Lock-down may be preventing us from getting out to see silent film events ‘in the flesh’.  But don’t forget that there are still opportunities to see films at live On-Line screenings.  Forthcoming events include;

 

23 August

The Signal Tower (Dir. Clarence Brown. US, 1924) (70 mins)  In The Signal Tower, Dave Tolliver (Rockliffe Fellowes), a signal-man on a mountain railroad, takes in his new relief operator, Joe Standish (Wallace Beery), as a lodger.   But Standish is a drunk with an eye for the ladies.  One stormy night while Dave is at work frantically trying to prevent a runaway goods train from crashing into a passenger express, an alcohol-fuelled Standish decides to make a play for Dave’s wife, Sally (Virginia Valli).  This highly-charged silent film drama features a truly terrifying performance from Wallace Beery as Standish that drives the story to a spectacular dramatic climax.Find out more at imdb.com .  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment from Günter Buchwald (piano) and Frank Bockius (percussion).. Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

22 August

Finding an Audience for (Silent) Film Heritage Today This online panel discussion brings together representatives from some of the international film heritage institutions that have contributed films to this year’sBonn International Silent Film Festival programme to discuss the most pressing issues when it comes to presenting, promoting and teaching (silent) film heritage.   Panelists: Robert Byrne (San Francisco Silent Film Festival),Thomas C. Christensen (Det Danske Filminstitut), Janneke van Dalen (Österreichisches Filmmuseum), Ellen Harrington (DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut& Museum), Adelheid Heftberger (Bundesarchiv), Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi (EYE Filmmuseum), Matěj Strnad (Národní filmový archiv).
Chair: Grazia Ingravalle (Brunel University London)   Commences at 6pm CEST (5pm UK time)  Registration necessary.  Numbers limited. Link

The Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films have yet to be confirmed  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks (Neobyčajnye priključenija mistera Vesta v strane bol’ševikov)   Dir. Lev Kulešov. USSR, 1924)  (94 mins)   Lev Kuleshov scored one of Soviet cinema’s first successes with this story about a straitlaced American who comes to Soviet Russia and is disabused of his prejudices about the socialist state. Part Soviet propaganda, part action-adventure, part knockabout comedy, the film encompasses multiple genres and is It is notable as the first Soviet film that explicitly challenges American stereotypes about Soviet Russia.  The cast is a veritable who’s who of future Soviet cinematic heavyweights including Boris Barnett, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Aleksandra Khokhlova who would all go on to exalted careers.  Find out more at  silentfilm.org  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment from Sabrina Zimmermann (violin) and Mark Pogolski (piano). Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

21 August

Women Who Shouldn’t Get Married / His Learned Wife (Frauen, die nicht heiraten sollten / Seine gelehrte Frau)  (Dir. Eugen Illés. Ger, 1919)  Doctor Ada Haller (silent film diva Esther Carena) is torn between her career as a scientist and her societal role as a woman. At times exceptionally forward-thinking and yet deeply conventional.

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Flower of Evil (Fior di male) Dir. Carmine Gallone. It, 1915)  (62 mins) Legendary Italian diva Lyda Borelli plays a poor prostitute who gives up her illegitimate child for adoption. Eventually she decides to escape her life and is helped by a rich banker (Augustus Poggioli), who adopts her. Lydia is like a sister to the banker’s real daughter, Fulvia.  Years later, plagued by guilt over her earlier decision, Lydia searches for her long lost son. But will reconciliation bring happiness?  Flower of Evil was Borelli”s third film with director Carmine Gallone and while she may not quite as yet have reached peak diva status, hers is a performance already characterised by  grand gestures, painful expressions and languid gazes.        Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  Women Who Shouldn’t Get Married is accompanied by Sabine Zimmer (piano) and this marvelous Italian diva film is accompanied by cellists Paul Rittel and Tobias Stutz aka Cellophon.

20 August

Refuge (Zuflucht )  Dir. Carl Froelich. Ger, 1928) ( 130 mins) Forced to flee Germany after the 1918/19 revolution, Martin (Francis Lederer) spends nine years exiled in the Soviet Union before returning to Berlin, hungry and sick.   Befriended by a poor, young, working class girl (Henny Porten), she takes him home but scandal is never far behind and, ultimately, tragedy looms.   Henny Porten once again portrays a woman placidly resigned to self sacrifice and suffering, although at the age of 40 she was considerably too old for the role. However, as producer as well as star she can also claim credit for discovering Francis Lederer, who would go on to star alongside Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box (1929) and with Brigitte Helm in The Wonderful Lies of Nina Petrovna (1929).  Find out more at  bfi.org.uk   Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.This is the The world premiere of this new digitization with live musical accompaniment from Günter A. Buchwald (piano) . Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

19 August

Max Linder’s Appointment (Le Rendez-vous)  (Dir. Max Linder. Fr, 1912) (17mins) A somewhat inebriated Max becomes enamoured of a girl whom he meets in the park, and, making an appointment with her, scribbles her address on one of his cuffs. The next morning his man-servant, failing to arouse him when the laundry maid arrives, collects the linen and sends it to the laundry, including the shirt with the fair one’s address. Will Max ever track down the shirt and its invaluable address?  Find out more at centuryfilmproject.org

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The Kidnapping of Fux the Banker (Únos bankéře Fuxe ) (Dir. Karel Anton. Cz, 1923) (61 mins)  Made during the time of Czech cinema’s deepening crisis, the country’s film industry had big expectations from this American-style comedy, inspired by the slapstick comedies of the Keystone Cops.  It did indeed prove an instant box office hit. Depicting a wicked fantasy of a luxurious middle-class lifestyle, The Kidnapping has an excellent cast including Karel Lamac and Anny Ondra (star of Hitchcock’s Blackmail [1929] and The Manxman [1929]), and also features a unique cameo appearance by the fêted Parisian couturier Paul Poiret.  Director Karel Anton is probably best remembered for his acclaimed silent melodrama Tonka of the Gallows (1930).  Although female lead Anny Ondra is better known for her Hitchcock thriller roles she was also an adept comedienne,  particularly in The Lovers of an Old Criminal (1927).  Find out more at  fn.org.pl   Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  This is the international premier of a new digital restoration with live musical accompaniment from Günter A. Buchwald (piano) and Angie Taylor. Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

 18 August

Harmonies de Paris  (Dir. Lucie Derain. Fr, 1928) (25mins) Harmonies de Paris is something of a sonatina sized entry to the City Symphony genre of he 1920s and 1930s.  Written and directed by film critic, scriptwriter and film editor Lucie Deraine, it was her only 35mm film.  While it failed to attract significant critical acclaim, the film is a gentle if somewhat conventional travelogue of the French capital.  Find out more at  cinetecadelfriuli.org

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A Motorcycle Trip Among the Clouds (Mit dem Motorrad über die Wolken)  (Dir. Lothar Rübelt. Aus, 1926) (46 mins) A kind of Easy Rider from the silent film era,  the story of a group of motorcyclists who successfully ride their machines over the more than 3,232m high Tofana in the Dolomites.  Director Rübelt  was one of the most important Austrian photographers of the 20th century and his skill manifests itself above all in these breathtaking mountain shots. Find out more at penguinrandomhouse.ca    Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  This is the international premier of a new digital restoration with live musical accompaniment from Richard Siedhoff (piano). Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

17 August

Go West (Dir. Buster Keaton, US, 1925) (68 mins) In an unusual twist on the romantic comedy formula, Buster Keaton stars opposite an affectionate cow in this Western Comedy. Friendless Homer Holiday drifts west eventually finding employment on the Thompson ranch. He soon befriends Brown Eyes, a cow that he bonds with after she saves his life. When Brown Eyes is included in a shipment of cattle bound for the slaughterhouse, Homer goes along in hopes of rescuing her. But when the herd escapes from the cattle cars, causing chaos through downtown L.A.; it is then up to Friendless to round them up and save the day. Look closely during the hilarious stampede scene to see Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle playing a part in drag. Presented by The Cinema Arts Centre from Huntington, NY.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screening at 19.00 ET (12pm UK time) Link

Speedy  (Dir. Ted Wilde. USA, 1928) (86mins) Harold Lloyd’s final silent film sees him reprise his ‘glasses character’ as a baseball-obsessed New Yorker (the film features a cameo from the legendary Babe Ruth) who becomes determined to save the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar, motivated in no small part by its owner being the grandfather of his love interest. Filled with Lloyd’s trademark rapid-fire visual humour and elaborate set-ups, it’s a fine example of his innovative approach to comedy. Find out more at allmovie.com.  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment from Richard Siedhoff (piano). Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

16 August

The President (Præsidenten)  Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer. Den, 1919) (  mins)  C T Dreyer made his directorial debut with this astonishingly mature and confidently realised social drama.   When a presiding judge (“president”) in a small town is sentencing a young woman, Victorine, who has killed her own child born in secret, he realises the young woman is in fact his own daughter. The realisation brings back memories of his own past, of a romance he was forced by social pressure to abandon, which in turn prompts the judge to take drastic action.  The film’s structural complexity, with multiple flashbacks, slowly draws out the psychological complexity of the lead character in a way almost unheard of in films of this era.  Find out more at sensesofcinema.com  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  This will be the international premiere of the new digitization of this film, with live musical accompaniment from Richard Siedhoff (piano) and Mykyta Sierov (oboe). Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

13 August

The Girl In Tails: A Light Summer Film Story  (Flickan i frack: En sommarlätt filmhistoria)  (Dir. Karin Swanström. Swe, 1926) (120 mins)  Katja is about to graduate, but she has nothing to wear for the graduation ball. Her father, the eccentric inventor Carl Axel Kock does not spend much of his income on Katja while her brother Curry gets everything he wants. So on the day of the ball, Katja simply dresses up in her brother’s brand new evening attire and attends the dance, smokes cigars, drinks brandy–and causes a scandal.  Director Karin Swanström plays the somewhat unflattering role of an ageing and overweight matriarchal widow (sporting double chin, flaring nostrils and piercing stare) in this amusing take on the conflict between diversity and conformity, tradition and change, with a surprisingly (for its time) feminist perspective.  Find out more at silentfilm.org  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment from Stephen Horne (piano) and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp). Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

14 August

Waxworks (Das Wachsfigurenkabinett) (Dir. Paul Leni. Ger, 1924) (84mins) A wax museum owner employs a poet (William Dieterle) to create stories for his pieces. The poet dutifully pens disturbing tales, envisioning himself as a significant character in each story — a baker sentenced to death by the Caliph of Baghdad (Emil Jannings), a Russian prince contending with the deadly paranoia of Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and a man who is pursued through the haunting streets of London by Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). As his stories play out on screen, the characters are brought vividly to life in this finest of expressionist fantasias.  While actor Conrad Veidt will forever hold a place in popular culture following his performance in The Man Who Laughs (1928) he was a stalwart of Weimar era cinema, appearing as the murderous somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the fantastic Unheimliche Geschichten (Richard Oswald, 1919) and The Hands of Orlac (Robert Wiene, 1924) and he provides a similarly gripping performance here.  Find out more at filmdirtblog.blogspot.co.uk .  Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment from Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp) and Mykyta Sierov (oboe).. Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

15 August

The Chase After Millions  (Die Jagd nach der Million)  (Dir. Max Obal. Ger, 1930) (91 mins) A false nobleman, an inheritance of several millions and exciting stunts – this film apparently has it all, although it is difficult to find any more information apart from the fact that it was one of the last German silents and also one of the first German sound films, utilising am orchestral soundtrack and sound effects. Presented as part of the 2021 Bonn International Silent Film Festival.  With original music-and-effects soundtrack, recently restored. Film will be available to view worldwide for 48 hours.  Find out more here

Tuesday 13 July

The Sands Films Cinema Club present Modern Times (Dir. Charlie Chaplin, US, 1936) set during the great depression, Modern Times centres on a luckless factory worker (played by Chaplin with his last outing as the ‘little tramp’ character) who finds himself so unnerved by trying to cope with the modern equipment he must operate that he suffers a breakdown. After being institutionalized, he is freed, only to be mistaken for a communist agitator. He is arrested but released after preventing a jailbreak. He subsequently falls in love with a young girl (Paulette Goddard) whom he met when she was running from the police after stealing a loaf of bread. The factory worker and the girl have many adventures together as they evade the police and struggle for a better life. Eventually they escape for the open road. Chaplin had not been seen on a theatre screen for five years when Modern Times premiered to great acclaim in 1936. Still stubbornly resisting work in “talkies,” he stood alone in his insistence upon preserving the silent film. As he did with City Lights (1931), Chaplin conceded to recording a music and sound effects track, but there would be no dialogue heard on-screen. Find out more at wikipedia.org.  With recorded score.  Film screens at 20;00 UK time.  Details Here

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY presents Her Night of Romance (Dir.  Sidney Franklin, UK, 1924)  American Dorothy Adams (Constance Talmadge) is the sole heiress to her father’s scrub brush fortune but she has no intention of being romanced for her money after she arrives in London. An impoverished British Lord (Paul Menford) impersonates a doctor to woo the heiress. The Lord is in love but his business associate (Joe Diamond) is only interested in the money. A funny, charming film with the unforgettable Constance Talmadge, an actor whose comic timing is impeccable but who is now almost completely forgotten.  Find out more at  tcm.com .  With live musical accompaniment by Ben Model.  Film screens at 7.00pm ET (Midnight UK time) Details here

Thursday 24 June

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present The Crucified (aka Ukřižovaná) (Dir. Boris Orlicky, Cz, 1921)  Officer Karel Vyšín has fallen in love with Ruth, the daughter of a Jewish inn-keeper. Karel’s friend Xavier also loves Ruth but he does not want to stand in Karel’s way. When Ruth becomes pregnant, her father, in his fury, curses her and drives her out of the house. Ruth and her child return to her father when a pogrom is waged against the Jews in the village. The inn- keeper is killed and Ruth is crucified. Her son Jan, however, is saved by Xavier.   But Jan’s life will take many turns until a final revelation takes place.  A naturalistic 1921 adaptation of a Jakub Arbes novel that deals with the socio-political climate of the mid19th century Czech lands, antisemitism, war and love. Ukřižovaná belongs to the rather forgotten part of the Czech cinema history in that it does not shy away from depicting horrors of 19th century central European antisemitism in a vivid and graphic manner. Ukřižovaná might be one of the most suggestive films of its time with its haunting colours, intricate plot and an atmosphere that is not easy to come by.  With live musical accompaniment from Ondřej Dizzcock (Ondřej Bělíček).  The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on acting styles in early cinema.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here. 

