THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema.. Edwin S. Porter and other early filmmakers used bizarre sets, fantastic costumes, and magic lantern tricks to illuminate their fantasy films. American parody supplied Douglas Fairbanks with enough unusual material to produce the truly surreal When the Clouds Roll By (1919). An expressionistic The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari (1919) influenced American sensibilities throughout the '20s as seen in Beggar of Horseback (1925), The Life and Death of 9413-A Hollywood Extra (1927) and The Telltale Heart (1928). The emphasis shifted when amateurs J.S. Watson, Jr., Joseph Cornell, and Orson Welles crafted a unique variety of American surrealism on film unfettered by European concerns.. 15 FILMS BY FEATURED DIRECTORS: G.W. "Billy" Bitzer, Joseph Cornell, James Cruze, Douglas Fairbanks, Victor Fleming, Robert Florey, Charles Klein, William Cameron Menzies, Edwin S. Porter, William Vance, Vitagraph Studio, Slavko Vorkapich, J.S. Watson, Jr., Melville Webber, Weiss Artclass Comedies, Orson Welles.. Curated by Bruce Posner and produced by David Shepard. "An amazing collection, with plenty of playful surrealism and literate influences, many films long thought lost and many more never known to even have existed." - The Guardian. "Like the cinematic attic of a madcap, film-savvy aunt, Unseen Cinema is stuffed with treasures and oddities just waiting to be discovered." - Museums New York. Made possible in part by Cineric, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Film Preservation Associates

One of Hollywood's earliest -- and most peculiar -- musicals, The Great Gabbo stars von Stroheim as an egotistical ventriloquist who casts a Svengali-like spell upon an ingenue (Betty Compson), against a backdrop of singularly strange numbers (including "Icky" and the spider-and-fly-themed "Caught in a Web"). Director James Cruze (The Covered Wagon) allowed von Stroheim to endow the character with his signature flourishes, resulting in a wicked cocktail of garish stage shows and Austro-Hungarian villainy that is a diabolical delight.