The Shop Around The Corner 1940

I hope you enjoyed the daily look into my archives of film history in Wolf’s Advent Calendar 2018.
For Christmas I have a very special gem for you.
I recently found out that one of the most romantic movies set at Christmas time is in public domain.
So I share this holiday gem with you and your families. Once seen never forgotten.
I wish you a very happy, peaceful and warm holiday season and a good start for 2019!

From the book

BEHIND THE SCREEN

by
SAMUEL GOLDWYN 1923

Chapter Eight

THE DISCOVERY OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN

WHILE the Lasky Company and the Famous Players organizations were taking their long and often competitive strides forward numerous other motion-picture enterprises had been coming into prominence. Among these was the Fox Company.

Some years ago William Fox bought the story, “A Fool There Was.” For its leading role he engaged a very prominent actress. She disappointed him at the last moment, and it was while he was at his wit’s end to know how to replace her that he happened to go one day into his casting department. There were several extras standing around in the hope of picking up a day’s work, and among these Fox’s eye fell upon a dark-eyed girl. He looked at her. He looked again. Finally he said to his casting director, “I wish you’d have some tests made of that girl. It seems to me she’s got possibilities.”

[Read more…] about CINEWOLF X-MAS-SURPRISE 23: THE DISCOVERY OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN

TALKING PICTURES

HOW THEY ARE MADE
AND HOW TO
APPRECIATE THEM

BY
BARRETT C. KIESLING

1937, Chapter 2 p.10ff

Terry Ramsaye has named his excellent standard history of the motion picture A Million and One Nights. Ramsaye’s reference is, of course, obvious. If we enjoy the anthology of the Arabians, The Thousand and One Nights, glamorous, romantic, exotic, filled with the uncertain and the unexpected, Ramsaye asks that we stop for a moment and consider the origin of the motion picture. It has a truly remarkable dramatic and scientific heritage. [Read more…] about CINEWOLF X-MAS-SURPRISE 22: HISTORY OF MOTION PICTURES

Special by Jerome Lachenbruch
from Motion Picture News March 1, 1924 p.957

WITH the gradual, but sure economic recovery of Austria, a revived market for American photoplays presents itself to enterprising producers. The recovery of Austria has been due to direct aid by the League of Nations and a group of international bankers. Business men can now borrow money easily; pictures can be financed ; and all legitimate enterprises can find financial support. This does not apply only to Austria proper, especially when one speaks of Austria as a film market. In a business sense, one thinks not only of the comparatively small territory known as Austria, but also of the several states (some of them new), that lie geographically close to her. The Austrian territory consists of Austria proper, Hungary, Zcecho-Slovakia, Poland, Jugo-Slavia and Roumania, with their clearing house and commercial capital in Vienna. This is quite a large territory, and now supports 2,200 motion picture theatres. It can support a great many more. Vienna, with its 200 theatres, is the centre of trade for all these states, and what is successful there usually is successful in the surrounding territory.

There is business to be done in this territory, now at last reawakening to full commercial activity after the sterile days of the war and the slow reconstruction period. [Read more…] about CINEWOLF X-MAS-SURPRISE 21: Austrian Film Conditions Change

By Paul R. Harmer

The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER November, 1934 p.12

ONE of the finest process shots made in recent months was engineered by the R.K.O. Process department, headed by Vernon Walker. He was assisted by Don Jahraus, Billy Williams and Maurice Larringa, in a recent production entitled “Behold, We Live,” starring Clive Brook and Irene Dunne.

This process shot is outstanding for two reasons: first, because of the various combinations and mechanics; second, because the job was excellently done.

The script called for a long shot of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a section of a bridge over the River Seine in the foreground and a light change from night to full daylight illumination, all in 100 feet of film.

[Read more…] about Glass, Miniature and Projection Combined

by ROUBEN MAMOULIAN
As Told to William Stull, A.S.C.

THE MOST important tool at the motion picture director’s command is the camera. Understandingly used, it can be the true star of every production; unwisely used, it can be the “heavy,” as well. Which part it is to play depends entirely upon the camera-wisdom of the director and cinematographer, and upon the degree of mutual understanding that obtains between them. Each must know the other’s plans and dramatic conceptions, and the two must be able to work in complete harmony, with such unity of thought and purpose that they are almost like one man. I do not mean by his that either should ruthlessly dominate the other, but that each should so completely understand the other’s artistic and dramatic ideas and methods that instead of being two individuals working to attain the same ends by different methods, they should coordinate their activities and work together like parts of a perfect machine.

The first step toward this is, of course, agreement, based on mutual understanding, as to what is to be the keynote of the picture, the sequence and the individual scene. Is the basic dramatic conception idealistic or realistic? Is the story to be told through delicate touches or bold, virile contrasts? Is the telling to stress the story itself or the manner of its recital? These, and a thousand other questions arising from them, should be completely settled in the minds of director and cinematographer before the actual shooting commences, so that, from the first rehearsal, the two can work as one, completely coordinating their efforts, and making the picture a complete, coherent unity from start to finish.

[Read more…] about Common Sense and Camera Angles