Thursday 17 June

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present Gypsies (aka Cikani) (Dir. Karl Anton, Cz, 1921) A film adaptation of the eponymous novel by Karel Hynek Mácha – author of the celebrated epic poem May – about a Venetian gondolier whose beloved is enticed away by a wealthy foreigner.This tale of a Venetian gondolier whose desire for revenge following a thwarted love affair leads him eventually to Bohemia. The intricate plot also deals with destinies of various other characters, who finally come together in a dramatic encounter at one time and in one place. In his role as screenwriter and director, Anton produced a highly accomplished version of Mácha’s work. He respected the original but was also able, along with the cinematographer Karel Kopřiva, to capitalise on the possibilities that the film medium offered. For the Venice prologue, the filmmakers exploited the photogenic qualities of the city – the narrow streets, the lagoons, gondolas and the sea – beforemoving the action to the enigmatic Czech landscape around the castle of Kokořín.  Find out more at filmovyprehled.cz.  With live musical accompaniment from Trio Neuvěřitelno.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here. 

Thursday 10 June

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present The Lovers of an Old Criminal (aka An Old Gangster’s Molls aka Milenky starého kriminálníka) (Dir. Svatopluk Innemann, Cz, 1927)  Factory owner Pardon meets and falls for Olga.  But Olga’s mother has better things planned for her daughter and spirits her away.  Industrialist’s daughter Fifi is set on marrying Pardon but in order to search for Olga he swaps places with his uncle, Ponděliček, who’s age and infirmity both uncle and nephew hope will put Fifi off.  But Fifi is not a girl easily dissuaded, even when Ponděliček claims to be Kanibal, the murderous criminal.  And when the real Kanibal shows up the chaos really starts.  No bare bones synopsis could remotely capture the frenetic pace of this wonderfully funny film.  This is a picture which covers virtually every sub-category of the comedy genre.  The early scenes of Fifi, luxuriating amongst her many handmaidens while puffing on a Churchillian sized cigar, have the sophistication of Lubitsch and yet the final hectic chase sequence is pure Keystone.  And there is everything in between!  This knockabout comedy centres around star Vlasta Burian as Pondelícek.  Unknown in the West, Burian was already a national treasure in 1920s Czechoslovakia,  with wonderful comic timing and that ability of the greatest comedians to generate a laugh from just the slightest look or gesture. But the eye-popping star has to be Fifi herself, wearing outfits that would have raised eyebrows in swinging sixties London let alone Prague of the 1920s  She is played wonderfully by Anny Ondráková, who would shorten her surname simply to Ondra a year later when her burgeoning career took her to Germany.  This really is a film not to be missed.  Find out more at silentfilmcalendar.org.  With live musical accompaniment from Vojtěch Procházka.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here. 

Tuesday 8 June

The Sands Films Cinema Clubpresent House on Trubnaya (Dir. Boris Barnett, 1928)  The House on Trubnaya is a masterpiece of Soviet silent cinema. It is a delightful comedy of manners that satirises contemporary life in Moscow during the height of the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921-28). The film celebrates the changing character of Moscow while offering a sharp social commentary on the contradictions of the shifting Soviet state.   This is the story of a city and the trials and tribulations of a young peasant girl, Parasha (Vera Maretskaya), who comes to Moscow with her pet duck in search of her uncle but discovers the injustices of the petite-bourgeoisie . When Mr. Golikov (Vladimir Fogel), owner of a hairdressing salon, looks for a housekeeper who is modest, hard-working and non-union, Parasha looks to be a suitable candidate but occupants of the house on Trubnaya are shocked when Parasha demonstrates her genuine revolutionary spirit  and affirms her proletarian rights by joining the domestic workers union! Another classic Russian comedy from Boris Barnett, a real delight.  Find out more at silentfilm.org  With recorded soundtrack. Screens at 8.00pm. Details here

Sunday 6 June

We’re now up to Episode 60 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include A Speedy Marriage (1925) starring Wanda Wiley, with Charles King, Hugh Saxon, James Renfro and Marjorie Beebe; Plagues and Puppy Love (1917) starring Larry Semon, with Florence Curtis, Joe Rock, Earl Montgomery, Joe Basil and Pete Gordon; and, Her First Flame (1919) starring Gale Henry, with Phyllis Allen, Milburn Moranti, Hap Ward and Eddie Baker.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Friday 4 – Sunday 6 June

Women and the Silent Screen (WSS), a biennial international conference sponsored by Women and Film History International (WFHI), has been a hub for the exchange of research focused on all forms of women’s involvement during the earliest decades of film history. After 22 years of activity, the 2022 conference will be held in the greater New York City area. The theme of WSS XI is “Women, Cinema, & World Migration.” The 2021 online edition is a prelude to next year’s week-long, in-person event.  With four key themes; Chinese Women Directors and Silent Era US-Chinese Film Connections; Women Filmmakers of Early Soviet Documentary;  Alice Guy Blaché and Early Cinema, from Sound and Color to Transatlantic Studio Production; and Breakthroughs: What Can Digital Humanities Tell Us That We Didn’t Know? the conference features presentations, discussion groups and silent film screenings.  Its free to participate but you need to register in advance.  Find out more here

Wednesday 2 June

The Kennington Bioscope present Solax: The House Built By Alice Guy-Blache, a special KBTV presentation in conjunction with Women in the Silent Screen (WSS) 11 conference, which takes place online Friday, June 4 – Sunday June 6, 2021. The KBTV presentation brings together 9 films directed and/or produced by pioneering female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché (1873-1968) at the Solax Studios USA from 1911-13. We are honoured to collaborate with WSS for this selection of films, sourced from several archives, many of which are newly restored and digitised, all complemented with original scores by leading silent film accompanists, with the addition of video introductions by film historians and archivists.  Introductions coordinated by Michelle Facey, Women Film Pioneers Project, and Kennington Bioscope, Allison Farrell and Tami Williams, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, and LOC (Library of Congress) Lab Staff, Heather Linville (Lab Supervisor), Frank Wylie (Head Lab Timer), Lynanne Schweighofer (Preservation Specialist), and George Willeman (Nitrate Vault Leader). Program curated by Kim Tomadjoglou.  Event screens at 7.30pm UK time, details here .  This event will be available to watch on catch-up until 30 June.

Sunday 30 May

Tonight its an encore edition of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa, and featuring repeat screenings of three of the most popular recent shorts starring Martha Sleeper, Harry Watson Jr. and Mr. & Mrs. Carter De Haven introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films are Sure, Mike! (1925) starring Martha Sleeper, with James Finlayson, William Gillespie and Martin “Tonnage” Wolfkeil;  Local Showers (1916) starring Harry Watson Jr. (“Musty Suffer”), with Dan Crimmins, Della Connor and H.H; and A Waggin’ Tale (1923) starring Carter De Haven and Flora Parker De Haven.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Wednesday 26 – Thursday 27 May

Remapping Early British Cinema: A Symposium hosted by Birkbeck, University of London A series of major publications in recent years have shed fresh light on the early British film business, from the 19th century pioneers up to the boom in cinema building before the First World War. Do these require revision of the standard histories by Rachael Low and John Barnes, which were pioneering in their time? And how are new historical insights best distributed, accessed, and debated in the digital era?  Speakers at this two-day symposium will include Barry Anthony, Tim Boon, Stephen Bottomore, Simon Brown, Zoë Viney Burgess, Jon Burrows, Ian Christie, Malcolm Cook, Bryony Dixon, Peter Domankiewicz, Frank Gray, Luke McKernan, Simon Popple, Laraine Porter, Deac Rossell, Vanessa Toulmin.  The symposium will run between 14.00-18.00 over two days on Microsoft Teams hosted by Birkbeck.   The event is free but you will need to register  here

Monday 24 May

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles present  Hot Water (Dir. Fred Newmeyer, US, 1924)  In what is really three shorts rolled up in to one feature length film, Harold Lloyd starts out as best man running to his friend’s wedding and promising that he will never give in to ‘a pair of soft-boiled eyes’.  But when he quite literally runs into Jobyna Ralston he is married faster than you can read the next inter-title.  Then, as family man Harold, he has an adventure taking home a turkey by public transport, taking the family out in their new car and finally accidentally chloroformings his mother-in-law and being convinced that he has killed her.   The film has that ‘stitched-together’ feel but is not short on gags and was a considerable popular success on its first release.  Find out more at wikipedia.org.  With live piano accompaniment.  Film screens at 7.30 pm (US PDT time). Details  here.   (NB  Also available the watch later on their YouTube channel)

Sunday 23 May

We’re now up to Episode 59 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films have yet to be confirmed  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 20 May

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present The Sins Of Love (aka Sin of a Beautiful Woman, aka The Last Mask aka Hríchy Lásky)  (Dir. Karel Lamac, Cz, 1929). Actor Ivan Kristen and his wife Soňia leave the provincial theatre to go to work in the city. Soňia has Ivan to thank for her artistic career but it is Soňia who is given a leading role while Ivan is left without a job. Soňia becomes a star and is courted by the leading man Richard Kent. No one appreciates Ivan’s talent so he decides to leave the theatre, taking Soňia with him. Kent, however, pulls strings in order to get a big role for Ivan, ensuring that Ivan remains in town and allowing Kent to further court Sonia.  But Ivan’s growing suspicions over Kent’s attention towards Sonia results in growing jealousy and leads, eventually, to tragedy.   By the late 1920s, the standing of the Czech film industry was such that it could attract high quality international cast and crew and this is a particularly fine example.  Because it was a silent film, there was no problem with the international cast, with Czech, Italian, German and French stars appearing in the four main roles. The direction by Lamac is also outstanding.  Find out more at silentfilmcalendar.org.  With live musical accompaniment from Ožvold & Ožvold & Kratochvíl.  The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on the musical accompaniment to silent films.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here. 

Tuesday 18 May

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY presents Mantrap (Dir. Victor Fleming, US, 1926). Ralph Prescott, a New York divorce lawyer and his buddy, E. Wesson Woodbury, decide to get away from it all on a camping trip near the town of Mantrap, Canada. However, the city slickers are a bit out of their depth in the North woods. After the two get into a tussle, Joe Easter, the local trading post owner, takes Prescott to Mantrap, where Prescott meets Joe’s new flirtatious wife, Alverna (Clara Bow). And then the sparks really begin to fly… Paramount Pictures paid $50,000 for Sinclair Lewis’ long and justifiably forgotten novel, “Mantrap,” but happily, the female screenwriters Ethel Doherty and Adelaide Heilbron turned Lewis’ misogynistic tirade into a funny comedy romp that is light as a feather. Credit must also go to Clara Bow who represents an erotic whirlwind in an otherwise woman-less Western wilderness; an outrageous, good-time girl who leads at least two men by the nose, but nevertheless eventually honors her commitment–at least until the next interesting prospect comes along. We may have to wait until 10 minutes in to the film for Clara Bow’s first appearance, but after that she never lets go. It’s hard to disagree with the note she much later wrote to her sons on a package of production stills: “From Mantrap—the best silent picture I ever made.” Although not yet 21, she’d already been in more than 30 films but this was her breakthrough movie. Find out more at moviessilently.com.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Film screens at 7.00pm ET (Midnight UK time)  Details here

Sunday 16 May

We’re now up to Episode 58 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include;  Getting Gertie’s Goat (1924) starring Dorothy Devore, with Jimmie Harrison, Lincoln Plumer, Bud Fine and Babe London; plus The Garage (1920) starring Roscoe “Fatty”Abuckle and Buster Keaton, with Molly Malone, Dan Crimmins, Harry McCoy, Charles Dorety and Monty Banks.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 6 May

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present Be Prepared! (aka  Buď připraven!) (Dir. Svatopluk Innemann, Cz, 1923) Buď připraven! portrays the early Czech boy scout movement taking the audience to astonishing locations, such as Orlík castle and St John’s Rapids, the latter of which no longer exists. The neglected Buď připraven! is based on a screenplay by the theatre personality and scoutmaster František V. Kučera, who also appeared in one of the roles. The film shows boy scouts at a summer camp in the vicinity of Orlík castle engaged in various exercises in proficiency, including lifesaving skills. The casting included boys of the Prague scout troops and the staff of the Schwarzenberg estate. The film provides rare documentation not only of the period scout movement but also of 1923 Prague and the St John’s Rapids, now flooded by the Štěchovice Reservoir.  Find out more at filmovyprehled.cz.  With live musical accompaniment by Wabi Experience.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here

Wednesday 5 May

The Kennington Bioscope present Episode 15 of KBTV  live stream broadcasts on their You Tube channel at 7:30pm.  The Kennington Bioscope, in conjunction with The Cinema Museum, presents The Centenary of William Friese-Greene.   Friese-Greene(1855-1921) was a pioneering British experimenter with moving pictures, whose monument in Highgate Cemetery hails him as “The Inventor of Kinematography”, and whose life – and death – were famously charted in the 1951 film The Magic Box, starring Robert Donat.  This online event, marking the hundredth anniversary of Friese-Greene’s death, features contributions from three experts on early moving pictures, who will talk about his life, his achievements, and his waxing and waning reputation. They are: Peter Domankiewicz, film director, writer, and Friese-Greene expert; Stephen Herbert, researcher and writer on the history of audio-visual media and technology: and, Professor Ian Christie, film scholar, researcher and writer.  Chaired by Nick Hiley, Trustee of The Cinema Museum. Why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.  Oh, and don’t by shy about making a contributing to their Ko-Fi page here to help keep this fantastic series going.  (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 29 April

The AFI Silver Theatre and Culture Centre present Camille (Dir. Ray C Smallwood, US, 1921). Camille is a 1921 American silent drama film starring Alla Nazimova as Marguerite and Rudolph Valentino as her lover, Armand. It is based on the play adaptation La Dame aux Camélias (The Lady of the Camellias) by Alexandre Dumas, which was first published in French as a novel in 1848 and as a play in 1852. Camille is one of numerous screen adaptations of Dumas’ story. The film was set in 1920s Paris, whereas the original version took place in Paris in the 1840s. It had lavish Art Deco sets and Rudolph Valentino later married the film’s art director, Natacha Rambova.  Find out more at moviessilently.com.  With live musical accompaniment by Ben Model.  Event screens at 8.00ET (01.00am 30 April UK time).  Further details here

Monday 26 April

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles present  Hold Your Breath (Dir. Scott Sidney, US, 1924).   Two of the silent era’s more forgotten comedians, pert Dorothy Devore and rotund Walter Hiers headlined this feature comedy from short-subject specialist producer Al Christie. Losing her job at the beauty parlor, Dorothy cons her way into a position at a newspaper where she is assigned to interview an eccentric collector (Tully Marshall). While being shown a rare and expensive bracelet, a passing monkey grabs the jewelry, and the remainder of the farce is one long chase up and down a skyscraper, with Dorothy as an ersatz Harold Lloyd.  Plus, Sailor Beware (Dir. William Watson, US, 1927) in which wimpy sailor boy Billy Epsom has just arrived from New Guinea with a guinea pig in a box for his sweetheart. But today’s newspaper headline reads, “Guinea Pig With Deadly Germs Roaming Our Streets”, at which point chaos ensues.    With live piano accompaniment.  Film screens at 7.30 pm (US PDT time). Details  here.   (NB  Also available the watch later on their YouTube channel)

