Updated 4/25/2001

Format for Your Summaries of Reviews

First, write an MLA style bibliographic entry for the review.

Second, write your summary of the review. The first time only that you name the film follow it with the date of its release in parentheses.

Your summaries should look much like this sample:

Sherwood, Robert E. "D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm," Life 2 February 1922, 64.

Sherwood argues that Orphans of the Storm (1922) is possibly the best film D.W. Griffith had made until that time. He credits the sophisticated acting, especially of the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy, for giving the film its substance. The film repeats many of Griffith's usual themes--intolerance, the evils of uncontrolled passion, the purity of innocent love--and does so through images that are consistently remarkable for the beauty and graceful composition. Sherwood's generalized assertions reveal clearly his very positive attitude toward the film, but they do little to give his readers concrete reasons why he has developed that attitude.

Then do the second review, following the same plan.