1927

One of the biggest film events of the century, a “Holy Grail” among film finds, Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi epic can finally be seen — for the first time in 83 years — as the director originally intended and as seen by German cinema-goers in 1927.

Before Mickey there was Oswald the floppy-eared star of Walt Disney's first cartoon series THE ADVENTURES OF OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT. Fun and mischievous the cheerful rabbit's popularity quickly multiplied and so did his shorts. Between 1927 and 1928 Disney created a bounty of legendary and rarely seen Oswald cartoons. Now for the first time ever on DVD we present the premiere collection of Disney's Oswald shorts – all featuring new scores composed especially for this release. The long-lost rabbit's life story from his birth to his long-awaited return to Disney and a documentary on the legendary Ub Iwerks set the stage for the comeback of one of the most important stars in Disney's menagerie. Featuring exclusive introductions by film historian Leonard Maltin this is a timeless collection from generations past for generations to come.

he most tantalizing of the "lost" Tod Browning films, London After Midnight has gained a near-legendary status in recent years, especially since so many critics of the 1930s considered the film as vastly superior to its 1935 remake, Mark of the Vampire. Clearly inspired by the stage version of Dracula, the story concerns a fog-ridden London neighborhood that seems to have become a breeding ground for vampires. Ever since the mysterious death of wealthy old Mr. Balfour, strange things have been happening, prompting Scotland Yard inspector Edmund Burke (Lon Chaney) to investigate. For a while, it looks as though Burke is as stymied as the local authorities, especially when heroine Lucy Balfour (Marceline Day) is confronted with the "living corpse" of her father. But it soon develops that both Burke and Lucy are working in concert, staging an elaborate hoax to trap her dad's murderer into a confession. It is giving nothing away at this late date to reveal that Burke and the mysterious, fang-toothed "vampire man" Mooney are one in the same; indeed, this plot revelation hardly took anyone by surprise in 1927. A shooting script for London After Midnight still exists, suggesting that, if anything, the much-maligned Mark of a Vampire (in which the main "detective" role was split between Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi) was an improvement on the original. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide