Reviews

A six-minute fragment of a film designed to be much longer, Puce Moment follows an archetypal silent movie star as she luxuriates through her opulent surroundings. Beautifully shot in color, the film is rich with fabrics, jewelry and antique Hollywood exotica. Excellent original psychedelic movie score added in the 1960s. Echoes of this work may be felt in Anger's later films of the 60s, particularly "Kustom" and the opening sequence of "Scorpio Rising".

Clever animated titles spell out the woes of Jones, who is lured drunk into a card game with predictable results. The existing print contains two takes of one scene, offering a rare glimpse into early filmcraft.

This otherwise ordinary family comedy would be routine if it didn't exist in two versions, both of which were copyrighted as paper prints. The first version consists of the one-reeler as shot; the other as edited. Through comparison of the two versions it is clear that D.W. Griffith was already setting up his films out of sequence in order to save time, achieve more fluid storytelling and camera angles. What is today a basic requirement for filmmaking was new in Griffith's time, and in this film we can see it in action.

A slice-of-life vignette about life in poverty stricken Weimar- era Germany. A man wins some cash in a dice game in a low grade beer hall. He in pursued by a thug through the streets of Berlin, and escapes into the arms of a prostitute, only to find himself narrowly avoiding being murdered by her pimp. Once back out on the street he falls victim to the thug. The film makes extraordinary use of bizarre camera angles, fast Russian-style editing and contains a dream sequence which is distorted through use of mirrors and refracting lenses.

This low-budget thriller was one of the first independent experimental films made in the USA. Heavily influenced by German Expressionist filmmaking (and in particular "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari") this film makes effective use of odd camera angles and stylized sets, and is still quite interesting to watch today as a sort of Gothic mood piece.