The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has announced its annual "Day of Silents" will take place one month from today, on Saturday, December 2 at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. More information may be found HERE.
Star turns by Anna May Wong, Rudolph Valentino, and Pola Negri! Centennial celebration of Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! A brilliant collection of animated shorts by Dave and Max Fleischer, Walt Disney, and other geniuses of the form! And a proto-noir featuring pre-Thin Man William Powell! All in our holiday-season live-cinema event A DAY OF SILENTS, coming to the Castro Theatre, San Francisco on Saturday, December 2. Like SFSFF's annual festival, A Day of Silents showcases a variety of superb titles from the silent era, all set to superb live musical accompaniment by the likes of Wayne Barker and Nicholas White, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, and the Sascha Jacobsen Ensemble!
Tickets and Passes are on sale now at silentfilm.org
THE PROGRAM:
Saturday, December 2, Castro Theatre
More information, tickets and passes at silentfilm.org
OF MICE AND MEN (AND CATS AND CLOWNS)
A collection of animated shorts, 1908–1928
Some of the most creative films from the silent era came out of an inkwell! Our collection includes animated shorts from 1908–1928, films that outshine much of what followed. For sheer audacity and pure joy, these films by cartoon masters Including the Fleischer brothers, Pat Sullivan, and Walt Disney, can’t be beat!
Fantasmagorie (1908, d. Émile Cohl)
How a Mosquito Operates (1912, d. Winsor McKay)
Adam Raises Cain (1922, d. Tony Sarg)
Amateur Night on the Ark (1923, d. Paul Terry)
Bed Time (1923, d. Dave and Max Fleischer)
Felix Grabs His Grub (1923, d. Pat Sullivan)
A Trip to Mars (1924, d. Dave and Max Fleischer)
Vacation (1924, d. Dave and Max Fleisher)
Alice’s Balloon Race (1926, d. Walt Disney)
Felix the Cat in Sure Locked Homes (1928, d. Pat Sullivan)
Live music by WAYNE BARKER and NICHOLAS WHITE
1921, d. Ernst Lubitsch
Pola Negri, Victor Janson, Paul Heidemann
Before director Ernst Lubitsch left Germany to ply his famous ‘Touch’ in Hollywood, he made a series of comedies that gave hints at what was to come. The Wildcat is his last German comedy and his most riotously zany. Subtitled ‘A Grotesque in Four Acts,’ Wildcat makes use of extravagant set design and eccentric frame shapes that lend a surrealistic edge to its antic energy. Pola Negri’s Rischka leads a gang of mountain bandits who ambush Lieutenant Alexis (Paul Heidemann) on his way to the local fortress, leaving him pant-less (and smitten) on the ice. Film writer John Gillett called the film “both an anti-militarist satire and a wonderful fairy tale.”
Live music by MONT ALTO MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA
1925, d. Clarence Brown
Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky, Louise Dresser
Clarence Brown's rousing film displays a perfect blend of elements—romance, swashbuckling, a modicum of humor, and the great Rudolph Valentino! Not to mention the splendid production design by William Cameron Menzies and gorgeous camerawork by George Barnes. After Valentino's Russian lieutenant rejects the amorous attentions of Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser), she orders him arrested. Instead, he flees and becomes a masked avenger intent on righting the wrongs visited upon his father and his countrymen by loutish nobleman Kryilla Trouekouroff (James A. Marcus). But the nobleman has a beautiful daughter (Vilma Banky)...
PAVEMENT BUTTERFLY (Großstadtshmetterling)
Germany/Great Britain, 1928/1929, d. Richard Eichberg
Gaston Jacquet, Anna May Wong
Luminous Anna May Wong goes from a fan-dancing carnival act to an artist garret and finally to the French Riviera where she accompanies a wealthy art patron around Monte Carlo, draped in haute couture. Wong left Hollywood in search of roles more fitting her talents than the racially-circumscribed ones at home. This Weimar title showcases her magnetism—when Wong is onscreen, you can't look away.
Live music by the SASCHA JACOBSEN ENSEMBLE
1923, d. Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor
Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis
Harold Lloyd's bumpkin salesclerk comes up with a publicity stunt that will bring attention to his department store and earn him the money to marry his sweetheart—scale the 12-story building like a human fly! Shot in downtown Los Angeles, the stunt has given us one of the most iconic images of the silent era—Lloyd precariously hanging over the city street, dangling from a broken clock. James Agee wrote: "Each new floor is like a new stanza in a poem; and the higher and more horrifying it gets, the funnier it gets."
Live music by MONT ALTO MOTION PICTURE ORCHESTRA
1928, d. Victor Schwertzinger
Clive Brook, William Powell, Olga Baclanova
Heliotrope Harry (Clive Brook) and Froggy (William Powell) are partners in crime—genteel armed robbery—at least until the cuckolded Harry commits an even bigger offense. Before Harry goes to prison, he leaves his baby girl on the doorstep of a wealthy couple to keep her out of the clutches of his no-good wife Lilly (Olga Baclanova) and tasks Froggy with keeping close tabs. But Froggy is no match for Lilly...
Sounds like a great line-up. I'd love to see that Anna May Wong picture!
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