The 27th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival is set to take place at the historic Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco’s Marina District beginning April 10 and running through April 14. This year, twenty-two live cinema programs will be shown -- each featuring a beautiful silent-era films (including some world premiere restorations) and each with superb live musical accompaniment
More information about this year's event, including a complete schedule of films, ticket availability, etc... can be found HERE.
A number of these programs stand out. For me, one of the most exciting is the Thursday, April 11 showing of not just one but two Clara Bow films -- and what's more, each are San Francisco Silent Film Festival restorations. (Clara Bow biographer David Stenn is set to introduce.) The SFSFF will screen its new restoration of Dancing Mothers (1926). In it, hitmaker Herbert Brenon (who directed Louise Brooks in The Street of Forgotten Men the year before) gives this modern-family melodrama a polished sheen, and Clara Bow a show-stealing role. Alice Joyce is sublime as the wife and mother who dares to stake her own claim in the swirl of 1920s nightlife that has already ensnared her philandering husband and thrill-seeking daughter, while Bow effervesces as the Jazz Baby who needs saving from herself.
Attention Taylor Swift fans .... Also on the schedule is The Pill Pounder (1923), the recently found lost film directed by Gregory La Cava, starring Charlie Murray with Clara Bow. This is the discover which has been in the news of late, including this piece from the Washington Post.
The SFSFF will also screen Victor Sjöström's The Phantom Carriage (1921). This Swedish production tells the story of a husband and father in the grip of an addiction who is shown the error of his ways during a midnight ride with the grim reaper. A tour-de-force of nonlinear storytelling and a showcase of deft in-camera double-exposures, Sjöström’s drama about redeeming the unredeemable is part of the film canon for good reason -- it has influenced filmmakers from Ingmar Bergman to Stanley Kubrick. Never once does the great Sjöström, who also stars, let his virtuosity as director or actor overwhelm the film's raw emotional truth.
I wrote the program essay for this outstanding film, and recommend it highly as I like Seastron's work a great deal. The Phantom Carriage will be introduced by Pamela Hutchinson, author of the BFI book on Pandora's Box.
These are just two highlight among many.
THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society (www.pandorasbox.com). Original contents copyright © 2024. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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