Street of Forgotten Men decidedly impressive

Cinefest – the annual movie convention held in Syracuse, New York – will screen Herbert Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) on Thursday, March 15th at 8:55 pm. This is a rare opportunity to see Louise Brooks in her very first screen role. Unfortunately, this acclaimed film is not on DVD and is seldom shown. Don't miss it. Here is what the critics thought of the film when it was first released:

“The Street of Forgotten Men dips into the dark pools of life. It shows you the beggars of life - apologies to Jim Tully - and in showing them it shows them up.” -- Mildred Spain, New York Daily News

“An absorbing story, done by a cast of people who really know how to act and directed in a skillful manner by Herbert Brenon.” -- Dorothy Day, New York Morning Telegraph

“It is a startling tale of Bowery life, of the soiled, tawdry ladies and broken men of the underworld. . . . Percy Marmont was an ideal choice for the difficult leading role, and his work, as usual, is quiet, clean cut and convincing. Mary Brian is a sweet peaches and cream heroine. . . . Direction and photography are splendid, making the movie decidedly worth seeing.” -- Roberta Nangle, Chicago Tribune

“This story is decidedly impressive, out-of-the-ordinary and interesting and we believe that it will be quite generally liked.” -- C. S. Sewell, Moving Picture World

“For fine dramatic detail, for unusualness, for giving us a glimpse into a world we never see and into the other sides of characters we simply pass in pity on the streets, The Street of Forgotten Men is a photoplay revelation.” -- A.F. Gillaspey, San Francisco Bulletin

“Here we have an underworld drama, stark and naked in its picturing of the beggars and fakers who prey on the public in the name of charity.” -- Curran D. Swint, San Francisco News

“Percy Marmont, as a bogus crippled beggar . . . has a role that is more closely akin to his great interpretation of Mark Sabre in If Winter Comes than any since the Hutchinson novel was put upon the screen. All of which means that this artist again has an excellent role for the display of his rare genius.” -- Washington Star

“ . . . it will go down as one of those rare films, beloved of the true blue fan, that contain such a wealth of choice parts as to make of nearly every player an outstanding artist.” -- Los Angeles Herald

“The Bowery in the days of long ago is faithfully transcribed to the screen in this story dealing with the lives of the professional beggars who prey on the easy-going public. Herbert Brenon, with the aid of a fine cast, headed by Percy Marmont, has made a gripping and entertaining picture.” -- M. B., Photoplay 

The Street of Forgotten Men was a big hit just about everywhere. Nearly nine months after it’s initial release, the film was still in circulation in the United States. Appearing as an added feature at this 1926 Toledo, Ohio showing was the House of David Band. This musical group was part of a nearby religious community based in Michigan whose members refrained from sex, haircuts, shaving, and eating meat. As followers of the Christian Israelite faith, the group’s touring musical acts were sometimes described as “Shaveless Sheiks of Syncopation.”  

Street of Forgotten Men: This Film is Something Like Miracle Man

Cinefest – the annual movie convention held in Syracuse, New York – is set to screen Herbert Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men (1925) on Thursday, March 15th at 8:55 pm. This is a rare opportunity to see Louise Brooks in her very first screen role. This acclaimed film is not on DVD.

Street of Forgotten Men shows at Cinefest in Syracuse

Cinefest, an annual movie convention held in Syracuse, New York is set to screen one of the more unusual films from the silent era, Herbert Brenon's The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). Long thought lost, this "underworld romance" has seldom been seen since its debut 87 years ago. The Library of Congress holds one of the only surviving prints, and representatives of the LOC will bring their copy to Cinefest for this rare screening.

Described at the time as "strange and startling" and "a drama of places and of people you have never seen before," The Street of Forgotten Men tells the story of a gang of professional beggars whose underworld headquarters is known as a "cripple factory." Led by the colorfully named Easy Money Charlie (played by Percy Marmont), the gang preys on public sympathy by disfiguring themselves and feigning various disabilities. 