Sunday 25 April

We’re now up to Episode 55 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include;  The Rat’s Knuckles (1925) starring Charley Chase, with Martha Sleeper; Baseball Film (1951) starring Ernie Kovacs; and, Coney Island (1917) starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, with Buster Keaton, Al St John, Alice Mann and Agnes Neilson.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival present the Matti Bye Ensemble Masterclass. The Matti Bye Ensemble seeks that magical, emotional alchemy between music and images, playing a wide variety of instruments that include piano, glockenspiel, violin, musical saw and percussion. It is led by award-winning film composer Matti Bye, who has been the Swedish Film Institute’s resident silent-movie pianist since 1989. In addition to Bye, the ensemble members include Helena Espvall, Kristian Holmgren, Lotta Johansson, and Laura Naukkarinen.  This series is completely free to silent film aficionados and newcomers alike but you need to register to join the conversation. Screens at 12 noon PDT (8.00pm UK Time) Details here

Thursday 22 April

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present The Films of Jan Kříženecký.  A rare window into the early beginnings of Czech cinematography between 1898 and 1911. This compilation of shorts introduces some of the earliest films made in the Czech lands, shot by Jan Kříženecký from 1898 to 1911. The digitised original negatives and vintage prints allow us to see their diversity and material beauty. The specific colour of Lumière film material in their then shape was preserved in the vintage prints.  With commentary by Jeanne Pommeau about the film restoration and the historical context of these early films and musical accompaniment from Jan Burian.  Followed by a panel discussion on early Czech cinema moderated by Matej Strnad.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here

Cinematek, the Royal Belgian Film Archive, in Brussels presents Betta The Gypsy ( Dir. Charles Raymond, UK, 1918) A melodrama set within the gypsy community. Betta starts a new life with her loved-one Herbert, far away from her family and from Tempestro, the scheming rival for her affections.  But Tempestro has not forgotten Betta and he eventually tracks her down!  Event screens on Facebook at 3.00pm (4.00pm UK time) with live music accompaniment.  Details via @Cinematekbe.

Tuesday 20 April

The Sands Films Cinema Club present An Inn In Tokyo (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, Jap, 1935)  The final still-extant silent film directed by Yasujiro Ozu is an exquisitely tender portrait of everyday survival in 1930s Japan. Anticipating the neo-realist poetry of The Bicycle Thieves (1948), An In In Tokyo follows unemployed ne’er-do-well Kihachi (Takeshi Sakamoto) and his young sons as they eke out an existence on the city’s margins, catching stray dogs for reward money and eventually becoming involved with a similarly impoverished woman and her daughter. With its simple yet elegant compositions and striking use of Tokyo’s industrial landscapes, this bittersweet slice-of-life tale represents a key work in the evolution of Ozu’s artistry.  Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With recorded soundtrack.  Screens at 8.00pm.  Details here

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY presents Tumbleweeds (Dir. King Baggot, U, 1925)  Silent film western legend William S. Hart stars in this classic tale of settlers in the Oklahoma territory. Directed by King Baggot, but co-directed by Hart, Tumbleweeds follows a cowboy in 1890s Kansas, Don Carver (Hart), a drifter or “tumbleweed” by nature who meets and falls in love with Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford) after accidentally lassoing her. Hoping to settle down with his love, Carver decides to get in on the Cherokee Strip land rush, but after being falsely arrested by the U.S. Cavalry, Carver must find a way to break out of the stockade if he is to get back into the race. Tumbleweeds was cowboy legend William S. Hart’s final starring role. Hart, who was known for his brand of gritty and rugged Westerns set the standard for all Western stars who followed. Modern reviews of Tumbleweeds have lauded it as the high point of Hart’s career. Gary Johnson in Images Journal said that although Tumbleweeds was only a mild box-office success, it is arguably Hart’s finest film. “The movie’s most impressive sequence remains the land rush“, wrote Johnson. “All manners of vehicles — covered wagons, surreys, stagecoaches, even a large-wheeled bicycle — bounce over the prairie in the mad rush to claim land. Other films would attempt to recreate the Oklahoma land rush — such as Cimarron, which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 1931 — but Tumbleweeds remains the best example.”  Find out more at wikipedia.org.   With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Film screens at 7.00pm ET (Midnight UK time)  Details here

Sunday 18 April

We’re now up to Episode 54 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include;   Hot Luck (1928) starring Malcolm “Big Boy” Sebastian, with Billy Sullivan, Jack Miller and Lorraine Rivero; and, My Wife’s Relations (1922) starring Buster Keaton and Kate Price.      The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 15 April

Cinematek, the Royal Belgian Film Archive, in Brussels presents The Circus Comes To Town.   A compilation of images from magic lanterns and film pioneers of the best attractions of the circus, the acrobats. Earlier or now, perfect family fun during the Easter holidays. Films include;   L’Antre Infernal, Gaston Velle, Fr, Pathé, 1905-1906; Acrobati Comici, It, Cines, 1910; Lustige Clowns, Chromolithographic loop, Ger, 1912-1913; Miss Harry Femme Serpent, FR, Pathé,1911;  Der rätselhafte Kopf, Chromolithographic loop, Ger, 1912-1913 and Kiriki, Segundo De Chomon, Fr, Pathé, 1907,  Event screens on Facebook at 3.00pm (4.00pm UK time) with live music accompaniment.  Details via @Cinematekbe or here

Tuesday 13 April

(Postponed from 28 March)  The San Francisco Silent Film Festival present Making Music For Film featuring DJ Spooky in conversation with Carter Burwell and Graham Reynolds. These three extraordinary musicians (and friends) will talk about composing for film—touching on the similarities and differences for silent cinema. Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) is an artist and composer with an affinity for silent film. His live remix of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation—Rebirth of a Nation—premiered in 2004 and Miller went on to score Dovzhenko’s Earth and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, among others. He executive-produced the Pioneers of African-American Cinema box set, which features his scores for two Oscar Micheaux films. Miller performed at SFSFF 2017 with his score for Micheaux’s Body and Soul and there are plans afoot to bring Miller to San Francisco to perform at SFSFF’s next in-person event. Carter Burwell is known to anyone who’s seen a film by the Coen Brothers—his ineffable touch is on everything from Blood Simple to The Big Lebowski to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, not to mention his scores for films by Todd Haynes and Spike Jonze! Graham Reynolds composed the elegant music for Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette, among his many other film scores. Reynolds got his film-composing start by scoring silent films!  Event takes place at 12.00 noon PDT (should be 20.00 UK time but double check due to weekend clock changes!) Find out more here

Sunday 11 April

We’re now up to Episode 53 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include;  MADAM BABYLAS AIME LES ANIMAUX (MADAME BABYLAS LOVES ANIMALS, 1911) starring Louis-Jacques Boucot: SAÏDA A ENLEVÉ MANNEKEN PIS: DÉSOPILLANTE AVENTURE DU PREMIER CITOYEN DE BRUXELLES (Saïda has kidnapped Manneken Pis: A hilarious adventure of Brussels’ first citizen, 1913) with Nicolas Ambreville, Balthus; SHE WROTE A PLAY AND PLAYED IT (1916) starring Gale Henry, with Billy Franey; and, CLUBS ARE TRUMPS (1917) starring Harold Lloyd, with Bebe Daniels, Snub Pollard, Bud Jamison.   The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival present Amazing Tales Online: Discovering the Lost Films of Georges Méliès in fin-de-siècle Flip Books. Between the years 1896 and 1901 an obscure Parisian bimbelotier (a maker of trinkets and playthings) named Léon Beaulieu produced a series of what we today call flip books. Some of these source films are quite well known, such as Edison’s “The May Irwin Kiss” but thanks to the exhaustive research carried out by Thierry Lecointe and Pascal Fouché we have confidently identified the image sources for many of the books to be lost early films of cinema magician Georges Méliès, as well as Gaumont, Skladanowsky, and Pathé. Many of these flip books reveal glimpses of films that have been lost for over a century and that, in many cases, were never known at all. In 2017 the San Francisco Silent Film Festival undertook on the task of animating the entire Beaulieu corpus of twenty-seven unique books. The goal was to reverse the bimbelotier’s film-to-paper transformation and reconstitute the fragments as motion pictures. Photographer Onno Petersen designed a special photographic mount that allowed the pages to be photographed without damaging the fragile bindings while at the same time producing consistently-dimensioned images free of distortion. Each page was carefully photographed, a total of 2,642 images. Enlisting techniques borrowed from the realm of digital film restoration, digital stabilization tools were used to align the images, analyze and determine the appropriate frame rate, and to ultimately render properly timed animations of each individual book. In this special Amazing Tales Online presentation hosted by Pamela Hutchinson, join Thierry Lecointe and Robert Byrne, as they reveal the secrets of Léon Beaulieu’s magical bimblots.  With musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.  Event screens at 12.00noon Pacific time (7.00pm UK time) Further details here

Thursday 8 April

Cinematek, the Royal Belgian Film Archive, in Brussels presents Touristing In Belgium which looks to be a travelogue collection looking at Belgian tourist spots. The tourist short provided an excellent opportunity for aspiring directors to learn the “craft”, often with the support of local subsidies. The song of the carillons and rivers is a kind of hybrid film, in which a simple comic and romantic intrigue takes the viewer through as many picturesque towns and villages as possible. Ostend, Bruges, Ypres, Bergen … each place visited leads to about half a dozen images of monuments, sites or special features, each time described with passages from a notebook. We show the shortened version from which the fictional aspect of the story was omitted: La Belgique et le Grand Duché du Luxembourg.   Event screens on Facebook at 3.00pm (4.00pm UK time) with live music accompaniment.  Details via @Cinematekbe or here

Národní filmový archiv, Prague present White Paradise (aka Bílý ráj)  (Dir. Karel Lamac, Cz, 1924) Set in a remote region “where people were born with solitude in their hearts”, orphan Nina (Anny Ondra) serves customers in a coaching inn, quarreling with its owner, while Ivan (Karel Lamač), who has been jailed for embezzlement, escapes from prison to bring medicine to his dying mother. Hiding from the pursuing police in the inn’s cellar, Ivan meets Nina who falls for his good heart and piercing eyes and decides to help him.  With its classic story and advanced technical quality, and the involvement of Der Starke Vierer (The Strong Four) – one of the most distinctive creative teams to come out of early Czechoslovak cinema: director and actor Karel Lamač, camera–man Otto Heller, actress Anny Ondra and screenwriter Václav Wasserman – contributed to the domestic and international success of this low-budget film and established Lamač and Ondra as major forces of Czechoslovak cinema. Find out more at ilcinemaritrovato.it.  With music by multi-instrumentalist Tomáš Vtípil followed by panel discussion on ‘Classics Today‘ , which provides a framework for this entire Czech retrospective. What the term ‘classic’ means in architecture, music, literature and why using this term, will be some of the questions discussed by guests from various cultural fields and moderated by the General Director of the Czech National Film Archive, Mihal Bregant.  Film screens at 17.00 CET (18.00 UK time) Further details  here

Tuesday 6 April

Sands Films Cinema Club present Bed And Sofa (Dir. Abram Room, USSR, 1927) Volodya, a printer, lands a job in Moscow and is looking for a place to stay. Unable to find a room in a hotel, he meets up with construction worker Kolya, his Civil War comrade from years before. Even though Kolya lives in a small one-room apartment, he offers Volodya the sofa, the bed being occupied by Kolya himself and his wife Liudmila.  But put-upon Liudmila is soon attracted to the handsome Volodya and when Kolya returns from a work trip he now finds himself on the sofa and Volodya in the bed with Liudmila. But rather than simply a romantic farce Bed And Sofa is far more, a commentary on the continued enforced domesticity of women in Soviet society, on overcrowded living conditions and, ultimately, on a woman’s right to choose.  Needless to say, the film went down badly with the Soviet authorities while its somewhat racy subject matter ran into similar problems with censors in the West.  However, Bed And Sofa is now regarded as a classic of silent Soviet cinema.  Find out more at www.brentonfilm.com.  With a live introduction and recorded soundtrack.  Details here

Sunday 4 April

We’re now up to Episode 52 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include The Luck O’ The Foolish (1924) starring Harry Langdon, with Marceline Day, Frank J. Coleman, Madeline Hurlock, Eli Stanton and  Roscoe “Tiny” Ward, plus The Tramp (1915) starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance, Billy Armstrong, Paddy McGuire and Bud Jamison.   The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 1 April

Dallas VideoFest present Modern Times (Dir. Charlie Chaplin, US, 1936) This comedic masterpiece finds the iconic Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) employed at a state-of-the-art factory where the inescapable machinery completely overwhelms him, and where various mishaps keep getting him sent to prison. In between his various jail stints, he meets and befriends an orphan girl (Paulette Goddard). Both together and apart, they try to contend with the difficulties of modern life, with the Tramp working as a waiter and eventually a performer.  With live musical accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 19.30 CDT (01.30 2 Apr. UK time).  Find out more here

The Cinematek in Brussels presents Chess Fever (aka Shakhmatnaya Goryachka) (Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nikolai Shpikovsky, USSR,1925)  Soviet citizens were transfixed by the International Chess Tournament held at Moscow’s Hotel Metropol in November 1925.  Hundreds of spectators followed the games in the Metropol itself, whilst tens of thousands watched demonstration boards across the city, and the then up-and-coming director Pudovkin was asked to make a topical comedy about the ‘chess fever’ sweeping the nation. Chess competitor at the tournament Capablanca plays himself in this fast-paced comedy about a young couple whose love affair reaches stalemate because of the hero’s obsession with the game.  Find out more at moviessilently.com Event screens on Facebook at 3.00pm (4.00pm UK time) with live music accompaniment.  Details via @Cinematekbe. 

