Nosferatu (1922)
Max Schreck inhabited the role of vampire Count Orlock so completely in this beautiful nightmare, he inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories casting him as an actual vampire. These theories eventually inspired their own film.
Director F.W. Murnau, whose other credits include The Last Laugh (1924) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), died tragically in an automobile accident or he would have taken his place among the great German expressionists.
After the estate of novelist Bram Stoker sued to have this unauthorized adaptation of his novel suppressed, a judge ordered the film’s destruction. Thankfully, one solitary print survived or this classic film would have been lost forever. The lawsuit forced Prana Film into bankruptcy, but their innovations to the vampire mythos have had a lasting effect.
The Snake Pit (1948)
This film follows Virginia Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) as she struggles with schizophrenia and the treatment she undergoes to combat the disease, including electroshock and hydrotherapy.
Nearly seventy years later, this examination of mental health treatment is remains relevant; western society is still struggling with how to humanely treat the mentally ill and there’s still a significant stigma attached to those suffering from diseases of the mind.
This is a harrowing portrayal of a terrifying illness, and the greatest achievement of Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland.
Richard III (1912)
For mostly economical reasons, traveling actor Frederick Warde filmed a version of Richard III and toured with it, delivering a brief introduction before each “performance.”
This film was long thought lost, but was discovered by a projectionist in 1996. At 55 minutes, it’s a condensed version of the play, but radiates with the vitality of its source material. This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays for a reason: its story of an amoral, power-obsessed man has echoed through the ages and its reverberations can still be felt in such recent popular characters as Walter White and Frank Underwood.
Broken Blossoms (1919)
After escaping her abusive father, Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp), Lucy (Lillian Gish) finds refuge with a Chinese immigrant, Chen Huan.
When her father discovers where Lucy is hiding, he takes her home and beats her to death. Having arrived moments too late to save her, the devoted Huan kills Battling, takes his beloved Lucy back to his apartment, builds a shrine to Buddha, and commits suicide.
It’s amazing to think D.W. Griffith, the same man who made a film celebrating the birth of the Ku Klux Klan only a few years before, could make this poignant film about the ugliness of racism and the power of love (even if the Asian immigrant was played by a caucasian actor).
This is a great film, made even greater by its daring subject matter.
The Joyless Street (1925)
The film focuses on two Viennese women, Maria (Asta Nielson) and Grete (Greta Garbo), as they struggle to survive and better their circumstances during the interwar years.
Maria becomes a prostitute. While Grete (Greta Garbo) miraculously holds on to her virtue.
The film is melodramatic and moralistic, but provides a fascinating look at the economic wasteland of Austrian life in the interwar years and explains how Hitler was able to rise to power. People were so desperate for economic relief, very little else mattered.
A Life in the Balance (1913)
When an unnamed landlord catches three Italian tenants making bombs and chases them away, the evil Italians conspire to murder his child in a ridiculously complicated plot. Fortunately, their plan is thwarted.
This film destroys the idea of a harmonious melting pot in early twentieth century America, and like most other films directed by Mack Sennett, it’s as subtle as Hans Moleman’s epic.
MacArthur (1977)
Graduating top of his class from West Point in 1903 and serving in the US Army until he was relieved of duty in 1951, General Douglas MacArthur was as influential in the Pacific theater of World War II as Eisenhower was in the European front.
His actions after the surrender of Japan prevented Tokyo from falling under Russian or Chinese influence and did more to contain the threat of communism than perhaps any other individual.
His leadership as the de factor leader of post-war Japan enabled it to recover from the devastation of war more quickly than any nation in history. The Japanese ascension of the 1980s is the direct result of his patient guidance.
Unfortunately, he was unable to handle the treacherous waters of American politics.
Starring as the famed beleaguered general, Gregory Peck humanizes him while capturing the obstinacy and boundless pride which made him such an effective military leader.
Sadly, less than fifty years after his controversial dismissal, MacArthur has become a historical footnote. His heroic efforts in the Pacific have been overshadowed by the exploits of the European front. D-Day is still solemnly commemorated annually while the Battle of Iwo Jima fades into the recesses of history.
This enlightening movie does much to correct the historical record and shines a much deserved spotlight on a seminal figure whose role in the most romanticized war of the twentieth century has been unfairly reduced to a couple of pithy phrases: “I shall return,” and “Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.”
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
After robbing a train, four bandits are killed in a shootout.
In one of the first films to tell a conventional narrative, Edwin Porter, a former cameraman for Thomas Edison, created many of the editing techniques we now take for granted, including cross-cutting.
The final image of Justus D. Barnes firing a gun directly at the camera has echoed for generations, inspiring the recurring opening sequences of the James Bond films and the ending of Goodfellas (1990).
Little Big Man (1970)
Ten-year old Jack Crabb is abducted by Pawnee Indians and raised by their leader Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George). “Rescued” by the US Calvary, he lives with Reverend Silas Pendrake and his wife Louise (Faye Dunaway). When she attempts to seduce him, he runs away, briefly working with a snake oil salesman before reconnecting with his long-lost sister, Caroline who wants him to be a gunslinger.
He’s apprenticed to Wild Bill Hickock, but too disturbed by the violent lifestyle to continue.
After the kidnapping of his Swedish immigrant wife Olga, Jack works as a muleskinner for General George Armstrong Custer (Richard Mulligan), until he witnesses men killing women and children and desserts his post.
He marries Sunshine, a refugee Cheyenne woman, only to discover his first wife, Olga, is alive and married to his former Pawnee rival.
After Custer attacks the Cheyenne camp, killing Jack’s wife and children, Wild Bill counsels a drunk and despondent Jack in Deadwood. When Wild Bill is murdered playing cards, Crabb learns he was having an affair with Louise Pendrake.
Driven insane with grief and vengeance, Jack intentionally sets up Custer for an ambush at the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Three years after he directed the western / mobster mash-up Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn changed public attitudes about westerns forever with this deconstruction of the genre.
More intelligent and self-aware, Jack Crabb is a 19th century Forrest Gump, tangentially involved in major historical events.
Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy (1909)
In a world conditioned to see smoking as a cardinal sin, it’s hard to believe there was time when a whole short film could be revolving around the earnest enjoyment of a cigarette.
In addition to reminding us how different attitudes were one hundred years ago, this whimsical film features an impressive stop-motion sequence.