The Street of Forgotten Men also tells the story of a Bowery Cinderella, played by winsome Mary Brian, whose life is linked to these con artists as well as to a young millionaire, played by handsome Neil Hamilton. (Yes, that Neil Hamilton –  Commissioner Gordon from the 1960's television series, Batman.)

Set in the Bowery and shot in part on the streets of New York City, the film is a mix of old-fashioned melodrama and gritty realism. It was based on a short story by George Kibbe Turner, a muckraking journalist and novelist of the time. In its review of the film, the New York Daily News stated "The Street of Forgotten Men dips into the dark pools of life. It shows you the beggars of life – apologies to Jim Tully – and in showing them it shows them up." On the other coast, the San Francisco Bulletin noted "For fine dramatic detail, for unusualness, for giving us a glimpse into a world we never see and into the other sides of characters we simply pass in pity on the streets, The Street of Forgotten Men is a photoplay revelation."

The film's most unusual scenes occur when this band of beggars check into work and are fitted with fake bandages, artificial arms and legs, false high heeled shoes and other trick paraphernalia for the luring of sympathetic coins into battered tin cups. Canes and crutches along with signs that read "I Am Blind" and "Please help a cripple" lend atmosphere to the group's "changing room." According to studio press sheets, a mendicant officer and 20-year veteran of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charity served as advisor for scenes shot inside the dingy cripple factory.

Though the film and its source material was a look back at the Bowery and the practices of the disreputable down-and-out, a 1926 article in the New York Times reported that the film may have in turn inspired a group of fake beggars. "The police are investigating the speakeasy. It was recalled that several months ago a motion picture, The Street of Forgotten Men, . . . showed just such an establishment for equipping 'cripples' as that described by Williams, and the police thought the movie idea might have been put to practical use."

Aside from its strangeness, there is much to recommend in The Street of Forgotten Men. The film was shot in the Astoria studios on Long Island, as well as on location in 1925 New York City. One memorable scene – when Marmont and Brian come across the character known as Bridgeport White-Eye – was filmed on a busy Fifth Avenue near Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Shot with a concealed camera, the unaware crowds passing on the street along with images of shops and businesses from long ago – including a vegetarian restaurant – prove striking. According to press reports from the time – which should be taken with a grain of salt, the appearance of pathetic-looking actors dressed in disheveled attire drew spontaneous donations from passers-by not realizing a motion picture was being filmed. Another memorable scene with a good deal of local color takes place at the still standing Little Church Around the Corner on East 29th.

Two performers not listed in the film's credits also made their mark in The Street of Forgotten Men. One was a dog named Lassie. (This bull terrier-cocker spaniel mix predated the more famous Collie.) A 1927 New York Times article about the canine stated, "It is said that the death of Lassie in The Street of Forgotten Men was so impressive that persons were convinced that she must have been cruelly beaten. Her master, Emery Bronte, said that the dog seemed to enjoy acting in the scenes, and that after each 'take' she went over to Mr. Brenon and cocked her head on the side, as if asking for a pat or two." Regrettably, one of the seven reels of The Street of Forgotten Men is missing, and not all of Lassie's scenes are extant. 

The other performer who made an impression was Louise Brooks, who was dancing with the Ziegfeld Follies when she agreed to play a bit part in The Street of Forgotten Men. Though not credited, the film marked her screen debut. As a moll, Brooks' role was slight – she appears on screen for only about 5 minutes. Nevertheless, her brief role drew the attention of an anonymous Los Angeles Times reviewer who singled out the actress when they wrote, "And there was a little rowdy, obviously attached to the 'blind' man, who did some vital work during her few short scenes." This was Brooks' first film review.

Like the film, the director of The Street of Forgotten Men has fallen into the shadows of history. Herbert Brenon enjoyed a long career which lasted from 1912 to 1940, but today he is one of those early directors who is largely forgotten though deserving of greater recognition. The Street of Forgotten Men was made shortly after Brenon made the film for which he is best remembered, Peter Pan (1924). His other notable efforts include The Spanish Dancer (1923) with Pola Negri, Dancing Mothers (1926) with Clara Bow, Beau Geste (1926), The Great Gatsby (1926), God Gave Me Twenty Cents (1926), and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928) with Lon Chaney. All were big hits.

