Tag Archives: 1920s

Lilac Time (1928) George Fitzmaurice, Frank Lloyd, Colleen Moore, Gary Cooper, Burr McIntosh, Drama, Romance, War

Lilac Time (1928)
All of those handsome young men in their flying machines are billeted in a field next to the Widow Berthelot’s farmhouse in France. Her daughter Jeannine is curious about the young men fighting for England in World War I and their airplanes. Then one of the aviators is killed. His replacement is Captain Philip Blythe who can’t help but notice Jeannine. When he lands the first time, she is standing in the middle of his “runway.” She makes a more favorable impression when he sees her later by the lilacs. When all of the young men depart on a mission, Blythe promises to return.
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Go West (1925) Buster Keaton, Howard Truesdale, Kathleen Myers, Comedy, Western

Go West (1925)
A young man who doesn’t find a job in his small hometown, tries his luck in New York, but is overwelmed by the life of the city, so decides to try his luck somewhere else after a only a few minutes in New York. He falls off a train near a ranch, where he tries his luck as a cowbowy, being in his own way very sucessful. But he shows what he can do when the farm has to bring a 100 head of cattle to the slaughterhouses of Los Angeles to avoid going bankrupt, against the will of his neighbour who wants a better price. After a shoot-out with the neighbour’s men he’s the only person on a Los Angeles bound train with 1000 cows….
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Mockery (1927) Benjamin Christensen, Lon Chaney, Barbara Bedford, Ricardo Cortez, Drama, Romance

Mockery (1927)
One of the rare American films directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen, Mockery stars Lon Chaney Sr. as a half-witted Russian peasant. On the verge of starvation, Chaney is hired to guide a beautiful countess (Barbara Bedford) through the treacherous Siberian wastes. Once he arrives at the countess’ home territory, Chaney is swept up by the Bolshevik movement. He comes to despise the aristocracy in general and the countess in particular, but the young woman’s kindness towards him weakens his revolutionary resolve. Long thought lost, Mockery was rediscovered and preserved in the mid-1970s; the film was based on a story by Stig Esbern.
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The Single Standard (1929) John S. Robertson, Greta Garbo, Nils Asther, Johnny Mack Brown, Drama, Romance

The Single Standard (1929)
The wealthy Arden Stuart is bored in a party; after refusing the wedding proposal of Tommy Hewlett, she drives her car with her driver to a lonely place. She has one night stand with him and returns to the party; then she witnesses the driver being fired by a relative and committing suicide. In a rainy day, Arden goes to an exposition and meets the painter and aspirant boxer Packy Cannon. They sail to the South Seas together in his sailboat and Arden falls in love for him. However, a couple of months later, Packy dumps her and brings her back to her city, traveling to China alone. The heartbroken Arden is proposed again by Tommy and gets married with him. Three years later, Arden meets Packy by chance and becomes divided between her unconditional love for Packy and the love for her son.
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The Thirteenth Chair (1929) Tod Browning, Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Margaret Wycherly, Drama, Mystery

The Thirteenth Chair (1929)
Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel a true “bounder” Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer.
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