A 1926 FILM FROM THE MAN WHO MADE HÄXAN SURVIVED WHEN MOST OF HIS AMERICAN MOVIES DIDN’T

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The Los Angeles Silent Film Festival screened The Devil’s Circus last night at the Los Feliz 3 with a live score.
That title becomes considerably more interesting when you notice the director:
Benjamin Christensen.
The Danish filmmaker had already made the astonishing 1922 witchcraft/documentary/horror hybrid Häxan before Hollywood brought him to America.
The Devil’s Circus, released by MGM in 1926 and starring Norma Shearer, was Christensen's first American feature. It is also one of only four of his seven U.S. films known to survive. �
Screenline Films +1
The movie concerns a young trapeze performer, a pickpocket and a lurid circus world—exactly the kind of melodrama silent cinema could turn into nightmare architecture.
Last night's presentation paired it with the 1920 short Cinderella Cinders and included live musical accompaniment. �
Screenline Films +1
Documented: director, survival status, screening and festival.
Interpretation: Christensen's American work provides a missing bridge between the occult-art-film insanity of Häxan and Hollywood studio melodrama.
Credibility: Strong film-history documentation.
Research value: Very high precisely because so much of Christensen's American output disappeared.
Film history is frequently constructed from masterpieces.
Sometimes the better question is:
What survived the fire?

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