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Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal. (1914)

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  “In picturing this event an odd character discovered that motion pictures were being taken and it became impossible to keep him away from the camera.” It’s strangely appropriate that this should be the first intertitle of the first film to be released that featured Charlie Chaplin’s immortal character: The Tramp.  From his very first appearance, primitive though it is, he is undeniably engaging, though there is nothing in  Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal.  to suggest the character was endearing enough to be a long-term fixture, let along the icon he became. Considering Chaplin himself would go on to appear in a staggering 35 films over the next 12 months for Keystone, it seems it was just as impossible to keep him away from the camera. But this is the place it all started for The Little Tramp. Well over a century has now passed since the Keystone comedies producer Mack Sennett decided to make a short film with director Henry Lehrman and new actor Charles Chaplin at the Kid Auto Races o
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Le Silence de la mer (1949)

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"Can duty ever mean accepting the crime?" Many films have a fairly straightforward production process, following well-trod paths ensuring things running smoothly from inception through to the film's final release. Some, however, can have a truly tumultuous time, and it's the sign of a great filmmaker that they can deal with all of the obstacles that are presented to them, and not only prevent them from ruining the film, but use it as motivation to ensure they completely dedicate themselves to try and produce the best possible film. Watching the great French Resistance film Le Silence de la mer it's not at all apparent that there were any production issues at all, but in reality director Jean-Pierre Melville had almost insurmountable problems to contend with. And that's before the cameras had even started rolling. The film is an adaptation of an illegal novel written by Jean Bruller (under the pseudonym of Vercors) at the height of the German occup
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

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At the start of the 1950s, there were very few science-fiction films which dealt with the perceived threat to Earth from other planets and alien species. There were a few right at the birth of cinema, such as Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon (1902) and R.W. Paul's The '?' Motorist , and over the next few decades a few isolated films such as Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon (1929) appeared, but the subject wasn't particularly popular with the public until cinema was into its sixth decade. Part of the reason was that special effects weren't up to much, and usually if the effects simply weren't a distraction it was considered a success, even at the time it was too easy to accidentally create laughter rather than fear due to the limitations of effects. Also, with two devastating  world wars in the meantime, people had enough to be worrying about with Nazis and fascism, without adding aliens to the list. But in the 50s there was a huge boom in these sci
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

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"You laugh at my big belly but you don't know how I got it! You laugh at my mustache but you don't know why I grew it!" The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp   was the first true classic that came out of the fruitful partnership of Michael Powell, who took up directing responsibilities, and Emeric Pressburger who wrote and produced the film. After cutting their teeth on war-films such as   The Spy in Black   (1939) and  46th Parallel   (1941) by 1943 they were keen to take on something more substantial than a typical World War II British propaganda film. Here they managed to fit in two world wars, the Boer War, and along the way called into question the generals whose dated tactics had caused Britain to become embroiled in so much devastation, as well as demonstrate just how outdated and ultimately futile the English gentlemen's code of conduct was. Unsurprisingly, Winston Churchill was furious at the film's barely-concealed message, but looking back on it n
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Dial M for Murder (1954)

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By 1954 Alfred Hitchcock's reputation was still growing. He was accustomed to receiving generally positive reviews and was one of the most successful directors working in Hollywood at the time. However his next film, Dial M for Murder , would ignite what was to be the golden age of the veteran filmmaker's career, and over the next decade he would create films like Vertigo , North by Northwest and Psycho and influence cinema like no other director before or since. But in 1954 Hitchcock was short on ideas. He'd intended for his follow-up to the previous year's I Confess to be based on a 1948  novel, The Bramble Bush , by David Duncan. The story, which Hitchcock had been working on adapting since before starting production on I Confess , was the same basic thread he'd used before, a 'wrong-man' tale in which a fugitive is forced to assume the identity of a murder suspect. After Warner Bros. had taken exception to the left-wing politics of the story and
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La Grande Illusion (1937)

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By 1937 French filmmaker Jean Renoir was 43 years old and had made 21 films (a number of which were short films), going right back to the halcyon silent days of 1924. Despite moderate success in his homeland with films such as La Chienne (1931) and Toni (1935), his name was still virtually unknown outside of France. In 1937 all that changed with the release of La Grande Illusion , winning the director numerous accolades, including the distinction of being the first foreign film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. As the years have gone on its reputation has only grown and it is now widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, and has been the subject of countless articles, reviews and books. The film is set during the First World War (then still known as the Great War), and begins when two French aviators, Captain de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) are shot down and captured by the respected German aviator Captain v
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The Red Balloon (1956)

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The best "children's films" should be accessible to both children and adults, and certainly in recent cinema the Pixar films have been a great example of this cross-generational appeal. Children love them because they can relate to the characters in the film and they tell a good story, but the best children's films are equally adored by adults because it takes them back to a more innocent time, and they can often relate on a different level to the story. When I was a kid I loved Don Bluth's animation An American Tail (1986) because it told a great adventure story, and also looked amazing. I didn't watch it again for years, but now I can appreciate that it's basically telling a story about Russian-Jewish immigrants starting a new life in the USA, only to discover that it's not quite the land of opportunity that they were expecting. Obviously when I was seven years old, this went right over my head: I was far too busy singing the catchy songs to con
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