San Francisco Silent Film Festival Winter Event

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has posted the program for their 4th Annual Winter Event. They will screen four programs on Saturday, February 14 at the Castro Theater.

The films are Our Hospitality (1923) starring Buster Keaton, A Kiss From Mary Pickford (1927) - a Russian slapstick about a theater usher that meets Mary Pickford, Sunrise (1927) directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Janet Gaynor and The Cat and The Canary (1927).

Several months ago, I read that this event would feature Bardelys the Magnificent. Apparently, that fell through or perhaps they decided to save it for their 3 day festival in July.

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The Mechanics' Institute released their January and February CinemaLit schedule. The January theme is Pre-[Hays] Code Gloss and Grit. The films are Night Nurse directed by William Wellman, Blonde Venus directed by von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich, Three on a Match and Twentieth Century. I caught Night Nurse in 2006 at the Balboa when it was still a rep house. They had a Barbara Stanwyck Pre-Code Double Feature. I miss the Balboa's rep house programming.

The February theme is Paul Newman: Ol' Blue-Eyes is Back. The films are Hud, Cool Hand Luke, Rachel, Rachel and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.

I've seen most of these films. I joined the Mechanics' Institute thinking I would see a number of CinemaLit films. However, 8 months have transpired and I have yet to attend one.

The CinemaLit series is held on Fridays at 6:30 PM at 57 Post. Members are free and non-members are asked to donate $10. RSVP is required. Check website for more details.

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It's clear to me that mid-January to late February will be a very busy period for me if I see all the films I want to see. Starting with the three programs at Berlin and Beyond on January 19, I could easily have access and desire to 50 films in 6 weeks. Noir City runs from January 23 to February 1 and four days later, SF Indiefest begins on February 5. Indiefest continues until February 19. The von Sternberg program is from January 15 to Feburary 22. The Pulp Writers program at the PFA will be from February 13 to 28. The aforementioned Silent Film event is on February 14. The nine hour The Human Condition screen on February 15.

Conservative estimate of films to be viewed: Berlin and Beyond (3), Noir City (18), Indiefest (20), von Sterberg (10), Pulp Writers (6), Silent Film event (3), and The Human Condition (3). That adds up to 43 but once I buy a festival pass, I'm relentless in making it a cost effective choice.

I might have to jetison Indiefest from my schedule to keep my sanity. I say that but when I read the program guide, I'll undoubtedly have a change of heart if there are any films that look decent.

The Patsy and The Unknown

The other treat from 2008 (SF)^2 Festival was The Patsy. The film was a showcase for Marion Davies comedic talents. King Vidor directed and Marie Dressler, Dell Henderson, and Lawrence Gray turned in strong supporting performances. Jane Winton was also striking as the older sister and seach of IMDB show she only made a few talkies. I wonder what happened to her. Perhaps she couldn't make the transition to sound.


If anyone has seen the film, the highlight is Davies' impersonations of Mae Murray, Lillian Gish and Pola Negri. I don't believe I've seen film with any of those actresses much less know their affections to appreciate an impersonation of them. However, I laughed out loud at Davies antics. Equally amusing was a sequence where Davies spouts nonsensical platitudes in an attempt to create personality.

The plot involved a middle-class family of a couple (Dressler and Henderson) with two attractive daughters. Grace (Winton), the older daughter, is dating Orville Caldwell. Pat (Davies), the younger daughter, pines for Orville but Orville doesn't even notice her. Pat spends the films trying to attract Orville's attention without much luck until she ends up at a playboy's (Gray) house.

I believe this is the first Davies film I have seen. I expected her to look like Kirstin Dunst but she was prettier and projected an innocence that cannot be achieved in today's society. Of course, while she projected virginal naiveté in this film, she was 10 years into a relationship with William Randolph Hearst, a millionaire 35 years her senior and whom she liked to drive insane with jealousy if the rumors regarding the Thomas Ince affair are correct. Nonetheless, that doesn't affect my opinion of her performance. In my opinion, her performance in this film was the best of festival and lifted this film to my favorite.

Another very interesting film was The Unknown directed by Tod Browning with Lon Chaney & Joan Crawford. The 20something Joan Crawford was quite attractive and is unrecognizable from the bitchy, arched eyebrow, shoulder pad wearing, "No wire hangers!" gay icon.

