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Desert Nights with John Gilbert and Mary Nolan: Enjoyable Sahara-set adventure – which happened to be Gilbert's last silent film – dares to ask the age-old philosophical question, “Is there honor among thieves?” John Gilbert late silent adventure 'Desert Nights' asks a question for the ages: Is there honor among thieves? The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release Desert Nights arrived in theaters at the tail end of the silent era. By 1929, audiences wanted lots of singing and dancing – talkies! And they might have been impatient to hear John Gilbert's speaking voice. I can't tell whether sound would have improved it or not, but Desert Nights has a lot of title cards filled with dialogue. Directed by the prolific William Nigh,[1] the film tells the story of diamond thieves who get stranded in the Sahara and almost die of thirst. (At first, Desert Nights' was appropriately titled Thirst.) Cinematographer James Wong Howe perfectly captures the hot, dry...

'San Andreas' movie with Dwayne Johnson. 'San Andreas' movie box office: $100 million domestic milestone today As the old saying (sort of) goes: If you build it, they will come. Warner Bros. built a gigantic video game, called it San Andreas, and They have come to check out Dwayne Johnson perform miraculous deeds not seen since ... George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, released two weeks earlier. Embraced by moviegoers, hungry for quality, original storylines and well-delineated characters – and with the assistance of 3D surcharges – the San Andreas movie debuted with $54.58 million from 3,777 theaters on its first weekend out (May 29-31) in North America. Down a perfectly acceptable 52 percent on its second weekend (June 5-7), the special effects-laden actioner collected an extra $25.83 million, trailing only the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Statham comedy Spy, (with $29.08 million) as found at Box Office Mojo.* And that's how this original movie – it's not officially a remake,...

The Crowd

Directed by King Vidor

Written by King Vidor and John V.A. Weaver

USA, 1928

The Crowd is that rarest of all Hollywood productions – a studio-made film that was never intended to make money. Released by industry leader MGM in March 1928, this magnificent cinematic treatise on the pitfalls of American Dreaming was greenlit by F. Scott Fitzgerad’s “Last Tycoon” himself, wunderkind Irving Thalberg, who believed that true success in the entertainment industry entailed tossing the occasional “pure prestige” production at the public, whether they wanted it or not. Made at the height of America’s dizzying 1920s business boom, The Crowd is perhaps even more timely today than it was 85 years ago, and Saturday’s Tsff screening (endlessly enhanced by the improvisational piano work of accompanist Laura Silberberg) proved that it has lost none of its capacity to dazzle and unsettle contemporary viewers, in equal measure.

King Vidor’s...