San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2026 line-up announced

The line-up for the 2026 San Francisco Silent Film Festival has been announced. This year, the festival returns to its "ancestral home" at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. (The historic venue has been closed  for a couple of years due to renovations.) The festival was begun at the Castro in 1996 and has grown from a one-day event to the largest and most prestigious festival devoted to silent cinema in all of the   Americas.

This year's festival (which takes place May 6 - 10) includes 26 films from six different countries featuring 22 musicians from far and wide. Altogether, there will be 22 programs over five days, all with live musical accompaniment—including the free "Amazing Tales From the Archives" show! Many of the films are recent restorations, including two that SFSFF has had a direct hand in, William de Mille's Miss Lulu Bett (a terrific film deserving greater recognition) and Lewis Milestone's The Caveman. Both titles were the restoration handiwork of our friends at Artcraft Pictures, James Mockoski and Robert Harris, in collaboration with Paramount Archives. (Hmmm, I wonder if they are working on any of Louie Brooks' Paramount silents?)

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival Award for commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema will be presented to Elżbieta Wysocka of the Filmoteka Narodowa at the screening of the Polish masterpiece Janko the Musician on Saturday, May 9.

Among this year's highlights is the new restoration of Queen Kelly (1929). The film's star, Gloria Swanson, was one of Louise Brooks' favorite actresses since the time Brooks was a teen. Additionally, its director, Eric von Stroheim, whom Brooks once met, was someone the actress was greatly interested in later in life. As a devotee of von Stroheim, I have had the pleasure of seeing an earlier restoration of Queen Kelly. It is an intriguing if not flawed (and unfinished) film. 

Queen Kelly opens the festival. Closing the festival is one of the greatest films of the silent era, King Vidor's The Crowd (1928). Of note to fans of Louise Brooks is the fact that a few scenes from this film were shot on Coney Island, at Luna Park, just as scenes from Just Another Blonde (1926) had been. (To give you a taste, be sure and check out this page about Just Another Blonde location shooting.)

On a personal note, I can report that I was asked to write the program essay for two films at this year's festival. Both are well worth checking out. The first is Sensation in Wintergarten (1929) -- which features the intriguing Erna Morena (who has the distinction of having starred in the title roles of earlier versions of two later Louise Brooks films, Lulu (1917) and Diary of a Lost Woman (1918), later filmed under the title The Diary of a Lost Girl). The other is The White Trail (1932) -- a surprisingly engaging indie film made by a non-filmmaker from Poland. 

 From the San Francisco Silent Film Festival website, here is the 2026 line-up:

Wednesday May 6 | 7:00 pm | $30 general / $25 member

QUEEN KELLY

Directed by Erich von Stroheim | US, 1929 |105 m

With Gloria Swanson, Walter Byron, Serena Owen, Tully Marshall

The late silent-era masterpiece that never was and the last major production entrusted to Erich von Stroheim has been reconstructed from surviving footage by Milestone Films. Bearing all the Stroheim hallmarks—lush visuals, meticulous attention to every detail, and rank corruption at every level of society—it’s also a showcase for Gloria Swanson who runs an emotional gamut from innocent convent girl to hardened brothel keeper. Musical accompaniment by composer Eli Denson conducting the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra

 

from Queen Kelly

Thursday May 7 | 11:00 am | Free

AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES

Our Amazing Tales program began in 2006 as a way to highlight the importance of film preservation and to provide insight into the remarkable work done by film archives around the world. Since then it has become one of the most highly anticipated programs in the festival. And it's free! This year's presenters:

KYLE WESTPHAL of the Chicago Film Society presents the case of comedian Jimmy Aubrey and A Musical Mixup produced at Weiss Bros. studio in Los Angeles.

Danish Film Institute’s THOMAS CHRISTENSEN shares the marvels of silent cinema’s inventive on-screen gadgetry.

ANDREAS THEIN of Filmmuseum Düsseldorf stretches our notions of Weimar cinema with the “Sensationsfilm” genre starring Germany’s first action heroes.

CARLO CHATRIAN of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin digs into the archeology of cinema and how it shaped the movies as we know them.

Thursday May 7 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

THE ABYSS

Original Language Title: AFGRUNDEN

Directed by Urban Gad | Denmark, 1910 | 38 m.

