Every year, the TCFF always seems to have one old gem play at the State Theatre at noon on Saturday, with some sort of accompanying musicians. A couple years ago, we saw Metropolis with a live orchestra performing the score (really amazing) and this year, we were witness to one of Italy's first feature-length films, L'inferno, based on Dante's Divine Comedy, with an accompanying organist. He was very good, but gave a very Skeletons of Quinto-esque expository speech before the movie began. (Fans of A Mighty Wind will possibly get that reference.) The movie itself was fine, amazing for its time, no doubt, but pretty cheesy by today's standards.
I saw the movie with Dan and he mentioned that it was strange how some of the men got loincloths and others didn't. There didn't seem to be a reason behind who/why. Oh well. In addition, IMDb tells me that this was the first film to show male full frontal nudity, and the next time it happened was almost 60 years later, in the infamous wrestling men scene in the adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love. It was also the first movie to be shown in its entirety without intermission in the US. The organist told us this, and mentioned as well that it made a great deal of money in its day. Really a landmark piece.
This one is tough to score given the 100 years difference, but in cases like this, I have to lean toward how revolutionary this was (in addition to my enjoyment level).
Score: 8/10
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