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“Photograph of motorcyclists on a paddling excursion at a lake outside Berlin, ca. 1925.” via The Public Domain Review
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Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Cast: Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskiy, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov, Mikhail Gomorov, Aleksandr Levshin, Nina Poltavtseva, Konstantin Feldman, Prokhorenko, A. Glauberman. Beatrice Vitoldi. Screenplay: Nina Agadzhanova. Cinematography: Eduard Tisse, Vladimir Popov. Art direction: Vasiliy Rakhals. Film editing: Sergei Eisenstein. Music: Edmund Meisel.
A perennial on “best films in history” lists, Battleship Potemkin is certainly one of the best-crafted movies ever. No matter how hokey and manipulative it seemed, I sat enthralled through my most recent viewing as the pounding, throbbing endless crescendo of music and editing surged toward the political victory of the Potemkin over the Czar’s fleet. (The music on this version was Edmund Meisel’s, which was performed at the Berlin premiere in 1926.) Because of the celebrated “Odessa Steps” sequence, which is cited in every textbook on editing and montage and in every tribute to Sergei Eisenstein or documentary about propaganda, I had forgotten that the real climax of the film is its final sequence. I had also forgotten how truly epic the film feels, with the great massing of crowds before the massacre on the steps. But is it a great film? Not if you’re judging a film by any standard other than the way it gets blood pumping. It lacks insight into any human emotion other than resentment and the herd instinct. It’s a masterpiece of propaganda. As with other such masterpieces, such as Leni Riefensthal’s Triumph of the Will (1935), it lies to us. Which is all right, as long as we know it’s lying and can keep our eye on the truth.
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Strike (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Cast: Maksim Shtraukh, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gomorov, I. Ivanov, Ivan Klyukvin, Aleksandr Antonov, Yudif Gliser, Vera Yanukova, Vladimir Uralskiy. Screenplay: Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Sergei Eisenstein, Ilya Kravchunovsky, Valerian Pletnev. Cinematography: Vasili Kvatov, Vladimir Popov, Eduard Tisse. Art direction: Vasiliy Rakhov.
Subtle as a sledgehammer, Sergei Eisenstein’s first feature film, Strike, demonstrates the dangerous ability of motion pictures to annihilate thought. With a torrent of images, almost as formidable as the fire hose blasts that mow down the protesting strikers in the fifth “chapter” of the film, the 27-year-old Eisenstein demonstrates a mastery of technique: fast-paced editing, frame-crowding action, provocative close-ups, and powerful montage. The film concludes with a bloodbath – the “liquidation” of the strikers in their homes, intercut with scenes of cattle being slaughtered in an abattoir – that makes the Odessa Steps massacre sequence in Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) look like a Sunday picnic. The film veers from documentary realism in the factory scenes, to gross – or perhaps Grosz, as in George Grosz – caricature in its portrayal of the capitalist bosses as fat cigar-smoking men in silk top hats, to a baroque expressionism in the scenes involving the spies and provocateurs who betray the workers. Eisenstein never slackens for a moment – it’s an exhausting film. Is it a great film? That’s one for the debaters, a conflict between those who believe in art as a servant of truth and those who believe in art as pure form. I can admire its technical virtues and historical significance, and even admit that it plays on my political sympathies for workers over capitalist bosses, while worrying that the effect of the film is to valorize a dangerous suppression of reason, the unhinged anti-humanism that ultimately betrayed the very revolution Eisenstein supported.
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‘dünyanın en paha biçilemez anı namazdan sonra alnın secdede duâ etmek.. ya da sadece susmak, derin bir nefes çekerek içine, susmak.
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Fragment of the mostly lost Beggar on Horseback (1925)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Director: James Cruze
Cinematographer: Karl Brown
Performers: Edward Everett Horton, Frederick Sullivan, Gertrude Short
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Fragment of the mostly lost Beggar on Horseback (1925)
[letterboxd | imdb]
Director: James Cruze
Cinematographer: Karl Brown
Performers: Frederick Sullivan, Gertrude Short, Edward Everett Horton
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1925 The Continent Via Harwich. LNER
Source: Pinterest / fabienne jerot
Published at: https://digitalpostermuseum.com/railroad/lner-poster-and-ad-collection/
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1925 Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen. Doppelschraube-Dampfer ‘Columbus’ - Twin-screw steamer 'Columbus’
Source: Pinterest / fabienne jerot
Published at: https://digitalpostermuseum.com/maritime-transport/norddeutscher-lloyd-poster-and-ad-collection/
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John Gilbert photographed by Melbourne Spurr in Photoplay, March 1925
original caption:
JOHN GILBERT keeps right on growing more popular with film fans with every picture he makes. His latest, “The Merry Widow,” promises to be one of his most successful. His work as the professor in “The Snob” was one of the best character portraits we’ve seen in a long time. But he always makes good
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12 February 2026
Film: LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN (dir. Ernst Lubitsch, 1925, USA)
Forum: Music Box Theater Format: 35mm
Observations: While I’d seen this film before (I even have it on DVD), there were several draws for this show. First, it was the season opener for Chicago Film Society. Second, they got David Drazin to play piano accompaniment. Third, there was a good chance of running into movie friends (and we did). Finally, CFS was debuting their new restoration of a Jimmy Aubrey two-reeler, “Musical Mixup” (Weiss Brothers, 1928), fascinating as a curio of the times (and the audience was most appreciative, too). Plus one can never go wrong watching a Lubitsch feature again, ever brilliant. Impeccably projected, as always, and a supportive turnout.
