Patrick Stanbury Movies

Legendary film preservationist Kevin Brownlow (infamous for his 1982 restoration of Abel Gance's Napoléon) and Patrick Stanbury co-helm the affectionate cinematic homage Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic. As narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this documentary explores the life, legacy, and cultural contributions of director extraordinaire DeMille, widely regarded as the 20th-century equivalent of P.T. Barnum -- and hence, one of the greatest showmen in modern history. The film documents how DeMille became the first individual to define the perfect cinematic admixture to satisfy the taste of the average lay viewer: a combination of unearthly sets, magnificent costumes, and earth-shaking spectacles, cloaked in an oxymoronic blend of two-dimensional moralizing and envelope-pushing sexuality -- in other words, the very same formula still employed by Hollywood, decades after DeMille's death. A number of top American filmmakers turn up to offer insights into DeMille's craft, including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, as well as actors including Charlton Heston and Angela Lansbury; several of DeMille's family members also shed light on the director's private life and personal relationships. The film discusses DeMille's childhood and early theatrical career, his co-establishment of Paramount Pictures, and his production of some of Hollywood's most magnificent spectacles, including Cleopatra (1934), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The Ten Commandments (1956, for which, Brownlow and Stanbury interpolate stunning behind-the-scenes footage of the parting of the Red Sea). Brownlow received the coveted Mel Novikoff Award in the year of this film's release. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

One of the most compelling strokes of fate in the past millenium is the fact that the 20th century's most hated dictator and most beloved film comedian were born within four days of each other in 1889. Although Adolf Hitler probably never gave Charlie Chaplin a second thought during his rise to power, Chaplin was obsessed with the notion that there was a larger and more profound meaning to the coincidence of his age proximity to Hitler--not to mention the fact that both men became famous by sporting postage-stamp moustaches. In 1939, Chaplin inaugurated production of his first 100% all-talking picture, in which he would abandon his familiar "Little Tramp" character in favor of two new screen alter-egos: A Jewish barber in the fictional European country of Tomania, and the barber's exact lookalike, the infamous dictator Adenoid Hynkel, aka "Der Phooey." Utilizing rare color behind the scenes footage discovered by Chaplin's daughter Victoria, and complemented with commentary from Charlie's coworkers, contemporary filmmakers and movie historians, this one-hour documentary detailed the making of The Great Dictator, Chaplin's devastating (and often devastatingly funny) satire of the Nazis. Among the many topics covered in the film is Hollywood's frightened reaction to Chaplin's daring move (at a time when appeasing rather than openly opposing Hitler was the order of the day), and Hitler's own reaction upon seeing the completed film himself. Assembled by the brilliant historian and silent-movie preservationist Kevin Brownlow, The Tramp and the Dictator represented a collaboration between Britain's Photoplay Productions and Germany's Spiegel TV. In America, the film was first broadcast on October 1, 2002, as the vanguard of a TCM cable network retrospective of Hitler-related films and cartoons, beginning with the new, digitally restored version of 1940's The Great Dictator. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Two of the most renowned film historian-archivists, Kevin Brownlow (Abel Gance's Napoleon) and David Gill, team up for this epic three-part documentary on the rise and fall of David Wark "D.W." Griffith, still widely regarded by many as the most brilliant and intuitive filmmaker in modern history. Brownlow and Gill draw on meticulously-chosen film clips to illustrate how Griffith virtually reinvented filmmaking from 1908-1916, during his tenure at the Biograph film studios, courtesy of revolutionary advancements in cinematographic and acting techniques that enabled him to single-handedly define film grammar. Gill and Brownlow reveal how this culminated in Griffith's technically marvelous yet morally indefensible epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), an ironic development given Hollywood's complete abandonment of Griffith with the advent of sound. Revealing interviews with heavyweights including Lillian Gish, Karl Brown, Blanche Sweet, cinematographer Stanley Cortez and others supplement the material. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide