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.  

Be sure and get a Louise Brooks calendar from Flicker Alley

Even though we are a few days into March, it's not too late to get a copy of the 2024 Flicker Alley calendar. This adorable 6 inch by 6 inch square calendar is available for free with the purchase of a non-mod DVD or Blu-ray. And what's more, the front and back covers feature the one and only Louise Brooks.

To get my copy, I ordered the 2023 Flicker Alley release of restoration of the Erich von Stroheim film Foolish Wives. I have long loved this director's films, and am proud to have once put on an event with the great von Stroheim biographer Arthur Lenning. Louise Brooks also had an interest in his films, and, she even once met the famed director at a Hollywood party. Later on, Brooks carried on a long time  correspondence with another noted von Stroheim biographer, Herman G. Weinberg.

Foolish Wives, and von Stroheim's The Merry Widow, are two of my favorite silent films. I have seen each a handful of times, either at home or on the BIG screen. Greed is also great -- but who would claim it as a favorite? Be sure and check out the Flicker Alley page on this deluxe release of this silent era masterpiece. Wow, what a package!

Well, anyways, here is the back cover of the calendar, which features another image (both were supplied by yours truly) of Louise Brooks from the 1926 film, The American Venus. 

I know it is a journalistic principal to not bury the lead, but rewards come to those who read through to the end. The inside back cover of the 2024 calendar depicts a bunch of the recent and not-so recent Flicker Alley releases. It also states, "Lots of exciting new releases are in store from Flicker Alley in 2024! Be on the lookout for a follow-up collection of shorts from a beloved comedy duo, amazing and still-timely works from an African American film pioneer and pioneer of anti-fascist documentary, rare noir titles both international and domestic, and much more! (Including a big clue on this calendar's cover page.)"

Along with KINO and Milestone, Flicker Alley is one of the leading companies releasing silent and classic cinema. If you aren't already, be sure and get on their mailing list. You won't want to miss out.

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.

Films at the 2022 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

This year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival features a stellar line-up of films. Along with the debut of the restoration of Louise Brooks' first film, The Street of Forgotten Men (1925), there are a number of other new restorations, some old classics, and a selection of films from around. There are films from Japan, India and the Soviet Union, as well as promising examples of Brazilian experimentalism, French melodrama, Danish science-fiction, and German horror. 

The SFSFF is the largest festival devoted to silent film in the Americas. This year’s event includes 19 recent film restorations. Notably, nine of those restorations will make their North American premiere at the May event. More information about the San Francisco Silent Film Festival as well as this year's event can be found HERE.

Most notably, the festival will screen Arrest Warrant (1926), an Ukrainian film directed by Heorhii Tasin. This briskly paced gem tells the story of Nadia (played by Vira Vareckaja), who’s revolutionary husband flees the city in the midst of civil war, leaving her behind with a cache of secret documents. Expressionist effects, at times riveting and then distressing, highlight Nadia’s psychological torture at the hands of the authorities. It is a must-see film, poignant, and timely. 

Along with other fans of Louise Brooks, I have long been a fan of Clara Bow - the original "IT girl." This year's Festival includes the SFSFF restoration of The Primrose Path, one of 14 features Clara Bow made in 1925. Who doesn't want to see another Clara Bow film? She lights up the screen.

I have also been a long time fan of director / actor Erich von Stroheim, "the man you love to hate." I adore his classic silents The Merry Widow (1925) and The Wedding March (1928), both of which have been shown at the festival in the past. In fact, they are two of my favorite silent films. This year, Erich von Stroheim’s study of decadence, Foolish Wives (1922), opens the festival. It has been newly restored by the SFSFF and New York’s MoMA, and will be accompanied by Timothy Brock’s SFSFF  commissioned score. The following day, the festival will show the Austrian Film Museum’s restoration of von Stroheim’s Blind Husbands (1919), a film the celebrated director also stars in and wrote.

What follows is the SFSFF's complete line-up of films.

Memoirs of a silent film loving bookseller, as told through "baseball" cards, part 2

This post continues a kind of sidebar to a long and heavily illustrated piece I wrote called "One booksellers memoirs, told through 'baseball' cards." That piece is awaiting publication, when and if it is published, I will edit in a link. See my previous post for the first part of this saga.

As a kid, who didn't collect baseball or football cards, or cards depicting their favorite characters from Star Wars or Star Trek or Buffy the Vampire Slayer ? But did you ever collect cards depicting film historians, biographers, or critics ?

For more than 20 years I worked at The Booksmith, an independent bookstore located in San Francisco. For about half that time, I ran the events program. I worked with publishers in selecting authors and creating a monthly schedule. I also hosted the various events. In order to make the series stand out, Booksmith began issuing a series of promotional cards for most every author event the store put on. These author cards (which number more than 1000) were similar to baseball cards or other like collectibles, except that these cards featured contemporary poets, novelists, essayists, biographers, historians and critics – as well as more than a few pop culture celebrities. Because of my interest in the silent film star Louise Brooks as well as early film and film history, there were also a handful of cards depicting authors who wrote on those subjects. I tried to secure events with as many as I could, provided they had a new book and/or were touring: among those who I managed to host an event with and who appear as author trading cards are prominent names like Jeanine Basinger #962 and Steven Bach #923 as well as notable behind the scenes individuals like John Baxter #832 and Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Forrest J Ackerman #224, #329. Despite it being a niche interest, I made sure we always sold books!

Along with screenwriter Frederica Sagor Maas #302 (mentioned in the previous post), the store also hosted other individuals associated with early Hollywood, among them 1930s film star Gloria Stuart #318. Known for her roles in Pre-Code films as well as horror movies like The Old Dark House (1932) and The Invisible Man (1933), this Academy Award nominee went on to achieve later day fame as the older Rose in James Cameron's epic romance, Titanic (1997). Little did I know when I booked the event that Stuart had a connection to the space where it was held.

Gloria Stuart

If the store expected an especially big crowd, we might hold the event off-site at the nearby Park Branch library, which had a meeting room in the basement. That was the case for the event with Gloria Stuart, who was especially pleased to appear at this modest branch library, the oldest in the city; just after she arrived, Stuart told us she had visited it in her younger days while living in the Bay Area and attending college at UC Berkeley! Although the branch had  closed for the day, Stuart asked the librarian on duty if she could have a nostalgic tour, which she got. What a pleasure it was to meet Stuart and her daughter Sylvia, who accompanied her.

Another individual I hosted at the store and who appears on a card is Diana Serra Carey (aka Baby Peggy) #523, who before her death at age 101 in 2018, was considered the last living silent film star. Prior to her talk, we screened a Baby Peggy short, The Kid Reporter (1923), which everyone enjoyed and which received a brisk round of applause. During her talk, the crowd hung of Carey's every word, and despite the fact she hadn't appeared in a film in nearly half a century, those who showed up treated the aged actress as a contemporary "movie star." An event was also held for Suzanne Lloyd #722, the granddaughter of silent film superstar Harold Lloyd. Her famous grandfather helped raise Suzanne, and she has done much to help bring renewed attention to Harold's career, helping compile DVDs and write books, including Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D!, the subject of her talk. Adults only please !

One event that stands out in memory was with Arthur Lennig #375 for his then just published, revised version of Stroheim. What a masterful biography; it was the book that got me fascinated with this legendary director! I recall after the event my wife and I took Lennig out to dinner, and he regaled us with stories about Stroheim as well as with stories about the subject of Lennig's other well known biography, The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi. As a teenage film buff, Lennig had written fan letters to Lugosi, who was touring the country acting in small theater companies. One day, Lennig told us over our entree, there was a knock at the door. His mother answered, and Bela Lugosi asked if a young fan of his named Arthur was at home!

The Lennig event came about because of the store's success in selling the Frederica Sagor Maas memoir, which was published by the University Press of Kentucky. That press also published two other books for which I put on events, Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood by the late-great Robert Birchard #690, and The Barrymores: Hollywood's First Family, a pictorial by Carol Stein Hoffman #479. The latter book includes material on Drew Barrymore, who is pictured on the cover, and for about thirty seconds their was talk and the hope that the actress would make a special appearance at the store to help promote a book about her famous family. Too bad it never came to be.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s university presses and small presses emerged as the de facto leading publishers of books on film history, especially regarding the silent and early sound era. The Booksmith did events with Matthew Kennedy for his delightful Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes (University Press of Mississippi), with Caryl Flinn #992 for Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman (University of California Press), and with David Stenn for the reissues of his Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild (Cooper Square Press) and Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow (Lightning Bug Press). The store also did an event with Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal #560 for their fascinating pictorial, Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco (Santa Monica Press). A few weeks after the event, Patricia Hitchcock came by the store to sign books. She was the director's daughter, an actress, and had written the forward to the Footsteps in the Fog. 

The store also did a couple of events with San Francisco writer Emily Leider #198, #593 for her stellar biographies of films stars Mae West and Rudolph Valentino. Each are highly recommended. There were also two events with San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle #403, #566 for his fascinating studies of pre-code film, Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood and Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man. On a not unrelated note, Hollywood photographer and film historian Mark A. Vieira #324 made an appearance for his landmark pictorial Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood. No film book library is complete without the latter book.

There were other notable events as well, like those with Mark Cotta Vaz #775 for Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong, and John Wranovics #770 for Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay. It was an honor to host an event with one-time producer and United Artists studio head Steven Bach #923 for his study, Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. Likewise, I was proud to do an event with writer Donald Richie #468 for his 2001 book, The Donald Richie Reader: 50 Years of Writing on Japan. Although he looms large as a writer on the culture of Japan, Richie considered himself primarily a film historian. (He also directed a number of experimental films.) His 1965 book on the films of Akira Kurosawa, his 1977 book on Yasujirō Ozu, and his others books on Japanese cinema are cornerstone works.

Because of my early involvement with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, I was able to bring some of the authors I had done events with at the Booksmith to the SFSFF to do a booksigning, where the store had a table with all manner of films books for sale. On a few occasions, authors like Frederica Sagor Maas, Arthur Lennig, and Baby Peggy followed their Booksmith appearance by signing the next day at the festival. That was also the case with Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye #807, who had authored a biography of 1920s crooner Russ Colombo, and screenwriter Jerry Stahl #691, who wrote a novel, I, Fatty, loosely based on the life of Roscoe Arbuckle. Unfortunately, not everyone understood the difference between biography and fiction. But we still sold some books.

I have likely gone on too long with this "memoir" of my time spent as a bookseller. It was an exercise in nostalgia; I don't make any claim as to its value, except in the telling of stories about authors and individuals of interest to readers and film buffs. An annotated checklist of all the cards can be found at www.thomasgladysz.com/booksmith-author-cards-a-checklist/

A few fascinating non-Louise Brooks finds

While researching Louise Brooks for my forthcoming book, Around the World with Louise Brooks, I too often come across all sorts of intriguing articles and images which have little or nothing to do with the actress. I try to resist them, and to stay focused on the project at hand. However, sometimes I give in and save something of interest with the intention of sharing. Here are a few recent finds.

The first is a page of delicious images of the lovely Marlene Dietrich, Brooks' one-time rival for the role of Lulu in Pandora's Box. The page comes from Paris-plaisirs : revue mensuelle esthétique et humoristique, a French publication. It dates from April 1930.

If you have seen The Blue Angel, and I hope you have, you will recall that an older character, Professor Immanuel Rath (played by Emil Jannings), was attracted to the youthful Lola Lola (played by Dietrich). 

Speaking of Professors, here is another recent find, a snapshot of Douglas Fairbanks leading a class on film at the University of Southern California. This clipping comes from a French film journal, and dates to February, 1929. I wonder if Fairbanks' son, Doug Jr., who appeared in the 1926 Brooks' film The American Venus, sat in on the class? Whatever the answer, I would guess this class more or less marks the beginning of film studies!

One of my favorite filmmakers of the silent era is Erich von Stroheim. I came across this 1937 article about the director which is essentially an interview -- which I think is fascinating. Too bad von Stroheim and Brooks never worked together. Oh what perverse delights would have resulted.

