Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Go Forth Into Darkness on Silent Leather Wings

A filmmaker, Andre Perkowski by name, has undertaken to do silent film versions of tales of our beloved Dark Knight, The Bat-Man. In much the same manner as Roger Alford who re-cut RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK into a serial adventure, Andre is mining public domain silent movies for his filmed material of the Bat-Man including (in his own words):

The Penalty (1920), The Blackbird (1926), Nosferatu (1920), The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), The Golem (1920), Batman and Robin (1949 serial - having milked The Bat, I'm forced to scavenge, degrade, and repurpose - De-Robin-ing along the way.), Haxan (1922), Destiny (1922), Fantômas - À l'ombre de la guillotine (1913), Juve contre Fantômas (1913), Waxworks (1924), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Alice in Wonderland (1903), L'Inferno (1911), Hans Richter 20s films, and assorted 20s newsreels

Here are the first three adventures Andre has conjured up:







This reminds me of an "article" I wrote long ago about how things would have been very different in the Bat-man mythos if serial director William Witney (Zorro's Fighting Legion, Spy Smasher, Adventures of Captain Marvel) had done what he had threatened, and moved over to Columbia (where The Batman first drew breath as a serial) from his beloved Republic studios.

Hmmm...
(Andre meet Roger and vice versa. Have I got a job for you two...)

1 comment:

Roger Alford said...

Bravo! Most impressive! As a big fan of silent movies, it was cool picking out the various clips. Excellent work. I look forward to more.