a beautiful woman leads into obsession and deception. The delightful 'Die Finanzen des Großherzogs' sees a rakish-but-impoverished duke setting out to rebuild his fortune via blissfully comic high adventure on the Mediterranean coast. In 'Der Letzte Mann', one of the undisputed masterpieces of the silent era, Emil Jannings gives an overwhelming performance as a hotel porter with dreams of a higher station in life, and was a stylistic breakthrough for both Murnau and cinema in general. Finally, the slyly satiric 'Tartuffe' features Jannings as Molière's iconic creation in a morality tale film-within-a-film as only Murnau could conceive. - Director:
- F.W. Murnau
- Cast:
- Arnold Korff, Lulu Kyser-Korff, Lothar Mehnert
- Formats:
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In 1950's New York, Lionel Essrog (Edward Norton), a lonely private detective with an affliction, ventures to solve the murder of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna (Bruce Willis). Armed only with a few clues and the powerful engine of his obsessive mind, Lionel unravels closely guarded secrets that hold the fate of the whole city in the balance. - Director:
- Edward Norton
- Cast:
- Edward Norton, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin
- Formats:
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Destiny (1921)Der Müde Tod
A young woman (Lil Dagover) confronts the personification of Death (Bernhard Goetzke), in an effort to save the life of her fiance (Walter Janssen). Death weaves three romantic tragedies and offers to unite the girl with her lover, if she can prevent the death of the lovers in at least one of the episodes. Thus begins three exotic scenarios of ill-fated love, in which the woman must somehow reverse the course of destiny: Persia, Quattrocento Venice, and a fancifully rendered ancient China. - Director:
- Fritz Lang
- Cast:
- Lil Dagover, Walter Janssen, Bernhard Goetzke
- Formats:
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Parasite (2019)Gisaengchung
Kim Ki Taek's (Song Kang Ho) family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son, Ki Woo, gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family's luck changes. One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park's home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle, but as their deception unravels events begin to get increasingly out of hand in ways you simply cannot imagine. - Director:
- Joon-Ho Bong
- Cast:
- Kang-ho Song, Sun-kyun Lee, Yeo-jeong Jo
- Formats:
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It's Christmas 1940 and the people of Everytown, unprepared and ill-equipped, find themselves at war against an enemy who has been planning such a conflict for years. The land is devastated by the horrors of aerial bombardment as the war drags on for thirty years, causing a period of despair, with feudal tyrants ruling a downtrodden populace suffering famine and pestilence. Can the human race rise above its desperate circumstances and build a scientific utopia? - Director:
- William Cameron Menzies
- Cast:
- Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson
- Formats:
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Der Golem (1920)Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam / The Golem
In the Jewish ghetto in 16th century Prague, Rabbi Low (Albert Streinruck) creates a forbidding clay Golem (played by director Paul Wegener) to protect his people from the tyrannical Emperor Luhois (Otto Gebuhr). Brought to life with a demon spirit and an amulet placed in the center of the creature's chest, the Golem is a seemingly indestructible juggernaut, performing acts of great heroism. But when the Rabbi's assistant attempts to control the Golem for selfish gain, it becomes a terrifying force of destruction, rampaging through the ghetto leaving fire and death in its wake. - Director:
- Carl Boese
- Cast:
- Paul Wegener, Albert Steinrück, Ernst Deutsch
- Formats:
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A sinister character boards the 'Rome Express' on the trail of a valuable van Dyck painting, recently stolen from a Paris gallery. Much to his annoyance he finds the train populated with a motley assortment of passengers, including adulterous lovers, a parsimonious philanthropist, a golfing bore, a holidaying French police chief and an American movie star - all of whom are between him and the painting he desperately seeks... - Director:
- Walter Forde
- Cast:
- Conrad Veidt, Esther Ralston, Hugh Williams
- Formats:
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In Disney and Pixar's Onward, teenage elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot (voices of Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) get an unexpected opportunity to spend one more day with their late dad, so they embark on an extraordinary quest aboard Barley's epic van Guinevere. Like any good quest, their journey is filled with magic spells, cryptic maps, impossible obstacles and unimaginable discoveries. But when the boys' fearless mum Laurel (voice of Julia Louis-Dreyfus) realises that her sons are missing, she teams up with a part-lion, part-bat, part-scorpion, former warrior - aka The Manticore (voice of Octavia Spencer) - and heads off to find them. Perilous curses aside, this one magical day could mean more than any of them ever dreamed. "It's pure, perfect Pixar" - Director:
- Dan Scanlon
- Cast:
- Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
- Formats:
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