And for good measure here is something else I spotted on Facebook, a screen capture or film still from Billy Wilder's Menschen am Sonntag (1930), another film you really should see if you haven't. Known as People on Sunday, the film follows a group of residents of Berlin on a summer's day. It is beautiful, and evocative. What I find interesting about the image below are the postcards of film stars thumb-tacked to the wall. Brooks is not among them, but I do spot images of Garbo, Harold Lloyd, and second/third from the pretty actress' nose, Esther Ralston, the star of The American Venus.

Upcoming San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The line-up of films for the 2019 San Francisco Silent Film Festival was recently announced. And it looks great. This year's festival, the 24th annual event, celebrates 24 years of live-cinema, presenting silent-era films with live musical accompaniment at San Francisco’s historic (silent-era) Castro Theatre. This year, the festival features five full days of dazzling silent-era movies set to extraordinary music by a diverse group of forty musicians from around the world! This year's festival will take place May 1–5. More information may be found HERE.

This year’s program features a number of new film restorations, including one by the SFSFF in partnership with Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay Productions, Clarence Brown’s The Signal Tower (1924). Films from ten countries will be represented, including films from Bali, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the USSR.

On opening night, Wednesday, May 1, there will be a screening of the new restoration of Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman. This exquisite 4k digital restoration was undertaken by The Criterion Collection, Warner Bros., and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, and will have its world premiere at SFSFF. Accompanying the film will be composer Timothy Brock, who will conduct his original score performed by an orchestra composed of students of the SF Conservatory of Music. [I interviewed Brock for this year's program booklet.]

Other highlights include a new preservation print of Goona Goona, a film made entirely in Bali with an all-Balinese cast which will be accompanied by Club Foot Gamelan (comprised of Club Foot Orchestra and Gamelan Sekar Jaya players); The Home Maker to be introduced by Oscar-honoree Kevin Brownlow and accompanied by Stephen Horne; the first Italian feature L’Inferno (1911), which will be accompanied by the Matti Bye Ensemble with intertitle narration by actor and Louise Brooks-fan Paul McGann (Withnail and I, Doctor Who); a beautiful new 4k print of Erich von Stroheim’s The Wedding March with its original Technicolor sequence, to be accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra; and the closing night’s presentation of another Buster Keaton masterpiece in a brand new restoration, Our Hospitality, also accompanied by Mont Alto.

Fans of Louise Brooks will be interested to note the various intersections between this year's Festival and Brooks' film career: directors William A. Wellman (Beggars of Life) and G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl) are represented, while appearing on screen in various films are Fritz Rasp, Josef Rovensky, and Werner Krauss (Diary of a Lost Girl) as well as Wallace Beery (Now We're in the Air, Beggars of Life), Virginia Valli (Evening Clothes), and El Brendel (Rolled Stockings - which was filmed in nearby Berkeley).

I hope to be signing books on Saturday afternoon. Otherwise, here is the complete line-up of films. 

WEDNESDAY MAY 1

GRAND TOUR ITALIANO, 1905–1914
Special Afternoon Presentation at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley / Presented in partnership with BAMPFA An Illustrated Lecture with Gian Luca Farinelli, director of the Cineteca di Bologna
3:00 pm / Tickets and more information: bampfa.org
Over a century ago, a few years after the birth of the Italian nation and the birth of the new art form of cinema, early camera operators were alert to the potential of documenting the beautiful new country for the international cinema-going market and burgeoning tourist industry. Filmmakers from Germany and France flooded in to join Italian cineastes in documenting the landscapes and customs of far-flung Italian locales from Sicily to Venice. The Cineteca di Bologna has preserved a collection of these travelogues, shot between 1905 and 1914, and the Cineteca’s director Gian Luca Farinelli will present a selection of the most fascinating, providing context for the exquisite images. This early 20th-century grand tour will wend from Sicily through Amalfi, Rome, Bologna, and Milan before ending in Venice.  Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

THE CAMERAMAN
7:00 pm  $24/$22 Opening Night Presentation
Directed by Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton | US, 1928  | 72 m.
With Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin
Buster Keaton’s tintype photographer falls for MGM office gal Marceline Day and tries to impress her by becoming a newsreel cameraman. His efforts take him from Yankee Stadium to the middle of a Chinatown tong war. Sublimely romantic, hilariously funny, and now in a beautiful 4K restoration! Musical accompaniment by Timothy Brock conducting his original score performed by an orchestra composed of students of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

THURSDAY MAY 2

AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES
10:00 am  FREE ADMISSION
Our Amazing Tales program started life in 2006 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: Restorer ROBERT BYRNE and researcher THIERRY LECOINTE will share cinematic wonders they’ve discovered in fin de siècle novelty flipbooks. STEFAN DRÖSSLER, head of Filmmuseum München, discusses the restoration of Robert Reinert’s Opium and Germany’s flourishing national cinema at the end of WWI. HISASHI OKAJIMA, director of the National Film Archive of Japan, demonstrates the Mina Talkie Sound System used for Kenji Mizoguchi’s Furusato. BRUCE GOLDSTEIN, director of repertory programming at New York’s Film Forum and founder of Rialto Pictures, illustrates how “Silents Got No Respect” the minute talkies came in. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

WOLF SONG
1:15 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Victor Fleming | US, 1929 | 65m.
With Gary Cooper, Lupe Velez, Louis Wolheim, Constantine Romanoff
Sam Lash (Gary Cooper) is torn between the call of the wild and his love for Lola (Lupe Velez), the beautiful daughter of a Mexican nobleman. The electricity between Velez and Cooper resonated on screen and off, and Cooper’s nude bathing scene sealed his reputation as a matinée idol. Musical accompaniment by Philip Carli.

THE OYSTER PRINCESS
3:00 pm  $17/$15
Original Language Title: DIE AUSTERNPRINZESSIN
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch | Germany, 1919 | 60 m.
With Ossi Oswalda, Victor Janson, Harry Liedtke, Julius Falenstein, Max Kronert
The heiress (Ossi Oswalda) to an immense fortune cajoles her father, the Oyster King of America (Victor Janson), to find her a royal match after the daughter of the Shoe-Cream King marries a count. The Lubitsch Touch is in full force here! Musical accompaniment by Wayne Barker.

EARTH
5:00 pm  $17/$15
Original Language Title: ZEMLYA
Directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko | USSR, 1930 | 79 m.
With Semen Svashenko, Stepan Shkurat, Yuliya Solntseva, Elena Maksimova
Part Three of director Dovzhenko’s “Ukraine Trilogy,” Earth is his masterpiece. The film portrays the socialist movement to collectivize agricultural lands in the late 1920s and the resistance by landowners. One of the most important Soviet films—it is beautiful, rousing, and poetic. Musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble.

THE SIGNAL TOWER
7:00 pm  $22/$20
Directed by Clarence Brown | US, 1924 | 84 m.
With Virginia Valli, Rockliffe Fellowes, Frankie Darro, Wallace Beery
This thrilling drama, set deep in the redwood forest of Mendocino on the Fort Bragg railroad line, pits a decent family against terrifying forces—a runaway train and Wallace Beery! Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius.

OPIUM
9:00 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Robert Reinert | Germany, 1919 | 91 m.
With Eduard von Winterstein, Hanna Ralph, Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt
With camerawork and color tinting that mirror the hallucinatory effect of its titular drug, Opium tells a fantastical story of addiction and vengeance with more than a touch of eroticism. Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald.

FRIDAY MAY 3

YOU NEVER KNOW WOMEN
10:00 am  $15/$13
Directed by William A. Wellman | US, 1926  | 72 m.
With Florence Vidor, Lowell Sherman, Clive Brook, El Brendel
Clive Brook and Florence Vidor are part of an itinerant Russian circus troupe when she falls for a rakish dandy played by Lowell Sherman. This early film by William A. Wellman (Wings) shows his nascent mastery. Musical accompaniment by Philip Carli.