With Asta Nielsen, Poul Reumert, Robert Dinesen

THE CLOWN Original Language Title: KLOVNEN

Directed by A.W. Sandberg | Denmark, 1917 | 62 m. (100 m. total program)

With Valdemar Psilander, Peter Fjelstrup, Amanda Lund

Two Danish sensations, one at the beginning of her career, the other at his end. First, Asta Nielsen’s prim piano teacher in The Abyss is driven by lust to the circus stage faster than her gyrating Spider Dance from this film made her a star. Next, matinee idol Valdemar Psilander’s sad circus performer in The Clown hits the big time only for success to lead to his ruin in what turned out to be the actor’s last production before his sudden death at age 32. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Mas Koga

 

Thursday May 7 | 5:30 pm | $20 general / $18 member

SENSATION IM WINTERGARTEN

Directed by Gennaro Righelli | Germany, 1929 | 102 m.

With Paul Richter, Claire Rommer, Erna Morena, Gaston Jacquet

When celebrated trapeze artist Frattani returns home on his triumphant world tour, he must finally face his gold-digging stepfather who deprived him of his rightful title, his inheritance, and the love of his own mother years before. Dramatic set-pieces and colorful backstage atmosphere are partly filmed at Berlin’s storied Wintergarten. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

from Sensation in Wintergarten

 Thursday May 7 | 8:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

MISS LULU BETT

Directed by William de Mille | US, 1921 | 80 m.

With Lois Wilson, Milton Sills, Theodore Roberts, Helen Ferguson

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by women’s rights champion Zona Gale about an acquiescent young woman callously exploited by her own family, Miss Lulu Bett was called “one of the finest adaptations in the history of the photoplay” by Motion Picture News. Restored from a nitrate print, this marks the first in a dedicated run of collaborations between director William de Mille and scriptwriter Clara Beranger. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Friday May 8 | 11:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

HIGH TREASON

Directed by Maurice Elvey | UK, 1929 | 75 m.

With Benita Hume, Jameson Thomas, Basil Gill, Humberston Wright

The future brings aerocopters, videochat boxes, and apparently the same headgear across genders, but all the gadgetry in the world cannot save humankind from its destructive self as it teeters on the brink of war after a terrorist act. High Treason simultaneously looks back to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and forward to Michael Radford’s 1984 but what this prescient piece of science fiction grasps on its own is that the fate of nations can pivot on the act of a single person. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Friday May 8 |1:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

THE WHITE TRAIL

Original Language Title: BIAŁY ŚLAD

Directed by Adam Krzeptowski | Poland, 1932 | 74 m. 

With Andrzej Krzeptowski, Janina Fischer, Stanislaw Gasienica-Sieczka

A handheld camera puts you breathtakingly close to the action on the snowy slopes of the Polish Tatras in this feature film debut from photographer and native highlander Adam Krzeptowski. Real-life ski champions populate the cast and its script was contributed by local artist Rafał Malczewski, who was well-acquainted with the beauty and hazards of these landscapes having served as part of the Tatra Volunteer Search and Rescue during World War I. The film represented Poland at the first Venice Film Festival. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald

 

from The White Trail

Friday May 8 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

HULA

Directed by Victor Fleming| US, 1927 | 65 m.

With Clara Bow, Clive Brook, Arlette Marchal

Growing up tomboy on her family’s Hawaiian ranch, wild child Hula Calhoun is as comfortable eating with her hands as she is on horseback. Then she falls head over heels—with a married man. In her second collaboration with director Victor Fleming Clara Bow lights up every frame she’s in, demonstrating again that, yes, she’s a natural but also a real pro. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne

 

from Hula

Friday May 8 | 5:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

JAPANESE PAPER FILM PROJECT

Japan, 1930s | 65 m.

Animal Olympics, a train excursion through the countryside, a brawl with an octopus, and belly-drumming raccoon-dogs are just a few of the delights of these recently preserved kami firumu. Faced with the influx of ever slicker imported animation in the 1930s Japan went low-tech, printing films on paper strips then gluing them together by hand. The Japanese Paper Film Project worked with Japanese museums, film archives, and individual collectors to digitize and preserve more than 200 surviving films from which this selection was taken.Musical accompaniment by Duo Yumeno

 

Friday May 8 | 7:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

THE CAVEMAN

Directed by Lewis Milestone | US, 1926 | 76 m.

With Marie Prevost, Matt Moore, Phyllis Haver, Myrna Loy, Hedda Hopper

Myra the heiress is bored. What else to do but grab a he-man from the tenements and pass him off as a professor? This gender-reversed Pygmalion is one of three comedies made by Marie Prevost with director Lewis Milestone who knew that sometimes all you need to get a laugh is the right camera position—and the devil’s favorite coquette in a starring role. With Matt Moore as a hilarious fish-out-of-water coalheaver and Myrna Loy as the wary maid. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Friday May 8 | 8:45 pm | $20 general / $18 member

TABU: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS

Directed by F.W. Murnau | US, 1931 | 85 m.

With Matahi, Reri, Hitu, Jean, Jules, Kong Ah 

At the top of his artistic game, the director who had perfected the artifice of cinematic atmospheres abandoned the studio and its harrying producers to make a movie en plein air. Working with nonprofessional actors and a skeleton crew that included documentarian Robert Flaherty, F.W. Murnau spent more than a year and all his money in the South Sea islands for what turned out to be his last film.

Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker and Mas Koga

 

Saturday May 9 | 10:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

LAUREL AND HARDY: THEIR SILENT BEST

US, 1927–1929

Whether it’s a truckful of pies, a suburban home, a motorcar, or their pants, there’s only one possible outcome when these two virtuosos focus their powers of destruction on a prop: audiences destroyed by laughter. With The Battle of the Century, The Finishing Touch, Liberty, and Big Business. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker and Frank Bockius

 

Saturday May 9 | 12:00 noon | $20 general / $18 member

THE HUMMING BIRD

Directed by Sidney Olcott | US, 1924 | 60 m.

With Gloria Swanson, Edmund Burns, William Ricciardi, Cesare Gravina, 

(Mostly) shedding her clotheshorse image, Gloria Swanson is convincing as the head of a gang of Parisian toughs who sets out to stymie an American reporter’s investigation into a spate of neighborhood robberies. First love, then duty intervenes. Veteran director Sidney Olcott leads a team that kits out Paramount’s Astoria studio into a convincing Montmartre. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker

 

Saturday May 9 | 2:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

JANKO THE MUSICIAN

Original Language Title: JANKO MUZYKANT

Directed by Ryszard Ordynski | Poland, 1930 | 105 m

With Stefan Rogulski, Witold Conti, Maria Malika, Aleksander Zabczynski

In the original story, a classic of Polish literature, a musical prodigy born into poverty meets only tragedy. In this screen adaptation from the late silent era, he’s allowed to thrive. Beautifully photographed by Zbigniew Gniazdowski, the film’s resulting lyricism spurred one critic to write: “The visual symphony Janko the Musician resonates with poetry.” Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald, Mas Koga, and Frank Bockius

 

from Janko the Musician

Saturday May 9 | 4:45 pm | $20 general / $18 member

BED AND SOFA

Original Language Title: TRETYA MESCHANSKAYA

Directed by Abram Room | USSR | 91 m

With Nikolai Batalov, Lyudmila Semyonova, Vladimir Fogel

The housing shortages plaguing the ten-year-old Communist government instigate the plot in this thoroughly modern Soviet silent classic about a married couple who must find a new design for living after the husband’s former Red Army buddy comes to stay. Among the Bolsheviks’ early promises of land, peace, and bread was also the promise of a new social order that would make comrades of all Russians, including its women. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

Saturday May 9 | 7:00 pm | $25 general / $23 member

HIS GREATEST BLUFF

Original Language Title: SEIN GRÖßTER BLUFF

Directed by Harry Piel | Germany, 1927 | 108 m

With Harry Piel, Albert Paulig, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Greiner

More than seventy movies later and Harry Piel knew well how to entertain an audience without the chiaroscuro lighting and skewed perspectives we expect of Weimar cinema. Jewels worth a million, a shady dame (and her very sus child), a pair of maharajahs, slick-haired crooks with colorful names, and a self-assured action hero do the trick. That Marlene Dietrich is the dame is just icing for this heist picture from one of Germany’s most consistent box-office draws. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

