NitrateVille Radio: Recent Episodes
Michael Gebert
For fans of classic movies, talking with authors, archivists, filmmakers, musicians and others doing work with our film heritage. From NitrateVille.com, the classic film discussion site.
Pamela Hutchinson, author of The Curse of Queen Kelly • Rob Farr, author of Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew (72:12)
Vintage Directors! Christine Leteux, author of Maurice Tourneur: Weaver of Dreams • David Meuel, author of Assembly-Line Auteur: The Pre-Code Films of William Wellman (96:51)
Michael Gebert, author of The Chicago Way: An Oral HIstory of Chicago Dining • J.B. Kaufman, author of Worlds to Conquer: The Art and Making of Walt Disney's Fantasia • Thomas Gladysz: Focus on Louise Brooks (92:26)
Scott Eyman, author of Joan Crawford: A Woman's Face • Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers , founders of the Deaf Crocodile label (110:12)
Top Ten in Physical Media 2025 with Bruce Calvert • Pre-Code Essentials, with Danny Reid (94:26
Restoring Beau Geste (1926), with Robert Harris and James Mockoski • 2025 Pordenone Silent Film Festival Report, with Lokke Heiss and Lea Stans • Six Degrees of Charlie Chaplin, with Steve Massa and Uli Ruedel (93:26)
The Hitchcock Episode: Steven C. Smith, author of Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship & Film Scores That Changed Cinem • Stephen Rebello, author of Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock's Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers on a Train (105:49)
!23: Emily Laurance on The Cleveland Silent Film Festival and Colloquium • Lukas Foerster on Champagne and Caviar: Four Weimar Comedies • Ben Urish and Rick Geary on The Movie Girls, by Jan Wahl (87:38)
122: Richard Koszarski on Made in New Jersey • Dennis Doros on New Jersey, Queen Kelly and Missing Movies • Lon Davis on Edward Everett Horton (98:24)
Rob Byrne on San Francisco Film Preserve • Lisa Stein Haven, author of Early Buster Keaton: From the Vaudeville Stage to Comique Films, 1899-1920 (84:28)
Eddie Muller, author of Dark City Dames • Ben Model, author of The Silent Film Universe
Mary Mallory, author of First Women of Hollywood • Thomas J. Slater, author of June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary (87:33)
Nasty Women Return! Karen Pearlman on Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy • Rhea Combs on Oscar Micheaux: The Complete Collection • Katie Gee Salisbury, author of Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong (92:56)
Steve Massa on a Roscoe Arbuckle DVD/Blu-ray Kickstarter • Noah Isenberg, author of Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins (92:14)
Dave Kehr on MoMA's To Save and Project preservation festival • Thomas Christensen on the Copenhagen Silent Film Festival • Authors Michael Benson and Craig Singer on Moguls: The Lives and Times of Hollywood Pioneers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck (90:33)
Top Ten in Physical Media 2024, with Bruce Calvert • James Harrison on South West Silents & Film Noir UK • Burt Kearns on Shemp! (96:58)
Josh Frank, creator of Silents Synced • Pordenone Festival Report 2024, with Lokke Heiss • Thomas Waksh on pioneering art director Ben Carré (93:32)
Michael F. Blake, author of The Cavalry Trilogy: John Ford, John Wayne, and the Making of Three Classic Westerns • Kathy Fuller Seeley on Francis Ford • Thomas Reeder, author of Poverty Row Royalty: The Films of Producer Sigmund Neufeld and His Brother, Director Sam Newfield (90:33)
Bruce Calvert on the new restoration of Napoleon (1927) • Kurt Jensen, author of Peerless: Rouben Mamoulian, Hollywood and Broadway • Christopher S. Connelly, author of Helen Morgan: The Original Torch Singer and Ziegfeld's Last Star (91:14)
Dave Glass on silent comedian Monty Banks • Jeffrey L. Carrier on silent star Patsy Ruth Miller (78:25)
