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The Unholy Three (Tod Browning, 1925)
May
6
Tweedledee (Harry Earles), Hercules (Victor McLaglen), and Echo – The Ventriloquist (Lon Chaney). DP: David Kesson.
“It's spooky! It sounds… unholy!”
– Echo
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Japanicky [Felix the Cat in Japanicky] (Otto Messmer, 1928)
May
03
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L'eclisse del 17 aprile [An Eclipse of the Sun] (1912)
Apr
17
1912
Scientists in impeccable suits observing the 1912 solar eclipse. The colour used for tinting this scene, a turquoise, indicates moonlight/dusk. Image source: Cineteca di Bologna (via).
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Even: As You and I (Roger Barlow, Harry Hay + LeRoy Robbins, 1937)
Feb
27
A film editor struggling with a long strip of celluloid. DP: Hy Hirsh.
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憂國 [Yūkoku / Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death] (Yukio Mishima, 1966)
Feb
26
1936
Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) walking through her lover's blood, her kimono drenched. DP: Kimio Watanabe.
Covers February 26–28, 1936.
”'I know how you feel,' Reiko says quietly. 'And I will follow you wherever you go.'”
– intertitles
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Le voyage dans la lune [A Trip to the Moon] (Georges Méliès, 1902)
Dec
19
Apollo 17
A gif from the hand-coloured edition that is now in the Filmoteca de Catalunya. Poor Mister Moon has the adventures' rocket stuck in his eye. DPs: Théophile Michault & Lucien Tainguy.
“Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream for you.”
– Georges Méliès, 1937
In true Méliès style, a wild menagerie of showgirls and scientists meet on the Moon in this groundbreaking sci-fi spectacle.
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The Automatic Motorist (Walter R. Booth, 1911)
Dec
17
Saturnalia
While on the ringed planet, they pick up a cop to save him from spear-wielding rascals, but he elopes with the planet's fairy. Look at those lovebirds on the rings of Saturn!
A planet with rings for Saturnalia
Two lovely newlyweds and their robot chauffeur take a trip to Saturn for their honeymoon, followed by a jolly ride under the sea. A remake of Booth's own The '?' Motorist from 1906.
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Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914)
Dec
5
The gigantic entrance to the Temple of Moloch in Carthage. Like the entrance to Luna Park Sydney, it's appearance is based on a hellmouth. DPs: Augusto Battagliotti, Eugenio Bava, Natale Chiusano, Segundo de Chomón, Carlo Franzeri & Giovanni Tomatis.
A temple*
“Now consummate the sacrifice in your throat of flame, o father and mother, o god and goddess, o father and mother, o father and son, o god and goddess! Voracious creator! Roaring ardent hunger…”
The world's first epic film and the debut of – the later hugely popular – strongman Maciste.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for December has a few dateless themes. This is one of them.
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München-Berlin Wanderung [Walking from Munich to Berlin] (Oskar Fischinger, 1927)
Nov
20
A bunch of Buben take a moment to pose between troublemaking. DP: Oskar Fischinger.
A journey or road trip*
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.
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Il caso Valdemar [The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar] (Gianni Hoepli + Ubaldo Magnaghi, 1936)
Oct
24
M. Valdemar on his deathbed.
[A] favourite horror movie overall*
”'M. Valdemar,' I said, 'are you asleep?' He made no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eye-lids unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of the{n} ball; the lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the words:
'Yes; — asleep now. Do not wake me! — let me die so!'”
– Edgar Allan Poe, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) (via)
A man agrees on being hypnotised while in the state of dying. This particularly haunting and efficiently gory film – the first in the genre – is the result.
* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.
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