The plot is simply unbelievable. Chaney is an armless trick shot artist and knife thrower in a circus. Crawford is the circus owner's daughter and Chaney's assistant and object of his secret desire. That's not the only secret his is keeping. On screen it looks obvious that Chaney has his arms at his side under his shirt. The reason it appears that way is not due to bad costuming or special effect but because his character has arms. He keeps his arms under a girdle with the help of his midget assistant. At night, he loosens the girdle so that he can commit crimes. This is an ingenious ruse because the crime obviously were committed by an man with arms and Chaney is the one person in the circus without arms. Not only does Chaney have 2 arms but he has 2 thumbs on his left hand. The circus owner catches him one night without his girdle. Chaney strangles the man to keep his secret but Crawford glimpes the crime from her window. Luckily for Chaney, she only sees a man with two thumbs strangling her father; she doesn't see his face. Oh yeah, for some unstated reason, Joan can't stand the touch of man and continually rebuffs the advances of the circus strongman.


With the father dead, Crawford sells the circus and Chaney stays to console her. He thinks he making progress but Cojo the midget reminds him that if they are married, she will see his arms on their wedding night, not to mention his thumbs thumbs. Chaney has a response to that - he gets a shady doctor to amputate his arms. While Chaney recuperates, the circus strongman comes back to woo Joan. When Chaney sans arms returns to Joan to propose marriage, he is dumbfounded to learn that she is engaged to Mr. Muscles. You can imagine Chaney's disappointment. He literally gave his left arm for her. Not one to be spurned, he plots to murder the strongman...by having horses rip his arms from his body!

Of course, the premise is silly but it was treat to see The Man of a Thousand Faces. Chaney's dexterity with his feet was amazing and I was disappointed to read he had foot double - a man without arms that had learned to smoke a cigarette, drink from glasses, etc. with his feet. Also, this films was a Director's choice. Guy Maddin, director of My Winnipeg, read the French intertitles. The film was introduced by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks, the founder and host of Midnight for Maniacs introduced the film and Maddin.

Her Wild Oat

As I mentioned previously, I particularly enjoyed Her Wild Oat at the 2008 SF Silent Film Festival or (SF)^2 Festival as the announcer called it.

Her Wild Oat has a plot that has been reworked many times. It's basically a variation on the Cinderella fairy tale. Pretty Woman bares some resemblance as does many other films that I can't recall presently.

Colleen Moore plays Mary Lou Smith, a young woman that runs a lunch counter on wheels. She's a hard working and kind hearted woman with a Louise Brooks bob years before Louise Brooks bobbed her hair. She saves her money to take her dream vacation at a beach resort. One day Phillip Latour, a wealthy young man, is mugged. He borrows some dirty overalls and sits down for a cup of coffee at Mary Lou's counter. A hole in his pocket leave him without even a dime to pay his tab. Mary Lou lets him work it off by washing some dishes. A man of leisure, he ends up breaking more dishes than he cleans. Of course, he doesn't let on that he is wealthy.

He comes back later to pay off the damages, tells Mary Lou some story that he is a driver for the wealthy Phillip Latour and that he is driving him to the beach resort she dreams of. That information prompts Mary Lou to take the vacation of her dreams. With the help of a chorus girl that dines at her counter, Mary Lou buys some new clothes for her vacation. The outfit she wears when walking into hotel is garish to say the least. It's perfectly accessorized with a purse that looks like a poodle and a tall plumed hat. The beach resort exterior shot is Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego which has been the setting of many films, most famously Some Like it Hot with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, and Marilyn Monroe.

After checking in, Mary Lou is ready to enjoy herself. Sadly, she is treated rudely by the other guests because she is not high society. The hotel detective thinks she is a prostitute and warns her off. Saddened and disillusioned, she begins crying but is spotted by an expense padding newspaper reporter that knows her from the lunch counter. He comes up with the idea creating a new persona for her and the Duchesse de Granville is born (named after a soup on the lunch menu). Mary Lou gets a new wadrobe, a wig, and a bigger suite.

The Duchesse is treated much better the Mary Lou by the people that snubbed her before. While dining with the reporter, the Duchesse is spotted by Latour. He is informed by the waiter that she is the Duchesse de Granville. Here, the plot become too contrived for even a screwball comedy like this. It just so happens that Latour's widowed father is marrying the real Duchesse de Granville and scheduled to honeymoon the hotel. Recognizing Mary from the diner, Latour still insists on addressing the Duchesse as his new step mother and pretending not to recognize her.

At this point, Mary Lou takes various and increasing measures to maintain her false identity with hilarious results if you can suspend disbelief. Finally revealed for the fraud she is, she hightails it out of town and back to her diner. While commiserating with her chorus girl friend, the diner begins to move. You guessed it - Latour is driving the car and towing her diner to his mansion where she is warmly greeted by the household staff. Presumably, they marry & live happily ever after.

Colleen Moore was definitely a major screen presence. She combined the distinctive haircut with an innocent persona and down-to-earth manner. She was girl-next-door cute and it's easy for me to see how she could have been a top box office draw. As the jazz age wound down, Moore felt she was too closely associated with the flapper image and this didn't play well during the Depression era. She retired from acting and is now largely forgotten. Certainly, silent era names such Pickford, Gish, Swanson, etc. are better known today. It's a shame that she didn't (hasn't) gotten the credit she deserves. At least from my one experience, she deserves more acknowledgment.

