San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2022

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival held its first event in July, 1996 - a one-day, three-program celebration of silent cinema with live musical accompaniment put on by founders Steven Salmons and Melissa Chittick. The festival was a success from the beginning, and since then it has grown into a multi-day event with satellite programs throughout the year.

I have been attending the SFSFF since before it began. Way back in 1994, I attended a screening of I Don't Want to be a Man (1918), delightful German silent starring "Germany's Mary Pickford," Ossi Oswalda. 

The Ernst Lubitsch film was shown at the Castro Theater as part of the SF International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. It was also kind of a tryout event by Salmons and Chittick to see if they could sponsor a silent screening and have someone show up! It worked, and the rest is, as they say, silent film festival history. I wrote an article about that tryout event, and another about the festival's 1996 debut, for Classic Images. And I have been writing about the festival for various publications ever since.

As a longtime attendee and observer of the festival, I want to make a simple observation - that this year's covid-delayed 25th anniversary event is the most promising ever. What an impressive line-up of films - classics, popular fair, new restorations, and discoveries from all around the world. All together, the 7-day 2022 event features 29 programs featuring film from 14 countries.

The official announcement reads thus: "San Francisco Silent Film Festival announces the complete lineup for its 2022 Festival, May 5–11 at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco. In fact, it's been 27 years since SFSFF began but we're celebrating our 25th anniversary festival this year (after being waylaid by the pandemic) with a full week of live cinema, pairing beautiful images on screen with superb live music. Twenty-nine programs, all with live musical accompaniment, including nineteen recent film restorations, nine of which will make their North American premieres at the festival.

The festival begins on Thursday, May 5, with the long-awaited world premiere of the full-scale restoration of Erich von Stroheim’s FOOLISH WIVES. This presentation also marks the world premiere of Timothy Brock’s SFSFF-commissioned score! Brock will conduct the SF Conservatory of Music Orchestra.

Many countries will be represented at the festival with films from Austria, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Sweden, USA, and the USSR, including Soviet Georgia and Soviet Ukraine, with more than 50 extraordinary musical accompanists from around the world. Our screening of the Ukrainian film ARREST WARRANT on May 8 will be a benefit with proceeds going to the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv (Ukraine's film archive) and to World Central Kitchen, serving nourishing meals to refugees in the region.
 
Two San Francisco Silent Film Festival Awards for commitment to the preservation and presentation of silent cinema will be given at SFSFF 2022. The first will be presented to New York’s MoMA at the premiere of SFSFF and MoMA's restoration of FOOLISH WIVES on opening night Thursday, May 5, 7:00 pm. The second will be presented to the Deutsche Kinemathek at the North American premiere of their restoration of SYLVESTER on Sunday, May 8, 7:00 pm.

Visit silentfilm.org for complete schedule information, tickets, and passes." 

Or click here to download a handy guide in a pdf format.

 

I have an article previewing the Festival on Film International -- see "Ukrainian Film and Restorations at Silent Film Festival".

Oh, and incidentally... This year the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will premiere its new restoration of The Street of Forgotten Men (1925), Louise Brooks' first film. For fans of the actress, it is an event not to be missed. More information about the film can found HERE. And more information about the event can be found HERE.

More on the newly restored Louise Brooks film The Street of Forgotten Men

Pop Matters has just published my article on the newly restored Louise Brooks film, The Street of Forgotten Men. Please check it out.

The piece, "Restored Silent Film The Street of Forgotten Men Debuts Louise Brooks," looks at the film and the efforts that went into its preservation. I spoke with Robert Byrne of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, who led the team that restored the film, creating a "filmic bridge" to replace the missing second reel.

The restored film will premiere at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 at the historic Castro theater. (Runtime: 74 min -- Print Source: SFSFF Collection -- Format: 35mm) More information about that event can be found HERE.

