PODCAST

All the Movies Podcast

Greg Gioia

I"m watching my way chronologically through the history of cinema. allthemovies.substack.com

tv & film film history

All Episodes

4:29

Making a Living (Feb. 2, 1914)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/10

I decided to watch this film for one specific reason: it’s the first film in which Charlie Chaplin appears. For that, it’s noteworthy, but strictly on its own merit it is a forgettable film. It runs for just under 13 minutes, during which time it gallops along through a number of only loosely connected moments. Chaplin, who I would not have recognized had I not known he was the star of the film, looks young and gawky. For some vague reason, he kept reminding me of the ‘80s pop star Prince, likely

6:20

The Gusher (Dec. 15, 1913)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/08

A couple names that kept coming up as I was reading about the earliest years of filmmaking were those of Mabel Normand and Ford Sterling. What a great name— Ford Sterling! I had to find out if that was his actual name, and of course it was not. He was born George Ford Stich Jr., so I can’t blame him for changing his name. I want to change my name to Ford Sterling, too!Sterling got his start in 1911 at Biograph, but when director Mack Sennet left Biograph to form Keystone Studios in 1912, Sterling

3:17

A Quick Intermission

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/07

I thought it might be a good idea to do a short, impromptu podcast to welcome the sudden influx of listeners who subscribed to my podcast yesterday. Before yesterday, I’d been keeping a low profile, and wasn’t doing any sort of promotion for this site. Initially, I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it, but I mentioned it to my nephew, Mike, who is a filmmaker, and to my friend Wei Ti, with whom I used to sit up late at night, drinking wine and talking movies, before we both moved far away from one

5:19

Suspense (Jul. 6, 1913)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/06

Suspense is another multi-director film, with the husband and wife team of Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber helming the production. Weber also wrote and starred in the film, which has elements that remind me of The Lonedale Operator, namely the way both films present actions that are happening at the same time. Smalley and Weber use a split screen to show simultaneous action, the first time I’ve seen that technique employed in a film. In this case, the screen is divided into three sections, so we can

6:22

The Musketeers of Pig Alley (Oct. 31, 1912)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/04

I’d seen this credited as the first gangster movie, so I had to check it out. While it isn’t as complex as later gangster movies would become, it certainly kicked the genre off with a bang. Elmer Booth shines as Snapper, leader of the Musketeers gang. He bears more than a passing resemblance to James Cagney, who would come to define the role of the gangster 20 years later. The similarity goes beyond the physical, as his mannerisms are much the same as those that Cagney, and another portrayer of

3:39

The Cameraman's Revenge (Oct. 27, 1912)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/03

Wladyslaw Starewicz is one of Russia’s earliest filmmakers, and someone I’d never heard of before sitting down to watch this film. I had no real expectations, and knew nothing about the film before pressing play, so I was shocked to find I was watching a puppet animation starring bugs! Had I known anything about Starewicz, I should have expected just that. Meet the beetles!The early part of his directorial career was spent creating puppet animation films, using dead animals and insects as puppets

5:37

A Beast at Bay (May 27, 1912)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/02

This is my first true foray into the phenomenon that was Mary Pickford. I know she showed up briefly in The Country Doctor, but this is the first time I’ve seen her in a major role. Her appeal is immediately obvious. Besides her famous curls, her charm leaps out at you from the screen. Her fame was well-deserved.The film opens with a convict creeping out of some bushes, clad in the staple black and white striped prisoner’s uniform. He’s being pursued by some policemen, one of whom he overpowers and

5:01

Desdemona (Apr. 8, 1912)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/10/01

I’ve seen two American adaptations of Shakespeare so far, and now I’ve seen one from Denmark. August Blom directed this film, which, like the two I watched previously, is not a faithful adaptation of the original play. Unlike the other two, which took only the most basic premise and ran with it in new directions, Desdemona approaches its source, in this case Othello, as the framework in which to tell a parallel story. Valdemar Psilander, who was the top Danish screen actor of his day, plays Einar,

5:41

The Lonedale Operator (Mar. 23, 1911)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/29

The Lonedale Operator, released on March 23, 1911, is another of the short films that D.W. Griffith created for the Biograph Company, and the first of his films I’ve watched that doesn’t feature Florence Lawrence. This time the lead actress is Blanche Sweet, and she is the star of the picture. Lawrence was always in some sort of co-starring or secondary role.Sweet plays “The Telegrapher,” daughter of “The Lonedale Operator,” so called because he runs the train station in the town of Lonedale, who

6:05

Dante's Inferno (Mar. 2, 1911)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/28

