William S. Hart: Star of the West

William S. Hart

There’s a film season started at the Museum of the Moving Image, New York, on the films of the great star of the silent Western, William S. Hart, whose chilly vision of the West has been compared in recent times to that of Sam Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood. The season runs 21 April-6 May, and features Hell’s Hinges (1916), The Taking of Luke McVane (1915), The Captive God (1916), ‘Bad Buck’ of Santa Ynez (1915), The Bargain (1914, a new Library of Congress restoration), The Return of Draw Egan (1916), The Narrow Trail (1917), Branding Broadway (1918), Wagon Tracks (1919), The Toll Gate (1920), The Testing Block (1920), The Whistle (1921) and his masterpiece Tumbleweeds (1925), preceded by Hart’s spoken introduction to the 1939 re-issue.

Award for Kevin Brownlow

The San Francisco International Film Festival is to present Kevin Brownlow with the Mel Novikoff Award. The award, named after the pioneering San Francisco film exhibitor (1922–1987), is bestowed annually on an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. The award will be presented to Brownlow on Saturday 28 April at the Castro Theatre, together with a screening of his restoration of The Man in the Iron Mask (1929 d. Allan Dwan), starring Douglas Fairbanks.

The festival website has a fine tribute to Brownlow, ‘The Silent Spokesman’, giving an overview of his achievements in the promotion of the art of silent film, written by Dennis Doros of Milestone Films.