The May 10th screening will be accompanied by the great Donald Sosin. He has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. His scores are heard regularly on Turner Classic Movies and his music accompanies films on more than fifty DVD releases. Donald has performed at SFSFF since 2007.

Image credit: Pamela Gentile

Newly restored Louise Brooks film to screen in May !!!

BIG NEWS FOR FANS OF LOUISE BROOKS. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has announced it will screen its newly restored print of The Street of Forgotten Men, the film which marks the actress' first appearance in a movie. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is scheduled to take place May 5 through 11 at the historic Castro theater in San Francisco. The Street of Forgotten Men will be shown on Tuesday, May 10 with live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin. More info HERE.

Though a popular and critical success at the time of its release in 1925, The Street of Forgotten Men has been little seen today. Its undeserved obscurity is largely explained by the fact that the 7 reel film survives incomplete, and the film has long been out of circulation; the second reel of the film was lost to nitrate deterioration decades ago, though fortunately, Brooks' brief unaccredited appearance as a gangster's moll comes in the sixth reel, in a pivotal scene near the end of the film. 

Robert Byrne of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, along with the participation for the Library of Congress, led the team which restored the surviving footage and reconstructed the missing second reel. (I was small part of the team, and can state that the restored version looks great and Byrne has done a very fine job in bridging the missing material.) Byrne was assisted by Jennifer Miko, who did work on image restoration. Funding was provided by the noted film poster collector Ira Resnick. Notably, Byrne's earlier restoration efforts includes the "once lost" Louise Brooks film, Now We're in the Air (1927).

Though her role was small and she was not named in the credits, Brooks received her very first review for her work in The Street of Forgotten Men. In August of 1925, an anonymous critic for the Los Angeles Times wrote, “And there was a little rowdy, obviously attached to the ‘blind’ man, who did some vital work during her few short scenes. She was not listed.”  

For more on The Street of Forgotten Men, check out its filmography page on the Louise Brooks Society website. I am currently rushing to complete a new book on the film. Due out this Spring, though likely not in time for the SF Silent Film Festival, is The Street of Forgotten Men: From Story to Screen.

Also worth noting is that the fragmentary footage floating around YouTube which is called a "trailer" is NOT the trailer for the film, just a fragment lifted from other sources and inaccurately labeled.

Louise Brooks film, Love Em and Leave Em, newly released on DVD

I haven't seen it, and can't vouch for what it may look like, but wanted to let everyone know that Oldies.com has recently released the 1926 Louise Brooks' film, Love Em and Leave Em. According to the Oldies.com website, "This product is made-on-demand by the manufacturer using DVD-R recordable media. Almost all DVD players can play DVD-Rs (except for some older models made before 2000) - please consult your owner's manual for formats compatible with your player. These DVD-Rs may not play on all computers or DVD player/recorders. To address this, the manufacturer recommends viewing this product on a DVD player that does not have recording capability." More information about this new release, which retails for only $7.98, may be found HERE. 

Here is the description by OLDIES.com: "On her deathbed, Mame Walsh's mother made her promise to always take care of her little sister, Janie. But Mame didn't expect her baby sister to grow up into a free spirited flapper with a cute little bob of jet-black hair and a set of killer gams! The sisters work together at Ginsburg's department store, where Mame puts her nose to the grindstone and Janie mostly flirts with the customers. After Mame sees Janie kissing the young stud she's sweet on, Bill Billingsley, she gives up and decides to adopt her sister's motto of "love 'em and leave 'em!" She impetuously starts a relationship with Lem Woodruff, a shady gambler and conman. She learns Janie has been gambling the store's money and owes quite a bit to this crook. When it looks like her sister could go to jail, Mame decides to risk all to get the money back from Woodruff and keep her little sister out of the hoosegow.

