The Female Gaze: Sight & Sound magazine's selection of 100 overlooked films directed by women
The first movie in the list The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg is listed as being directed as Sidney Olcott, a man. Jane Gaines who suggested the title wrote, "Although Sidney Olcott is traditionally listed as the sole director, we need to remember that when the film was made, moving picture work was highly collaborative and secreen credits did not yet appear, so advancing Gene Gauntier under the categoy of 'director' of any of her Kalem Company films is intended to challenge asusmptions about early cinema 'job' descriptions.
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- DirectorSidney OlcottStarsGene GauntierThe opening scene of our story shows a Union powder wagon making its way down the road convoyed by a company of mounted Union soldiers. The route of this wagon is reported to Confederate headquarters by one of its spies. Nan, a girl frequently employed by the department of the Confederate army, is called to headquarters and instructed to secure the destruction of the enemy's ammunition train just reported. Nan is fitted out with a Union uniform, mounted on a fast horse and sent on her journey, previously provided with a forged order supposedly signed by a Union general which authorizes her to pass through the lines. Nan succeeds in getting through the Union lines and quickly locates the ammunition train, taking up the march with them. When night arrives the convoy goes into camp, posts its sentinels for no especial fear of danger as they note they are well within the Union lines. Nan, however, watching her opportunity, slips up behind the lone sentry placed over the ammunition wagon and, having rendered him unconscious, drags him away from the wagon and takes his place. Watching her chance, Nan plants a dynamite cartridge under the wagon, lights a fuse and makes a quick run out of the danger zone. Suddenly there is a loud explosion and all there is left of the ammunition wagon is a heap of charred embers. Attention is drawn to Nan while she is attempting to escape owing to a crash in the underbrush caused by tripping her foot and falling. A pursuing party is sent after the daring spy who has had the hardihood to perform such a daring deed. Closely pursued by Union soldiers, Nan rushes through the underbrush on foot, finally reaching a nearby river where she plunges in, diving underwater and remains there until the Union soldiers retire from the scene. Coming up to the surface, she quickly swims ashore and makes her way rapidly to the Confederate army headquarters where she reports the successful ending of her mission, then on to her home to relieve her mother s anxiety.
- DirectorPhillips SmalleyLois WeberStarsLois WeberVal PaulDouglas GerrardAbandoned by her maidservant in an isolated country house, a mother must protect herself and her baby from an invading tramp while her husband races home in a stolen car to save them.
- DirectorAlice GuyStarsCarlyle BlackwellDoris KenyonEdgar NortonAn abused woman finds love in the arms of a famous novelist.
- DirectorKarin SwanströmStarsEinar AxelssonMagda HolmNils AréhnKatja's father won't buy her a new gown, so she wears her brother's tailcoat to the ball. This scandalizes the society in town, until she is forgiven by the town's matriarch.
- DirectorGermaine DulacStarsAlex AllinLucien BatailleGenica AthanasiouObsessed with a general's woman, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.
- DirectorElinor GlynStarsCarl BrissonElissa LandiHelen HayeAn heiress poses as a marquise's companion to avoid fortune hunters.
- DirectorDorothy ArznerStarsSylvia SidneyFredric MarchAdrianne AllenA drunken newspaperman is rescued from his alcoholic haze by an heiress whose love sobers him up and encourages him to write a play, but he lapses back into dipsomania.
- DirectorEsther EngStarsYee-Man TsoHok-Sing WongMoon QuanIn San Francisco, widower Jien-Sien Ho, known to the Chinese community as Gin Man, worries that his 16-year-old daughter Chain-Ying spends too much time at the Chinese Opera. Nevertheless, Duck Sook, a salesman in Jien-Sien's shop, takes Chain-Ying to see Fay-Tien Wong, an actor from China, perform. After the show, Wong invites Chain-Ying to the Golden Gate Music Club for a party and the girl asks him for singing lessons. Chain-Ying and Wong begin to spend time together and Chain-Ying's friend, Sia-Lien Ho, tells Jien-Sien about his daughter's excursions with the actor and the fact that she has been missing school. Jien-Sien confronts Chain-Ying, who insists that in America, fathers have no rights over their daughters. When Chain-Ying says she loves Wong, Jien-Sien disowns her and then blames Duck Sook for his daughter's infidelity. Wong tells Chain-Ying that she must try to understand the old people's ways and then agrees to marry her, hoping that her father will now accept them. When Duck Sook tries to intervene on the couple's behalf, however, Jien-Sien says that he will never forgive them. The enraged father then goes to the theater owner and tells him to deport Wong, and the owner agrees not to renew the singer's contract, which is soon to expire. Several months later, Wong returns home one night and announces that he must return to China. Worried about his bride, who is now pregnant, he tells her that he will send for her when he has settled. Meanwhile, Duck Sook asks Jien-Sien to forgive his pregnant, lonely daughter, but he refuses. Mao Lee, Jien-Sien's cook, takes pity on Chain-Ying, gives her money and attends the birth of the baby girl. For his disloyalty, Jien-Sien fires Mao-Lee, who joins Duck Sook in taking over a Chinese laundry so that they can support Chain-Ying's baby after Chain-Ying's sudden death. Duck Sook and Mao Lee give the baby a Chinese name, Loy Lo, and an American name, Lulu, and when the girl grows up, Duck Sook teaches her Chinese dances and instills in her a love of the theater. When a benefit concert and party is organized for Chinese war refugees, Lulu wishes to perform, and Duck Sook and Lulu both audition and receive parts. Lulu has a supporting role in an opera with a visiting star, Sing Kuo, but when Duck Sook must find the traditional dress that is required for her performance, he discovers that all the stores are sold out of it. Duck Sook steals a gown, and later encounters the woman from whom he stole it. She is understanding, however, and agrees to lend the garment to Lulu. During the show, it is revealed that Sing Kuo is really Wong, Lulu's father, and Duck Sook introduces the singer to his daughter and then to her grandfather, who has donated three-thousand dollars to the cause. Jien-Sien greets Lulu warmly and all shake hands and return to Jien-Sien's shop to celebrate their reunion.
