(Herbert Brenon, US 1925, 105 min., 16mm)
Director Herbert Brenon and star Betty Bronson reunite after Peter Pan for another adaptation of a J.M. Barrie play. Jane (Bronson) is a house slave who dreams of a Prince Charming and is nicknamed Cinderella by an artist whose studio she cleans because she always talks of the wonderful things that will one day befall her. By inadvertently exposing a light during an air raid scare in the first World War, she arouses the suspicion of a policeman, who follows her home and discovers Jane’s secret activities. The film is punctuated by a sequence in which Jane falls asleep and dreams of pumpkin coaches, fairy godmothers, and good fairies.
16mm print from the George Eastman Museum collection.
Upcoming Events in this Series
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Silent Tuesdays | Schweigen! | Polish Film Festival Years before his iconic “touch” was established, Ernst Lubitsch directed this broad farce about the military-and-marriage complex starring Polish emigré Pola Negri. Rischka (Negri), the daughter of a gang of robbers high in the snowy mountains of Germany, is a real wildcat and runs her father’s gang with ruthlessness.
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Film Screenings | Hamlet (35mm)
Silent Tuesdays Many silent filmmakers turned to Shakespeare for source material, transforming the Bard’s verbal poetry and drama into visual equivalents, but none more unusually than this project spearheaded by the legendary Danish actress Asta Nielsen.