Saturday May 9 | 9:30 pm | $20 general / $18 member

Á PROPOS DE NICE

Directed by Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman | France, 1930 | 25 m

RIEN QUE LES HEURES

Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti | France, 1926 | 46 m (Total program; 71 m)

Two debuts announce the arrival of two fresh voices of the motion picture avant-garde. While dazzling with daring compositions and inventive editing, first-time directors Jean Vigo (working with Dziga Vertov’s brother Boris Kaufman) and Alberto Cavalcanti reveal what can get obscured behind polished photographic surfaces in these city symphony films from Nice and Paris. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 11:00 am | $20 general / $18 member

BLAZING DAYS

Directed by William Wyler | US, 1927 | 60 m

With Fred Humes, Ena Gregory, Churchill Ross, Bruce Gordon, Eva Thatcher

This William Wyler-directed western displays the young director’s burgeoning talent, with camera flourishes and character touches that elevate an otherwise familiar story about a payroll box gone missing in the hinterlands. Cowboy star Fred Humes’s beaming smile and humbleswagger on horseback only add to its pleasures. Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker

 

Sunday May10 | 1:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

BOOKKEEPER KREMKE

Original Language Title: LOHNBUCHHALTER KREMKE

Directed by Marie M. Harder | Germany, 1930 | 60 m

With Hermann Vallentin, Anna Sten, Ivan Koval-Samborski

“Problems of our time come alive shaking us to our core,” wrote the reviewer for Lichtbild-Bühne who was deeply impressed with the only fiction feature completed by director Marie Harder, head of the Social Democrat Party’s film service. Ukrainian-born Anna Sten makes her German cinema debut as a daughter coming into her own despite the fury of her tradition-bound father suddenly downsized from middle-class respectability. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 3:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

SO THIS IS PARIS

Directed by Ernst Lubitsch | US, 1926 | 68 m

With Monte Blue, Patsy Ruth Miller, André Beranger, Lilyan Tashman

Paris and its Jazz Age temptations provide the saucy backdrop of this confection about the near infidelities of two married couples. A tonic for any age Lubitsch’s last film for the Warners bears no visible marks of the contentious behind-the-scenes relationship the director had with the Bros. who were apparently immune to his charms. We guarantee you won’t be. “Lubitsch,” raved the New York American, “has done it again.” Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius

 

Sunday May10 | 5:00 pm | $20 general / $18 member

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

Original Language Title: DIE GEZEICHNETEN

Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer | Germany, 1922 | 99 m

With Vladimir Gajdarov, Polina Piekowskaja, Richard Boleslawski

A cynical tsarist agent sews suspicion among peasants about Jews trying to replace them in order to weaken the revolutionary fervor gaining strength in the cities. Meanwhile one young woman from the shtetl just wants a say in her fate. Carl Dreyer’s moving depiction of anti-Semitism’s sinister harms, both macro and micro, is a silent-era rarity, yet typical in the care the director takes to attain a harrowing authenticity. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald, Mas Koga, and Sascha Jacobsen

 

Sunday May10 | 7:30 pm | $25 general / $23 member

THE CROWD

Directed by King Vidor | US, 1928 | 102 m

With James Murray, Eleanor Boardman, Bert Roach

In the film that influenced everyone from Orson Welles and Vittorio de Sica to Yasujiro Ozu and the makers of Mad Men, John Sims struggles to reconcile the greatness he expects from his life with the pedestrian way it turns out. Deftly combining documentary style shooting with the kind of artifice only possible with the latest studio technology, King Vidor dissects the American dream in this incontestable masterpiece of silent cinema. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra

 

from The Crowd

THE LEGAL STUFF: The Louise Brooks Society™ blog is authored by Thomas Gladysz, Director of the Louise Brooks Society  (www.pandorasbox.com). Original content copyright © 2026. Further unauthorized use prohibited. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  

