8mm Forum: Two silent films

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Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on June 05, 2017, 10:24 AM:

I discovered (sadly on dvd) this year two silente films I never heard about before although they are, in my opinion, of high interest. The first one is a 1928 Russian film called The house on Troubnaïa (Dom na Trubnoia) and is a kind of little masterpiece. The second one is a 1927 French/Spanish film that has an historical interest due to the subject. This film is more than probably banned in the US as the main actor is white with a black make up and the texts in the film (in French at least) contain words that would not be accepted anymore now. The French title is "Le danseur de jazz" (in Spanish : El negro que tenía el alma blanca") which reffers to the famous "Chanteur de jazz" (The Jazz Singer). It was on purpose to benefit from the promotion of the film with Al Johnson, although it is not question of jazz in Le danseur de jazz but of charleston ! I wonder if these two films are actually not famous or if my silent era films knowledge is poor. Have anybody else heard of the two titles ?

http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=8609.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018197/combined

Posted by Chris Bird (Member # 3839) on June 06, 2017, 10:54 AM:

Hi Dominique, The House on Trubnaya is a brilliant film! It's mentioned in Bordwell and Thomson's 'Film History - an introduction' but it took me years to be able to find it anywhere. Love it. The other one is new to me.

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