Vitagraph Comedies, with Rob Stone, George Willeman and Lynanne Schweighofer • Peter Flynn, director of Film is Dead. Long Live Film! • Lon Davis, author of Stumbling Into Film History (99:54)
Donald Brackett, author of Double Solitaire: The Films of Brackett and Wilder • Alain Silver and James Ursini, authors of From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir (99:22)
Bryony Dixon on Victorian Film • Maggie Hennefeld on Women and Death by Laughter • Sam Dunn on the Deadly Doings of Tod Slaughter (87:20)
Donald Bogle, author of Lena Horne: Goddess Reclaimed • Tracey Goessel on restoring William S. Hart • Pamela Hutchinson, author of BFI Film Classics: The Red Shoes (96:44)
Top Ten in Physical Media 2023, with Bruce Calvert and Michael Gebert • Foster Hirsch, author of Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties, on Movie Culture in the 50s (97:11)
NitrateVille Radio Ep. 104: Pordenone 2023 Festival Report, with Lokke Heiss • Mindy Johnson on Bessie Mae Kelley, The "Only" Woman Animator • Scott Eyman, author of Charlie Chaplin vs. America (108:27)
Jonny Best on the Northern Silent Film Festival • Lisa Stein Haven, author of The Early Years of Charlie Chaplin: Final Shorts and First Features • Sarah Royal, author of AKA Lucy: The Dynamic and Determined Life of Lucille Ball (96:04)
Rob Byrne on Restoring Foolish Wives • Eddie Muller on Kid Noir and Cocktail Noir Books • Rob Kozlowski, author of Becoming Nick and Nora (100:27)
The 100th Episode: David Hammond Interviews Michael Gebert • Most Frequent Guest Ben Model on Tom Mix and More • Susan Delson on Soundies and African-American Performers (103:04)
The Warner Bros. Episode, with Mark A. Vieira, author of Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling, and Chris Yogerst, author of The Warner Brothers (89:46)
Robert Harris and James Mockoski on The Johnstown Flood, Napoleon, Lawrence of Arabia and other restorations • The Stoogeum's Gary Lassin, author of A Tour De Farce (89:08)
David Pierce on the Library of Congress Festival of Film & Sound • Two New Silent Film Kickstarters by Ed Lorusso and Joe Harvat • William M. Drew on Pearl White (92:58)
Rob Stone on Victor Moore and His Klever Komedies • Domitor, with Tami Williams and Ian Christie • Mark Williams on the Media Ecology Project (89:07)
Slapstick Festival in Bristol, with director Chris Daniels • Norwegian Silent Comedian August Schøneman, with Snorre Smari Mathiesen • Author John Stangeland on Aline MacMahon (95:57)
Frank Thompson, author of The Compleat Beau Geste • Eric Grayson on Restoring The King of the Kongo, with Boris Karloff • Author Christine Leteux on a Studio in Occupied France (95:01)
Top Ten in Physical Media 2022, with Bruce Calvert • Steve Massa, author of Lame Brains and Lunatics 2 (99:40)
Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian, authors of Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont, the Fifth Marx Brother • Viva Hollywood author Luis I. Reyes • Burt Kearns, author of Lawrence Tierney, Hollywood's Real Life Tough Guy (97:19)
Pordenone 2022 Festival Report, with Lokke Heiss • Restoring the Unknown The Unknown, with George Eastman Museum's Peter Bagrov, Anthony L'Abbate and Gordon Nelson • Biographer Lara Gabrielle on Marion Davies (103:54)
How Elinor Glyn Changed Sex, with biographer Hilary A. Hallett • How Hollywood Changed Going to the Movies, with author Ross Melnick (100:58)
Cinema's First Nasty Women, with Co-Curators Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi • Scoring Cinema's First Nasty Women, with Dana Reason (82:02)
The Hidden History of Film Preservation with Richard Simonton • Jon Mirsalis on Rare Lon Chaney (119:24)
Biographer Jeffrey Spivak, author of Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley • Jack Theakston on New Abbott & Costello and 3-D Restorations Coming Soon (88:33)
86: Scott McGee on Hollywood's Greatest Stunts • Ed Lorusso on a Wallace Reid DVD Kickstarter by Michael Gebert