San Francisco Silent Film Festival Day of Silents on December 7

SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES

A DAY OF SILENTS 2019   
December 7, 2019
Castro Theatre, San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—A DAY OF SILENTS takes place at the beautiful Castro Theatre on Saturday, December 7. Five programs with live musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Donald Sosin, and Berklee Silent Film Orchestra; this is a day of stunning silent cinema and thrilling live music not to be missed!  The day begins with three comedy shorts by the endlessly entertaining duo of Fatty + Buster. “Fatty” Arbuckle discovered Buster Keaton, and these three sparkling shorts demonstrate the striking chemistry between the two geniuses. The morning laughs are followed by more serious fare. In Redskin, Navajo Wing Foot navigates between his western education and the traditions passed down by tribal elders. The film was shot in breathtaking two-color Technicolor at locations in New Mexico and Arizona (including Acoma Pueblo and Canyon de Chelly). Our third program, "Woman with a Movie Camera," brings French filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché to the Castro screen. She got into the movie business at the very beginning—in 1894! One of the very first directors to make narrative films, her work is marked by innovation—she experimented with color-tinting, and special effects. The program includes six of her shorts. At 5pm, Ernst Lubitsch works narrative magic with knowing looks and subtle gestures in The Marriage Circle. This superb comedy centering around two couples—the sublimely-in-love Monte Blue and Florence Vidor, and the less-so Adolphe Menjou and Marie Prevost. We close out the day with the oldest surviving film version of Phantom of the Opera. Starring Lon Chaney—the Man of a Thousand Faces—in his most celebrated role, the disfigured, cloaked “phantom” who haunts the Paris Opera House will do anything for his beloved Christine. With original Technicolor and hand coloring! Tickets/Passes/Information: http://bit.ly/ADOS2019
 

FATTY + BUSTER
11:00 am | $17 general / $15 member
Live Music by Donald Sosin
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was the preeminent film comedian of the 1910s. From the age of eight he appeared on stage as an acrobat and a clown and started his film career in 1913. By 1914, he had not only appeared in hundreds of Keystone comedies, but began directing the one-reelers. In 1917, he and producer Joseph M. Schenck formed the Comique Film Corporation—whose films were released through Famous Players—and Arbuckle became one of the highest-paid men in Hollywood. Arbuckle mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton, but his comedic brilliance has been overshadowed by the scandal that ended his career. These three sparkling shorts demonstrate a striking chemistry between Arbuckle and Keaton. Watching the two geniuses collaborate: a thing of beauty. The program includes THE COOK (1918, d. Roscoe Arbuckle), GOOD NIGHT, NURSE (1918, d. Roscoe Arbuckle), and THE GARAGE (1919, d. Roscoe Arbuckle).

REDSKIN
1:00 pm | $17 general / $15 member
Live Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
The story of a Navajo man, Wing Foot (Richard Dix), who was taken as a child to a US government boarding school and forced to assimilate resonates with contemporary headlines. Victor Schertzinger’s film explores the damage done by prejudice as it brings up issues of racial identity and cultural insensitivity to tell Wing Foot’s story. The film’s title acknowledges a racial slur used against its protagonist and it is used to illustrate intolerance, not endorse it. Wing Foot navigates between his western education and the traditions passed down by the tribal elders. Shot in breathtaking two-color Technicolor at locations in New Mexico and Arizona (including Acoma Pueblo and Canyon de Chelly)—the film changes from color to black-and-white when it leaves the Navajo and Pueblo lands.

WOMAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA
3:15 pm | $17 general / $15 member
Live Music by Donald Sosin
French filmmaking pioneer Alice Guy got into the movie business at the very beginning—in 1894, at the age of 21. Two years later, she was made head of production at Gaumont and started directing films. One of the very first directors to make narrative films, her work is marked by innovation—she experimented with color-tinting, special effects, and sound! In 1910 she and her husband moved to the United States and she founded Solax film studio. But a series of reversals—a severe bout of Spanish flu, a nasty divorce, the loss of her studio to creditors—forced Guy out of business and she returned to France with her two children in 1922. Through her own efforts—lecturing at universities and politely correcting historians’ mistakes—along with the efforts of diligent archivists, she has been rescued from unwarranted obscurity. Ninety-nine years after the opening of Solax, Alice Guy remains the only woman to have ever owned a movie studio. The program includes MIDWIFE TO THE UPPER CLASS (1902), THE RESULTS OF FEMINISM (1906), THE DRUNKEN MATTRESS (1906), MADAME HAS HER CRAVINGS (1906), THE GLUE (1907), and THE OCEAN WAIF (1916).

