The Ghost of Slumber Mountain (1918).

The Scoop:
This short film by the legendary Willis O'Brien (best known for creating the original King Kong) and his partner Herbert Dawley is one of the earliest examples of stop-motion animation on film.

The plot is simple -- two young boys ask their Uncle Jack to tell them a story, and he weaves a yarn about meeting the ghost of an old hermit on a mountain trip, who gives him magical binoculars which let Jack see into the prehistoric past. The prehistoric scenes, featuring O'Brien's stop-motion dinosaurs and birds, will probably seem crude by today's standards (not to mention the standards of O'Brien's later works), but still exude a certain charm. The seeds of O'Brien's later, more famous, work can already be seen. And if you watch it with a certain sense of humor, the rest of the plot becomes bizarrely entertaining.

The project started life as a feature, but after the usual "creative differences" Dawley cut down the film to 18 minutes and removed O'Brien's name. O'Brien would get the last laugh, though, by taking many of the concepts and models from "The Ghost of Slumber Mountain" and using them for 1925's "The Lost World," his breakthrough film that launched his long, legendary career.

Best Line:
"I tried to convince Joe to take off his clothes and pose as a faun."

Side Note:
Besides writing and producing the film together, O'Brien and Dawley also costar in it -- O'Brien as "Mad Dick" the hermit, and Dawley as Uncle Jack.

Companion Viewing:
"The Lost World" (1925).

Links:
IMDb.
1,000 Misspent Hours.

Take a Look:
The full film:

The Busher (1919).

The Scoop:
This baseball themed drama is pretty standard fare for its era -- perhaps even somewhat conservative, given that it is preaching the evils of big city life at a time when the film industry (and mass entertainment as a whole) was embracing the joys of urbanization.

Charles Ray (the reigning heartthrob of his day) plays Ben Harding, a small town pitching star who gets discovered by a major league club and heads to the big city. While there, he turns his back on his hometown supporters and succumbs to the requisite temptations of booze, women and gambling. He eventually washes out, returning to his hometown in disgrace. But out of that disgrace comes the chance to redeem himself and win back the girl he loves.

The look at old-time baseball is fun, but the rest hasn't aged well and the last half of the movie is just plain tedious.

Best Line:
"Take it from me -- that guy's got more curves than a stovepipe!"

Side Note:
Ray's costarring cast includes Colleen Moore and John Gilbert, who would both go on to eclipse his stardom in the silent era, only to find their careers stalled after the advent of the talkies.

Companion Viewing:
"Headin' Home" (1920) and "The Natural" (1984).

Links:
IMDb.
Silents are Golden.

Take a Look:
Sorry, nothing to offer you on this one. Obviously, there are still a few holes to fill in the Internet.

A Fool There Was (1915).

The Scoop:
Theda Bara was the first of the silver screen's sex goddesses, and this is the film that launched her reputation. In fact, the word "vamp" was invented specifically by the studio (the Willam Fox Vaudeville Company, the ancestor of today's Fox Film Corporation) to describe her in this role.

The plot and script are conventional for the era -- a loose women tempts then ruins a series of wealthy men -- and it can be rough slogging for the modern viewer. But Bara's performance alone makes it memorable and worth watching today. It would be nothing without her. Every celebrity sex symbol and every movie vixen to come after owes a major debt to Theda.

Best Line:
"Kiss me, my Fool!"

Side Note:
The lack of preservation of early films has really taken its toll on the work of Theda Bara -- she was the biggest star of her time, but the only other feature films of hers that still exist in their entirety are her pre-fame "The Stain" (1914) and "The Unchastened Woman" (1925), which was made on the downside of her career.

Companion Viewing:
"It" (1926) and "Pandora's Box" (1929).

Links:
IMDb.

Take a Look:
You can see the film in its entirety on YouTube:

Intolerance (1916).

The Scoop:
It's been a non-stop B-movie cheesefest here the past couple weeks, so let's take a break from that and get back to the classics.

One of the landmarks of cinema, and D.W. Griffith's second masterpiece, "Intolerance" was made in response to the public outcry over the rampant racism in his previous film, "The Birth of a Nation." In this film, Griffith's artistic ambition tackles the huge subject of religious and social intolerance throughout history, with interwoven stories set in four different eras -- ancient Babylon (in which in an innocent girl gets caught up in a rivalry that destroys the civilization), biblical Jerusalem (featuring scenes from the life of Jesus Christ), 15th century France (in which a young couple's love is torn apart by the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre) and modern America (in which a young couple's love is tested by turn-of-the-century labor unrest).

The American and Babylonian stories take center stage in lavish style -- Griffith's work here pretty much created the term "a cast of thousands." At the time, and for many years afterwards, it was the longest (at anywhere from 160 to 200 minutes, depending on which print you see) and most expensive (with a budget of nearly $400,000) movie ever made. It was also a hit with the critics and stands up today much better than "The Birth of a Nation." Griffith's ornate visual style relied on intertitles much less than his contemporaries, and many of the Babylon sequences have a sensuality (even some surreptitious nudity) that would not seem out of place in the music videos of today.

Among the wild extravagances of the production was the full-size palace set for the Babylonian segments. It was constructed in the middle of Hollywood and remained standing for several years afterward. The distinctive set design has been incorporated into the design of the Kodak Theatre, the permanent home of the Academy Awards.

The less cinema-savvy viewers at that time, though, had a much harder time with Griffith's groundbreaking style. The four tales are intercut at a deliberate pace that accelerates to the parallel chase scenes at the end. To an audience just getting used to basic linear storytelling, this was a real eye-opener. It was spoofed and parodied in a number of places, most notably by Buster Keaton in "The Three Ages" (1923).

Best (and Most Wildly Inappropriate) Intertitle:
"When women cease to attract men, they often turn to reform as a second option." (Ouch!)

Side Note:
Griffith's cowriters were a pair of newcomers to moviemaking -- Tod Browning, best known for goingon to direct a series of moody horror films, including "Dracula" (1931) and "Freaks" (1932); and Anita Loos, who was one of the pioneering women in Hollywood and whose later writing credits include "The Women" (1939) and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953).

Companion Viewing:
"The Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "The Ten Commandments" (1923).

Links:
IMDb.

Take a Look:
For a sample, here's a fan edit (with new music and sound effects) of the seige of Babylon:

Or, if you've got an afternoon to kill, you can see the entire film at MovieFlix.