Sunday 28 March

We’re now up to Episode 51 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened this evening include; Three Tough Onions (1928) starring Monty Collins, with Estelle Bradley, Robert Graves, Bobby Burns and Katherine Parrish; Millionaire For A Minute (1915) starring Max Asher, with Gale Henry, Billy Franey, Milburne Morante, Lillian Peacock and Heinie Conklin; and, Looking For Sally (1925) starring Charley Chase, Katherine Grant, Noah Young and Leo Willis.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (8.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Tuesday 23 March

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY present The Extra Girl (Dir. F Richard Jones, US, 1923)  Hometown girl Sue Graham (Mabel Normand) wins a movie contest and goes to Hollywood when her parents forbid her to marry Dave Giddings (Ralph Graves), her father’s garage mechanic. Arriving in Hollywood, Sue finds that there is no work except in the wardrobe department. She falls into the clutches of an oil swindler named Hackett (Ramsey Wallace). When Sue’s parents lose their fortune to Hackett, Sue determines to recover the cash and get her man.  Although plenty of Mabel Normand’s early shorts from Vitagraph, Biograph and, especially, Keystone, as well as the Hal Roach films from the end of her career  survive, this is a rare surviving example of one of her earlier features. Find out more at  imdb.com . With live musical accompaniment from Ben Model. Film screens at 7.00pm ET (midnight UK time).   Find out more here

Monday 22 March

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles present The Iron Horse (Dir. John Ford, US, 1924)  This epic silent western concerns the building of the first transcontinental railroad and tells a story of double dealing among surveyors and contractors, attacks by the Cheyenne Indians, immigrants hoping for a better life, saloon girls deviously seducing railroad officials, sons struggling to realise the forgotten dreams of their now-dead fathers, and desperate last minute rides by the pony express. It culminates with the celebrated scene of the joining of the rails at Promontory Point, Utah.  Director John Ford had already helmed nearly fifty B-movies during his movie-making apprenticeship but this is the one which catapulted him into the front ranks of American filmmakers.  Made as Fox Studio’s response to Paramount’s The Covered Wagon released the previous year, The Iron Horse was one of the great blockbusters of Hollywood’s silent era, with over 6000 extras, construction of two whole towns; 2000 rail layers; a cavalry regiment; 800 Indians; 1300 buffalo; 2000 horses; 10,000 cattle. Find out more at cineaste.com  Introduced by Joseph McBride, esteemed film historian and author of “Searching for John Ford”.  With live piano accompaniment by Cliff Retallick.  Film screens at 7.30 pm (US PDT time). Details  here.   (NB  Also available the watch later on their YouTube channel)

Monday 22 March – Wednesday 31 March

Istitute Italiano di Cultura Washington DC present Cenere (aka Ashes). (Dir. Febo Mari, It, 1916) Based on the eponymous book by Nobel Prize-winning writer Grazia Deledda, and set in Sardinia, Cenere tells the melodramatic story of Rosalia Derios (featuring theatre icon Eleonora Duse in her only film performance), an unmarried woman who is abandoned by her lover when he discovers she is pregnant. Despite her best efforts to raise her son, Rosalia realizes that she cannot escape from her poverty and the shame of having an illegitimate child and, reluctantly, she decides to entrust the boy to the natural father.  With live piano accompaniment from Ben Model.  Followed by a panel discussion focused upon Grazia Deledda, the only Italian woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, Eleonora Duse and the role of women in early cinema. Find out more at here

Sunday 21 March

In something of a lock-down milestone its Episode 50 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, screened live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened this evening include; An Eye For The Figures (1920) starring Hank Mann, with Madge Kirby, Vernon Dent and James T. Kelly; Ko-Ko In The Fadeaway (1926) starring Ko-Ko the Clown, with Fitz and Max Fleischer; and, The Queen Of Aces (1925) starring Wanda Wiley, with Al Alt, Dorothy Vernon and the Century Follies Girls.  The event streams at 3.00pm EDT (currently 7.00pm UK time) on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Billie Ritchie’s Early Hollywood Footsteps  Join John Bengtson ‘the great detective of silent film locations’ (New York Times) on a visual tour of early Hollywood as revealed in the background of films starring Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, and other classic stars, with an emphasis on locales visited by Scotland’s own slapstick hero Billie Ritchie, Charlie Chaplin’s main rival in 1915. Ritchie, like Chaplin, travelled with the Karno troupes to the USA. He was billed alongside Chaplin as one of ‘the greatest comedians of the day’ and was among a small number of stars whose names were guaranteed to boost box office receipts in cinemas UK-wide. However, today few people even in Scotland have heard of him, or seen the many side-splitting, slapstick moments he made for film in Hollywood. This talk and tour features rare clips courtesy of the Library of Congress, Undercrank Productions, and the EYE Filmmuseum, and other recently discovered moments from Ritchie’s career.  Presented by John Bengston, author, film historian and member of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.  Screens at 12.00 UK time.  Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present –Chess Fever (aka Shakhmatnaya Goryachka) (Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin and Nikolai Shpikovsky, USSR,1925)  Ninety-five years before the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit gripped our imaginations Soviet citizens were transfixed by the International Chess Tournament being held at Moscow’s Hotel Metropol in November 1925.  Hundreds of spectators followed the games in the Metropol, whilst tens of thousands watched demonstration boards across the city, and the then up-and-coming director Pudovkin was asked to make a topical comedy about the ‘chess fever’ sweeping the nation. Chess competitor at the tournament Capablanca plays himself in this fast-paced comedy about a young couple whose love affair reaches stalemate because of the hero’s obsession with the game.  Find out more at moviessilently.com  Introduced by HippFest director Alison Strauss.  Musical accompaniment by John Sweeney.   Film screens at 13.30 UK time. Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present A Kiss From Mary Pickford (Dir. Sergei Komarov, USSR, 1927) During their travels in the Soviet Union in 1926, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were recorded by the director Sergei Komarov and his crew. The couple knowingly participated in the filming as a gesture of support for the Russian film industry.  At Mezhrapom Film Studios, Pickford embraced and planted a kiss on actor Igor Ilyinski and Komarov decided to build a full-length feature around this shot.  The result was A Kiss From Mary Pickford, the story of Goga, a man who has no luck with women, not least his girlfriend Dusya who tells him they are through unless he becomes a celebrity.  But when a chance kiss from Mary Pickford suddenly brings him star status, things do not run as smoothly as Goga expects.  Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With live piano accompaniment from John Sweeney.  Film screens at 2.30pm UK time.  Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present Sparrows (Dir. William Beaudine, Tom McNamara (uncredited), US, 1926)  HippFest is proud to present the world premiere of a brand new restoration of Mary Pickford’s masterpiece Sparrows with a new score specially commissioned by the Mary Pickford Foundation.  Pickford, “America’s sweetheart”, and the unrivaled Queen of Hollywood – plays ‘mamma Molly’ the eldest of a lovable clutch of raggedy orphans, starved and brutalised by the evil Mr Grimes who exploits the luckless children, forcing them to work on his dismal swamp. This Dickensian scenario is further emphasised by sinister lighting and a dark Gothic production design – rendering a genuinely suspenseful and affecting drama in which Molly strives first to protect the children and then lead them on a daring escape across quicksand and alligator-infested swamps.  Find out more at moviessilently.com.  Introduced by Cari Beauchamp, writer, film historian, flm-maker and Resident Scholar at the Mary Pickford Foundation.  Musical accompaniment composed by Taylor and Cameron Graves and performed by Taylor Graves (piano, violin, cello, contra bass, flute, trumpet, percussion, guitar, harp and brass); Cameron Graves (piano, violin, cello and contra bass); Rachel Grace (violin); Artymom Manukyan (cello); Sean Sonderegger (clarinet, bass clarinet, flute and contra clarinet).  Film screens at 19.00 UK time followed by a live Q & A session.   Find out more here

Saturday 20 March

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Prix de Beauté (Dir. Augusto Genina, Fr, 1930)  Iconic star of the silent era – Louise Brooks – lights up the role of Lucienne, a spirited, carefree, working woman who enters a beauty contest and is introduced to the alluring world of fame and the freedom it affords. Chafing under the disapproval of her idealistic but controlling boyfriend she is torn between the tantalising glimpse of glamour and a life of domesticity.  Based on a story by René Clair and G.W. Pabst the film was released as a talkie but this HippFest presentation is of the glorious, beautifully restored silent version, which eschews some crude pasted-on sound effects and awkwardly post-synched dialogue scenes, and lets the stunning cinematography and Brooks’ electric performance shine for themselves.  This is a particularly welcome opportunity to watch this rarely screened classic with a mesmeric performance by Brooks.  Find out more at sensesofcinema.com.  Introduced by Pamela Hutchinson, freelance writer, critic, film historian, and editor of the silent cinema website Silent London.  Musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.  Film screens at 14.00 UK time followed by live Q & A session.  Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – The Woman That Men Yearn For (aka Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt,  ) (Dir, Curtis Bernhardt, Ger, 1929)  The dreamy Charles Leblanc (Oskar Sima), about to marry into a wealthy steel-making family, glimpses Stascha (Marlene Dietrich) and her companion Karoff (Fritz Kortner) as they pause for a drink at a bar in his small southern France town. They meet again on the train taking him and his wife on their honeymoon. Overwhelmed by Stascha’s sexuality, and ignoring his distraught new wife, Leblanc agrees to help her escape from the domineering Karoff, setting in motion a chain of obsessive, destructive events.  Long before von Sternberg brought us Dietrich as Lola Lola in The Blue Angel, the actress had already created her femme fatale persona with this, her first starring role.  Although made on something of a shoestring budget and wholly studio shot, the film benefits from excellent direction from Bernhardt, Dietrich smoulders superbly and the rest of the cast are excellent.  Unfortunately the film was released just as audiences were clamouring for sound films and as a result it was not particularly successful. This rarely screened film marked an important milestone in Dietrich’s career development.   Find out more at silentfilm.org .  Introduced by  writer, critic and academic Hannah McGill.  With musical accompaniment by Frame Ensemble ( Irine Røsnes (violin); Liz Hanks (cello); Trevor Bartlett (percussion); Jonny Best (piano)).  Film screens at 1900 UK time, followed by a live Q & A session.  Find out more here

Friday 19 March

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Underground (Dir. Anthony Asquith, GB, 1928)  In 1920s London, during a normal hectic day on the Underground, mild mannered Northern Line porter Bill (Brian Aherne) falls for shop worker Nell (Elissa Landi). But their relationship is threatened by power station worker Burt (Cyril McLaglan) who also has eyes for Nell.  Consumed by jealousy, Burt plots to discredit Bill with a plan that results in a daring chase through London’s underground and across rooftops of the city.  Although Underground was only Asquith‘s second film  he handles the melodramatic story with confidence and great sophistication.  Underground is a rare study of 1920s working-class London, and offers a fascinating and historically interesting glimpse of its public transport system.  Find out more at screenonline.org.uk.   Introduced by Bryony Dixon, curator of silent film at the British Film Institute.   Musical accompaniment is by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, recorded live in 2012, conducted by Timothy Brock and performing Neil Brand’s definitive score,.  Film screens at 14.00 UK time and is followed by a live Q & A session.  Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – The Eagle (Dir. Clarence Brown, US, 1925)  Based on the novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, Rudolph Valentino stars as the title character, a young Russian Cossack officer who rejects the Czarina’s (Louise Dresser) amorous attention and is promptly branded a deserter in this silent tale of love and revenge. On the eve of his dismissal he learns of his father’s ruin–his father had sent a letter pleading for the Czarina’s aid against Kyrilla (James Marcus), a gluttonous and treacherous neighbor who has stolen the family’s estate. Sentenced to death with a reward on his head for shunning the lusty Czarina, Vladimir escapes into the countryside and becomes the Black Eagle, a dashing masked vigilante who seeks to avenge the death of his father. But things get complicated when he falls in love with Mascha Troekouroff (Vilma Banky), Kyrilla’s daughter.  Escaping for once his ‘Latin Lover’ persona, Valentino delivers a charismatic and seductive performance in this full-scale romantic adventure that shines with early Hollywood’s technical advancements and stylish production values.  Find out more at iamhist.net. Introduced by the Hippodrome Cinema‘s own Alison Strauss.  Piano accompaniment by Neil Brand.  The film screens at 19.00 UK time.  Find out more here

Thursday 18 March

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Scottish Cinema and the Flu Pandemic of 1918-19  A silent film talk with Dr Trevor Griffiths.  Over the last twelve months, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on the country’s entertainment sector, with cinemas across the country closed and film releases withdrawn… but what lessons can we draw from the responses of the cinema industry to the pandemic over a hundred years ago? This illuminating talk explores the close parallels with the Scottish film exhibitor experience during the 1918 – 19 flu pandemic. The so-called ‘Spanish flu’ struck a cinema industry, which was still young and which had already endured four years of war. These challenging years were compounded by mounting criticism for the cinema’s alleged moral corruption of young audiences. In examining the steps taken at the time to check the spread of infection we learn about attitudes of the day towards cinema, the impact of the pandemic on the industry at a key stage in its development, and that lockdown and social distancing are nothing new.    Presented by Dr Trevor Griffiths, University of Edinburgh. Screening at 14.00 UK time.   Find out more here

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life (1925)  Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack – best known as the co-producer/directors of King Kong (1933) – tell the jaw-dropping story of a tribe of nomads in Iran known as the Bakhtiari and their epic trek with half-a-million animals across impossible terrain to reach summer pasture. A spectacular ethnographic record, this film was intended for the lecture circuit but was snapped up by Paramount for theatrical distribution on the strength of its powerful dramatic punch. It’s easy to see how the character of Denham in King Kong was modeled after the adventurer Cooper, whose daredevil real-life exploits were the stuff of Hollywood adventure films. Watch it for the near-mythic odyssey of the journey, the staggering beauty of the scenery, and the endearing moments of intimacy and warmth for the film’s subjects. Find out more at www.loc.gov.   Introduced by Professor Nacim Pak-Shiraz, Chair in Cinema and Iran and Head of Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh. With piano accompaniment by Mike Nolan.  Screens at 19.00 UK time. Find out more here

Wednesday 17 March

The 2021 Hippodrome Silent Film Festival present – Body and Soul (1925) Paul Robeson , the first African American actor to achieve international star status, made his screen debut in this audacious, all-black cast melodrama, directed and produced by Oscar Micheaux – the silent era’s most successful black filmmaker.  Micheaux brings a showman’s flair to the sensational story of a demonic ex-con, posing as a minister in order to swindle the townspeople of their money. Micheaux’s leading man, Robeson, shows off his considerable range, playing dual roles as the mild-mannered Sylvester and his charismatic identical twin brother Isaiah.  Find out more at moviessilently.com  .  Introduced by Charles Musser, professor of Film & Media Studies at Yale University.  With recorded musical accompaniment composed and conducted by American jazz musician Wycliffe Gordon and performed by an 18 piece jazz orchestra.  Screens at 18.30 UK time.  Followed by a live Q & A session.  Find out more here