Though little known today, The Street of Forgotten Men was well regarded in its day. Marmont, a leading star of the silent era, was singled out for his exceptional Lon Chaney-like performance, and director Brenon was praised for his realistic depiction of Bowery life. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best pictures of 1925, and it was picked as one of the best of the year by newspapers around the country. This rare screening gives Cinefest attendees an opportunity to see a film which should be on DVD.

Only two weeks till Napoleon

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival's monumental presentation of Abel Gance's 1927 masterpiece NAPOLEON is only two weeks away! Watch for major coverage of this event in and on...

 

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... and other major local and national media outlets. But don't wait for the press to break... IT'LL MIGHT BE TOO LATE! This event will NOT be presented again in any other American city. There are absolutely, positively FOUR PERFORMANCES ONLY: March 24, 25, 31, and April 1 at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, CA

Tickets are going fast, don't delay -- BUY YOURS NOW!

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"A MAJOR EVENT! Don't wait for it to come to a theater near you - getting Gance's magnum opus up on a screen is a herculean task!" - Martin Scorsese, Vanity Fair

 

"In 10 or 20 or 30 years, when this screening of Napoleon is only a memory, film lovers will ask -- were you there? 'Did you see the Napoleon  at the Paramount in 2012?'" - Thomas Gladysz, Huffington Post

 

"You don't want to kick yourself afterwards for missing out on this experience!" - Leonard Maltin, Movie Crazy

 

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________________________________________________________________________  . NAPOLEON SPONSORS BART | City Car Share | French Consulate of San Francisco | French American Cultural Society Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant | KQED | MacPhun | The Parsonage | Miss Pearl's Jam House 7 x 7 | Turner Classic Movies | Video Transfer Center | Yelp | Waterfront Hotel

________________________________________________________________________ NAPOLEON PROMOTIONAL PARTNERS Balboa Theatre | BFI | Castro Theatre | Criterion Collection | Emory College Film Forum, New York | Film Noir Foundation | French Consulate of San Francisco National Gallery of Art | Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum | Oakland East Bay Symphony Pacific Film Archive | Photoplay Productions | Pordenone Silent Film Festival Seattle International Film Festival | Sony Pictures Colorworks

_______________________________________________________________________  . NAPOLEON COMMUNITY PARTNERS Alamo Drafthouse Cinema | British Consulate San Francisco | Cal Performances Denver Silent Film Festival | Directors Guild of America | East Bay Jewish Film Festival | Exploratorium eye Film Instituut Nederland | Fandor | Flicker Alley | French American Chamber of Commerce French American Cultural Society | Friends of the Oakland Fox | Landmark Theatres | Library of Congress Lobster Films | Louise Brooks Society | MUBI | NYU Orphan Film Symposium | Oddball Films Port Townsend Film Institute | Prelinger Archives | Sacramento French Film Festival San Francisco Cinematheque | San Francisco Film Society | San Francisco State University Cinema Department San Francisco Symphony | The Silent Treatment | Smith Rafael Film Center | Wexner Center for the Arts  OFFICIAL MOBILE SPONSOR of SFSFF We are proud to announce Silent Film Director for iPhone as the official mobile partner of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Silent Film Director brings the magic and elegance of the silent era to the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, allowing you to shoot, edit and share your own silent films. With just a few taps you can add music, title cards, transitions, customize soundtracks, video effects and more. Coming soon, MacPhun LLC - the developer of Silent Film Director - will announce an international silent film contest, where everyone with an iPhone will have a chance to create their own silent masterpiece. Maybe it won't be another Napoleon or The Artist, but it will be your work of art and you will be the Silent Film Director.

 

Louise Brooks' first film screens this month

Cinefest in Syracuse, New York is set to screen the first film in which Louise Brooks had a part, The Street of Forgotten Men (1925). Cinefest 32 takes place Thursday, March 15 through Sunday, March 18, 2012. 