At last, a feature-length film! Released in Italy as L'Inferno on March 2nd, 1911, this adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem is the work of three directors, Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, and Giuseppe de Liguoro. This makes sense, given its length. It was three years in the making, in an time where short films were often being cranked out at a pace of one every three days, and though its 68 minute run time is brief by today’s standards, in an era of 5-minute films, it was a downright

4:31

Romeo Turns Bandit (Nov. 19, 1909)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/27

We saw that when D.W. Griffith brought Shakespeare to the big screen, he took great liberties with the plot, and by great liberties I mean he more or less threw it out the window, but his take on The Taming of the Shrew is downright canon compared to what Romeo Bosetti has done with Romeo and Juliet in the 1909 short film Romeo Turns Bandit. Griffith at least kept the basic concept of the story intact, and presented the action as taking place in 1500s Padua. Bosetti not only ignores the entire plot

3:26

The Country Doctor (July 8, 1909)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/26

So I exaggerated a bit with this post’s subtitle, but the most interesting thing about this film, and the reason I put it on my list of films to watch, is the presence of Mary Pickford in a small role. She later became the original “America’s Sweetheart,” and, according to Wikipedia at least, is “considered to be one of the most recognizable women in history.” I wanted to see an early example of her work, and The Country Doctor, which premiered on July 8th 1909, is just that.The star here is, of

2:43

Mr. Flip (May 12, 1909)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/24

There isn’t much to this short film. It runs for less than 4 minutes, and is nothing special, save for its final scene. That final scene is why it’s on my list, and why I watched, for it is allegedly the first example of someone taking a pie to the face in a film. There are, of course, rumors that two films preceded this monumental achievement, but I can find neither Family Troubles (1900) nor The Coal Strike (1905) to verify this claim. I’m not even sure if those films are considered lost, or if

3:42

The Taming of the Shrew (Nov. 10, 1908)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/20

I wrote last time about how directors were churning out movies at a fantastic pace in the early days of cinema. To put that idea into perspective, the first film D.W. Griffith directed was released on July 14th, 1908. Less than 4 months later, on November 10th, his 35th film hit theaters. And sure, these were all short films, but each was made with its own cast and crew, and shot from its own script, and then edited down to its final form. That’s a crazy pace by any standards, but there you have it

4:43

The Call of the Wild (Oct. 27, 1908)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/17

I chose this film for a few reasons. I’d been reading about the early days of film, and learned about Florence Lawrence. Hers was not a name I recognized, but she’s known as the first American movie star. Before her, people went to see films primarily for the novelty of seeing a film, or for the story the film promised to tell. If they wanted a western, they went to a western, and so forth. Florence Lawrence was the first person who could draw an audience simply by being in a film. She worked for

2:40

The Fairy Tales of Georges Méliès, pt. 2 (1904-1910)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/14

I don’t know how much more I have to say about Georges Méliès. I watched the remaining seven films on the blu-ray I shared last time, and while they are uniformly wonderful, they are in the same vein as the first batch I wrote about. This isn’t to say that Méliès is a one-trick pony or anything. Far from it! Each film has its own character, and its own neat special effects. But, when it comes down to it, each is a static camera filming an impressively dressed stage, as actors and acrobats prance and

2:42

The Great Train Robbery (Dec. 1, 1903)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/12

This feels a lot closer to what a modern viewer would call a movie than did any of the Georges Méliès films I wrote about last time. It’s very short, lasting only 10:24, but it tells a complete story, with scenes taking place in varying locations. Where everything in Méliès’ films appeared to be shot on a theater stage, The Great Train Robbery is shot in a telegraph office, inside a saloon, and even outdoors in a sort of forest. There is one scene in particular that jumped out at me as a true

5:23

The Fairy Tales of Georges Méliès, pt. 1 (1899-1903)

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/09/10

I’m back, and ready to talk movies. The first film on my list is actually 7 short films, all from French director Georges Méliès. He was one of the earliest filmmakers, though not the very first, but he seemed like the best place to start. Méliès is considered the originator of special effects in movies, and pioneered techniques like substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, and dissolves.Before discovering movies, Méliès was a stage magician. He purchased Robert-Houdin’s old

8:39

Coming Soon to a Podcast Near You

All the Movies Podcast ·

2022/08/25

I was going to jump right in and start talking about movies, but thought I’d better create an introductory “welcome” post, just in case someone other than me decides to visit my site. Unlike most podcasts, I’m creating mine for an audience of one: me. I’m sharing this in case they are of interest to others, but my primary reason for creating them is so I will better remember the movies I watch.Awhile back I was listening to the Hardcore Literature podcast, and the host, Benjamin McEvoy, said

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