Friday 12 March

Klassiki.Online present  Girl With A Hat Box (Dir. Boris Barnet,  USSR, 1927)   A film that proves that not all Russian silent films come with heavy doses of propaganda, this is one of the most delightful silent comedies ever made and Anna Sten is a knockout as Natasha who lives with her grandfather in a cottage near Moscow, making hats for Madame Irène, who has told the housing committee that Natasha rents a room from them. This deception gives Madame’s lazy husband a room for lounging. But then Natasha marries Ilya, a student who sleeps in the local train station, and takes him to Madame’s to live in the room the house committee thinks is hers. Meanwhile, Madame’s husband pays Natasha with a lottery ticket, which turns out to be a winner, which makes life very complicated for everyone!!.  Find out more at  silentfilm.org  With the premier of a new score, composed and performed live by Juliet Merchant.  Screens at 7.30pm UK time.  Further details here

Thursday 11 March

The AFI Silver Theatre and Culture Centre present a Charlie Chaplin Mutual Shorts Program. The dozen two-reel comedies Charlie Chaplin made during his 1916–1917 tenure with the Mutual Film Corporation, after signing a then unprecedented contract for $670,000 and being given complete creative control as writer, director, producer and star, are considered to be among the finest of the form ­— for some, Chaplin’s artistic peak — before business imperatives demanded that Chaplin and other silent comedy stars redirect their focus to creating feature-length films. In addition to Chaplin’s film artistry, part of these films’ appeal comes thanks to his wonderful supporting cast, who reappear in various roles throughout the series, including leading lady Edna Purviance, portly Henry Bergman, fearsome heavy Eric Campbell and youthful Albert Austin.  Films featured include; The Pawnshop (1916) in which Chaplin plays a particularly inept shop assistant in one of his most celebrated and surreal shorts — highlights include the famous “sick” alarm clock gag. The Cure (1916) with Chaplin a society drunk who checks into a health spa to dry out, but smuggles a trunkful of booze in with him. A revolving door provides ample opportunity for gags, with Chaplin’s attempts to escape Henry Bergman’s vigorous massage a comic highlight; and, The Adventurer (1917) when, after a daring escape from prison, the Little Tramp saves Edna Purviance and her mother from drowning, and is taken into their home. But Edna’s jealous suitor Eric Campbell does his darnedest to have him removed.   With live musical accompaniment by Ben Model.  Event screens at 8.00ET (01.00am 12 March UK time).  Further details here

Wednesday 10 March

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY present A Live “Anything But Silent” Event! featuring four silent comedy shorts; Too Many Mammas (1924) with Charley Chase who agrees to serve as the alibi for his philandering boss, but things soon get out of hand;  The First Hundred Years (1924) with Harry Langdon in a domestic comedy turned old-dark-house mystery; The Poor Fish (1924) with Charley Chase who is on a crash course in housework when he and his wife agree to trade jobs for a week; and, Soldier Man (1926) Harry Langdon playing the double roles of the last American soldier left in Europe after World War I and the (usually-inebriated) King Streudel XIII.  With live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson.  Films screen at 7.00pm ET (midnight UK time). Details here

The Kennington Bioscope present episode 15 of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky). Tonight, in partnership with the British Film Institute, KBTV presents a special selection of films from London-born music hall and silent film comedian Fred Evans (1889-1951) showcasing his celebrated comedy character, the prodigious ‘Pimple’, whose popular antics, with over 200 films to his name, proved to be a precursor of many British comedies to come. Hailing from a theatrical family and born in the same year as Charlie Chaplin, they were childhood friends and between them they dominated the comedy box office takings of the ‘teens in the UK. BFI silent film curator, Bryony Dixon, takes us through Fred’s career, via his characters Charley Smiler and Pimple, with reference also to his talented family and his peer, Charlie Chaplin.  Films include; Charley Smiler Joins the Boy Scouts (1911) Fred Evans appears here in his earlier comedy film incarnation;  Making A Living (1914) the first film produced featuring Charlie Chaplin; The Adventures of Pimple: The Battle of Waterloo (1913) a parody of the then recently released British and Colonial Films’ epic depiction of the famed battle; Pimple Has One (1915) in which a servant fetching wine gets drunk and has trouble with the police; Will Evans the Musical Eccentric (1899) in which Fred Evans’ Uncle Will demonstrates some of his impressive stage skills; Pimple’s Part (1916) Pimple tries to be an actor; Pimple’s Pink Forms (1916) Pimple is rejected by the army, so he takes a job delivering official forms – film fragment; and, Pimple In The Whip (1917) A lord foils a plot to kill his favourite horse and rides it to win. With live and pre-recorded accompaniment from John Sweeney, Lillian Henley and Costas Fotopoulos.  For more details of this event see cinemamuseum.org.uk  Check out our review here of a previous KBTV episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here at 7.30 PM (UK Time).  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Tuesday 9 March

The Lutyens Trust present Introduction to the Edwardian Cinema in Britain, an illustrated talk by Lawrence Napper, senior lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London.  The talk will introduce viewers to the cinema as it developed in Britain during Lutyens’s lifetime, showcasing some well-known films as well as some recent rediscoveries from this period, and place them in the context of the culture of film-making and film-going in the early twentieth century. The talk will offer some illustrations of the ways in which cinema can be understood as a key resource for thinking about the visual culture of the Edwardian period, and particularly for thinking about the wider world of interior design, garden design and architecture in which Lutyens moved.  6.00pm UK time.  Further details here

The Sands Cinema Film Club present Mother (Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin, USSR, 1926)   Legendary film critic and writer Pauline Kael stated that “Pudovkin’s masterpiece, based on Maxim Gorky’s novel and frequently selected by critics as one of the greatest films of all time, gives an epic sense of the 1905 revolution through the emotions of the participants, and sweeps one along by its fervor and a brilliant and varied use of the medium.”   Telling the story of a woman’s struggle against Tsarist rule, Vera Baranovskaya plays the mother who is tricked by the police into betraying her son, whilst Pudovkin himself plays the officer who interrogates her.  Find out more at sensesofcinema.comWith recorded soundtrack. Screens at 8.00pm UK time.  Details here

Sunday 7 March

Episode 48 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened this evening have yet to be confirmed.   The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 6th March

The Leeds Lit Fest presents The Hound of the Baskervilles   (Dir. Richard Oswald, Ger, 1929) Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were the basis for scores of silent films; this is the very last of them, made in Germany in the dying days of the silent era. An international cast, lavish sets and bravura camerawork combine with the familiar Conan-Doyle world of secret passages behind sliding panels, creaking country houses, and swirling mists on dark, mysterious moors. This film was unseen since 1929 and considered long lost – until it was found in Poland in 2009, stored in a parish priest’s basement. Find out more at filmint.nu.  With live piano accompaniment by Jonny Best.  Film screens at 19.30 UK time.  Details here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents The Great Buster (Dir: Peter Bogdanovich, US, 2019) This brilliant new documentary celebrates the life and career of Buster Keaton, whose singular style and prolific output during the silent era created his legacy as a true cinematic visionary. Filled with stunningly restored excerpts of archival Keaton films. The Great Buster explores the early development of Keaton’s trademark physical comedy and deadpan expression and explains how it earned him the lifelong moniker of The Great Stone Face. Interspersed throughout are interviews with giants of the celluloid world, including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog and Dick van Dyke, who discuss Keaton’s influence on modern comedy and, indeed, cinema itself.  Screens at 11am UK time.  Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Slapstick’s Virtual Hangouts: Buster Keaton.  Join the Slapstick crew for a discussion about Keaton’s work and legacy with a TBC panel. Alongside the discussion will be a screening of Snake Oil (2020), a short comedy and the directorial debut of Remy Archer. Remy’s film is a Keaton-esque celebration of visual comedy and a passionate homage to the Great Stone Face.  Event takes place at 2pm UK time.  Details here

Friday 5 March

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Rediscoveries & Revelations From The Anthony Saffrey Collection.  In recent years a highlight of every Slapstick Festival has been a programme of rediscoveries from the unmatched private collection of Anthony Saffrey. This latest edition features some lovely 2K transfers of from 35mm nitrate prints of rarities including: Fatty Again (1914), The Mystery Of The Milk (1914) and His New Cane (1912). Introducing the collection will be world renowned film historian David Robinson with Daan van den Hurk providing piano accompaniment, live from the Netherlands. Screens at 11am UK time. Details here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents David Robinson: Ask Me Anything!  The always fascinating and well-informed film critic, film historian and official Chaplin biographer David Robinson, (also Slapstick’s first Patron and an active member of the festival’s board) takes and answers audience questions. Event takes place at 2pm UK time.  Details here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Movie Crazy (Dir. Clyde Brockman/Harold Lloyd, US, 1932)  In an unprecedented move, Slapstick Festival is screening their first Harold Lloyd talkie!!!! Best known for his classic silent comedies, Lloyd continued to have strong commercial and critical success in his early sound films. Movie Crazy  is widely considered both his finest talkie and one of his best films overall yet although it grossed over $1.4m on first release, is mostly overlooked now. In it, Harold plays Harold Hall, an  accident-prone young man with little or no acting ability, who desperately wants to be in pictures. After a mix up he finds himself in a Hollywood where his adventures cause all sorts of trouble. Introduced by Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, president of Lloyd Entertainment and granddaughter of the great star.  Screens at 4pm UK time.  Details here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Hooray for Harold Lloyd! with Suzanne Lloyd Hayes  Writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet (Host of Radio 3’s Free Thinking) explores Harold Lloyd’s life, work and legacy with the star’s granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, in a live event illustrated with clips and including a screening of Over The Fence (1917) – featuring the debut of Lloyd’s ‘glasses character’ – and High & Dizzy (1920), his pioneering thrill picture. With a Q&A session to follow.  Event takes place at 8pm UK time.  Details here.

Thursday 4 March

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents  A Pair of Silk Stockings (Dir. Walter Edwards, US, 1918) The Thornhill’s marriage is in a rough spot with poor Sam (Harrison Ford) feeling he is a neglected husband. So, he schemes to make his wife Molly (Constance Talmadge) jealous. But Sam’s plots seldom work out as he intends and his latest ends in divorce. Soon after, a chance meeting at a mutual friend’s home gives Sam the opportunity he needs to explain himself. Adapted from a hit bedroom farce play by Cyril Harcourt, this is an enjoyable, rarely seen early comedy starring the youngest of the three Talmadge sisters made soon after her triumph in a very different role in D. W Griffith’s Intolerance (1916). Introduced by stand up comedian Lucy Porter.  Accompanied live on piano by John Sweeney. Screens at 11am UK time. Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Bell Boy 13 (Dir. William A. Seiter, US, 1923) Douglas MacLean was a popular leading man in comedy features all through the 1920s. So successful were his films that he became his own producer. Although often overlooked today, Ben Model’s restorations of some of MacLean’s rediscovered features have done much to reclaim his standing as an excellent silent comic performer. This screening of Bellboy 13 comes ‘by popular demand’ following the success of our screening of Just A Minute (1921) at Slapstick 2020. This is a rare chance to see MacLean in action again, in one of his finest and funniest films  plus Dog Shy (Dir, Leo McCarey1926) The dapper Charley Chase stars in a classic two-reeler comedy which will be screening in a new 2K scan of the Library of Congress’ preservation from 35mm. Ben Model accompanies both films live on piano from New York with introductions from Steve Massa.  Films screen at 4pm UK time.  Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Matt & Noel’s Salute to Laurel & Hardy  Join “Bake Off” stars and good friends Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding as they serve a large helping of mirth and memories, inspired by their shared passion for Laurel & Hardy. With support from stand-up Robin Ince, the GBBO double act presents clips they’ve curated along with personal recollections of what Laurel & Hardy mean to them and the duo’s influences on their work. Event takes place at 7.30pm UK time.  Details here

Wednesday 3 March

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Kid Boots (Dir. Frank Tuttle, US,1926) This is surely one of Bow’s finest comic performances. A silent-film adaptation of a Broadway musical-comedy seems an unlikely winning  formula, but with the dual appeal of male lead Eddie Cantor, with his hapless comic charm, and Clara Bow’s “captivating, heart-snatching heroine” (New York Times), Kid Boots (1926) became a well-deserved smash hit for Paramount and further consolidated Clara as box office gold.  Introduced by stand-up comedian Lucy Porter.  With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.  Film screens at 11am UK time.  Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Siren of the Tropics (Les Siren des Tropiques) (Dir. Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant, Fr, 1927)  Josephine Baker was an American-born dancer and entertainer who later became a French citizen, World War II resistance agent and a civil rights activist. In 1926 she caused a sensation at the Folies Bergère in Paris with her improvised fusion of ballet, Broadway kicks, tap and African dance styles. She was also the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, making her debut in the 1927 silent film Siren Of The Tropics . In the film, Baker plays a native girl named Papitou, who falls in love with a young engineer. When he returns to Paris and his fiancée,  Papitou follows. The film is now best remembered for Baker’s exceptional dance performances, but it has much more to offer.   Introduced by Akulah Agbami, Director of Sheba Soul Ensemble and BLACK Artists on the Move.  With live musical accompaniment by Guenter A. Buchwald and Frank Bockius.   Film screens at 4pm UK time.  Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents JOSEPHINE BAKER: Power and the Clown with Akulah Agbami.  A presentation and Q&A on Josephine Baker’s contribution to the world stage, artistically and politically, examining the origins of her rich performance repertoire, her strategies for survival and advancement and the influence on her work of the ancient Afrikan tradition of clowning. Event takes place at 6pm UK time. Details here.

Tuesday 2 March

The University of Toronto Libraries Media Commons Archives presents Secrets of the Night (Dir. Herbert Blache, US,1924).  In this light-hearted murder-mystery (directed by the former husband of film pioneer Alice Guy-Blache), bank president Robert Andrews is faced with jail after being framed for embezzlement by his former partner. To avoid imprisonment, he decides to fake his own murder during a party at his luxurious mansion. But when the guests start mysteriously dying one by one, Andrews realizes that there actually is a killer on the loose…one that may hold the key to proving his innocence.  Long thought lost, a copy of Secrets of the Night was found in the basement of a house in Canada in 2017. Find out more at imdb.com.  With live piano accompaniment by Jordan Klapman.  Followed by a panel discussion moderated by Assistant Media Archivist Christina Stewart  with Richard and Wayne Scott (who rediscovered the film), and the film’s piano accompanist Jordan Klapman.  Film screens at 18.00 EST (23.00 UK time).  Screening is free but you need to register  here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents The Three Must-Get-Theres (Dir. Max Linder, US,1922)This  was Linder’s final American film before he returned to Europe to co-direct his last completed film, Max, der Zirkuskönig (Max, King of the Circus) in Austria.  Directed, written by and starring Linder, the film follows the plot of the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and is a comic parody of the Douglas Fairbanks box office smash with the same name of the previous year.  The film screens at 11am UK time with an introduction by Serge Bromberg (Lobster Films, Paris) and with live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.  Details here. 