TONKA OF THE GALLOWS
12:00 NOON  $17/$15
Original Language Title: TONKA ŠIBERNICE
Directed by Karel Anton | Czechoslovakia, 1930 | 83 m.
With Ita Rina, Vera Baranovskaya, Josef Rovensky
Tonka (Ita Rina) is a country girl who becomes a prostitute in Prague where an act of selfless generosity—spending the night with a condemned man—marks her as a pariah. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

HUSBANDS AND LOVERS
2:15 pm  $17/$15
Directed by John M. Stahl | US, 1924 | 93 m.
With Lewis Stone, Florence Vidor, Lew Cody, Dale Fulle, Winter Hall, Edithe Yorke
Lewis Stone is the not-so-doting husband to Florence Vidor’s devoted wife in this splendidly nuanced comedy that features the quintessentially caddish Lew Cody as the other man. Musical accompaniment by Philip Carli.

RAPSODIA SATANICA
5:00 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Nino Oxilia | Italy, 1917 | 43 m. (70 m. total)
With Lyda Borelli, Andrea Habay, Ugo Bazzini, Giovanni Cini
The divine Lydia Borelli is the aging Countess d’Oltrevita, who makes a Faustian bargain to regain youthful beauty. The catch: she’s forbidden to ever fall in love. This exquisitely colored film will be preceded by a sample of beautiful Kinemacolor shorts from Cineteca di Bologna’s collection, presented by Gian Luca Farinelli. Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

THE LOVE OF JEANNE NEY
7:10 pm  $22/$20
Original Language Title: DIE LIEBE DER JEANNE NEY
Directed by G.W. Pabst | Germany, 1927 | 105 m.
With Édith Jéhanne, Uno Henning, Fritz Rasp, Brigitte Helm
Set against Russia’s post-revolution civil war, the story follows Jeanne Ney (Édith Jéhanne) who flees to Paris when her diplomat father is killed after receiving a list of Bolshevik agents from the duplicitous opportunist Khalibiev (Fritz Rasp)—a list that contains the name of Jeanne’s lover (Uno Henning)! Musical accompaniment by the Guenter Buchwald Ensemble.

WEST OF ZANZIBAR
9:20 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Tod Browning | US, 1928 | 65 m.
With Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Nolan, Warner Baxter
Revenge consumes Lon Chaney’s paralyzed Phroso the Magician. He swears vengeance on the man he blames for his misfortune (Lionel Barrymore), pursuing him to Africa to extract horrifying retribution. Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius.

SATURDAY MAY 4

LIGHTS OF OLD BROADWAY
10:00 am  $15/$13
Directed by Monta Bell | US, 1925  | 73 m.
With Marion Davies, Conrad Nagel, Frank Currier
Marion Davies plays twins who were separated at birth. One twin (Anne) becomes part of New York society, the other a tough cookie (Fely) who grows up in an Irish slum and takes to the stage. Musical accompaniment by Philip Carli.

HELL BENT
12:00 noon  $17/$15
Directed by John Ford | US, 1918 | 53 m. (75 m. total)
With Harry Carey, Duke Lee, Neva Gerber, Vester Pegg
John Ford’s fast-paced western uses the framing device of a writer who gets a complaint that his plots are unrealistic. In response, with a Remington illustration for inspiration, he concocts the story of a man who saves his girlfriend and than sets off across the desert on foot.  Musical accompaniment by Philip Carli  Plus: BROWNIE’S LITTLE VENUS (1921, starring Baby Peggy and Brownie the Wonder Dog, 22 m).

GOONA GOONA
2:30 pm  $17/$15
Directed by André Roosevelt and Armand Denis | Bali, 1932 | 65 m.
With Wyan, Dasnee, Seronee, Ktot, Nonga, Okan, Maday, Rajah of Bali
Two men, one a prince, the other low-born, are in love with Dasnee, a lower-caste girl. The prince cannot have her, but he conspires to drug Dasnee and have his way with her while her husband (his rival) is away. Filmed entirely in Bali. Musical accompaniment by Club Foot Gamelan.

