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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Arsenal (1929) Kenneth Macpherson Its greatness is its restraint, its subjectivity, the innovations of technique, its distinguished and poetic horizons.
Posted Mar 01, 2022  Edit critic review
The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü) (1929) The Pool Group Here, as never before, is the living spirit of the mountains, vivid, rarified, terrifying and lovely.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
Spies (1928) Erich Hellmund-Waldow The manner in which Fritz Lang has arranged the different shots gives an extraordinary rhythm of life, to the whole film.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
Moulin Rouge (1928) Robert Herring Olga Tschechowa as the mother acted well, in a difficult part.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
The Last Command (1928) Robert Herring Though it is concerned with the Russian revolution, not once does it get any spirit of that Revolution across.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927) Robert Herring It is light and artificial, but it preserves its lightness, and it never tries to be any thing else but artificial.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
Mons (1926) Bryher Disappointing from every point of view.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
The Sea of Ravens (1931) Charles E. Stenhouse In an ever-moving series of poetically mounted pictures, Epstein presents one of those rare and so much needed revolts against present tendencies.
Posted Dec 09, 2021  Edit critic review
Alraune (A Daughter of Destiny) (Mandrake) (Unholy Love) (1928) Erich Hellmund-Waldow The acting is not only artistic, it is also as realistic as can be possible in such a film.
Posted Oct 30, 2021  Edit critic review
The King of Kings (1927) H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) This King of Kings is beautiful. I am astonished at the acumen of the producer, of the director. The actor himself is some genius of rare order, H.B. Warner, quiet, tense, intense.
Posted Oct 29, 2021  Edit critic review
The Ring (1927) Robert Herring Mr Hitchcock's method is to depict one simple fact, that a sub-title could have got over, by a long sequence or a number of elaborate tricks. This is worse than a photographic rendering of a story, for it is pretentious.
Posted Oct 29, 2021  Edit critic review
Cock of the Air (1932) Harry Alan Potamkin I am puzzled by the puerility of a field-general like Milestone, who uses his prestige and authority, his talent, to toss off rowdyisms stodgy and unprovocative.
Posted May 27, 2021  Edit critic review
Shame (1932) Ralph Bond The last reel of Counter Plan, when the turbine is ready for testing, provides one of the finest instances of the dramatic use of sound we have seen.
Posted May 26, 2021  Edit critic review
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) Harry Alan Potamkin For all its insufficiencies, I am a Fugitive is an advance in American film-content and to that extent its form is shaped.
Posted May 26, 2021  Edit critic review
The Way of All Flesh (1927) Robert Herring Jannings acting intensifies, it does not transfigure.... He can impress himself on the general atmosphere, but he cannot express that atmosphere. Put him in water, and he will swim; put him in mud and he sinks, he becomes mud.
Posted May 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 (1929) Hugh Castle For the life of me I cannot see why people should pay to see a thing like this when they can see a first-class revue on the stage, even aside from the novelty value of the cinema show.
Posted Mar 06, 2021  Edit critic review
Turksib (1929) H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) We are ourselves almost too deeply involved with the beauty and the miracle of sheer thought transfiguration to realize what a stride forward art has taken, film art if you wish to deride and to deify that much maligned abstraction.
Posted Jan 22, 2021  Edit critic review
Sentimental Romance (1930) Judith Todd The montage, and Eisenstein's use of sound (no words) is classic, in the newer way of Scriabin and Debussy, to whose overtones Eisenstein likens his own.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
China Express (1929) Claude Martin A film silent from its conception to its presentation, massively powerful in structure, a giver of brutal blows.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
Drifters (1929) Harry Alan Potamkin Nor does the film achieve the simplest of processes: that of accumulative muscular impact.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
Murder! (1930) Hugh Castle Hitchcock's moments justify themselves. Obviously Murder had its moments. It may not achieve real unity, but it comes nearer than any of its homemade competitors.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
(undefined) Harry Alan Potamkin Al Green's direction is flat, unvivacious; the photography as bad as the lowest of the usual Warner Brothers' work; the microphone badly adjusted to the voices; the child's acting so much sawdust-stuffing.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
Westfront 1918 (1930) Bryher When the history of the cinema comes to be written, it is probable that Westfront 1918, directed by Pabst, will occupy the same position with regard to the sound film that Potemkin occupies in relationship to the silent picture.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
With Byrd at the South Pole (1930) Harry Alan Potamkin With Byrd at the South Pole is not without interest, and merit, but an interest not special -- from the viewpoint of execution -- and a merit academic.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
Mirages de Paris (1934) Jean Lenauer Paris Mirages is a brilliant work, a film which should be shown to all students of cinema technics. Ozep reveals extraordinary faculty for montage -- that Russian touch!