TCM Film Festival Returns, with Nora Fiore • Movies as Art: Poster Collector Dwight Cleveland (96:08)
Samantha Glasser on the Columbus Moving Picture Show • David B, Pearson on Comique Magazine • Julian David Stone, Author of "It's Alive!" (77:01)
Ben Model on Raymond Griffith, Marion Davies and More Silent Stars via Kickstarter • Eric Hoyt on the Golden Age of Hollywood Trade Papers (90:40)
Director Alison Strauss on the 12th Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Bo'ness, Scotland • Author David Crump on Fred Karno's Influence on Silent Comedy (82:23)
Dana Stevens, author of Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century • Farran Smith Nehme on 30s Dames at MoMA • Glenn Andreiev on Lost and Found Emulsion (88:11)
James Spinney, co-director of The Real Charlie Chaplin • Serge Bromberg on rediscovering Julien Duvivier in the 1920s (96:36)
Physical Media Top Ten of 2021, with Bruce Calvert • Jaime Weinman on the History of Looney Tunes (92:24)
Scott Eyman, author of 20th Century-Fox: Darryl F. Zanuck and the Creation of the Modern Film Studio • Thomas Reeder, author of Time is Money! The Century, Rainbow, and Stern Brothers Comedies of Julius and Abe Stern (77:08)
NitrateVille Radio Ep. 77: 2021 Pordenone Festival Report, with Lokke Heiss • Rediscovering Ellen Richter, with Philipp Stiasny and Oliver Hanley • Eric Hoyt on Media History Digital Library (103:07)
Rob Stone on Vim Comedies • Olympia Kiriakou on Becoming Carole Lombard • Christina Rice on the Magnificent Jane Russell (89:04)
Silent Movie Day, with Brandee Cox and Steven K. HIll • Eddie Muller on Film Noir's Dark City (86:58)
Ben Model on Edward Everett Horton comedies on DVD • Andrew A. Erish on Vitagraph: America's First Great Movie Studio • Stephen Horne on music for Silent Sirens (98:10)
Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, and Online, with Marianne Lewinsky • Kit Parker's 50 Years in Film (90:30)
Paramount SVP of Asset Management Andrea Kalas on Preservation in 2021 • Kat Ellinger on Mae West (86:32)
Brigitte Paulowitz on Searching for Chaplin's Shoulder Arms • Shelley Stamp on Lois Weber's Sensation Seekers • Noah Isenberg on Billy Wilder, Newspaperman (76:57)
69: Introducing The Classic Film Collective, with Kate Gabrielle and Jill Blake • Gillian Kelly on Tyrone Power • Kathleen Spaltro on Mary Astor (89:50)
68: A Year of The Silent Comedy Watch Party • William Wellman Jr. on His Father Wild Bill by Michael Gebert
Kelly Robinson on Legendary Jungle Hoax Film Ingagi • Stars Under the Nazis: Dr. Eddy von Mueller on Luis Trenker's The Kaiser of California • Olaf Möller on Hans Albers in Port of Freedom (87:23)
Jacqueline Braitman on Ida Koverman, the Woman Behind MGM's Throne • Kimberly Truhler on Film Noir Fashion (91:56)
Bruce Goldstein on The Naked City • Tommy Jose Stathes' Silent Cartoon Kickstarter • Arnold Leibovit on George Pal's Puppetoons (87:12)
Physical Media Top Ten of 2020, with Bruce Calvert • Philippe Garnier on Scoundrels, Spitballers and Screenwriters of the 1930s (86:00)
Yiddish actor-translator Allen Lewis Rickman on The Jewish Soul: Ten Classics of Yiddish Cinema • Ned Thanhouser on his family's silent film studio (90:56)
Scott Eyman, author of Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise • David J. Skal, author of Fright Favorites, 31 Movies To Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond (89:11)
The City Without Jews accompanists Donald Sosin and Alicia Svigals • Chris Yogerst, author of Hollywood Hates Hitler! • Laura Wagner, author of Hollywood's Hard Luck Ladies (86:55)
Chicago Film Archives on Finding a Lost Film • Jay Weissberg, Director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, on 2020's Virtual Online Festival • Theater Organist Dennis James and His Fall Tour (87:51)
Film scholar Anthony Slide on The Reginald Denny Collection from Kino Lorber, and on his career and 80+ books. (77:35)
