Noah Beery

  • Ray Enright – Golden Dawn (1930)

    Ray Enright1921-1930ComedyMusicalUSA

    Plot: Talkie Era musicals were usually all-star revues or tales of backstage heartache and triumph. Golden Dawn – based on a 184-performance, 1927 operetta co-created by Oscar Hammerstein II – ambitiously breaks free of those musical confines to expand the genre’s cinematic reach. Set in World War I-era Africa, it tells the tale of Dawn, a tribal woman in love with a British soldier but chosen to be the sacrificial bride of a god. Stage sensation Vivienne Segal (perhaps best known for starring opposite Gene Kelly in 1940 Broadway’s Pal Joey) portrays Dawn. The film was originally shot and released entirely in color (another example of the production team’s ambitiousness), but color prints have unfortunately long been lost.Read More »

  • Tenny Wright – The Big Stampede (1932)

    1931-1940Tenny WrightUSAWestern

    A number of John Wayne’s early westerns looked alike, but that’s not a criticism because the handful I’ve seen were
    all entertaining.
    That’s one similarity: others included the fact they only were about an hour long, had interesting (albeit strange)
    dialog, had a pretty lead female (here, Mae Madison) and a very talented horse named “Blue.” Of course, the men were
    all tough guys.
    There is a lot of action and interesting scenes packed into this one hour.
    My only complaint was that Luis Alberini’s character made the Mexicans look unnecessarily stupid.
    From IMDBRead More »

  • Albert Capellani – The Red Lantern (1919)

    1911-1920Albert CapellaniClassicsSilentUSA

    [The Red Lantern] tells the story of a Eurasian, Joan of Arc-like heroine, Mahlee, who forsakes her own people to live among white Europeans, until political tumult draws her back across the color line to foment anti-imperialist uprising in China’s 1900 Boxer Rebellion. While Mahlee literally “hears voices” (à la Joan of Arc) that compel her to revolutionary action, star actress Alla Nazimova doubles in this role as Mahlee and as her estranged white [half]-sister, Blanche Sackville. Blanche’s sister from another mother (i.e., their white British father’s Chinese mistress), Mahlee struggles with her simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards her kinfolk colonizers — and more pointedly with the politics of British colonialism in fin-de-siècle China.Read More »

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