The
San Francisco Silent Film Festival is one of my favorite events, & this year it runs for 5 days, starting this Thursday night at the Castro Theatre. This year's selections look particularly strong, & I'd see everything If I could. The classics are represented by
All Quiet on the Western Front, Murnau's
The Last Laugh, Greta Garbo & John Gilbert in
Flesh & the Devil, & Fred Niblo's
Ben-Hur, puportedly the most expensive Hollywood production of the silent era.
The festival has been touting the restoration of
When the Earth Trembled, a 1913 melodrama with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake at its climax, &
Sherlock Holmes, a recently discovered 1916 feature starring William Gillette, the stage actor who established our iconic image of the detective.
Cave of the Spider Women is a Chinese adaptation of an episode from
Journey to the West. Other intriguing shows are a compilation of surreal
shorts by Charley Bowers & an
uncompleted film with an African-American cast that includes Bert Williams. I'm excited that
Menilmontant is on the schedule. It's one of the best silent films I've ever seen, & I hope to learn more about it at the screening.
All the programs except for
Ben-Hur are accompanied with
live music, ranging from solo piano to a student orchestra from Boston's
Berklee College of Music. Actors will perform the dialogue live for Frank Capra's
The Donovan Affair, a talking picture with a missing soundtrack. The irrepressible film preservationist Serge Bromberg will speak in the festival's free
Amazing Tales from the Archives presentation, accompany the Charley Bowers shorts on the piano, interview Kevin Brownlow before
Ben-Hur & receive a well-deserved festival award at the screening of
Visages d'enfants.
§ Festival Website | Musicians | Programs & Tickets | Passes
§ 20th Anniversary San Francisco Silent Film Festival
May 28–June 1, 2015
Castro Theatre
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