Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!
We got you folks a high-class offering this week: Sunrise – A Song of Two Humans. Released in 1927, it’s the first American film from famed German director F.W. Murnau, and at the first ever Academy Awards won the Oscar for Best Unique and Artistic Picture (an award the Academy has given to no other movie since).
The film’s about … well, how do you describe the plot of Sunrise? It starts off as a suspense thriller, morphs into a painful marital drama, then shifts into being a romantic comedy, before going full melodrama at the end – all while following the same two characters over the course of a single day. That such wild pivots not only work, but work well, is due to visual storytelling being phenomenal.
Keeping dialogue to a minimum (even by the standards of a silent movie), the turbulent voyage of our two leads is told through expressive performances and cinematography that, even now, impresses with its sheer artistry and ability to stir up the emotions. What it must have felt like to see this in 1927, when so many of these camera techniques were new inventions, I can’t even imagine.
Normally, I’m not even a fan of this sort of low-concept drama flick, so if I’m urging you to see it, you know it must be something.
To match visual artistry with visual artistry, the only possible short that could accompany Sunrise is an offering from Fleischer Studios’ Out of the Inkwell series. “Jumping Beans” is a fine example of these cartoons not only pushing the anything-goes potential of animation, but having cartoon characters interact with live-action actors decades before Roger Rabbit was on the scene.
So, please, let’s slip into our finest duds, put on our fanciest monocles, and raise a glass of suitably classy/expensive booze, as we enjoy these stone-cold classics from the public domain!
Opening Cartoon:
Feature Presentation: