MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: THE GREATEST QUESTION (1919)

LABELS

There are (currently) eight different LABELS to look for on MAKSQUIBS.

CONTEST - Win a review of any available DVD or 'Streamer' of your choice* if you're the first to answer a Q attached to one of the write-ups. Please refrain from either Googling or searching for an answer via IMdB or other web movie services! These contests are plenty easy to solve just be using your little grey cells.

RECOMMENDED - Meaning Strongly Recommended. A film that's good enough or historically important enough to demand viewing. WARNING: A few real stinkers are important enough to rate this label. And, on the other hand, lots of pretty good or pretty valuable films, don't quite measure up to our RECOMMENDED level. (See also UNIQUE, below.)

FAMILY FRIENDLY - CAREFUL!! Not necessarily a KIDDIE pic, but a film that school kids may get into if the subject interests. You'll find foreign & silent pics in here as the need to read the sub-titles & inter-titles to follow the narrative and get all the jokes does wonders for ADD types.

LINK - To quickly find any Write-Up that includes an InterNet Link of interest for that specific film.

UNIQUE - Films that may not fit into the usual critical categories of Good, Bad or Indifferent, (certainly not indifferent!), but are worth watching because there just ain't nothing like 'em. Sui generis pics. (Phooey generis if they don't work for you.)

READ ALL ABOUT IT - While there's a book or two (or ten dozen) closely related to just about any film you might think of, here's a specific book you might not have known about (or thought of) that opens a window on the chosen title.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY - A place to vent those out-of-left-field thoughts.

POSTER - Hmm, I bet you can figure this one out.

(Hint: most of the posters will enlarge if you click on them.)

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT - sort of like those EAT THIS, NOT THAT diet books only with film instead of food as the topic. Sometimes, the substitute pick isn't the obvious 'better' choice, but one of those 'flawed-but-interesting' films that often get left behind.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID - some easy to miss element worth noting.

SILENT FILM - hey, figure it out (LOL)

. . . and DOUBLE-BILL - a suggested second feature.

To bring up the complete list in any of these categories, simply click on one of the LABELS when you come across one and everything with that designation will come up when the page reloads. Just scroll down. There's also a LABELS list near the bottom of all the pages.

Please let me know if there are any other LABELS you'd like to see.

AND YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS BECAUSE . . . ?

Like just about everyone with an interest in the movies, I'm watching more films on DVD and going out to movie houses a lot less. Convenience trumps the better experience.
Of course, you lose audience interaction and the poor film now has to compete with all the comforts of home.
It's a bit like seeing Rembrandts & Titians in a book reproduction, or from posters with iffy color values, no texture or weight to the surface and the wrong dimensions . . . all while snacking on chips & soda. (Oops! You get that at your local cinema,too.)
The ease of instant movie gratification risks turning an art form (well, sometimes) into little more than low-grade eye-candy & mindfodder. So, maybe it's worthwhile to write a bit down on what we're all viewing, just to keep fully engaged.

DVDs: the latest opiate of the people meets the internet, where everyone's a critic.
God help us.

Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

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Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

THE GREATEST QUESTION (1919)

Before heading back East for two more classics (WAY DOWN EAST/’20; ORPHANS OF THE STORM/’21), but mostly disappointment & mediocrity, D.W. Griffith, the most inconstant of our indispensable film pioneers, ended his initial California run with this slightly ridiculous grab-bag of favorite themes. Essential viewing nonetheless, Griffith must have been trying to repeat the pastoral flow & charm of TRUE HEART SUSIE/’19* which also starred Lillian Gish & Robert Harron, his regular ingenues, in a story of marriage delayed; here without the gentle laughs, tears & tenderness. Instead, plot & suspense relentlessly pushed at us right from the prologue where Gish’s character, six at the time, witnesses the murder of an immigrant girl; loses her parents; is taken in by Bobby Harron’s sweet/loving parents; learns of the death at sea of Harron’s brother Ralph Graves; hears how Harron’s mom spoke to Graves’ ghost before they got the news*; gets hired as housekeeper to the odious couple who murdered that immigrant girl; is soon being whipped by the wife for breaking a dish and chased thru the house by her lust infatuated husband; and saves the Harron clan from eviction with the discovery of oil oozing from their farm land. Yikes! (You might say everything but the kitchen sink if only there wasn’t a kitchen sink in here!) Also, one ‘Darkie’ for comic relief. And will he think a thief hiding in the graveyard under a white sheet is a ghost? Hell yes. Will he be played by a White Guy in Black makeup? Hell yes. (Not stylized BlackFace either, but simply made up to play Black so he can do something comically inappropriate for a funny tag ending.) Yet this chance to see Griffith in pastoral mode (Billy Bitzer handling the atmospherically charged cinematography) and Harron in his final film under Griffith before his early death; as well as definite intimations of Griffith’s masterful WAY DOWN EAST which had Richard Barthelmess in a role Harron could have played, shouldn't be ignored.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *As mentioned, the enchanting (and BlackFace free) TRUE HEART SUSIE. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/02/true-heart-susie-1919.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *In case you’re wondering, that possible communication with the dead is the eponymous Question.

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ERNST LUBITSCH

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Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

THE GREATEST QUESTION (1919)

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