Upon seeing this film, I truly felt as though I had discovered a hidden gem. The synopsis didn't really appeal to me but I had a festival pass and needed to see films to make it worthwhile. I would really like to see more Moore film. It's sad to think that many of her films are probably lost due to nitrate film stock deterioration.

2008 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The 2008 San Francisco Silent Film Festival ran July 11 to 13 at the Castro Theater. I bought a festival pass and saw 8 of the 12 programs. The crowds were impressive, film critic Leonard Maltin was there for the weekend, and I saw some very entertaining films. I notice that comedy ages well and action sequences are exciting because you realize the actors/stuntmen were risking their lives. Drama or melodrama does not age so well. The actors overacted in the dramas; they hammed it up by modern standards.

The 8 programs I saw were:

The Kid Brother with Harold Lloyd; (1927)
Les Deux Timides; (1928)
Mikaël directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer; (1924)
The Man Who Laughs; (1928)
The Unknown with Lon Chaney & Joan Crawford; (1927)
Her Wild Oat with Colleen Moore; (1927)
Jujiro directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa; (1928)
The Patsy with Marion Davies and Marie Dressler; directed by King Vidor; (1928)

Silent films with their intertitles bridge languages with less trouble than talkies. Les Deux Timides was filmed in France with French intertitles. Jujiro was filmed in Japan but had English subtitles. Her Wild Oat was filmed in Southern California but an English print couldn't be found. Instead, a print was located in the Czech Republic with Czech intertitles. New intertitle cards in English were inserted into the film. I can't remember all intertitle language permutations. For the foreign intertitled films, a reader was used. I think I would have preferred to have subtitled intertitles; I really mean that, I didn't just say it to make a bad pun.

The use of film readers for Japanese silent films was common and the profession (Benshi) was popular. If the use of a reader was warranted for any film at the festival, it would have been Jujiro because a benshi probably read the original film when it was released. Alas, a benshi was not used. This could be justified because the version shown was the American version with English intertitles. Quick aside - two years ago, I saw Picture Bride (1994) at the SF Asian American Film Festival. Tamlyn Tomita was in the audience that evening. That film was set in Hawaii during the 1920's. The legendary Toshirô Mifune appeared in the film (it was his penultimate film appearance). His character is simply credited as The Benshi. When I saw the film, I didn't know what a benshi was and couldn't understand why his character was narrating the action of the silent film within the film but his performance stood out. When I read the program notes, pre-film slide show, and blog of Brian Darr, I realized what a Benshi was and how Mifune's character was quite authentic.

The festival was filled with great films. I particularly enjoyed Her Wild Oat and The Patsy. Other enjoyable films include Mikaël, The Man Who Laughs, and The Unknown. I hope to write a follow-up entry in the next few days.

The above list is the feature films I saw. Each program started with a short film. The short films were, respectively:

Bronco Billy's Adventure; (1911)
Les Fromages Automobiles
L'Historie D'Une Rose
The Voice Invisible/Making A Record
The Last Call; (1922)
Mary Pickford's Technicolor Screen Test for The Black Pirate
Kaleidoscope
Lost-A Yodel

I don't have years for all the short films.

Gilbert M. Anderson (a.k.a. Broncho Billy) was perhaps the first serial Western movie star. He has over 300 listings in IMDB and I'll guess ~100 has Broncho Billy in the title. Bronco Billy's Adventure was likely filmed near Fremont, CA (technically, the town is Niles). Anderson and his business partner George Spoor started Essanay Studios (pronounced S and A as in Spoor and Anderson) in Chicago. Due to the frigid winters, they opened a California studio in Niles. The site currently houses the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum and shows silent films most Saturday nights. They have an annual Broncho Billy Film Festival that I keep meaning to see.

The Last Call was a Nick Carter detective film. I wasn't familiar with the character but some research reveals that Carter first shows up in dime store novels from the 1880's. Edmund Lowe starred in at least four Nick Carter films in 1922.

Mary Pickford's screen test was incredible for its color images. She had the greenest eyes. The Black Pirate was released in 1926. I had no idea that Technicolor was available then. The first film I am aware of that used Technicolor is The Wizard of Oz in 1939.

Kaleidoscope was a color film too but it was like looking at a kaleidoscope. In fact, I thought to myself while watching it that this same technique would be repeated 40 years later during the psychedelic 60's.

The Voice Invisible/Making A Record uses the same premise as the current Discovery Channel television show How It's Made. It showed how vinyl records were made which is kind of a strange topic for a silent era film.