The Street of Forgotten Men is very rarely shown, as very few copies of the film are known to exist. In the film, Brooks plays a moll, the girlfriend of a criminal. Her part is uncredited. Brooks was only 18 years old when the film was made. And, she appears on screen for only about 5 minutes.

Here is a scan of a newspaper advertisement for the first time The Street of Forgotten Men was shown in Syracuse, in November of 1925. 

Napleon not to be missed

When Kevin Brownlow's first restoration of Abel Gance's epic silent film, Napoleon (1927), played at the 6000 seat Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 1981, it sold out. As a matter of fact, it sold out again and again and again as additional screenings were hastily added for what was then described as the "movie event of the year."

Now, Brownlow's second major restoration of Napoleon is set to play in Oakland, California in what is being described as the "cinema event of a lifetime." Hyperbole? Not really. Bigger and better than ever before? Decidedly yes.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is presenting Gance's masterpiece – unseen in the United States for nearly 30 years – for four performances only on March 24, 25, 31 and April 1. This exclusive engagement marks not only the U.S. premiere of what is being billed as a complete restoration by Brownlow – an Academy Award honoree in 2011 – but as well the U.S. premiere of an original score by acclaimed composer Carl Davis, who is coming over from England to conduct the Oakland East Bay Symphony.

According to Brownlow and those involved in putting together this monumental undertaking, there are no plans for the film to show anywhere else in the United States – due in part to the extraordinary costs and technical challenges of mounting this "live cinema experience." And, should you be wondering, there are no plans for many of the same reasons for the film to be shown on television or to be released on DVD or Blu-ray. In other words, this really is a "cinema event of a lifetime."

If you love silent film, or if you love the movies in general, and if you are not yet convinced that you need to see this rarely screened masterpiece, here are ten reasons why you shouldn't miss Napoleon.

10) BACKGROUND: For Brownlow, it’s personal. The English film historian, who will be on hand for the event, first came across a fragment of Gance's 1927 masterpiece as a film-obsessed teenager more than 50 years ago. He was wowed. Since then, he has spent much of his life piecing together this lost masterpiece which had been dismissed, neglected, cut up, reworked, and scattered by the winds of time.


 9) KEVIN BROWNLOW: In 2010, this author, documentary filmmaker, and preservationist became the first film historian to win an Academy Award. In an industry which is always looking forward and very seldom backward, that is something special. Brownlow's reputation is legendary. He has authored a handful of classic texts including The Parade's Gone By (1968), a book which helped shape a generation of film scholars and film buffs. [It includes a note of thanks to Louise Brooks and acknowledgement of a debt to the actress "for acting as a prime mover in this book's publication."] The Parade's Gone By is still in print after more than forty years. Brownlow has also made more than a dozen extraordinary documentaries including the 13-part television series, Hollywood  (1979), which aired to great acclaim on both the BBC and PBS. It set the standard for every serious film documentary which followed. [It too includes footage of Louise Brooks.]  Brownlow has, as well, been involved in the restoration of a number of other landmark films, among them The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse  (1921), The Thief of Bagdad  (1924), King Vidor's The Crowd  (1928), and nearly two dozen others including the first film to win an Oscar, Wings  (1928). In the March issue of Vanity Fair, Martin Scorsese wrote "If you love silent movies, Kevin Brownlow should be your hero."

8)  SETTING: It's said that a theater can enhance a film experience. That’s true for the Oakland Paramount, a 1931 Art Deco movie palace designed by the celebrated Timothy L. Pflueger. Still gorgeous after all these years, the 3,000 seat Oakland Paramount has gone through its own restoration and is today entered into the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks in part to this historic venue – a temple to the motion picture experience, movie-goers who attend Napoleon  should expect to find themselves spellbound in darkness, as were those who attended the film's premiere at the Paris Opera in 1927.

