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Press Release: World War II Films of the Silent Era (Image Entertainment)
(LOS ANGELES) World War II didn't begin until at least ten years
after The Jazz Singer became the first talking film. But that didn't
stop innovative silent filmmakers from making movies about it.
On June 6, the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, Image
Entertainment will release a collection of these speculative films
about the next "war to end all wars," a 2-disc set entitled "World War
II Films of the Silent Era."
Hosted by film historian and WWII expert Leonard Maltin, the DVD
begins with a startlingly feminist and pacifist 1919 epic from Italy,
"Quo Bene?" (Who Benefits?), directed by Augustino Melli. It stars
the legendary diva Maria Pontefiori as a Sicilian fisherwoman who,
horrified by the deaths of men from her village in the last war, leads
a delegation of fishwives to the front of the next war. Raped by a
Prussian general in a beautiful hand-tinted scene, she eats her entire
catch of bad shellfish, and expires lavishly on the battlefield,
leading armies on both sides to throw their weapons away and take holy
orders. "It's a real rip-roarer and Miss Pontefiori is tops as
Sicilian fishwives go," gushes Maltin.
The next film in the collection is a welcome comic diversion:
"Bicarbonate Sven Signs the Ver-Sy-Yee Treaty," a recently
rediscovered comedy starring the beloved "Norwegian" comic Billy
Spivey as his best-known character, cleverly mixes real footage of
Woodrow Wilson, Eduoard Daladier and David Lloyd-George to show how
Bicarbonate Sven starts a second war literally at the end of the first
one.
"Flappers Must Fight," a 1926 Tiffany-Stahl feature starring Alice
Teale, Peggy Ann Wesley and Norma Dussier, hypothesizes that with so
many men having perished in the previous war, the next war will be
fought entirely by women. A hardbitten depiction of life on an
all-girl dirigible crew unfortunately falls apart at the end, when the
general played by Teale decides to give up war on the eve of the big
offensive and settle down with her small town sweetheart (Thomas
Pugh).
Perhaps the most fascinating film in the collection is "Das
Ungeheimliche Schrecklichkeit von der Himalayen" (The Unbelievable
Awfulness of the Himalayas), a 1929 German release. In it, a magnetic
dancer played by Onni de Ertz becomes the toast of German society, and
brings the entire country under her spell. Deftly taking advantage of
the political situation to achieve power, she unites all of Germany
behind the idea of invading and conquering the Himalayas. Director
Otto Runck went to great lengths to achieve realism, and the
location-shot scenes with thousands of barefoot extras climbing
Himalayan peaks make this one of the most remarkable and compelling
films of the 1920s-- all the moreso when you know how few of them
returned from icy wastes.
"World War II Films of The Silent Era" has a street date of June 6,
and a suggested retail price of $29.95.
(Originally posted by Max Nineteennineteen on Alt.Movies.Silent, from Image Entertainment's Website)
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