A charming silent comedy truly emblematic of the "Roaring Twenties", Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is best remembered as the star-making turn for 20-year-old former Ziegfeld Follies girl and Kansas City native Louise Brooks. In the following years she would make A Girl in Every Port (1928) and Beggars of Life (1928) for the same studio, but it was the films she made in Europe for director G.W. Pabst, Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) that would lead cinephile Henri Langlois to proclaim, "There is no Garbo. There is no Dietrich. There is only Louise Brooks!" However, the star of Love 'Em and Leave 'Em is really Evelyn Brent, cast in the thankless role of Louise's overprotective older sister. The gorgeous, tough-as-nails actress had a long career in Hollywood, with standout roles including a gangster's moll in Underworld (1927) and a Russian spy in The Last Command (1928). Osgood Perkins was an accomplished stage actor (he originated the role of Walter Burns in The Front Page on Broadway) but had some memorable moments on the silver screen, including the original Scarface (1932) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936). He is best remembered today as the father of Psycho star Anthony Perkins."

DVD-R Details

    Run Time: 1 hours, 4 minutes
    Video: Black & White
    Encoding: Region 0 (Worldwide)
    Released: January 18, 2022
    Originally Released: 1926
    Label: Alpha Video 

 More about Love Em and Leave Em can be found on the Louise Brooks Society filmography page.

Ukrainian article about Pandora's Box which pictures film stars Louise Brooks and Francis Lederer

In the course of my ongoing research into the world-wide presentation of the films of Louise Brooks, I have found that that they were shown in what is now Ukraine, which during the silent and early sound era was unwillingly part of Russia (aka the former Soviet Union dba the U.S.S.R.) The results of my research will be published later this year in Around the World with Louise Brooks.

One archive that I have been able to explore is LIBRARIA, the Ukrainian Online Periodicals Archive.Just the other day, it went offline, but then returned. And what's more, the archive has opened itself up and visitors may conduct unrestricted searches. I would encourage everyone to check it out, even if you don't read Ukrainian or Russian, as it can be interesting just to browse. One publication to begin with is KINO magazine, which I wrote about earlier in "The Glories of Ukraine's KINO and Chwila film magazines."

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I also did a search for Louise Brooks' name in Cyrillic "Луїза Брукс", and found a thumbnail image, which I was unable to access in a larger format due to earlier restricted, Ukrainian-only, viewing policies. With those policies lifted, I was able to view and copy what I found. It is an article about Pandora's Box (I believe), and pictures the film's stars Louise Brooks and Francis Lederer. It stands as my best Ukrainian find.

I posted this blog because I support a free and independent Ukraine, whose existence is being threatened by Vladimir Putin and his Russian gang. Hey Putin, the Soviet Union is gone. Get over it. The world hates you.

Louise Brooks film, Pandora's Box, to screen in Mexico on March 19

The 1929 Louise Brooks' film, Pandora's Box, will be shown at Cine Inminente in Tehuacán, Puebla in Mexico on Saturday, March 19. The screening is part of the film society's PIONEERS cycle - CINEMA AND SILENCES. More information can be found on the group's Facebook page. This event is co-sponsored by the Goethe Institute.

Tomorrow Saturday March 19th #NosVemosEnLaSala for the beginning of the second part of our cycle PIONERAS -CINE AND SILENCE-, in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut Mexiko :

 

The Pandora Box (La Caja de Pandora) (1929)

Director: Georg Wilhelm Pabst

133 minutes | A

 

#NosVemosEnLaSala of Classical Cinema XX Century of El Carmen Complex | 5:00pm | Free Entry | 50% Aforo | Mandatory use of mouth covers.

 

The Cine Inminente Facebook page notes: 

"Louise Brooks had never heard of Lulu, but as soon as he read the script he knew that as Pabst thought Lulu was her." A hedonist woman who pleases with pleasure in a world over by conventions, a woman who radiates a strange effect that causes misfortune in those around her. 

Pandora's Box contained sex; lesbianism, for the first time, and to incest, which served him an extra censorship in all the countries in which it premiered, something added to the arrival of the sound made it the best film anyone has ever I was seen. It had to take three decades for it to be recognized as the work of cult that it is."