 

THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE
5:00 pm | $17 general / $15 member
Live Music by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Ernst Lubitsch’s adaptation of the play Only a Dream was his second American film and would set the tone for all his sparkling comedies to follow. The titular “circle” alludes to the ring of infidelities that animate the plot—and while the story is exquisitely plotted with headlong narrative twists and sophisticated intelligence, it’s the intricacies of human behavior that concern Lubitsch. An expert at adapting dialogue-ridden theater to silent films with few intertitles, Lubitsch works narrative magic with knowing looks and subtle gestures—his characters are brimming with humanity ... and hilarity. Set in Vienna, “the city of laughter and light romance,” The Marriage Circle centers on two couples—the sublimely-in-love Monte Blue and Florence Vidor, and the less-so Adolphe Menjou and Marie Prevost. The New Yorker’s Richard Brody writes, “Ernst Lubitsch turned a drawing-room farce into bittersweet chamber music.”

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
8:00 pm | $24 general / $22 member
Live Music by Berklee Silent Film Orchestra
The oldest surviving film version of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel stars Lon Chaney—the Man of a Thousand Faces—in his most celebrated role, the disfigured, cloaked “phantom” who haunts the Paris Opera House and will do anything for his beloved Christine (Mary Philbin). Universal’s opulent set design replicates the palatial interior of the actual Paris Opera and the Phantom’s residence—the subterranean catacombs beneath the Opera—have inspired generations of horror sets. The print features the original tints and Technicolor of the 1929 theatrical version, restored by Film Preservation Associates, as well as the meticulously hand-colored sequences that reproduce the Handschiegl Color Process. Chaney’s self-designed make-up was kept a studio secret until the film’s premiere in 1925. The famous unmasking scene when Christine unfastens the Phantom’s mask, revealing his grotesque disfigurement remains one of the most shocking moments in cinema history.

Louise Brooks related booksigning one week from today

In case anyone is interested, I will be signing copies of my recent book, Louise Brooks the Persistent Star, one week from today at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, as part of the 24th annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Follow THIS LINK for more information about this special event. Or, check out this earlier Louise Brooks Society blog.

I will be signing copies of Louise Brooks the Persistent Star following the 10:00 am showing of the Marion Davies film, The Lights of Old Broadway. The book signing is expected to start around 11:15 am. I will also have a few copies of two of my earlier books, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film (with a forward by William Wellman Jr, who will also be at the festival, see below), and Now We're in the Air: A Companion to the Once Lost Film (with a foreword by film preservationist Rob Byrne, who will also be at the Festival).

Here is the line-up of signings: 2019 Books and Authors

Thursday May 2

Douglas Fairbanks: The Fourth Musketeer edited by Kelley Smoot
Approximately 2:20 pm following Wolf Song

Clarence Brown: Hollywood’s Forgotten Master by Gwenda Young (with a forward by Kevin Brownlow)
Approximately 8:30 pm following The Signal Tower

Friday May 3

Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel by William Wellman, Jr.
Approximately 11:20 am following You Never Know Women

Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays & Hollywoodland by Mary Mallory & Karie Bible
Approximately 1:30 pm following Tonka of the Gallows
 
Looking for Garbo by Jon Miller
Approximately 6:15 pm following Rapsodia Satanica

Saturday May 4

Louise Brooks: The Persistent Star by Thomas Gladysz
Approximately 11:15 am following The Lights of Old Broadway

Joe McBride (several books Searching for John Ford, How Did Lubitsch Do It?)
Approximately 1:15 pm following Hell Bent

JC Garrett’s Poster
Approximately 3:40 pm following Goona Goona

Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir by Victoria Riskin
Approximately 8:35 pm following The Wedding March

Sunday May 5

Wayne Shellabarger’s Poster
Approximately 6:55 until start of Our Hospitality

Prix de Beauté at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The house was packed at yesterday's historic screening of Prix de Beauté at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. The Festival screened the rarely shown silent version of the 1930 Louise Brooks film, which was restored in 2012 by the Cineteca di Bologna in Italy. My guess is that at least 1200 people were in the attendance. Acclaimed British musician Stephen Horne accompanied the film on piano (mostly), as well as flute, accordion, and guitar.

