Cinema’s First Nasty Women

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About

Cinema’s First Nasty Women is a 4-disc DVD/Blu-ray set featuring rarely-seen silent films about feminist protest, anarchic slapstick destruction, and suggestive gender play. The collection includes 99 European and American silent films, produced from 1898 to 1926, sourced from 13 international film archives and libraries, and spotlighting slapstick comediennes and cross-dressing women of the silent screen. The women included are indeed very “nasty”—they organize labor strikes, bake (and weaponize) inedible desserts, explode out of the chimney, electrocute the police force, and assume a range of identities that gleefully dismantle traditional gender norms and sexual constraints. The films span a range of genres including slapstick comedy, genteel farce, the trick film, cowboy melodrama, and adventure thriller.

Veronica scored two of these films, one of which is featured in the compilation album produced by Terri Lyne Carrington and Dana Reason.