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Robert Herring The film has at once a freedom and a form new to talkies. It has a scope and size new to war-films.
Posted Jan 21, 2021  Edit critic review
Lot in Sodom (1933) Marianne Moore Lot in Sodom, derived from the Book of Genesis -- and not a talkie -- is the best art film I have seen.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Lot in Sodom (1933) Herman G. Weinberg I have never seen light manipulated so eloquently as in these expressive lights and shadows which sometime form men or fragments of a body, sometime coagulate into flowers or break up their particles into water.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Dela i lyudi (Men and Jobs) (1932) Ralph Bond [It] marks a big advance in Soviet sound recording, which seems to improve steadily. The story is interesting both for its content, and for the types, who are actual workers. Macheret has handled his material and characters with a nice sense of humour.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Quatorze Juillet (1932) Jean Lenauer In short, it is a true Rene Clair success!
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Street Scene (1931) Ralph Bond Street Scene proves the tremendous possibilities of sound and music wedded intelligently to the pictorial image.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Don Basin (1930) Andor Kraszna-Krausz Vertoff, also, has waged fierce, vehement and esperate battles with his material and his instruments (i.e., reality and the film camera) to give practical proofs of his ideas. In this he has failed.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Road to Life (1931) Andor Kraszna-Krausz Ekk's story of The Way into Life of the Besprisonis (i.e., the uncared-for children), shown in the hands of a new, free art of education, acquaints us with a very impressive, typical part of Soviet work.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Sentimental Romance (1930) Andor Kraszna-Krausz Romance Sentimentale is not a Russian film but a human one. In spite of its slight over-pointedness, skittishness, formalism -- and because of it.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Cimarron (1931) Ralph Bond For two hours the film runs on. Not a foot of it can be cut. From the opening land rush sequence to the final fade-out on Yancey's statue immortalising in bronze the living flesh and blood, Cimmaron holds us.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
(undefined) Bryher Das Lied vom Leben fails somehow in its treatment. It has become neither a propaganda film for the study of the subject, (one is badly needed) nor is it art.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Ariane (1931) Bryher The technique is appallingly old-fashioned, and one device, that of hearing dialogue whilst watching a blank screen, is repeated over and over in a most tiresome manner.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Africa Speaks (1930) Harry Alan Potamkin The whole film reeks with Hail Columbia! picture bunkum.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
Little Lise (1930) Jean Lenauer Nadia Sibirskaia is wonderful. This actress whose work has astonished us already in Menilmontant, has gained additional force through speech.
Posted Jan 20, 2021  Edit critic review
The Hollywood Revue (1929) Robert Herring Not the The Hollywood Revue isn't fun, but it's so disappointing and silly.
Posted Jan 19, 2021  Edit critic review
Men of Tomorrow (1932) Robert Herring The film's failure is simply that the story it surrounds is stereotyped.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
(undefined) Karel Santar In [The Singing Earth] are preserved unique camera explorations of a disappearing peoples' environment and life, to remain as a cultural and sociological document for future generations.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
Bartered Bride (1934) Trude Weiss For that the man who made the film is extremely talented and that he was lucky in his choice of actors is beyond discussion. The two principals, Jarmila Novotna and Willy Domgraf- Fassbander are fascinating both in appearance and in voice.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
Dreaming Lips (1953) Trude Weiss Certainly it is the most impressive [Elisabeth] Bergner film recently made, perhaps her best film.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
Don Quixote (1933) Kenneth Macpherson Pabst, the indefatigable, works with all his force.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
Piccadilly (1929) Hugh Castle There must be something wrong somewhere. Piccadilly was lavishly praised by the critics. The public looked as though they paid money to see it. I thought it was one of the world's worst.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
Whither Germany? (1932) Bryher It is perhaps the first time that a picture of present conditions that yet ends constructively, has been put on the screen.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
The Mistress of Atlantis (1932) Bryher Technically it is as great as anything Mr. Pabst has done.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
The Blue Light (1932) Trude Weiss It is all so disconnected, and you cannot help thinking that someone feels obliged to show you everything which in his opinion belongs to a perfect legendary mountain film.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
(undefined) Trude Weiss [Storm Over Mont Blanc] is heartily recommended to all who love mountains and winter-sports: especially to those who are unable to go to the mountains themselves, as antidote for gloomy, foggy winter days.
Posted Jan 14, 2021  Edit critic review
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