"Electra, 400 ft., 16mm., produced by Clyde Hammond, is a picturization of that Greek drama. Its most novel quality is the evidence of an intelligent search for the best motion picture treatment to present an accurate film version of the story. A series of tableau like sequences were finally used with much better results than if the plot had been adapted and scenarized in the customary manner. Certainly this film version is much truer to the original than would otherwise have been possible. Not being able to erect the complicated sets that would seem necessary, Mr. Hammond used flat gray walls, producing the suggestion of ancient Greek palaces and dwellings with "props," costumes and occasional wall ornamentation. The photographic quality is uniformly good throughout and, one sequence has very good double exposures." Movie Makers, Dec. 1930, 787-788.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" not only represents a new cinema technique but it is also unique in that it does not attempt to tell Poe's story in detail, rather to invoke in its audiences the esthetic impressions and moods which the tale creates in its readers. This revolutionary approach to the cinema opens a fascinating field for further pioneering. Fortified with the new scientific instruments which have recently been devised for the detection and recording of emotional reactions, the amateur producer may now truly be said to face a new world for cinematic experimentation in translating such reactions into film. Properly motivated by medical authority films of this nature may even prove to have a tremendous psychological significance. From any viewpoint "The Fall of the House of Usher" represents a forecast of possibilities which are amazing." Movie Makers, January 1929, 847.
"produced in a garage in Prestwick… the story of a man who spends the night in a waxwork show for a bet, but does not live to tell the tale" (HMHT 1933: 450).
Un hombre vaga por las calles de un pueblo buscando tabaco en botes de basura o en el camino. Al entrar a un bar, un hombre nota que está buscando algo, por lo que lanza tabaco al suelo y cuando el primero se agacha a recogerlo, el otro lo tira al suelo mientras todos en el bar se ríen de él. Al regresar al cuarto en el que vive, otro hombre se encuentra ahí descansando. Los hombres tienen una breve conversación sobre cuándo se irá el otro, mientras que este da una excusa y le pide algo de tabaco al primer hombre. El primero se niega y le dice que el tabaco es muy difícil de conseguir, provocando la ira del segundo, quien decide asesinarlo apuñalándolo por la espalda. Después de enterrar su cuerpo, vuelve al cuarto donde se siente culpable y después de llorar por un rato, decide suicidarse.
A man wanders the streets of a town looking for tobacco in trash cans or the road, he enters a bar and a man notices that he is looking for something, he throws some tobacco on the floor and when the first man tries to reach it, he shoves him to the floor while the rest of the men in the bar laugh at him. When he goes back to the room he lives in, there is another man there resting. They have a small conversation about when the man lying down will leave, he gives an excuse and then asks the other for some tobacco. The first man refuses and tells him it is too hard to get, provoking the anger of the second one who then he chooses to kill him by stabbing him in the back. After burying his body he goes back and feels guilty, after crying for some time, he chooses to kill himself.
"This tragedy begins with teary goodbyes as two lovers part – Joe is off to America to seek his fortune. In a letter to Beth, Joe says he’ll write again when he's ready for her to come and be his bride. She replies that unless she hears from him soon she will end it all. No reply arrives so Beth drowns herself in a river. Back in America, Joe receives his lover's final letter, which causes him to jump off a suspension bridge. If only they’d known about the incompetence of the Post Office" (BFI Player Online).
"an original story adapted from a newspaper report of a double tragedy caused by a lost letter" (HMHT 1933: 154).
"A colonial scene in the U.S. An old lady sits astride a bell while a man in blackface, wig, and livery pulls the bell rope. From an upper door emerges an old man, dressed as a dandy, who tips his hat to the woman as he walks down stairs grinning. Others leave the same door and walk down the same stairs: a shabby man, a cop, and, several times, the same dandy. The man in blackface hangs himself; the dandy continues to smile. A bell tolls, a grave beckons. In the dark, the dandy plays the piano. Is he Death?" IMDb.
Orson Welles' filmmaking debut, which was co-directed by William Vance. An amateur production, Welles later described the film as a parody of surrealist cinema and the films of Jean Cocteau and Luis Buñuel.
A man writes a note to inform his wife that he is leaving her. He then goes for a walk, seemingly with grave thoughts on his mind. He encounters sights which inspire him to return home, where he finds his wife in an alarming condition.
A man is angered when he returns home after work and finds that his wife is absent. He goes for a walk and imagines possible reasons for her absence. When he returns from his walk, he finds his wife in an alarming condition.
A man has a petty argument with his wife over her cooking. The argument concludes with the wife declaring "you'll be sorry!" The man goes straight to sleep, but has nightmare visions of his wife dying. When he awakens, the man rushes to check on his wife, who he finds in an alarming condition.
"Scenes of the preparations in Parliament Street and Whitehall an hour before the funeral procession and the procession itself filmed from an upper storey window in Parliament Street" (EAFA Database).
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Amateur Cinema