This early 20th century film is the earliest recovered (i.e. surviving) film written, directed, and produced by an African American, Oscar Micheaux. The story follows Sylvia (Evelyn Preer) who finds her calling assisting an under funded school for black children after being abandoned by her fiancé. The story details the prejudice, insufficient resources, and inequality
A drunkard, celebrating new years in a graveyard, recounts a tale of the phantom carriage to his companions. The last person to die before the stroke of midnight on new years eve is forced to drive the carriage for an entire year and receive the dead on behalf of death. Much like A Christmas Carol,
A poor young student, "collegiate level", and excellent swordsman named Balduin (Paul Wegener) falls for a sorcerer's trick and unknowingly promises a piece of himself that he cannot replace. This early German (Weimar Era) horror, deal with the devil, tale is full of early film camera tricks, use of color filters, and narratives that require
Continue reading ➞ Student of Prague, The (Der Student von Prag) (1913)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a 1920 silent horror/thriller out of Germany's Weimar era. A young man reminisces about how he met his fiancé and their encounter with a somnambulist, sleepwalker. The mystery that unfolds is loaded with bizarre set designs, heavy handed makeup, creative editing, and murder. The German Expressionist style of the
When I started watching the oldest films in film history, I of course came across The Birth of a Nation. A three-plus hour long silent film glorifying the KKK with absurd and demonizing depictions of African Americans and slaves is not only a horrible portrayal of a horrible situation, but a rough film to get
