I’m coming back from the Castro’s major marathon: The San Francisco Silent Film Festival. After the opening Wednesday night, there were four days of very old movies and live music. Each day started at 11:00am, and most of the last films of the day started at about 9:00pm.
Opening night with The Iron Mask
I’m sorry to say that I dozed off during several very good movies.
Here’s some of the best – and the worst – of the festival:
Spotlights
Wednesday evening, the Festival opened with Douglas Fairbanks’ last silent, The Iron Mask (Wednesday). It’s not like any other Fairbanks movies I’ve seen. This one is darker, with several likable characters dying off. Clearly, star and producer Fairbanks knew that his career was changing. Fairbanks opens the film with a very badly spoken introduction. There’s another bad speaking scene later in the movie. But overall, the movie was rousing and fun – and sometimes sad.
The Dragon Painter (Friday): Here is an American film with an Asian cast, made by people who understood Japanese art, including the star, Sessue Hayakawa.
The Dragon Painter
Crainquebille (Saturday): Here’s a powerful story about the poor, set in Paris. A pushcart man gets into legal problems. He possibly insulted a police man, which was a crime at the time, and even after he gets out of prison, everything gets worse.
A Daughter of Destiny (Sunday): A mad scientist impregnates a prostitute with a hanged murderer’s semen. The child grows up to be a beautiful and lascivious young woman. A strange relationship develops between creator and his creation A century after the film was released, this is still a very kinky movie.
The Merry Widow (Sunday): This year’s Festival ends with Erich von Stroheim’s version of Viktor Léon and Leo Stein’s version of the light opera. This one has very little comedy, but it has the star power of John Gilbert and Mae Murray.
Comedy
Three Ages (Friday): The last time I saw Buster Keaton’s first feature, I didn’t give it a very good review. This time, I liked it. Perhaps it was the large and enthusiastic audience I had this time. Or the music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Perhaps this time, I looked over the clumsy story, told three times over – but with new gags.
Becoming Laurel & Hardy
Up in Mable’s Room (Thursday): You know those scenes in the Marx Brothers movies where the characters are running in and out of the room or under the bed? If it’s done well, it’s hilarious. This time, director E. Mason Hopper manages to keep the shenanigans going on for a full feature movie. And it works almost wonderfully. The laughs rarely stop.
You might be surprised that this is a silent film starring Harrison Ford. There are two in film history. The first Harrison Ford died decades before Indiana Jones.
The Edward E. Horton Show! (Sunday): Most of us know Edward Everett Horton, either from the Astaire and Rogers movies from the 1930s or the voice of Fractured Fairy Tales. But only few knew that Horton was a silent comedian. Here are three very funny shorts starring Horton.
The Edward E. Horton Show!
Pigs Will Be Pigs (Saturday): How did anyone have the guts to make this film in the Soviet Union? Someone must send a shipment of guinea pigs by train. But with Communist red tape, things get more and more complicated. By the end, rodents are multiplying like rabbits.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Saturday): This was the first time I enjoyed silent Shakespeare. After all, the Bard is famous for his poetry and dialog – not his visuals. Yet director Hans Neumann turned Shakespeare’s language into mostly visual images, and it’s astonishing.
Dressing for the event
Over the years, fewer people have been dressing up for the festival. This year, here’s what I got:
Floods & bad fathers
If you want to win someone over to the love of silents, don’t show them Man and Wife (Thursday). This overdone melodrama is awful. Father knows best, until Father finally figures he was wrong all the time. The intent is serious, but the audience laughed at the movie’s end.
Deluges seemed to be a theme during Thursday and Friday. There’s The Johnstown Flood (Thursday), which is a very exciting movie. The evil rich make money while their workers drown. For its time, the special effects are exceptional.
Stark Love (Friday): Wow! By the end of this movie, I felt like I had gone through a wringer. It’s got big mountain, lazy men, and women to do all the work. Only one person in town can read. The father, of course, is evil. And the movie also has a flood.
I don’t know much about music, but I know enough to hear that all the ensembles and solo artists who played in this festival knew what they were doing. So, a big thank you to the musicians:
- Wayne Barker
- Wayne Barker with sound effects by Nicholas White
- Guenter Buchwald
- Guenter Buchwald Ensemble
- Guenter Buchwald and Frank Bockius
- Masaru Koga Ensemble
- Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
- Sascha Jacobsen Quartet
- Stephen Horne
- Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius
- Stephen Horne Ensemble
- Utsav Lal
- Ben Model
- Maud Nelissen
And after four days plus of watching old movies, learning about restoration, and meeting old and new friends, I feel rejuvenated.
Bayflicks 