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
10:00 AM
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
12:00 NOON
THE WILDCAT (Die Bergkatze)
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
2:15 PM
THE EAGLE
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)...
Live music by WAYNE BARKER
4:15 PM
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
7:00 PM
SAFETY LAST!
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
9:00 PM
FORGOTTEN FACES
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...
Live music by the SASCHA JACOBSEN ENSEMBLE