- DirectorKay ManderDocumentary on the problems of housing in Britain after the end of the Second World War.
- DirectorWanda JakubowskaStarsWanda BartównaHuguette FagetTatyana GuretskayaFemale prisoners of various ethnic background struggle to survive the hardships of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
- DirectorEdith CarlmarStarsClaus WieseBjørg Riiser-LarsenEva BerghThe story of a working man who has a gorgeous fiancee but she falls for a rich older woman - who turns out to be a femme fatale.
- DirectorIda LupinoStarsMala PowersTod AndrewsRobert ClarkeA young woman who has just become engaged has her life completely shattered when she is raped while on her way home from work.
- DirectorMatilde LandetaStarsMiroslavaErnesto AlonsoElda PeraltaLife is hard for a humble young woman, who arrives in the capital, and is forced to prostitute herself against her will.
- DirectorWendy ToyeStarsAlan BadelCameron HallGeoffrey BayldonA strangely-garbed and eccentric-acting stranger arrives in a small English town. But, after several days on being in the town, the citizens accept him as a harmless, though a bit daft, member of the community. He then pays a visit to the town's leading citizen and reveals himself as a man with the perfect plan for murder.
- DirectorMargaret TaitStarsMargaret TaitA short film from Margaret Tait capturing the daily life of her mother, Ga.
- DirectorMuriel BoxStarsStanley HollowayKathleen HarrisonNaunton WayneAfter the Government decides to build a Festival of Britain exhibition site, everything goes to plan, all except the fact that the main road and the pedestrian subway into the site, are blocked by a little corner shop, which is owned and run by a Mr. Lord and his family. The Lords refuse to be bought off, and decline the compensation offered by the authorities. The police and the bailiffs try to evict them, only to come under fire from the family, who have barricaded themselves inside the shop.
- DirectorKinuyo TanakaStarsYumeji TsukiokaRyôji HayamaJunkichi OrimotoFumiko, mother of two children and wife of an unfaithful man who shows a low self esteem, shares her family life with her asleep vocation as a poetess. The beginning of her successful literary career coincides with her divorce and the development of a serious illness: a breast cancer, which leads her to lose her breasts. In the last stage of her life she meets a young journalist arrived from Tokyo, an admirer of her work, who want to write a story on her life. Both live a secret love history.
- DirectorLorenza MazzettiDenis HorneStarsMichael AndrewsEduardo PaolozziVali MyersTwo dockers, both deaf and dumb, stand together.
- DirectorJacqueline AudryStarsDarry CowlPierre MondyLino VenturaAgathe, a sweet hitch-hiker, is en route to the Riviera. She meets many men on her way.
- DirectorAna MariscalStarsJosé Antonio MejíasMaribel MartínÁngel DíazA boy is separated for the summer from his girlfriend by 100 kilometers' distance.
- DirectorJoan LittlewoodStarsJames BoothBarbara WindsorRoy KinnearAfter 2 years at sea, Charlie comes home to find his house demolished, wife Maggie gone, living with married Bert and their toddler. Charlie leaves a trail of mayhem as he tries to sort things out.
- DirectorYuliya SolntsevaStarsEvgeniy SamoylovVladimir GoncharovEvgeniy BondarenkoAn abstract depiction of the childhood of Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
- DirectorLarisa ShepitkoStarsMayya BulgakovaSergey NikonenkoZhanna BolotovaA fascinating and human portrayal of a once-famous fighter pilot and loyal Stalinist named Nadezhda Petrovna. Now a 41-year-old provincial schoolmistress, she has so internalized the military ideas of service and obedience that she cannot adjust to life in peacetime.