coopsgirl said:
I’ve definitely seen much worse films than the Greatest Show on Earth but I would list it up there with Yankee Doodle Dandy as a couple of films that once I have watched them, they seem to leave my head. I guess some things are like that. I can remember what happened in baseball games years ago down to the last detail, but I only have vague recollections of those films.
I've never seen
Greatest Show on Earth, but I actually own the deluxe edition of
Yankee Doodle Dandy and, with the exception of Cagney's famous dance (the one where he looks like he's a marionette), I have no memory of the film at all. Now the Mets, I remember each heartbreaking game I saw at Shea....
I've been watching a series of Early Russian Cinema and must say, I'm very impressed. The first volume opens with a fascinating actuality of a
Fish Factory in Astrakhan' (1908), where women not only clean the fish, but also fill and haul huge containers of salt! Next was a dramatic film featuring brigands and a kidnapped princess, all done with relatively restrained performances, particularly for a film from 1908.
Princess Tarakanova, (1910) features well-known stage actors over-emoting in all their glory. But as it is a period piece, the film and the acting (costumes and sets, too!) are all the more glorious. The lead actress so liked her death scene that she gets to perform it twice! (The inter-title indicates that some "historians" think the princess died by drowning while imprisoned, so in round two, the poor actress is drenched.) The final film on volume 1 is a splendid comedy,
Romance with Double-Bass (1911), which has great locations as well as being a tad bit risque.
Volume two opens with a surprisingly violent film,
Drama in a Gypsy Camp Near Moscow, which features a murder/suicide, and that is followed by
The Brigand Brothers, which again uses beautiful locations, and tells a pretty complicated story-within-a-story with very few title cards (most of the films have either no titles or very few). Some interesting sets and trick photography highlight
A 16th Century Russian Wedding, but here the lack of titles make the film very confusing. All I know is that the groom ends up marrying, what I think is a mermaid, and joins her at the bottom of the sea. It's either that, or he (or I) was imbibing of too much vodka.
Ten volumes in all and I'm looking forward to them. Aside from the "biggies" (
Potemkin, et al.), I know very little about Russian silent film. If these are a fair representation, the Russian cinema was every bit as evolved as Western Europe and the US. The acting and directing are superb, as are the locations and costumes (most of the men wear beards that would be the envy of the dudes from ZZ Top).
"Let's be independent together." Dr. Hermey DDS
I still would like to see what Photo-play's version looks like with a Fresh broadcast master, although there has apparently been at least one more recent restoration since this was produced in 1993? At the link you can read about different prints held by AMPAS, and the LOC. Although, all of them including Photo-plays are taken from the same battered Safety-stock transfer of one lone Nitrate print found back in the 60's.
