Acting
This film shows the realistic battle scenes of the Siege of Moscow, with the sensational defeat of Napoleon, with the belching cannon, the battling soldiers, scenes of heroism and daring reproduced in the most exquisite photography.
"Tigre Reale" (1916) was the film that consolidated Frau Menichelli's stardom, a film more than suitable for her performing skills and silent idiosyncrasy that any silent diva would kill to star in… In "Tigre Reale", Frau Menichelli performs the part of Frau Natka, a Russian countess with a troublesome past and an uncertain future. She was married to a revolutionary and the matrimony ended in tragedy. She likes to flirt with men but due to her traumatic sentimental past, she doesn't allow herself attachments. That is until she meets a young diplomat who will help her to make up her mind and exorcize her old sentimental traumas.
A young man sentenced to death manages to postpone his execution because of the impending wedding of his poor sister, who is to be married off. His best friend vouches for his return. After taking care of his sister, the young man hurries back, but is delayed by numerous unexpected obstacles. Nevertheless, he continues the journey, determined to join his now-presumably dead friend.
After seven years of traveling, Aeneas and the other Trojans are surprised by a storm that wrecks their ship on the African coast. Here they are led by the Amazons to the Queen of Carthage, Dido, who soon falls in love with Aeneas. When the King of Numidia, Iarbas, comes to marry Dido, she rejects him. But in the meantime Anchises appears to Aeneas in dreams, and commands him to leave to found Rome. So, while Iarbas’ army surrounds Carthage, Aeneas embarks secretly for Rome.
The model Fede loves the writer Arte, but he is enmeshed by the beautiful Femmina. Fede takes comfort in the Faun, a mythological creature who becomes animated from the stone sculpted by Arte. The love story with the Faun represents a return to a dreamt wildness impossible by now, for the modern man, to reach and maintain.
Comedy short starring Ernesto Vaser and Eleuterio Rodolfi
Invited by Duke Alfonso II to the court of Ferrara to read his poems, the poet Torquato Tasso finds himself at the center of court intrigue because of his secret love for the Duke’s sister, Eleanora d’Este.
A man goes out on New Year's Day and is greeted by everyone with "Happy New Year", in the hope of getting a tip. The fellow is so annoyed that he runs into trouble with the law and almost loses his mind.
Italian short drama directed by Luigi Maggi.
A humble fisherman's singing distubs some witches. The eldest witch tries to make him stop, to no avail. She throws handfuls of gold into the sea, making the fisherman crave for riches. He becomes a lord, a spendthrift, a gambler and, poor again, a bandit. Full with remorse, he returns to the sea only to drown himself.
Short comedy with Fricot. He is in love with the foster daughter of a certain Ducormaid, but this guardian does not approve of their love. Fricot dresses up as a woman and gets a job as the guardian's maid, but then the guardian falls in love with Fricot.
Italian short comedy directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi.
Italian silent film
A grandfather recalls how he and his wife met and fell in love during the Second Italian War of Independence.
No description available.
A Italian comedy short.
Tweedledum goes out dining with a girl. He discovers that his worthy father is out on a little lark and is in the next booth to him. Many amusing complications result and in the end the old man buys his son's silence by paying both checks.
Ernesto Vaser gets a job as a shop assistant in a draper's, where every bolt of fabric must be examined before the lady chooses the first one she looked at. Vaser's erratic and weird course of actions indicate he is the only employee in the store, so he has to do everything himself, including serenading the clientele.
A prime minister tries to compromise the queen by preventing her from recovering the jewel miniature which she had given to her former lover.
In this play on the symmetry of black and white, Robinet leaves home in his bright new suit for a stroll through a blackening industrial landscape. (MoMA)
