In 1915:
The first transcontinental telephone call took place;
The Rocky Mountain National Park was established;
The US Congress designated the US Coast Guard as a military branch;
Typhoid Mary was placed in a quarantine;
The Vancouver Millionaires defeated the Ottawa Senators to win the Stanley Cup;
Babe Ruth hit his first career home run;
Leo Frank was lynched for the alleged murder of a thirteen year old girl;
Frank Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis was published;
The Ford Motor Company produced its one millionth car;
US President Woodrow Wilson married his second wife, Edith Wilson;
Zero Mostel, Billie Holiday, Anthony Quinn, Orson Welles, Les Paul, Ring Lardner Jr., Arthur Miller, Bob Kane, Sargent Shriver, Augusto Pinochet, Roland Barthes, Eli Wallach, Frank Sinatra, and Edith Piaf were born;
While outlaw Frank James and Booker T. Washington died.
The following is list of my ten favorite films released in 1915:
10) The Italian
Poor Venetian gondolier Pietro “Beppo” Donnetti loves Annette Ancello, but her father refuses to allow the marriage until Beppo can prove his worth, so Beppo emigrates to America. There, he borrows money from an Irishman, Bill Corrigan, and repays him by helping Corrigan win an election.
Annette arrives and the two are married and have a child, but their son is sickly and needs expensive, pasteurized milk. When Beppo is robbed on his way to buy the milk, he attacks the thieves and is arrested. He begs Corrigan to help the sick child while he’s in jail, but the cold-hearted Irishman refuses and the baby dies. Beppo briefly considers retaliation against Corrigan’s family, but decides against it.
Despite what many modern viewers will see as uncomfortable stereotypes, this is an excellent film about the immigrant experience: the pitfalls, the potential, the highs, and the lows. Beppo’s experience is similar to many who came to a new world seeking opportunity. Hard work pays off, but chance plays a large role in determining the immigrant’s success.
A rich lawyer and diplomat is sent to England without his wife and daughter. During the journey, he’s seduced by a “vampire” (Theda Bara).
Because of this infidelity, his seemingly perfect life falls apart.
Beyond Bara, there’s not a lot to recommend in this anti-adultery PSA.
Mary, a judge’s daughter who grew up surrounded by the finer things in life, lives in poverty with her day laborer husband, Steve. She works as a seamstress to make ends meet, while her alcoholic husband turns to a life of crime.
When Mary’s wealthy employer requests her help in negotiating a lucrative business deal, it leads to an unexpected (and unconsummated) romance with the client, Mr. Manning.
When Steve discovers what Mary’s been doing, the ensuing confrontation ends with tragic results.
Cecil B. Demille’s film about a woman of means who marries below her station is a snapshot of a bygone attitude about women. Despite the subtle character work and inventive cinematography, this is an elaborate morality play. Mary is redeemed, but we are meant to chastise her for not being more selective in her choice of husband. Demonstrating the complexity of women’s rights issues in the early twentieth century, Mary’s simultaneously a victim of circumstance and the cause of her own misery.
7) The Cheat
Acting on a tip, Edith Harvey takes $10,000 out of a charity fund and foolishly invests it with her friend.
An eavesdropping wealthy Japanese man, Hishituru Tori (Sessue Hayakawa) pays her debt, but expects sex as payment.
When Edith’s husband, Richard, has an unexpected financial windfall, Edith attempts to repay Tori, but he refuses to alter their deal and brands her on the shoulder to reinforce his claim. After a struggle, Edith shoots her tormentor, but Richard arrives and takes the blame.
At her husband’s sentencing, Edith reveals the brand, exposing Tori and exonerating her Richard.
Early sex symbol Hayakawa was effective as the lecherous Tori, but the film’s attitudes about race are unsettling, suggesting non-white men want nothing more than to bed the white wives of rich Americans.
Cecil B. Demille’s film is a fascinating look at the importance of honesty to a successful marriage, and a reminder of the often ugly realities of America’s melting pot in the early twentieth century.
6) The Tramp
The debut of Chaplin’s Tramp is a rousing success. The hapless hobo thwarts some bad guys and falls in love, but after realizing the girl is better off without him, sends her off to be happy.
It’s formulaic, but when the formula is this good and the execution this great, no one cares.
5) Les Vampires: Episode Three – The Red Cryptogram
Phillipe stole a ledger from the body of the Grand Inquisitor and uses it to decode their crimes, leading him to a club where he meets the intoxicating Irma Vep (who’s inspired every femme fatale since).
Phillipe’s mother is kidnapped by The Vampires and escapes by killing her captor. Even by episode three, it’s obvious Feulliade was not holding anything back. The plot is a little incredulous. How does this criminal gang operate with such impunity?
Having Phillipe’s whole family at risk is as ballsy as anything which has come since.
As far as silent films goes, this is the introduction everyone should experience.
4) Les Vampires: Episode Two – The Ring that Kills
Determined to stop Phillipe from exposing them, the Vampires kill his fiancée with a poison ring during a ballet performance. Phillipe recognizes the leader of the gang during the ensuing chaos and follows him, but he’s captured. The gang intend to execute him, but Phillipe convinces his guard to help him escape.
When the police raid their criminal hideout, the Vampires inadvertently execute their own leader, thinking he is Phillipe. After his death, this leader is revealed to be a high ranking judicial official.
It’s breakneck filmmaking. The plot is unrelenting, and I love the conspiracy angle. This paranoid, stylish thriller is a huge shot of adrenaline.
3) Les Vampires: Episode One – The Severed Head
Phillipe, a reporter investigating the criminal group The Vampires, is warned to stop his efforts and threatened with a severed head
The first episode of Louis Feuillaide’s massive, ambitious serial is creepy proto-noir, and borrows heavily from German Expressionism. It’s intoxicating even before the legendary Irma Vep makes it onstage.
Based on a novel by Thomas Dixon, this film argues the Ku Klux Klan was formed to combat angry white northerners, who used black people as pawns to advance their preferred policies in the South following Lincoln’s assassination.
Against this historical backdrop, D.W. Griffith weaves a pair of love stories in an epic, updated version of Romeo and Juliet.
The first film to become an American cultural event is a masterpiece of innovation. The films released before, small in scope and focused on domestic arguments and minor love affairs, all run together. This epic, ambitious film stands apart and unleashed the power of the burgeoning art form.
I hope modern audiences can see past its damnable message regarding race relations to appreciate its artistry and allow the uncomfortable, racially charged scenes to serve as reminders of how far we’ve come in a relatively short time. Less than one hundred years after this film portrayed the KKK as historically justified crusaders, the United States elected a black man as President, twice.
1) After Death
Andrei meets a beautiful actress Zoia, and when she dies unexpectedly, he’s obsessed.
It’s a beautiful, melancholic picture of obsession and loneliness. Based on a novel by Ivan Turgenev, it’s infused with a lot of the existential angst of 19th century Russian literature. I love the era and their brooding, melancholic prose, and I love this.