Advance notice has been published of some of the key films to be shown at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Here’s the press release:

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9 /PRNewswire/ — The art of silent film will be restored to its original brilliance when The 12th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival brings a classic love story, a dramatic portrayal of hobo life, a British suspense-thriller and other great silent films back to the big screen, all with live musical accompaniment, on July 13-15.

The majestic Castro Theatre in San Francisco will once again be the site for a weekend-long celebration of silent film, so we can continue to raise awareness of the need to protect, preserve and restore these movies,” said Artistic Director Stephen Salmons.

“The movies that Hollywood produces today owe their inspiration and their soul to the pioneering geniuses of the silent era, many of whom we will salute at this year’s festival,” Salmons said.

Among the special programs that will highlight the 2007 festival is an Opening Night Presentation of Ernst Lubitsch’s THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG (1927), starring Norma Shearer and Ramon Novarro. “This is one of the all-time great love stories, full of wit, zest and heart,” Salmons said. The festival also will screen William A. Wellman’s BEGGARS OF LIFE (1928), a gritty, unsentimental portrait of hobo life starring Richard Arlen, Louise Brooks and Wallace Beery.

“BEGGARS OF LIFE is a film we have hoped to show for years,” Salmons said. “It depicts homelessness in the pre-crash 1920s – something rarely seen in mainstream cinema. Thanks to George Eastman House, the sole surviving 16mm print has now been returned to 35mm, so we can finally show the film again in its original format.” Live musical accompaniment will be provided by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, a chamber ensemble that performs period- authentic photoplay music.

The festival will highlight the work of an early master of British cinema “- and no, it isn’t Alfred Hitchcock,” Salmons said, “even though the film we are showing is a real nail-biter, every bit as suspenseful and surprising as anything Hitchcock dreamt up.” A COTTAGE ON DARTMOOR (1929), directed by Anthony Asquith, is a psychological thriller which relates the story of a love triangle between a barber’s assistant, a manicurist, and one of their clients. The musical accompaniment also will be “the work of a British master,” Salmons noted. “We are importing pianist Stephen Horne from London to perform his acclaimed solo score for this film.”

The festival’s tribute to Turner Classic Movies will feature a rare screening of the infamous 1921 version of CAMILLE, starring Rudolph Valentino and Alla Nazimova.

“It holds a unique position in film history as one of the most flamboyant art films ever to come out of a Hollywood studio”, Salmons said. “The costumes, the sets, and above all the extraordinary stylized acting of Nazimova, a notorious figure of the silent era, make it a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It will absolutely light up the big screen.”

The 12th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival opens on Friday, July 13 and runs through Sunday, July 15, at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco. Complete program details and information on how to purchase tickets will be announced in May at http://www.silentfilm.org. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting silent film as an art form and as a cultural and record.

The British Silent Cinema Festival programme has now been published. Among the new features are the Inaugural Rachael Low Lecture (named after the leading historian of British cinema) given by Professor Sir Christopher Frayling; a special presentation by Charlie Chaplin authority Frank Scheide, ‘Chaplin, Costers and London Street Life’; and Andrew Higson on ‘Crime and Deviancy in the Picture House’. The festival runs Thursday-Sunday 26-29 April.

The British Silent Cinema Festival hasn’t published its full programme as yet, but there is a guide to screenings and presentations which gives a good overview. The theme of the festival is Underworld: Crime and Deviancy in the British Silent Film, and it is being held at the Broadway, Nottingham, 26-29 April. The festival, co-organised by the Broadway and the BFI, is in its tenth year (time has flown…), and as usual it will feature a mixture of screenings, papers and special presentations in the informal manner which the festival has established so successfully for itself. Anyway, here’s the blurb:

Underworld: crime and deviancy in the British Silent Film

26 – 29 April 2007

Where did the crime film originate? Joseph von Sternberg’s silent masterpiece Underworld (1927) [illustrated] is often cited as the first gangster film and the prototype for the genre, spawning the crime thrillers of the 30s, film noir of the 40s and the more recent mob films like The Godfather and Goodfellas. But what came before that landmark film? This year’s British silent film festival examines the antecedents of the crime film; unearthing rare glimpses of master criminals and serial killers, legendary detectives and international terrorists. Looking at adaptations from some of the best-known crime writers, Conan Doyle, Sax Rohmer, Edgar Wallace, we uncover crimes of passion, politically motivated crime, and crimes concealing Society’s dark secrets. Drawing on the extensive collections of the BFI National Archive, we will also look at both true crime, featuring Nottingham-born villain Charlie Peace and John Lee ‘the Man They Couldn’t Hang’ and crimes of the imagination, from the first ever crime film to Hitchcock’s Ripperesque tale of the London fog, The Lodger.

Screenings and presentations:

• True Crime on Film: a history of real-life crime films from the earliest days including Mitchell and Kenyon’s The Arrest of Goudie and The Life story of Charles Peace.
• Crime in silent fiction film: a history of crime stories including the recently discovered first ever crime film Arrest of a Pickpocket (1895) to Hitchcock’s classic The Lodger (1926).
• Special live cinema event in the atmospheric surroundings of the medieval St Peter’s Church – Hitchcock’s serial killer mystery, The Lodger.
• British star, Clive Brook in Joseph Von Sternberg’s rarely screened masterpiece Underworld (1927).
• The First Born (1928) actor/director Miles Mander stars in this society shocker with co-star Madeleine Carroll (39 Steps).
• Edgar Wallace’s tale of international terrorism The Four Just Men (George Ridgewell, 1921) with introduction by Wallace expert Jeremy Jago.
• Classic crime series The Mystery of Dr Fu Manchu and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Fred Paul’s macabre Grand Guignol stories.
• Rarely screened fragments of Britain’s only surviving silent serial, Ultus: The Man from the Dead.
• Secrets and lies in Victorian England cause criminal deeds in a 1920 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.
• Bulldog Drummond’s Third Round (1925) directed by Sidney Morgan and starring Jack Buchanan in the title role.
• Ellie Norwood, one of the great interpreters of our most famous detective Sherlock Holmes on film and a screening of Holmes feature The Sign of Four (1923).
• Early films of the Salvation Army to mark William Booth’s origins in Nottingham and his connection to Broadway.
• The International Women Pioneer Film Makers’ Project – presentations and discussion around this international research programme.

Excellent stuff. One film in particular to pick out is Miles Mander’s The First Born (1928), a genuine undiscovered classic, mature in theme and sophisticated in style, which hasn’t had the public profile is deserves largely because the surviving print is marginally incomplete. That, and the fact that it doesn’t turn up in any of the film histories. Shame on them, and well done to the festival’s organisers for having unearthed it.

Booking information from the festival website.