The film was very well received. During the beauty pageant in San Sebastian, the audience in the Castro starting clapping along with the audience in the film (to ensure Brooks' victory). Another memoriable moment occurred at the end of the film, when Stephen Horne's live accompaniment gave way to the the recorded song heard in the sound version of Prix de Beauté, before Horne resumed playing the close the film.

Here are a few snapshots from inside the theater during the pre-film slideshow.

 

After the screening, I had the honor of being part of a three-person signing along with fellow Louise Brooks fans Hugh Munro Neely, the Emmy nominated filmmaker whose documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu is widely acclaimed, and comix artist amd early film enthuisiast Kim Deitch. As a teenager in 1957, Deitch said, he was in the audience along with his father, Gene Deitch, of a screening of Diary of a Lost Girl at the Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Also in the audience was Louise Brooks! Kim never met her, though his father did. Gene Deitch also had his picture taken with her. Below is a snapshot of myself (right) and Kim Deitch (left).

Pandora's Box with Louise Brooks at the Castro Theater

It looks like tonight historic screening of Pandora's Box with Louise Brooks at the Castro Theater in San Francisco is going to sell out. That's 1400 Louise Brooks fans gathered together "spellbound in darkness." I can't wait!

Come to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival!

CONSIDER THIS BLOG YOUR FIRST WARNING: The event to attend this summer for every fan of Louise Brooks is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The event is scheduled to take place July 15th - 18th at the historic Castro Theater. For more info, visit the SFSFF website at www.silentfilm.org.

I really can't say much more, but Louise Brooks will shine at this special event - a gathering a like-minded silent film enthusiasts from around the world. Among those scheduled to be in attendance are Ira Resnick, author of Starstruck: Vintage Movie Posters from Classic Hollywood (which features a bunch of posters and lobby cards from Brooks' films) as well as screenwriter Samuel Bernstein, author of the just published Lulu a novel. Those two guests - each of whom will be signing books - are just the tip of the iceberg, as they say. More, much more, will be revealed in the coming weeks.

By the way, if you have never been to the Castro Theater, it is well worth checking out. It is a grand old neighborhood movie place - one of the last standing in San Francisco. It was built in 1922, and Janet Gaynor used to work there as an usherette. I just saw a silent film there last night, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916), with live musical accompaniment by Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields) and Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame).

And of course, films featuring Louise Brooks were shown there many times over the years. Actually, no theater in the city has shown more Louise Brooks' films over the years then the Castro. Here is a list of some of the films the Castro has shown which I have been able to document.

Love Em and Leave Em (Apr. 7-8, 1927)
Just Another Blonde (June 7-8, 1927)
Beggars of Life (Feb. 17, 1929)
Canary Murder Case (May 19-21, 1929)
It Pays to Advertise (June 8-9, 1931)
When You’re in Love  (June 3-5, 1937 with Criminal Lawyer)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Jan. 22, 1987 with Sadie Thompson as part of “Vamps” series)
A Girl in Every Port (Jan. 23, 1987 with Sadie Thompson as part of “Vamps” series)
Pandora’s Box (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series)
Prix de Beaute (Feb. 26, 1987 as part of “Vamps” series)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Nov. 8, 1988 with Pandora’s Box)
Diary of a Lost Girl (May 11, 1992 with Pandora’s Box)
Pandora’s Box (May 5-8, 1995 as part of the San Francisco Film Festival)
Pandora’s Box (Dec. 16-17, 1995)
Pandora’s Box (Apr. 2, 1996 with Wings)
Just Another Blonde (July 14, 1996 screening of fragments, as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
Pandora’s Box (May 18, 1998 as part of Femme Fatale Festival)
Diary of a Lost Girl (Jan. 14, 2002 as part of the Berlin & Beyond Festival)
Pandora’s Box (July 15, 2006 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
The American Venus (July 14, 2007 screening of a trailer & fragments as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)
Beggars of Life (July 14, 2007 as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival)

Undoubtedly there were others, but the records - including the local neighborhood newspaper which carried advertisements for the Castro, have been lost. The picture up top is of yours truly introducing Pandora's Box at the 2006 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. And the picture below is of me outside the theater that same year. I hope to see some of you this year.