The Bargain, At the Villa Rose and The Rat

The full programme for the British Silent Cinema Festival has been published. The festival, entitled Rats, Ruffians and Radicals: The globalisation of crime and the British silent film (now there’s a theme and a half) takes place at the Broadway Cinema, Nottingham 3-6 April.

As usual, the festival will be a mixture of films, papers, symposia and special events, mostly (but not entirely) around the festival’s theme. The main outline of the programme has already been given here, but here’s a check list of the main films being shown:

Thursday, 3 April

AT THE FOOT OF THE SCAFFOLD
Dir. Warwick Buckland GB 1913, 24mins

THE BARGAIN
Dir. Henry Edwards, GB 1921, 1hr 15mins

RED PEARLS
Dir. Walter Forde, GB 1930, 1hr 15mins

AT THE VILLA ROSE
Dir. Maurice Elvey, GB 1920, 1hr 22mins

DER MANN IM KELLAR (THE MAN IN THE CELLAR)
Dir. Joe May, Germany, 1914, 44 mins

DIE CARMEN VON ST PAULI (aka THE WATER RAT)
Dir Erich Waschneck, Germany 1928, 1hr 54mins

Friday, 4 April

THE HILL PARK MYSTERY (NEDBRUDTE NERVER)
Dir. Anders Wilhelm Sandberg. Denmark, 1923, 1hr 15mins

CHICAGO
Dir. Frank Urson; USA 1927, 1hr 57mins

Saturday, 5 April

THE WHIP
Dir Maurice Tourneur, USA 1917, 1hr 10mins

PIMPLE IN THE WHIP
Dir Fred Evans/Joe Evans, GB 1917, 20mins

THE RAT
Dir. Graham Cutts, GB 1925, 1hr 18 mins

Sunday, 6 April

TRAPPED BY THE MORMONS
Dir. H.B Parkinson, USA 1922, 1hr

DANS LA NUIT
Dir. Charles Vanel, France 1929, 75 mins

The mostly crime-free special events are, on the Saturday: ‘Women and Silent Britain’, a series of presentations and screenings looking at the roles of women in the first three decades of British cinema; also on the Saturday, Luke McKernan presenting ‘The Olympic Games on Film 1900-1924’; on the Sunday, ‘Melodrama from Stage to Screen’, with emphasis on musical acompaniment (contributions from Phil Carli and Neil Brand); and most notably, on the Friday, Kevin Brownlow delivers the second Rachael Low Lecture.

And there’s more. You’ll have to read the programme for all the many papers featured during the four days, but expect to be informed, and quite possibly entranced, by presentations on subjects as diverse as crime in Finnish film of the 1920s, fan writing and self-representation in British silent films, the Biokam films of Laura Eugenia Smith, the eroticism of Anna May Wong and her representation as ‘other’, diamond smuggling in early cinema, the white slave trade and Traffic in Souls, and petty crime in Fred Karno’s music hall sketches as an influence in the early films of Charlie Chaplin.

And there are Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu shorts, and restorations from the Imperial War Museum, The Woman’s Portion (1918) and Everybody’s Business (1917). And lots more besides. Most of the films come from the BFI National Archive, plus some from the IWM, the Danish Film Archive, and UCLA Film and Television Archive (Chicago).

It’s always an excellently organised and amiable event, which achieves miracles on a funding shoestring, and is by now a more than well-established feature of the silent film calendar (this is its eleventh year). Full programme details, booking form, accommodation information and so forth are all available from the festival site. See you there, hopefully.

Some news of the 10th Festival d’Anères, an annual festival of silent films which takes place in the Hautes-Pyrénées, France. This year’s festival will run 7-11 May, and while the full programme has not been published as yet, the featured performers and filmmakers will include Fritz Lang, Luitz-Morat, Jean Epstein, Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton, André Antoine, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, D.W. Griffith, Ernst Lubitsch, Jacques Feyder, Gennaro Righelli, Nemesio M. Sobrevila and Vsevolod Pudovkin.

The festival is new to me, but the site has useful information on past festivals, including programme details, lists of all films shown, directors featured and musicians. More news on the programme when I get it.

Chicago (1927)

The first news has been published of the feature films and main events taking place at this year’s British Silent Cinema Festival. As usual, the festival is being held at the Broadway, Nottingham, and runs 3-6 April.