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Clara Bow: Hollywood’s “It” Girl Rediscovered.  Stand-up comedian Lucy Porter and actor, impressionist, and the author/illustrator of the graphic biography IT GIRL, Jessica Martin celebrate 1920s’ Hollywood’s biggest female box office star: Clara Bow.  Clara, whose complex story belies her on-screen persona, received a record-breaking 45,000 fan letters a month at the peak of her career. Unlike most of her contemporaries, Bow often played the sexual aggressor in her films. It was a daring deviation from the period’s norm of female passivity, and one that revolutionised the role of women in cinema. The event uses film extracts to showcase Bow’s gregarious personality and striking beauty, making it easy to understand how she became Hollywood’s most popular leading lady of the period. The event screens at 4pm UK time. Hosted by Lucy Porter and Jessica Martin with piano accompaniment by John Sweeney. Details here. 

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Slapstick Virtual: Clara Bow Zoom Hangout An informal after-show discussion + Q&A with a virtual panel, including Lucy Porter, Jessica Martin and festival director Chris Daniels. Event takes place at 6pm UK time.  Details here. 

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents It (Dir. Clarence Badger, US, 1927) Clara Bow’s  best remembered film and widely considered the definitive Jazz Age romantic comedy, It captures the quintessential flapper, Clara Bow, at the height of her charm. The film takes its title and mood from the novels of Elinor Glyn, portraying Bow as a lingerie salesgirl with plenty of It determined to overcome the indifference of the store’s handsome owner (Antonio Moreno). But it’s a mission beset by class divides and mix-ups until Bow as Betty Lou crashes a high-society yacht party. With recorded synchronised score composed by Carl Davis and an introduction by comedian Lucy Porter.  Film screens at 8pm UK time.  Details here.

1 March – 31 March

KinoNow present Hypocrites (Dir. Lois Weber, US, 1915).  The film follows the parallel stories of an early Christian ascetic monk and a modern minister, with most actors in dual roles. Gabriel (Courteney Foote) is a medieval monk who devotes himself to completing a statue of “Truth,” only to be murdered by a mob when his work turns out to be an image of a naked woman. The contemporary Gabriel is the pastor of a large wealthy urban congregation for whom religion is a matter of appearances, not beliefs. The hypocrisy of the congregation is exposed by a series of vignettes in which the Naked Truth, literally portrayed by a nude Margaret Edwards, reveals their appetites for money, sex and power. Director Lois Weber was the leading female director-screenwriter in early Hollywood and amongst the most important and prolific film directors of the silent era.  At the time this film was made probably only D W Griffith could rival her status or ability.  Weber viewed film-making as a means to highlight contemporary social issues in the hope of effecting social and political change.   The use of a naked actress caused a sensation at the time and considerable difficulties with various local censors but the film’s subject, the naked truth, Weber’s reputation as a serious director and perhaps also the fact that the director was a woman meant that the film received a wide release to widespread critical and popular acclaim.  Find out more at ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com.  In honor of Women’s History Month, KinoNow is offering free streaming of Hypocrites throughout March with this version also benefiting from recorded musical accompaniment by Ben Model.  Details  here

Monday 1 March

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol opens with a W C Fields double-bill.  In Running Wild (Dir. Gregory La Cava, US,1927) a browbeaten Fields gains the courage of a lion thanks to a vaudeville hypnotist in this hilarious early silent comedy. Fields stars as Elmer Finch, a meek accountant nagged by his wife, harassed by his children, and awed by his boss. After he accidentally throws a horseshoe through a window, the cops are on his tail, and a suitably ridiculous chain of events puts him under the thrall of hypnosis, where he believes himself to be a lion. With new strength he visits all those who shamed and bullied him and tries to get a raise in the process. Running Wild is a wonderful early example of Fields’ in action and a non-stop laugh riot.  Plus, Pool Sharks (Dir. Edwin Middleton US, 1915)  In Fields’ first on-screen appearance, two romantic rivals play a game of pool for the hand of their lady love. A silent slapstick affair, this short is partly based on Fields’ stage act and was influenced by the comedians of the day, especially Chaplin.  Find out more at bottomshelfmovies.com Screening introduced by Dr Harriet Fields (W.C. Fields’ champion and granddaughter).  With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.  Films screen at 11am UK time.  Details here

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents W. C. FIELDS Slapstick Conversations: Dr Harriet Fields A rare opportunity to hear W.C. Fields granddaughter ‘in conversation’ discussing the life and work of her legendary grandfather. Presenter Chris Serle explores Fields’ legacy with Harriet in a show illustrated by a selection of extracts and highlights from Fields’ prolific career. With an opportunity to ask Harriet questions, this is a must for all fans of the irascible clown and master of comedy.  Screens at 4pm UK time.  Details here.

The 2021 Slapstick On-Line Festival from Bristol presents Ben and Steve’s Celluloid Music Hall: Live from New York! When Charlie Chaplin became the most famous man in the movies, eager producers rushed to hire British comics with the same kind of background and training.  Music Hall veterans like Chaplin, Billie Ritchie, Lupino Lane and Stan Laurel were human storehouses of gags and routines and played key roles in the golden age of  silent comedy. Here, they show off their stuff in a selection of films carefully curated for this programme by Ben Model accompanying live on piano and Steve Massa providing the introductions. Featuring: Work (1915), Live Wires and Love Sparks (1916), Maid in Morocco (1925) and Pie-Eyed (1925).  Screens at 8pm UK time. Details here

Sunday 28 February

Episode 47 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened this evening have yet to be confirmed.   The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 27 February

The 2021 Kansas Silent Film Festival presents Selected Shorts featuring;   Sailor Beware! (1927) Billy Dooley stars as a clueless sailor (whose uniform is worn backwards), coming home to his girlfriend with an innocent gift – a pet guinea pig, resulting in mass confusion and public fear of contagion. This short was produced by the Al Christie Studio; Hold Your Breath! (1924) stars Dorothy Devore, as a newspaper reporter out to prove herself in a feminist take on the ‘thrill comedy genre’ pioneered by Harold Lloyd with plenty of great footage of Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles, and: Jack the Kisser (1907) This slight comedy was produced by a pioneer of early cinema, Edwin S. Porter (who also produced The Great Train Robbery). This short film involves an energetic man who steals kisses from passing ladies until bystanders start a chase!   Introduced by Denise Morrison.  With musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick and Marvin Faulwell.  Films screen at approx 18.30 CST (00.30 28 Feb UK time).  Details here   (NB  These films will likely be available to watch for the following seven days)

The 2021Kansas Silent Film Festival presents Simba (1928) Journeying to remote and exotic regions, Martin and Osa Johnson produced, wrote and photographed films celebrating the natural wonder and native tribes of Africa, Asia and the South Seas. For SIMBA, they forded crocodile-infested rivers, braved stampeding elephants and stared down angry rhinos in order to film lions in their natural habitat, the veldt. Killing only for food, self protection or scientific study, the Johnson’s became two of Africa’s first conservationists. It can hardly be realized today the enormous level of their popularity and the magnitude of their films and lectures on the world in the 1920s through the 1950s. Simba alone made an astounding $2 million dollars around the world. Although some of Simba’s intertitles have dated, the Johnsons’ camerawork still astonishes with some of the most spectacular images ever of African wildlife. The remarkable portraits of Kenyan tribes are also an invaluable record of that lost world but sadly this is the Johnsons’ only surviving silent feature film documentary.   Introduced by Denise Morrison.  With musical accompaniment by the Marvin Faulwell on organ and Bob Keckeisen on percussion.  Films screen at approx 19.45 CST (01.45 28 Feb UK time).  Details here   (NB  This film will likely be available to watch for the following seven days)

Friday 26 February

The 2021 Kansas Silent Film Festival presents –  Selected shorts featuring; Those Awful Hats (1909) Directed by D.W. Griffith, this amounts to a Public Service spot advising ladies to please remove your hats inside the movie theatre…. and there is a rather severe punishment if they do not!;  Movie Night (1929) This is a reminder of the joys of Charley Chase in any and all of his fall-down funny comedy shorts. Here he tries to take the family out to a movie but the evening is hampered by an attempt to pass the wife’s brother off as a child, a crowded theater, and the daughter’s apparently contagious case of the hiccups; and A Movie Star (1916) This Mack Swain short comedy came from Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studio and pokes fun at the whole movie-making and movie-going experience with Swain as a forlorn cowboy film star looking for love from an audience – any audience!    Introduced by Denise Morrison.  With organ/piano accompaniment by Bill Beningfield and Marvin Faulwell.  Films screen at 18.30 CST (00.30 27 Feb UK time).  Details here   (NB  These films will likely be available to watch for the following seven days)

The 2021 Kansas Silent Film Festival presents Nell Gwyn (Dir. Herbert Wilcox, 1926)  Herbert Wilcox’s first effort at bringing the story of Nell Gwyn to the screen starred Dorothy Gish as Nell Gwyn and Randle Ayrton as Charles II.  Based on the 1926 novel Mistress Nell Gwyn by Marjorie Bowen it follows the life of Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II.  Contemporary reviews were pretty positive, even in the US.  For example, the New York Times reviewer said, “Whatever may be the shortcomings of English motion picture producers, if they can put together other pictures as simply and with as much dramatic effect as this story of Nell Gwyn, they should have no difficulty obtaining a showing for them anywhere. The story moves quickly and surely. With nothing to strain one’s credulity, and the acting of Miss Gish and Randle Ayrton, who takes the part of Charles, is excellent. So is that of Juliette Compton as Lady Castlemaine.”  Wilcox later had a second go at making Nell Gwyn in 1934, starring Anna Neagle and Sir Cedric Hardwicke.  Find out more at silentsaregolden.com    Introduced by Denise Morrison.  With musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.  Films screen at approx 19.30 CST (01.30 27 Feb UK time).  Details here   (NB  This film will likely be available to watch for the following seven days)

Tuesday 23 February

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY presents Within Our Gates (Dir. Oscar Micheaux, US, 1920).  The most important black filmmaker in the first half of the 20th century was Oscar Micheaux, who directed over 40 films in a career spanning 30 years in both the silent and sound eras. The incendiary drama Within Our Gates was Micheaux’s second feature film and is the earliest surviving feature film directed by an African American. Evelyn Preer stars as Sylvia Landry, a young Chicago woman who endeavors to raise money to save a school for black children in the rural south. Micheaux’s story was created largely in response to D.W. Griffith’s highly prejudicial The Birth of a Nation, providing a much needed Black perspective to the controversial and widely seen content. Within Our Gates was thought to be a lost movie until a single print was discovered in Spain (under the title La Negra) in the late 1970s.  Find out more at www.historians.org.  Screening introduced by Film Historian William Jennings, Hofstra University.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Film screens at 19.00 EST (00.00 UK time).  Details here

Sunday 21 February

Episode 46 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened tonight include Fraternity Mixup (1926) starring Alice Ardell and Gale Henry, with Yvonne Howell, Joe Bonner and Ella McKenzie; and The Electric House (1922) starring Buster Keaton, with Virginia Fox, Steve Murphy, Joe Roberts and Laura La Varnie.    The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 14 February

Episode 45 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Details of this weeks show are not yet available.    The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 4 February

The Coram Group present Charlie Chaplin and the Story of Care.  Why would a 100 year old film matter to us?  Upon its release in 1921, The Kid, Chaplin’s first feature length comedy was immediately hailed as a masterpiece.  But with its story-line encompassing both comedy and pathos, this was very much one of Chaplin’s most personal movies, resonating his own childhood experiences and his own rags to riches story. Join Dr Carol Homden, group Chief Executive of Coram, Kate Guyonvarch from The Chaplin Office in Paris, and British Film Institute silent film expert Bryony Dixon for a discussion on Chaplin and the story of care, to mark the centenary of this classic film. To take part on Zoom, you need to register here.

Monday 1 February

University College London‘s  School of Slavonic and East European Studies presents Women of Tomorrow? Female Film Professionals in Pre-revolutionary Russia.  The role played by female film professionals in early Russian film history did not attract much attention from contemporary film critics, journalists, and film scholars, and it remains an under-studied aspect of the early Russian cinema industry.  However, women were active in various early cinema professions, working not only as actresses, but also as screenwriters, directors, producers, theatre owners, pianists, editors, assistants and mechanics. Indeed, a number of them played a significant role in the history of early cinema and their contribution should not, therefore, be neglected or minimized. This talk, by Dr Anna Kovalova an associate researcher at the European University of St Petersburg (Russia), seeks to address this gap by focusing on the work of Elizaveta Thiemann, the first female film director in Russia.  The event is convened by Philip Cavendish and Rachel Morley from UCL and the talk will be followed by a Q&A with on-line participants.  The event is free but you need to register here

Sunday 31 January

Episode 43 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Details of this weeks show are not yet available.    The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 28 January – Monday 1 February

The Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film & Television presents Trailblazers of Early Cinema present  silent film program of pioneer filmmakers Angela Murray Gibson, Grace Cunard, Lois Weber and Alice Guy-Blaché.  The programme comprises;   Mixed Pets (Dir. Alice Guy-Blache,1911, 9 min) A cute comedy about misunderstandings that arise when a new husband refuses to buy his new wife a dog.  Tramp Strategy (Dir. Alice Guy-Blache, 1911, 12 min.) A mischievous vagabond infiltrates a bourgeois household.  How Men Propose (Dir. Lois Weber/Phillips Smalley, 1913, 5 min.) Three friends, without knowing it, successively propose to a woman named Grace Darling.  Unmasked (Dir. Grace Cunard,1917, 11 min.) A heist caper about two jewel thieves competing for the same necklace and co-starred Grace Cunard’s long-time acting partner Francis Ford (John Ford’s brother).  That Ice Ticket (Dir. Angela Murray Gibson, 1923, 10 min.) To entice potential suitors, a woman posts a sign offering “Free Ice”. Her young brother, in order to weed out unsuitable potential suitors, replaces it with a “SMALLPOX” sign.  The films are available to watch from 28 Jan to 1 Feb.  At 4pm EST (Noon UK Time) there will be a discussion/ Q&A session moderated by WFPF Founder Barbara Moss with guest panelists Kim Tomadjoglou and Buckey Grimm.   Details here.