Author Randy Skretvedt on Laurel & Hardy, and the new restorations from the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Kit Parker Films (89:49)
Jeffrey Mantor on Larry Edmunds Bookshop • Rena Kiehn on the Niles Film Museum's Chaplin Days and Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival • Steven C. Smith, author of Music by Max Steiner: The Epic Life of Hollywood's Most Influential Composer (89:27)
Raquel Stecher on blog Summer Reading Challenge • Christina Lane, author of Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock • Ed Hartman on Richard Lyford's 1938 Sci-Fi Home Movie As The Earth Turns (72:14)
UCLA Film and Television Archive Preservationist Scott MacQueen on Restoring Mystery of the Wax Museum • Author James Neibaur on William Beaudine, Auteur (75:58)
Wesleyan film professor emeritus Jeanine Basinger, author of The Movie Musical! (Knopf)
53: Author Donna Rifkind on Salka Viertel and 1930s Hollywood Emigrés in The Sun and Her Stars • Ben Model on Accompanying Socially Distanced Silents at The Silent Comedy Watch Party (84:02)
Bret Wood on the Golden Age of Exploitation Pictures • Michael Atkinson on Karel Zeman (75:59)
Author Sydney Ladensohn Stern on The Brothers Mankiewicz • Grave Markers for Forgotten Stars (76:25)
2019 Memoriam for Vintage Film People • Remembering Eileen Bowser • Steve Massa on Roscoe Arbuckle, Filmmaker (64:41)
Africa Screams Kickstarter, with Bob Furmanek and Ron Palumbo • Ray Faiola on Max Steiner Westerns • Terry Chester Shulman, author of The Costellos, Film's First Family (80:19)
Physical Media Top Ten of 2019, With Bruce Calvert • The Music Box House Organist Dennis Scott (86:31)
J.B. Kaufman on Fun and Fancy Free • Donna Hill's Photos of Rudolph Valentino • David Pierce on the 1927 Uncle Tom's Cabin (69:28)
Ken Winokur of The Alloy Orchestra • Arndt Pawelczik on the 2019 Bonn International Silent Film Festival (63:04)
Kino Lorber Episode, with Producer Bret Wood and Publicity Director Matt Barry • Kat Ellinger on Peter Pan (1924) (84:47)
Mike Kaplan on Lillian Gish and the Bowling Green State University Controversy • Tracey Goessel on The Biograph Project (70:38)
Ben Model on Douglas MacLean Kickstarter • John Soister on The Man Who Laughs and The Last Warning • Josh Mills on Ernie Kovacs (82:03)
Pre-Code Movies with Mark A. Vieira, author of Forbidden Hollywood: When Sin Ruled the Movies (71:07)
2019 TCM Film Festival, with Nitrate Diva Nora Fiore • Adina Hoffman, author of Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures (87:30)
San Francisco Silent Film Festival, with Anita Monga and Rob Byrne • Victoria Riskin on Fay Wray and Robert Riskin (72:24)
Restoring in 4K: Jack Theakston on Becky Sharp, from Kino Lorber, and Mike Pogorzelski and Heather Linville on Detour, from Criterion
Vince Giordano Remembers Ron Hutchinson of The Vitaphone Project • John Bengtson on Where Silent Comedy Was Shot (69:56)
Film archivist and distributor Serge Bromberg on the new Méliès Fairy Tales in Color from Flicker Alley, plus films from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and more (72:30)
Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, with curator Shelley Stamp and George Willeman of the Library of Congress (68:42)
Lokke Heiss on the 2018 Pordenone Silent Film Festival • Author David J. Skal on horror films on the 25th anniversary of his book The Monster Show (69:46)
Pamela B. Green, director of Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché • Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films on Strange Victory and I Am Cuba (75:56)
Making Silent DVDs and Blu-Rays: Ed Lorusso on kickstarting The Cossack Whip • Rodney Sauer on scoring Old Ironsides (67:22)
Fritzi Kramer of Movies Silently on Kidnapped (1917) • Darren Nemeth on How to Film Moving Pictures in the 1910's • Patricia Eliot Tobias on the 24th Buster Keaton Convention • Tom Lisanti on Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies (74:31)
