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The Bright Shawl (1923); The Fighting Blade (1923)

The Bright Shawl (1923)
June 6, 2014 - 7:30 pm
Billy Wilder Theater

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

The Bright Shawl (1923)

Directed by John S. Robertson.

Praised in its day for capturing the authentic look of 1850s Cuba and its fight for independence from Spain, The Bright Shawl was a showcase for silent era stars, Richard Barthelmess and Dorothy Gish, but also proved a springboard for three future stars of the talkies: Mary Astor, William Powell and Edward G. Robinson.  Barthelmess plays an American adventurer caught up in romance and revolution with Gish as the seductive cabaret dancer after his heart.

Associated First National Pictures.  Producer: Charles H. Duell. Based on a story by Joseph Hergesheimer.  Screenwriter: Edmund Goulding.  Cinematographer: George J. Folsey.  Editor: William Hamilton.  Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Gish, Mary Astor, Jetta Goudal, William Powell.

35mm, b/w, silent with musical accompaniment, 80 min.

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive as part of “Saving the Silents,” with funding provided by the Stanford Theatre Foundation.

The Fighting Blade (1923)

Directed by John S. Robertson.

The first in a series of costume dramas starring Barthelmess during this period—including The Bright Shawl—The Fighting Blade finds the silent-era heartthrob in fighting form as a soldier of fortune embroiled in the English Civil War.  As Variety described the film’s sweep at the time, “'In power of incident and in climacteric [sic] punch, The Fighting Blade has much that neck-and-necks with Dumas.”

Inspiration Pictures, Inc.  Screenwriter:  Josephine Lovett, Don Bartlett.  Cinematographer: George J. Folsey.  Editor: William Hamilton.  Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Lee Baker, Morgan Wallace, Bradley Barker, Frederick Burton.

35mm, b/w, silent with musical accompaniment, 90 min.

Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick.

Part of: 
Archive Treasures