Chaplin -- The Man Who Directed A Woman of Paris -- September 17, 2023

Los Angeles Times, 12-September-1923

A Woman of Paris was a dramatic feature directed by Charlie Chaplin. He did not appear in the movie, except in a cameo. Edna Purviance played the title character. Adolphe Menjou played the well-dressed antagonist. 

Los Angeles Times, 20-September-1923

100 years ago this month, A Woman of Paris opened at the Criterion Theater in Los Angeles. "it will smash all sacred conventions." The note in fine print says "Charles Chaplin does not personally appear in "A Woman of Paris." Chaplin did arrange the stage prologue that went on before each showing of the movie. 

Motion Picture News, 08-September-1923

A Woman of Paris opened in Los Angeles to good reviews. 

Film Daily, 28-September-1926

Chaplin travelled to New York to see how audiences reacted to A Woman of Paris

Paths of Glory -- May 28, 2018

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Happy Memorial Day, everyone. I thought this was a good day to write about the 1957 film Paths of Glory, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas.

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Kirk Douglas played Colonel Drax, who is ordered to lead his men on a suicide mission.  The first wave is nearly wiped out.  The second wave refuses to leave the trenches.  A French general decides to try 100 men for cowardice and execute them.  A higher-ranking general, played by Adolphe Menjoy, tells him to select three men.

Three men, one from each company, are chosen, each for no good reason.  Dax tries to represent them at their trial, but it is a farce.  The men are shot the next day.

Paths of Glory is a painful movie to watch.  It was not shown in France until 1975.

Adolphe Menjou 125 -- February 18, 2015

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Suave actor Adolphe Menjou was born 125 years ago today, on 18-February-1890 in the little French village of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  After serving in World War One, he appeared in many silent movies.  He had no trouble moving on to talkies.  He was always known for his elegant dress.  His politics were reactionary.  He talked to the House Un-American Activities Committee about supposed Communist influence in Hollywood. 

I don't know how many of his movies I have seen.  I know I have seen him in Chaplin's A Woman of Paris, Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle, Lewis Milestone's The Front Page (one of my favorites), Frank Borzage's A Farewell to Arms, Little Miss Marker, Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935, Leo McCarey and Harold Lloyd's The Milky Way, Wild Bill Wellman's A Star is Born and Roxie Hart, Greg La Cava's Stage Door, George Marshall's The Goldwyn Follies, Rouben Mamoulian's Golden Boy, William A Seiter's You Were Never Lovelier, Frank Capra's State of the Union, Edward Dmytryk's The Sniper, and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory.  I have probably left out as many movies as I have mentioned. 

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