Wednesday 27 January

The Kennington Bioscope present Episode 14 of KBTV  live stream broadcasts on their You Tube channel at 7:30pm.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists including Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   Tonight’s main presentation is the comedy-drama, Daring Deeds (USA 1927), directed by Duke Worne, in which William Gordon, Jr. (Billy Sullivan) is the rebellious heir to a million-dollar airplane business. He leaves home in search of adventure and falls in love with Helen (Molly Malone), the daughter of an eccentric, destitute inventor. William enters an air race using a souped-up plane, which rewards with some thrilling aerial shots.  Supporting the feature are two short films, the mesmerising H20 (USA 1929), a watery documentary by cinematographer Ralph Steiner and The Day After (USA 1909), an American Biograph comedy detailing the dangers of alcoholic refreshment imbibed by the hosts of a New Year’s party. Directed by D.W. Griffith and written by Mary Pickford, it features several familiar faces from the studio’s stable, among them Mack Sennett and Blanche Sweet, although Mary herself isn’t among them on this occasion. Check out our review here of a previous KBTV episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.  Oh, and don’t by shy about making a contributing to their Ko-Fi page here to help keep this fantastic series going.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntingdon NY presents He Who Gets Slapped (Dir. Victor Sjostrom, US, 1924) Lon Chaney stars as ‘He’ in this compelling and exceptionally well-executed drama, a scientist who looses both his wife and his career to a scheming rival who slaps him into humiliation.  Retreating from his former life he joins a circus as a clown, becoming a popular success with an act in which he is slapped whenever he attempts to speak, thus repeatedly reliving his past humiliation.  But making the acquaintance of another performer, the attractive daredevil horse-back rider Consuelo (Norma Shearer),  brings with it the chance for redemption and happiness.    Based on a highly-regarded Russian play and directed by noted Swedish film-maker Victor Sjostrom, the film was both a popular and critical success on its first release, further elevating Chaney to super-stardom and providing important steps in the rising careers of Norma Shearer and John Gilbert.  The film was also the first to feature the snarling lion motif for MGM.  Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  The film is free to watch but pay what you can.  It screens at 7pm EDT (11pm UK time) with details here

Sunday 24 January

Episode 42 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Details of this weeks show are not yet available.    The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 21 January

Ben Model and the Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, NY present an evening of silent comedy shorts featuring Chaplin, Keaton and a host more with live piano accompaniment by Ben.  The event is free although donations are encouraged but you have to register here to take part.  The screening starts at 7.30pm EST (11.00pm UK time)

Tuesday 19 January

The Amherst Cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts presents The Eagle (Dir. Clarence Brown, US, 1925) Based on the novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, Rudolph Valentino stars as the title character, a young Russian Cossack officer who rejects the Czarina’s (Louise Dresser) amorous attention and is promptly branded a deserter in this silent tale of love and revenge. On the eve of his dismissal he learns of his father’s ruin–his father had sent a letter pleading for the Czarina’s aid against Kyrilla (James Marcus), a gluttonous and treacherous neighbor who has stolen the family’s estate. Sentenced to death with a reward on his head for shunning the lusty Czarina, Vladimir escapes into the countryside and becomes the Black Eagle, a dashing masked vigilante who seeks to avenge the death of his father. But things get complicated when he falls in love with Mascha Troekouroff (Vilma Banky), Kyrilla’s daughter.  Escaping for once his ‘Latin Lover’ persona, Valentino delivers a charismatic and seductive performance in this full-scale romantic adventure that shines with early Hollywood’s technical advancements and stylish production values.  Find out more at iamhist.net.   With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 7.00pm EDT (12midnight UK time).   See here for further details and tickets.

Sands Films Cinema Club present The Joyless Street (Dir. G W Pabst, Ger, 1925)  based on a novel by Hugo Bettauer  and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst  the film is one of the most important of Germany’s Weimar Era.  Set in the inflationary period in Vienna in the years immediately after World War I the film caused outrage with its provocative story-line of the  nouveau riche financial speculators wallowing in luxury, while the poor, the homeless and the unemployed  sell their souls for a bit of fresh meat at the butchers.  A story of sexual orgies, bordellos and murders it created many a problem for censors worldwide.  Starring Greta Garbo in her second major role,  the film was then ruthlessly re-cut for the US market to cash in on her subsequent fame and for many years a full version of the film was almost impossible to see.  But following reconstruction and restoration we can now see the film in all its glory and rediscover that, although Garbo looks wonderful,  the real acting star is the incredible Asta Nielsen, ably supported by  Valeska Gert and Hertha von Walther.  Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With recorded soundtrack.  Film screens at 8pm with an introduction from Sands Films.  You can watch it here  (NB   Film will also be available to view on catch-up)

Monday 18 January

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles presents The Italian (1915), directed by Reginald Barker and starring George Beban, Clara Williams and Frank Burke. An immigrant, Pietro “Beppo” Donnetti, leaves his sweetheart in Italy to find a better life across the sea in the grimy slums of New York. They are eventually reunited and marry. However life in New York is hard and tragedy tarnishes their dream of a better life setting Beppo on the road to murderous revenge. The film was a critical success on its first release, noted for its strong performances, innovative direction and powerful social message.      Find out more at moviessilently.com .  After the film there will be a discussion between Sean P. Malone and cinematographers Michael Goi and David Mullen regarding the work of Joseph H August (The Italian, Hell’s Hinges, The Beloved Rogue, The Informer etc)  Not sure if the film comes with live or recorded accompaniment.   Event screens at 7.30 PDT (02.30 am 19 Jan UK time).  Click here  to watch   (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 17 January

Episode 41 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s show features Home Cured (1926) starring Johnny Arthur, with Virginia Vance, George Davis, Glen Cavender, Chick Collins and Robert Brower;  Blow Your Horn (1916) starring Harry Watson Jr., with Joe Burke, Maxfield Moree and H.H. McCollum; and, The Blacksmith (1922) starring Buster Keaton, with Joe Roberts, Virginia Fox, Billy Franey, Eddie Cline and Mal St. Clair.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 20 December

Episode 38 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films have not all yet been announced but this special “holiday” program will feature the extremely rare Charley Chase comedy THERE AIN’T NO SANTA CLAUS (1925).  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Wednesday 16 December

The Kennington Bioscope present episode 12 of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky). And for this yuletide episode they are presenting a sumptuous seasonal selection box of silent cinema shorts including a real frost fair, a visit to the north pole, a spooky game of hide and seek, and a sagebrush holiday way out west. Expect snowballs, sledging, stockings, and a certain someone sporting a substantial sack of stuff in films courtesy of the enormous generosity of EYE Filmmuseum and the British Film Institute (BFI).  Not only that but the films will be accompanied by a veritable ‘Who’s Who’ of silent film musicians including Philip Carli, Costas Fotopolous, Cyrus Gabrysch, Lillian Henley, Stephen Horne, Ben Model, Meg Morley, Colin Sell, José María Serralde Ruiz, Donald Sosin, John Sweeney, and Daan van den Hurk. Tonight’s film titles are yet to be announced but check out our review here of a previous KBTV episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here at 7.30 PM (UK Time).  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Tuesday 15 December

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY presents The Eagle (Dir. Clarence Brown, US, 1925) Based on the novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, Rudolph Valentino stars as the title character, a young Russian Cossack officer who rejects the Czarina’s (Louise Dresser) amorous attention and is promptly branded a deserter in this silent tale of love and revenge. On the eve of his dismissal he learns of his father’s ruin–his father had sent a letter pleading for the Czarina’s aid against Kyrilla (James Marcus), a gluttonous and treacherous neighbor who has stolen the family’s estate. Sentenced to death with a reward on his head for shunning the lusty Czarina, Vladimir escapes into the countryside and becomes the Black Eagle, a dashing masked vigilante who seeks to avenge the death of his father. But things get complicated when he falls in love with Mascha Troekouroff (Vilma Banky), Kyrilla’s daughter.  Escaping for once his ‘Latin Lover’ persona, Valentino delivers a charismatic and seductive performance in this full-scale romantic adventure that shines with early Hollywood’s technical advancements and stylish production values.  Find out more at iamhist.net.   With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 7.00pm EDT (12midnight UK time).  Screening is free or pay-what-you-can but you need to register.  Details Here

Monday 14 December

Another classic silent from cinephobe.tv, this time a British one.  Cottage on Dartmoor (Dir. Anthony Asquith, 1929)  Joe (Uno Henning) works as a barber in a shop in a Devon town, alongside a manicurist called Sally (Norah Baring). He becomes infatuated with her and asks her out but  it is clear that Sally does not reciprocate Joe’s feelings.  Joe’s infatuation with her develops into obsession. Meanwhile a young  farmer Harry (Hans Schlettow), begins to woo Sally and the couple begin seeing each other which leaves Joe in despair. After a fight with Harry, Joe is jailed but swears revenge on Harry and Sally.  A Cottage on Dartmoor is a tale of love and revenge set in the bleak landscape of Dartmoor and a thoughtful distillation of the best of European silent film techniques from a director steeped in the work of the Soviet avant-garde and German expressionism. One of the last films of the silent era and a virtuoso piece of film-making, A Cottage on Dartmoor was a final passionate cry in defence of an art form soon to be obsolete. Find out more at  silentfilm.org. With recorded score. You can watch it here at 12.30pm UK time.

Sunday 13 December

Episode 37 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Today’s guest will be Elif Rongen-Kaynakci of the EYE Filmmuseum (Netherlands) when we will screen the rarely-seen Arbuckle short CAMPING OUT (1918) and three “Euro-clowns” split-reel films from the EYE’s Jean Desmet Collection. The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 29 November

Episode 37 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films have not yet been announced.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Friday 27 – Sunday 29 November

From the Gateway Film Festival in Peterborough comes Hypocrites (Dir. Lois Weber, US, 1915).  The film follows the parallel stories of an early Christian ascetic monk and a modern minister, with most actors in dual roles. Gabriel (Courteney Foote) is a medieval monk who devotes himself to completing a statue of “Truth,” only to be murdered by a mob when his work turns out to be an image of a naked woman. The contemporary Gabriel is the pastor of a large wealthy urban congregation for whom religion is a matter of appearances, not beliefs. The hypocrisy of the congregation is exposed by a series of vignettes in which the Naked Truth (literally portrayed by a nude Margaret Edwards) reveals their appetites for money, sex and power. Director Lois Weber was the leading female director-screenwriter in early Hollywood and amongst the most important and prolific film directors of the silent era.  At the time this film was made perhaps only D W Griffith could rival her status or ability.  Weber viewed film-making as a means to highlight contemporary social issues in the hope of effecting social and political change.  As well as exposing hypocrisy within religious belief, other Weber films tackled poverty and income inequality (Shoes, 1916), drug abuse (Hop, The Devil’s Brew, 1916) and contraception (Where Are My Children, 1916).  But as well as this focus upon social issues, Weber was also a pioneering director in a technical sense.  She directed the first US feature length film and was a pioneer of inventive processes such as split screening.  Her directorial skills shine through in Hypocrites with (for its time) very clever traveling double-exposure shots while the tracking shot which follows the reactions of the medieval audience to the unveiling of the naked statue remains electrifying to this day.  There is also a fascinating close-up shot of the priest’s eye in which is reflected the camera and its operator.  The use of a naked actress caused a sensation at the time and considerable difficulties with various local censors but the film’s subject matter, the naked truth, together with Weber’s reputation as a serious director and perhaps also the fact that the director was a woman meant that the film received a wide release to overwhelming critical and popular acclaim.  Find out more at ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com.  Hypocrites will be accompanied by a brand new score composed especially by Lloyd Davies.  The film will be available here for 48 hours from 7pm on 27 November.

Wednesday 25 November

The Kennington Bioscope present the twelth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists including Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   Tonight’s films are yet to be announced but check out our review here of a previous KBTV episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 23 November

Another classic silent from cinephobe.tv, this time a British one.  Cottage on Dartmoor (Dir. Anthony Asquith, 1929)  Joe (Uno Henning) works as a barber in a shop in a Devon town, alongside a manicurist called Sally (Norah Baring). He becomes infatuated with her and asks her out but  it is clear that Sally does not reciprocate Joe’s feelings.  Joe’s infatuation with her develops into obsession. Meanwhile a young  farmer Harry (Hans Schlettow), begins to woo Sally and the couple begin seeing each other which leaves Joe in despair. After a fight with Harry, Joe is jailed but swears revenge on Harry and Sally.  A Cottage on Dartmoor is a tale of love and revenge set in the bleak landscape of Dartmoor and a thoughtful distillation of the best of European silent film techniques from a director steeped in the work of the Soviet avant-garde and German expressionism. One of the last films of the silent era and a virtuoso piece of film-making, A Cottage on Dartmoor was a final passionate cry in defence of an art form soon to be obsolete. Find out more at  silentfilm.org. With recorded score. You can watch it here at 12.30pm UK time.

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles presents Deliverance (Dir. George Foster Platt, US, 1919) This looks fascinating, an early film biog of deaf/blind American author, political activist, and lecturer Helen Keller.  The film is in three distinct segments.  The first is of Keller as a child and the teaching breakthrough moment which puts her on the path to learning to communicate.  The second is of her time at college.  Perhaps most interesting however is the final segment with Keller as an adult working to improve the social and educational prospects of the deaf and blind community.  Here, both Keller and her lifelong teacher and companion Anne Sullivan are portrayed by Keller and Sullivan themselves.  Needless to say, you’ll find little in the film that reflects Keller’s life-long socialist leanings or her advocacy for trade unions and civil liberty issues let alone her sympathy for the theories of eugenics.  Find out more at moviessilently.com.    Not sure if this comes with live or recorded accompaniment.   Event screens at 7.30 PDT (02.30 am 24 Nov UK time).  Click here  to watch   (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 22 November

Cinephobe.tv presents Lucky Star (Dir. Frank Borzage, US, 1929) Borzage’s long-lost romance was made in both a part-talkie sound and a silent version.  Only the silent version has survived, with a print rediscovered in the Netherlands Film Museum.  The film sees another romantic screen pairing between Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell (having previously starred in 7th Heaven, 1927) in a tale of a poverty stricken girl who is transformed through her friendship with a wheelchair-bound Great War veteran.  Over sentimental perhaps, with a contrived plot and a scarcely credible finale, Lucky Star nevertheless remains a life-affirming piece of cinema and serves only to enhance  Borzage’s reputation as one of the greats of American cinema.  Find out more at trettleman.medium.com/.  With recorded score. You can watch it here at 1.00pm UK time.