7)  MUSIC: The eminent British composer and conductor Carl Davis will lead the Oakland East Bay Symphony (whose home is the Oakland Paramount) in Davis' own score for Napoleon. Written over 30 years ago, it is a marathon and masterful work of film scoring which has twice been expanded to keep up with newly found footage.


 6)  CARL DAVIS: Since 1961, this American born artist has made his home in the UK, where he serves as a conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra while regularly conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Carl Davis has written music for more than 100 television programs and feature films, but is best known for creating music to accompany silent films, including key Brownlow restorations. Davis has also assisted in the orchestration of the symphonic works of Paul McCartney, been given a Honorary CBE from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and won a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.

5) BIGGER AND BETTER:  This current and perhaps final restoration, completed in 2000 but not previously seen outside Europe, reclaims more than 30 minutes of additional footage discovered since the earlier restorations while visually upgrading much of the film. This unique 35mm print, made at the laboratory of the BFI’s National Archive, uses traditional dye-bath techniques to recreate the color tints and tones that enhanced the film on its original release, giving a vividness to the image as never before experienced in this country.

 4) GREATEST FILM EVER MADE: Over the years, many films have been said to be the greatest film ever made. For reasons of film history, for reasons having to do with its own history, and for reasons of artistic achievement, this may be the one film most deserving of the claim. Here is what Vincent Canby had to say in 1981 in the pages of the New York Times. "As one watches Napoleon, one suddenly realizes that there once was a film that justified all of the adjectives that have subsequently been debased by critics as well as advertising copywriters. Napoleon  sweeps; it takes the breath away; it moves (itself as well as the spectator); it dazzles."

3)  POLYVISION: There are few movies so innovative, so daring and so hugely ambitious as Napoleon. In a way, it is a cinematographer's textbook, and what's more, Gance repeatedly broke new ground in this seminal film. To involve the viewer with the drama on the screen, Gance employed rapid cutting and swirling camera movements and put the camera where it had not gone before – like freely hanging from a balloon or handheld on horseback. And suddenly, you are there in history. One of Gance's great innovations was Polyvision. For thefinale, the screen expands to three times its normal width – a kind of triptych – while showing panoramic views and montages of images. There really hasn't been anything else like it, not even Cinerama, which was developed 30 years later. To present Polyvision at the Oakland Paramount, three projection booths equipped with three perfectly-synchronized projectors will be specially installed, along with a purpose-built three-panel screen which will fill the width of the auditorium.

2)  VALUE:  As movie tickets go, these are expensive tickets. They range between $45.00 and $120.00 dollars per person. However, for a five and a half hour movie (the length of three contemporary films) accompanied by a live symphony orchestra (a concert ticket too), the ticket prices to Napoleon are – when everything is added up – rather inexpensive.

1) EXPERIENCE: This presentation of Napoleon is likely the closest we will ever come to experiencing Gance's masterpiece as the director intended it. According to on-line message boards, film goers are flying in from all over the United States and Europe. In ten or twenty or thirty years, when this screening of Napoleon is only a memory, film lovers will ask – were you there? "Did you see the Napoleon at the Paramount in 2012?"

 Kevin Brownlow’s restoration of Abel Gance's Napoleon is being presented by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in association with American Zoetrope, The Film Preserve, Photoplay Productions, and BFI (British Film Institute). Each screening of the 5 1/2-hour epic will begin at 1:30 in the afternoon and will be shown in four parts with three intermissions, including a dinner break. Local restaurants are creating special Napoleon-themed menus for the event, which is expected to end by 9:30 pm. Further information and ticket availability here and at http://www.silentfilm.org

Boards of Canada score a bit of Diary of a Lost Girl

Boards of Canada (commonly abbreviated BoC) are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin. Their music is reminiscent of the warm, analogue sounds of 1970s media and contains themes of childhood, nostalgia and the natural world. Mike and Marcus have mentioned the documentary films of the National Film Board of Canada, from which the group's name is derived, as a source of inspiration. Here, their music accompanies a passage from the 1929 Louise Brooks film, Diary of a Lost Girl.