Best of
Film

1940

Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington


Sidney Buchman - 1940
    His plans promptly collide with political corruption, but he doesn't back down. Controversial among the political American establishment at the time for its (accurate, then and now) depiction of the Senate as a group of dysfunctional, shallow egotists, the film was also banned in fascist countries Germany, Italy, Spain, and the USSR, and, later, Nazi occupied France. - See more at: https://www.royalbooks.com/pages/book...

D.W. Griffith: The American film master (Cinema classics)


Iris Barry - 1940
    Griffith: American Film Master' was the first in a monographic series by The Museum of Modern Art's foundling film curator, Iris Barry, to provide historical and aesthetic perspectives on key film collections in the Museum's care. The books were part of a coordinated program of activities that included the acquisition, restoration, and public exhibition of films, research and writing on the cinema, and the distribution of artistically important films to educational institutions. World War II ended this series of books just as it was beginning, making instant collector's items of the original limited editions. The present facsimile edition makes this sought after publication again available to fans and scholars of the silent film.This volume first appeared in conjunction with the Museum's landmark film exhibition, 'D.W. Griffith: The Art of the Motion Picture'. Both the book and the film program were groundbreaking efforts to present Griffith as a major artist of the twentieth century as well as the seminal artist of the cinema; on both counts the project has proven to be an unqualified success.'D.W. Griffith: American Film Master' is reissued as it first appeared in 1940, both to serve as a companion piece to the second volume in the series, Alistair Cooke's 'Douglas Fairbanks: The Making of a Screen Character', and to honour Iris Barry's prodigious achievement as a pioneer film researcher, writer, and exhibition curator.