- Los Angeles, 9 January: After having a serious difference of opinion, Paramount chief Adolph Zukor has terminated the producer-director Cecil B. De Mille's contract.
- Hollywood, 10 January: A compromise has been reached between D. W. Griffith and United Artists: in exchange for his freedom, the director is to provide the company with a final film, and the shares he owns in the company are to be placed in a fiduciary deposit.
- New York, 26 January:
A powerful new film from director Erich von Stroheim has just opened nationwide after being premiered here on 4 December 1924. It is his long-awaited production of Greed which he first began filming almost two years ago, in March 1923. Its release was unfortunately held up by the merger of the Goldwyn Co. into MGM last year, and the insistence of the new studio that the film be drastically reduced in length. Yet even in this mutilated form, the picture appears to be a quite remarkable and original work. For Stroheim there has been a long gap between films. It is exactly three years since his last feature, Foolish Wives, had its premiere. After the problems he experienced on that production, his days at Universal were obviously numbered, and he was replaced on his next film, Merry-Go-Round, midway through production, by the studio's new young production chief, Irving G. Thalberg. However, Stroheim was immediately signed up by the Goldwyn Co and, for his first production, he turned to one of his favorite projects, a film version of McTeague, the best-known novel by the American naturalist writer of the 19th century, Frank Norris. The filming, almost entirely on location in San Francisco and at Death Valley, lasted for almost six months in 1923. Stroheim spent almost as much time again reducing the massive quantity of footage to his own final cut of about 22 reels, running for five-and-a-half hours and meant to be shown in two parts. However, MGM would have none of this and insisted on further cuts, reducing the film to 10 reels, less than half the original length. Despite this massacre that was then disowned by the director, much of his conception survives. The film gives the feeling of an entire milieu brought to life, with outstanding performances from Gibson Gowland and ZaSu Pitts as the simple-minded dentist and his avaricious wife, who appear less like actors than real characters existing within a real world. Although their central relationship has been cut, the most drastic pruning has affected mainly the various subplots and the extended prologue, while the amazing final climax in Death Valley has to be seen to be believed.
- Culver City, 31 January:
The chariot race in Ben-Hur will not be filmed in Italy as was originally planned, but in the studios of Culver City, not far from Hollywood. This change is the decision of the management at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in particular Louis B. Mayer and Irving G. Thalberg. The shooting of the film, planned as the Goldwyn Company's most ambitious production ever, began in 1923 in Rome under the direction of Charles Brabin, with George Walsh in the title role and a script by June Mathis. But by the time that the new MGM was founded, only part of the filming had been completed. Appalled by the continuing production problems and poor quality footage, MGM replaced Brabin and Walsh with director Fred Niblo and Ramon Novarro, with Bess Meredyth and Carey Wilson providing the necessary script re-write. Filming continued in Italy for another few months before the Ben-Hur company was ordered back to Hollywood where Thalberg could keep a sharper eye on the project. After a year's work and $2 million spent, only half the film has been completed. But if the new studio can meet this challenge, of turning a potential disaster into a triumph, they will have demonstrated, better than any new project of their own could do, how effectively their new producer-oriented system can work.
- Berlin, 31 January: Release of Orlacs Hände (The Hands of Orlac) by Robert Wiene, adapted from Maurice Renard, with Fritz Kortner and Conrad Veidt.
- Hollywood, 31 January: A struggle between Erich von Stroheim and actress Mae Murray has caused problems on the set of The Merry Widow. Louis B. Mayer fired and then re-hired the director.
- New York, 7 February: Release of The Salvation Hunters, directed by Josef von Sternberg.
- France, 26 February: Louis Feuillade, the father of Fantômas, has died of pneumonia. He had just finished filming the final scenes of Le Stigmate, which he was co-directing with his son-in-law Maurice Champreux. Feuillade's death has caused a crisis at Gaumont, where he had long been a pillar of strength. He arrived there as a screenwriter and eventually became the studio's star director. Born in Lunel on 19 February 1873, Feuillade was a prolific filmmaker, turning out over 700 films, among them dreamlike serials such as lLes Vampires and Judex, that have been the cornerstones of Gaumont's fame and fortune.
- Rome, 16 March: Gabriellino d'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby's remake of Quo Vadis? has been badly received here. Despite the presence of Emil Jannings as Nero and financial backing from UFA, who co-produced the film, it is a pale copy of the 1913 version.
- New York, 20 March:
Premiere of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack's Grass, subtitled "A Nation's Battle for Life." Originally intended for the lecture circuit, Jesse L. Lasky saw this film and its potential for Paramount's audiences and brings it into theatrical release. Co-financed by journalist Marguerite Harrison, who is featured on-camera, Cooper and Schoedsack follow the annual migration of the Bakhtyari Tribe (the "Forgotton People") in Persia (Iran) to their flocks' summer pastures. Fifty-thousand people and half-a-million animals make the 48-day trek across deserts, rivers, mountains and snowy wastelands in search of grasslands for the herds... in search of life itself for the tribe. Lasky was right in his assessment: The tribe's spirit and tenacity register with American audiences, who -- aided by the filmmakers -- draw comparisons with the American frontier and the spirit of the pioneers. The film's longest sequence involves the crossing of a churning river in which the tribesmen use rafts made of inflated goat skins to get the families and their livestock to the other side. It's a bravura sequence, and certainly one that audiences in the US can instantly relate to. No wonder that one cantankerous American preacher (quite ludicrously) claimed that Grass was a fake and had been filmed in the mountains around Los Angeles!
- Paris, 31 March: Launching of the book Two Years in the Studios of America, written by Robert Florey, French director and Hollywood correspondent for the weekly Ciné-Magazine.