L’HOMME DU LARGE
4:30 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Marcel L’Herbier | France, 1920 | 75 m.
With Jaque Catelain, Roger Karl, Marcelle Pradot, Claire Prélia, Suzanne Doris
Based on a short story by Balzac, this lyrical film is set on the rugged coast of Brittany where forces of good and evil beset a Breton fishing family.  Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius / Intertitle narration by Paul McGann.

THE WEDDING MARCH
6:30 pm  $22/$20
Directed by Erich von Stroheim | US, 1928 | 116 m.
With Erich von Stroheim, Fay Wray, Cesare Gravina, George Fawcett, ZaSu Pitts
Impoverished Prince Nicki (Erich von Stroheim) is in love with the innkeeper’s daughter, Fay Wray, but his parents want him to wed the wealthy ZaSu Pitts. Director von Stroheim’s affecting tale captures the Vienna of his youth. Musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

L’INFERNO
9:15 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe de Liguoro | Italy, 1911 | 66 m.
With Salvatore Papa, Arturo Pirovano, Giuseppe de Liguoro, Attilio Motta, Emilise Beretta
Based on Dante’s Inferno, this 1911 production is the first full-length Italian feature and it became an international blockbuster! Its depiction of the nine circles of hell is full of wildly inventive scenes that have been heightened by Cineteca di Bologna’s pristine restoration of the original tinting and toning. Musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble / Intertitle narration by Paul McGann.

SUNDAY MAY 5

JAPANESE GIRLS AT THE HARBOR
10:00 am  $15/$13
Original Language Title: MINATO NO NIHON MUSUME
Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu | Japan, 1933  | 77 m.
With Michiko Oikawa, Yukiko Inoue, Ureo Egawa, Ranko Sawa
“A knockout. Shimizu’s stunning tale of passion, crime, and decadence [is an] exhilarating triumph of ... experimental style [and] also a precious portrait of the great port city of Yokohama.”—Village Voice  Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald and Sascha Jacobsen.

THE HOME MAKER
12:00 noon  $17/$15
Directed by King Baggot | US, 1925 | 85 m.
With Alice Joyce, Clive Brook, Billy Kent Schaeffer, George Fawcett, Virginia Boardman, Elaine Ellis
Alice Joyce and Clive Brook are a couple unsuited to traditional husband and wife roles. He’s ineffectual at work and she’s too exacting a housekeeper. And then he gets fired… Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.

SHIRAZ: A ROMANCE OF INDIA
2:15 pm  $17/$15
Directed by Franz Osten | India, 1928 | 106 m.
With Himansu Rai, Charu Roy, Seeta Devi, Enakshi Rama Rao
Based on Indian source material and filmed entirely in and around Jaipur, Shiraz tells the origin story of the Taj Mahal. Shiraz is the second of a trilogy by German director Franz Osten and Indian producer and star Himansu Rai that culminated in A Throw of Dice. Musical accompaniment by Utsav Lal.

SIR ARNE’S TREASURE
5:00 pm  $17/$15
Original Language Title: HERR ARNES PENGAR
Directed by Mauritz Stiller | Sweden, 1919 | 106 m.
With Richard Lund, Erik Stocklassa, Bror Berger, Mary Johnson
Mauritz Stiller’s adaptation of Nobel-prize-winning author Selma Lagerlöf’s novel of murder and revenge is set against a harsh, icy landscape perfectly captured by Julius Jaenzon’s painterly camerawork. Musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble.

OUR HOSPITALITY
8:00 pm  $22/$20 Closing Night Presentation
Directed by Buster Keaton, John G. Blystone | US, 1923  | 65 m.
With Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge, Joe Roberts, Francis X. Bushman Jr., Craig Ward, Joe Keaton
Down South to claim his inheritance, New Yorker Willie McKay (Buster Keaton) meets and falls for the beautiful Virginia (Natalie Talmadge). She invites him to her home for dinner, where it’s revealed that she’s the youngest of the Canfield family, the ancestral feuding enemies of the McKays. Virginia’s brothers have itchy trigger fingers but the Canfield code of hospitality dictates no killing in the house! Musical accompaniment by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.