This year the main theme is ‘Rats, Ruffians and Radicals: The Globalisation of Crime and the British Silent Film‘. The festival is a mixture of films, papers and special presentations, and usually pulls of the trick of attracting both an academic and an ‘enthusiast’ audience. Anyway, here are some of the delights on offer:

Chicago (USA 1927), sparky silent film version of the story that later became the musical Chicago. Directed by Frank Urson under supervision of De Mille this is a vibrant telling of the tale of Roxie Hart and her attempts to beat a murder rap in the most cynical city in the world. See the film that inspired the musical that inspired the film of the musical …

Red Pearls (UK 1930), Walter Forde’s psychological drama about a Japanese merchant who tries to drive his victim mad by sending him letters from beyond the grave.

Henry Edwards’ The Bargain (UK 1921) starring Chrissie White and actor/director Edwards in a tale of fraud, deception and family ties as a man purporting to be a long lost son returns from the Australian outback to claim his inheritance from his dying father.

At the Villa Rose (UK 1920), director Maurice Elvey’s classic locked-room murder mystery set in the fashionable and decadent expatriate community in Monte Carlo.

Die Carmen von St Pauli (Germany 1928), German director Erich Waschneck’s brilliant drama set in Hamburg’s dockside gangland featuring German stars Willi Fritsch and the delicious Jenny Jugo – who rivals Clara Bow for sheer screen presence. The film also shows there is more to German film than expressionism.

René Clair’s Le Fantôme du Moulin Rouge (France 1924) combines Grande Guignol, surrealism and playful avant garde film tricks. It’s the tale of a man whose spirit is released from his body to allow him to torment and trick his family but ultimately there’s a race against time when his spirit needs to get back into his lifeless body before the autopsy begins …

The Whip (USA 1917): more horse nobbling courtesy of Maurice Tourneur, based on the famous British stage play by Cecil Raleigh and Henry Hamilton. In the words of the legendary Tallulah Bankhead: “The Whip was a blood-and-thunder melodrama in four acts and fourteen scenes imported from London’s Drury Lane Theatre. It boiled with villainy and violence. Its plot embraced a twelve-horse race on a treadmill (for the Gold Cup at Newmarket), a Hunt Breakfast embellished by fifteen dogs, an auto-smash-up, the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks, and a train wreck with a locomotive hissing real steam. It boasted a dissolute earl and a wicked marquis, and a heroine whose hand was sought by both knave and hero. It was a tremendous emotional dose for anyone as stage-struck and impressionable as our heroine.”

The Hill Park Mystery (Denmark 1923) (aka Shattered Nerves) features a detective trying to clear the name of a woman accused of murder, who finds matters complicated when he becomes romantically attached to his client.

Other highlights will include episodes from The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and tales from The Old Man in the Corner, Luke McKernan’s illustrated presentation to mark the centenary of the 1908 Olympics in the UK, a session on Melodrama along with a packed programme of presentations, screenings and social events.

So, yes, I’m one of the star turns (on Saturday the 5th), giving a glossy show on film and the Olympic Games, 1900-1924, with special attention given to the the London Games of 1908, whose centenary it is, of course. As for the feature films, there’s some fascinating choices there, though the British content seems a bit elusive in places. The festival website doesn’t have any programme details as yet, but further information will get published here in due course.

Sparrows, from http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm

Let’s not wish away all the joys that 2008 in sure to bring, but the first news on the Pordenone Silent Film Festival (4-11 October) is out.

Among the main festival features will be

• Aleksandr Shiryaev (Russian ballet dancer and producer of puppet dance films)
• French comedy of the post-war silent era
• Hollywood on the Hudson
• Viktor Tourjansky
• The Griffith Project, 12 (1925-1931)
• The Corrick Collection, 2 (Australian collection of early actualities)

And the opening music event is to be a gala screening of the Mary Pickford classic Sparrows (1926), with score by Jeffrey Silverman, performed live for the first time by the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giulia, conducted by Hugh Munro Neely.

OK, October is a little time away, but a little closer is the 25 May deadline for applications to sign up to this year’s Collegium at Pordenone. This is a week-lomng programme of study into film history and film archiving with special sessions from notable expert visitors to the festivals. There are twelve places available, and applicants should preferably be under thirty years of age and pursuing education in cinema in some form. Collegians are given free hotel accommodation and breakfast during the week, but are responsible for their own travel arrangements, meals, and all other expenses. More information, including how to apply, from the festival site.