- New York, 20 April:
The American public has given an entusiastic reception to Madame Sans-Gêne, a Paramount production directed in France by Léonce Perret and starring Gloria Swanson, who considers Perret to be the best director she has ever worked with. Adapted from the Sardou play about Napoleon's laundress, much of the film was shot at Versailles. It is the first in a series of productions that Paramount plans to film in France. this expansionist policy will not find unanimous favor in Paris. La Société des Auteurs de Films, for example, sees this as a bridgehead toward eventual American domination of the film market in France.
- Moscow, 28 April: Release of Sergei M. Eisenstein's first feature film, Stachka (Strike)
Release of Don Q Son of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Astor, and featuring Jack McDonald, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt and Donald Crisp, who also directs the picture. Fairbanks starred in the original 1920 version of Mark of Zorro as the well-bred aristocrat who masquerades as the romantic masked avenger. In this sequel, Don Cesar de Vega (Fairbanks), son of Zorro, is in Spain for his education. By way of education, he duels with Don Sebastian of the Queen's Guard (Crisp), who is soon to be his rival for the hand of the lovely Dolores de Muro (Astor). He also befriends the visiting Archduke of Austria (Oland). But a quarrel ending in violence gives Don Sebastian the chance to dispose of his rival... by framing him for murder! Feigning suicide, Cesar escapes. Being a chip off the old block, a whip-wielding outlaw (this being his weapon rather than the sword) sets out to clear the name of Vega.
After six weeks of constant work, Fairbanks became the master of the Australian stock whip. He amply demonstrates his skills by using the whip to put out a lighted candle, cut a contract in half, capture a wild bull and remove a cigarette from a villain's mouth. After seeing the film, children will destroy countless windows, vases and lamps with toy whips, emulating their cinematic hero.
Today sees the spectacular premiere of Chaplin's The Gold Rush at Graumann's Eqyptian Theater. The film is preceded by a show that includes live seals and a troupe of Eskimo dancing girls. The Gold Rush is a great film and a great love story. Here the Little Tramp turns prospector in the Frozen North. His only friend is the hulking Big Jim McKay, portrayed by Mack Swain. Theirs is a volatile relationship that swings wildly from the happy to the homicidal, particularly when, in a delirium of starvation, Big Jim hallucinates that Charlie has turned into a chicken. The two friends are cheated by the swindling Black Larson (Tom Murray). Seeking refuge in the town, the Tramp falls hopelessly in love with enchanting singer Georgia Hale. Using his meager savings, he prepares a New Year's party for her, but she forgets all about him and fails to turn up. He falls asleep and dreams that the party is a huge success. It is during this sequence that the Tramp improvises a "Dance of the Rolls," creating a sad little ballet with two forks and two buns. All ends happily, however. Charlie strikes gold and becomes a millionaire, then on the boat back to California he is reunited with Georgia.
Chaplin belives that this is his finest film. He is taking longer and longer to make his films. Shooting The Gold Rush has taken him over a year, though Chaplin copyrighted his screenplay back on 29 September 1923. The inspiration for the film was a photograph of prospectors in the Klondike in 1898 that he had seen at the home of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. The Gold Rush was filmed in difficult conditions at Truckee near Lake Tahoe, high in the Sierra Nevada, and then wrapped up at Chaplin's La Brea Avenue studio in Los Angeles.
In March 1924, shortly before location shooting for The Gold Rush began in the Sierra Nevada, Chaplin chose Lillita McMurray, of the tender age of 15 years and 10 months, as his new leading lady. He also changed her name to Lita Grey. Three years previously, Lillita had appeared in Chaplin's The Kid as the 12-year-old "Angel of Temptation." It appears, however, that she has tempted Chaplin once again. On 26 November, Charlie married Lita in Guaymas, Mexico, making a fruitless attempt to dodge the press when he tried to sneak back into the United States with his new young bride. Amid these alarums and excursions, Chaplin replaced the by-now pregnant Lita Grey with a new leading lady for The Gold Rush. It was, perhaps, something of a relief for the filmmaker, since it quickly had become clear that Lita's acting skills were not equal to the task of co-starring with her husband. The role of the dance-hall girl who becomes the object of the Tramp's fantasies was therefore given to 21-year-old Georgia Hale, a recent discover of director Josef von Sternberg, and the star of his first film, The Salvation Hunters.
Irving G. Thalberg, head of production at MGM, can rub his hands with pride, thanks to the triumph of King Vidor's The Big Parade. Written by Lawrence Stallings, this moving tale unfolds in France during the 1914-1918 war. It is both a film about war and a tender love story centering on an American soldier and a beautiful French peasant woman, interpreted by John Gilbert and Renée Adorée. The director seems to be more interested in the rapport between the characters and in their emotions than in the battle scenes. Nevertheless, these sequences are an example of brilliant editing, and the panoramic shots of the army on the move are impressive. The result is a moving, and clearly anti-war, film.
MGM has finally completed production on Ben-Hur, the inordinately expensive undertaking that has required nearly a year to shoot, at a cost of $4 million. The long-awaited film has now opened at the George M. Cohan Theater to an enthusiastic reception. The already celebrated chariot race was filmed in a replica of the Antioch Coliseum, a larger set even than that of Babylon in Griffith's Intolerance. Thousands of extras were hired and more than 40 cameras filmed the scene from all possible angles, some of them in automobiles overtaking the gallopping horses. The result is a great moment of cinema, which contrasts with the more conventional remainder of the film. In spite of its obvious faults, this cinematic version of the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace should become a great favorite with the public, as should the Latin Ramon Novarro, who is noticeably becoming a rival of Rudolph Valentino.
26 January - Shaker Heights, OH, 