Filmmaker Rüdiger Suchsland talks about his documentary on the slick, sometimes subversive propaganda films of the Nazi era, Hitler's Hollywood. (71:41)
Farran Smith Nehme on Dietrich, Swanson, Crawford and Other Sirens • How John Harvey Rescued Cinerama (62:20)
Richard Barrios on Turner Classic Movies: Must-See Musicals: 50 Show Stopping Movies We Can't Forget • Scott Eyman on Hank and Jim: The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart
Cinevent's 50th • Leonard Maltin, Hooked on Hollywood • Michael Schlesinger Presents Biffle & Shooster
NitrateVille Radio Ep. 23 | TCM Film Festival with Nitrate Diva Nora Fiore • Ben Model on Undercranking and Alice Howell • Dave Kehr on Fox Precodes at MOMA
Douglas Fairbanks, with biographer Tracey Goessel, author of The First King of Hollywood
James Layton and David Pierce, authors of King of Jazz: Paul Whiteman's Technicolor Revue
Toronto Silent Film Festival, with Shirley Hughes • The Silent Treatment, with Brandee Cox and Steven Hill • James L. Neibaur on Silent W.C. Fields
German Expressionism | Pamela Hutchinson on Pandora's Box • Henry Nicolella on Frank Wisbar, director of Ferryman Maria
The Kansas Silent Film Festival, with organizer Denise Morrison • William Paul, author of When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition and the Evolution of American Film
Collector and silent film accompanist Jon Mirsalis on a new Lon Chaney DVD, and a lost Laurel and Hardy pie fight.
Vanda Krefft, author of The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox
Lokke Heiss on the Pordenone Silent Film Festival 2017 • Thomas Reeder, author of Henry "Pathe" Lehrman and the Birth of Silent Comedy • Robert S. Bader, author of Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage
NitrateVille Radio | Ep. 13: Jerry Beck on Porky Pig 101 and Captain Marvel • "Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story" With Filmmaker Daniel Raim
Saving Colleen Moore: Joe Yranski on her life and Her Wild Oat • Eric Grayson on Little Orphant Annie (63:46)
Cinecon classic film festival in Hollywood, with organizers Stan Taffel and Michael Schlesinger • Beggars of Life (1928), starring Wallace Beery and Louise Brooks, with author Thomas Gladysz (48:42)
Ben Model, silent film accompanist for the Museum of Modern Art and others, on new crowdfunding models for silent film releases like Marion Davies in When Knighthood Was in Flower (63:00)
Steve Massa, author of Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy | Art Pierce, director of Capitolfest in Rome, New York (61:45)
Ep. 7: Strange Places To Find Films! Bill Morrison, filmmaker of Dawson City: Frozen Time • Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph, authors of A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies (62:35)
70mm, with The Music Box Theatre's Julian Antos • Classic Serial Daredevils of the Red Circle, with Michael Schlesinger and Thad Komorowski (46:50)
J.B. Kaufman, author of Pinocchio: The Making of the Disney Epic and other books on the films of Walt Disney (57:43)
The Festival Episode: Mostly Lost at the Library of Congress Packard Campus, with Rob Stone and Rachel DelGaudio, and Cinevent in Columbus, Ohio, with Michael Haynes (42:42)
Nitrate Diva Nora Fiore on the TCM Classic Film Festival • Dennis Doros of Milestone Films on Lois Weber and Shoes and The Dumb Girl of Portici (48:00)
The Nitrate Picture Show festival at the George Eastman Museum, with Jared Case and Deb Stoiber • San Francisco Silent Film Festival director Rob Byrne on Behind the Door (1919), now on video from Flicker Alley (45:55)
In the inaugural episode of this podcast about classic films, we talk to John McElwee, author of The Art of Selling Movies, a new book about the history of movie ads from silent days to the 1960s. (42:15)