One of the world’s first film directors has been receiving some much-deserved attention lately, due to the 2018 documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968). Here is a list of just over 100 of her films that you can find pretty easily today on DVD or Blu-ray disc.
I’ve compiled this spreadsheet primarily from Alison McMahan’s research at the Women Film Pioneers Project. She has listed all of Guy-Blaché’s existing and missing films made in America (1910-1918), and plans to post her earlier work from France. Dates are approximate. Sources are detailed in the spreadsheet’s second tab. While all of the films are technically considered “silent,” she was a pioneer of sound-sync technology and I’ve noted her “phonoscenes” with a dagger (†). Work in progress, embed from Microsoft Excel Online:
To give a little more background, the spreadsheet is modified from My Movies. I’ve added columns to show the most popular Guy-Blaché DVD and Blu-ray releases since 2009. DVD 1 from Gaumont Treasures includes 64 of her films. Disc 1 from Early Women Filmmakers (2017) includes 3 more, 6 total on Blu-ray. Pioneers: First women Filmmakers (2018) 12 more, 13 total. This year’s release is a 2-disc collection focusing solely on Guy-Blaché’s work, with 21 more films (55 total). It’s amazing that in the past decade, these films from over a century ago are becoming available again, in higher definition than most people have ever seen.
In researching Guy-Blaché’s films, I marked several as “rare” in the Archive column. Alison McMahan marked the following films as extant prints, but I haven’t come across them anywhere in home media. Comment below if you have any tips!
- His Mother’s Hymn (1911)
- Outwitted by Horse and Lariat (1911)
- When Marian was Married (1911)
- Fight in the Dark (1912)
- Someone’s Luck Society (1912)
- The New Love and the Old (1912)
- The Pit and the Pendulum (1913)
- Napoleon (1913)
- The Roads That Lead Home (1913)
- Beasts of the Jungle (1913)
- The Vampire (1915)
- The Empress (1917)
- The Great Adventure/Spring of the Year (1918)
Thanks for reading and watching! Check out my 10 Years 10 Films project for more about Alice Guy-Blaché and other pioneers of cinema history.