Episode 35 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films have not yet been announced.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 21 November

Another gem from cinephobe.tv is Love One Another (Dir. C T Dreyer, DenGer, 1922)  Hanne-Liebe, a young Jewish girl, has been the subject of anti-semitic prejudice among her Russian neighbours since childhood. As the result of a cruel intrigue she is expelled from her school and travels to St. Petersburg where her brother Jakov, a wealthy lawyer, lives.  When Hanne-Liebe meets back up with Sascha, a revolutionary-minded student from her hometown, they fall in love.  But as unrest in 1905 Russia spills over into open revolution, lives not just relationships are in jeopardy.  This was the first film directed by Dreyer in Germany.  But the original German version is lost, and it was only recently that a Russian version was found at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. The film was apparently highly regarded by Soviet historians as an interesting document on the 1905 revolution although it was not a popular success on its first release and is now largely forgotten.  However, few, if any, films from this period depict the destructive power of racial hatred as clearly as Love one Another and  the violence of the final pogrom still retains its power to shock.  Find out more at  acinemahistory.com.  With recorded score. You can watch it here at 1.00pm UK time.

Wednesday 18 November

Cinephobe.TV presents The Mystic (Dir. Tod Browning, US, 1925) Returning to one of his favorite themes, crooks conning the gullible nouveau riche, Tod Browning both co-wrote (with Waldemar Young) and directed this evocative silent melodrama starring Conway Tearle as Michael Nash, an American criminal who imports a gang of Hungarian gypsies to gain control over a fortune. The victim, Doris Merrick (Gladys Hulette), is persuaded by fake medium Zara (Aileen Pringle) to hand over her jewels to Nash. But the seance does more than raise the fake spirit of Doris’ dear departed father; it also uncovers a plot by “Uncle” James (David Torrence) to take over the girl’s inheritance. Saving Doris from her unscrupulous guardian, Nash and Zara renounce crime and return to Hungary. Somewhat of a disappointment in comparison with Browning’s later thriller The Unholy Three (1925), The Mystic benefited from the presence of costume designer Romain de Tirtoff (aka Erté) whose extravagant black-and-white creations were luxuriously modeled by the sophisticated Aileen Pringle. With recorded score.  You can watch it here at 12.45pm.

In the second part of this Browning double bill Cinephobe.TV presents The Show (Dir. Tod Browning, US, 1927)  Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome’s dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.  Another dose of grand guignol from master of the macabre Browning, starring John Gilbert, Renee Adoree and Lionel Barrymore. With recorded score.  You can watch it here at 1.50pm.

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY presents The Mark Of Zorro (Dir. Fred Niblo, US, 1920)  Don Diego Vega (Douglas Fairbanks) masquerades as an ineffectual fop to bamboozle his enemies and conceal his secret persona: ‘Zorro’: avenger of the oppressed. The first King of Hollywood – dashing, athletic Fairbanks, pretty much defined the swashbuckling genre with this rip-roaring adventure flick. Featuring horseback stunts, witty chase sequences and sword fighting, this entertaining romp achieves a satisfying blend of humour and heroics that remains the benchmark for action films today.  Find out more at  silentfilm.org.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 7.00pm EDT (12midnight UK time).  Screening is free or pay-what-you-can but you need to register.  Details here

Tuesday 17 November

On (UK) television rather than On-Line but perhaps worth a mention, Talking Pictures TV is screening Crazy Days (Dir. James M. Anderson, UK, 1962) Described as a compilation of silent era greats including Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin plus many more. Narrated by Hughie Green (!).  I’ve not seen and the only review on its IMDb page is less than complimentary but, hey ho, you never know!  Screens on Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 81) at 6.30pm.

Sunday 15 November

Episode 34 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include Teddy At The Throttle (1917) starring Keystone Teddy, Gloria Swanson, Bobby Vernon and Wallace Beery together with Papa’s Boy (1927) starring Lloyd Hamilton, with Glen Cavender, Betty Boyd and Al Thompson.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 14 November

Cinephobe.tv present Hangman’s House (Dir. John Ford,US, 1928) ‘Citizen’ Hogan (Victor McLaglan) is an Irish Republican patriot with a price on his head, serving in Algiers, where he is highly respected by his Foreign Legionnaire comrades. After receiving a telegram, he asks permission to go back to Ireland to settle a matter involving family honor by killing D’Arcy, a fortune-hunting opportunist who has turned British informer. Back in Ireland Lord Justice O’Brien (Hobart Bosworth), who has the unenviable reputation of being a hanging judge and is haunted with self-doubt, is terminally ill and close to death. He tries to ensure his daughter Connaught’s (June Collyer) future welfare by coercing her to renounce her love for the upstanding but poor Dermot McDermot and marry the despicably unscrupulous but affluent D’Arcy, the man Hogan has returned to murder.  Director John Ford’s imaginary Ireland had its dark side, as reflected in The Informer (1935), The Plough and the Stars (1936), and in this late silent film, in which Ford spins a gothic atmosphere around McLanglen’s mission and the forbidding mansion of the title, but with the added bonus of John Wayne, then a USC student moonlighting as a prop man at Fox, being clearly visible as an extra in a racing sequence.  With recorded score.  Watch it here at 2.05pm.

Wednesday 11 November

Another one from cinephobe.tv is Outside The Law (Dir. Tod Browning, USA, 1920)   Considered to be one of the first psychologically driven films in the gangster genre, the picture was the second film on which Browning worked with Lon Chaney. The contrasting dual roles Browning wrote for Chaney as a heroic Chinese servant and an evil gangster are considered to have solidified the long-lasting collaboration between the two.  In the film, Silent Madden, a criminal leader in San Francisco, and his gangster daughter Molly (Priscilla Dean) have forsaken a life of crime after receiving counsel from Chang Lo (Lon Chaney), a Confucian philosopher living in Chinatown. But when ruthless gangster Black Mike Sylva (Chaney) frames Molly’s father for murder, it causes her to lose faith in abiding by the law and prompts her return to a life of crime by joining Black Mike’s gang, unaware that it was he who was responsible for her father’s downfall.  With cross and double cross piling up, will Molly get her revenge on Black Mike?  The original 1920 release is now thought lost.  The only surviving version is a 1926 re-release in a somewhat truncated form.  Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With recorded score.  Watch it here 11,00am.

As part of their Tod Browning double bill cinephobe.tv now present The Blackbird (Dir. Tod Browning, USA, 1926) In yet another of the ten films Browning made with Lon Chaney, here Chaney plays a notorious Limehouse criminal, Dan Tate who lives a double life. As feared underworld figure The Blackbird, he hides in plain sight posing as his imaginary brother, the Bishop, a kind-but-crippled preacher who runs the local mission. Infatuated with charming French music hall performer Fifi Lorraine (Renee Adorée), Tate’s affections turn to envy when she falls for West End Bertie (Owen Moore), a handsome gentleman thief. With jealousy clouding his reason, Tate employs both of his identities in a sinister scheme to destroy his rival and keep Fifi for himself.  The film is a somewhat conventional crime melodrama rather than the usual Browning/Chaney horror outing. Chaney is on good form, the London Limehouse setting is evocative (if not all that accurate) and any film with Renee Adoree is worth a look.  With recorded score.  Watch it here at 12.15pm.

Monday 9 November

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles presents Keystone Tonight: three 1915 comedies: Mack Swain in Ambrose’s Little Hatchet, Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand at the San Francisco Worlds Fair and in Mabel & Fatty’s Wash Day,  with music by Cliff Retallick!.  Event screens at 7.30 PDT (02.30 am 10 Nov UK time).  Click here  to watch

Sunday 8 November

Another gem from cinephobe.tv is Love One Another (Dir. C T Dreyer, DenGer, 1922)  Hanne-Liebe, a young Jewish girl, has been the subject of anti-semitic prejudice among her Russian neighbours since childhood. As the result of a cruel intrigue she is expelled from her school and travels to St. Petersburg where her brother Jakov, a wealthy lawyer, lives.  When Hanne-Liebe meets back up with Sascha, a revolutionary-minded student from her hometown, they fall in love.  But as unrest in 1905 Russia spills over into open revolution, lives not just relationships are in jeopardy.  This was the first film directed by Dreyer in Germany.  But the original German version is lost, and it was only recently that a Russian version was found at the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. The film was apparently highly regarded by Soviet historians as an interesting document on the 1905 revolution although it was not a popular success on its first release and is now largely forgotten.  However, few, if any, films from this period depict the destructive power of racial hatred as clearly as Love one Another and  the violence of the final pogrom still retains its power to shock.  Find out more at  acinemahistory.com.  With recorded score. You can watch it here at 6.15pm UK time.

Episode 33 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include; Loose Change (1928) starring Jack Duffy, with Neal Burns, Lorraine Eddy, Glen Cavender and Winnie Law;  Versus Sledge Hammers (1915) starring Ben Turpin, with Margaret Joslin, Victor Potel and Harry Todd;  and, The Immigrant (1917) starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance.   The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 7 November

Its not quite ‘On-Line’ but worth a mention nevertheless, On Talking Pictures TV, don’t miss Bob Monkhouse with All In Good Fun (1956) as he introduces the golden age of slapstick comedy with clips from Mack Sennett, Max Linder, Chaplin, The Keystone Kops and many more. Monkhouse was one of the great champions of silent comedy during the 1950s and 1960s so its great to see this old compilation getting an airing (despite the ungodly screening hour!!).  On UK terrestrial TV, Channel 81, at 02.15am (!!! yes, AM!)

Cinephobe.TV presents The Seventh Day (Dir. Henry King, USA, 1922) an Inspiration Pictures film featuring Richard Barthelmess and Anne Cornwall. A group of rich, spoiled college kids, not allowed to drink alcohol in their favorite New England restaurant, decide to take off in ‘daddy’s yacht’ for a weekend party. Unfortunately, the yacht breaks down in a Maine fishing village. Amongst the rich incomers, engaged couple Reggie and Patricia are taken with the quaint village and its quainter ways, but also with two locals, Betty Alden and her brother John. Patricia begins to fall for John while her fiancé takes a similar liking to Betty. But in this country versus city folk drama, tensions are sure to rise.  Long thought lost, The Seventh Day was rediscovered in a Czech archive and a restored version with English inter-titles produced in the late 1980s.  However, on seeing the newly restored version, director Henry King reportedly considered it one of his worst pictures and regretted that it had survived.  But see for yourself today.       With recorded score.  You can watch it here at 12.00noon UK time

Cinephobe.TV presents Tol’able David (Dir, Henry King, USA, 1921) But this film definitely is a Henry King classic. Young David Kinemon (Richard Barthelmess), son of West Virginia tenant farmers, longs to be treated like a man by his family and neighbors, especially Esther Hatburn, the pretty girl who lives with her grandfather on a nearby farm. However, he is continually reminded that he is still a boy, “tol’able” enough, but no man. But he eventually gets the chance to ‘prove himself’  against local outlaw Iscah Hatburn and his sons. Henry King co-founded Inspiration Pictures with the actor Richard Barthelmess in 1921 and Tol’able David  was their first and greatest success. The screenplay, based on the story by the popular author Joseph Hergesheimer, was adapted by King and Edmund Goulding. King imbued the film with an affection for rural life that is untainted by false sentiment and which is based on his own observations of American types, made while traveling the country as an actor. A major box office success, the acclaimed film was voted a Photoplay 1921 “medal of honor” and is seen by critics and viewers as one of the classics of silent film. Find out more at silentfilm.org.  With recorded score.  You can watch it here at 1.05PM UK time.

Friday 6 – Sunday 22  November

The Alplify On-line film festival presents Waxworks (Dir. Paul Leni/Leo Birinisky, Ger, 1924)  A wax museum owner employs a poet (William Dieterle) to create stories for his pieces. The poet dutifully pens disturbing tales, envisioning himself as a significant character in each story — a baker sentenced to death by the Caliph of Baghdad (Emil Jannings), a Russian prince contending with the deadly paranoia of Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt) and a man who is pursued through the haunting streets of London by Jack the Ripper (Werner Krauss). Directed by Paul Leni, whose creative wizardry would later lead him to Hollywood, and with powerful star performances, flamboyant production design, and brilliant technical effects, Waxworks conjures up three very different, dangerous worlds inhabited by monstrous personalities.  Find out more at filmdirtblog.blogspot.co.uk .  Although I’m not 100% sure, this looks to be the new digitally recombined and restored version shortly to be released by Eureka-Masters of Cinema. That release comes with two alternative accompaniments so again not sure which one will be used here.  To watch, click here

Sunday 1 November

Silent Horror Shorts – presented as part of the Abertoir 2020 Film Festival, a collection of eight silent gems, with a (somewhat vaguely) horror theme.  They include delights from the earliest days of silent film, such as Un homme de Têtes (Georges Méliès – 1898, France), The X-Ray Fiend (George Albert Smith – 1897, UK) and An Over-Incubated Baby (Robert W. Paul – 1901, UK); some French science-fantasy with Voyage autour d’un Étoile (Gaston Velle – 1906, France) and The Black Pearl (Segundo de Chomón – 1908, France); as well as classic Hollywood comedy with Stan Laurel in Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (Percy Pembroke – 1925, USA) a spoof on the famous Robert Louis Stevenson story.  With a specially commissioned score written and, performed by  pianist Paul Shallcross, who will be also bringing some light-hearted insights into the films themselves, and especially some mistakes to look out for!  To watch, click here.  (NB.  This is a one-off event, not available to watch on catch-up)

Episode 32 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include; The Village Chestnut (1918) starring Louise Fazenda and Chester Conklin,; and, Only Me (1929) starring Lupino Lane, with Wallace Lupino. The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 31 October

Cinephobe.TV is certainly proving to be a little treasure trove of silent film rarities, particularly of the horror and thriller genres.  Today they are screening The Bells (Dir. James Young, US, 1926).  Mathias (Lionel Barrymore), an Alsatian innkeeper, murders a rich Polish Jew staying at his inn.  But Mathias’ conscience will not let him rest, and the murdered man’s spirit drives the innkeeper to the brink of madness. When the dead man’s brother calls for an inquest and brings with him a sideshow mesmerist  (Boris Karloff) supposedly able to read minds, the pressure on Mathias becomes intolerable. This is not a film I have seen but it comes with some positive reviews.  Perhaps not a classic but well made nevertheless with a stirring performance from Barrymore, an early role for Karloff and more than a hint of Caligari about it!  Find out more at  moviessilently.com.  With recorded soundtrack.  Screens at 13.45pm UK time.  Click here to watch.

Wednesday 28 October

Film historian, freelance writer and critic Pamela Hutchinson presents  Louise Brooks – Lulu and Beyond. an on-line talk about the life and legacy of 1920s star Louise Brooks.  Born in Kansas, Brooks made her name as first, one of the most beautiful dancers on Broadway, and then as one of the most rebellious starlets in silent-era Hollywood – known for her insouciant face, hot temper and distinctive flapper haircut. Her lasting fame was secured by a trio of art films she made in Europe after turning her back on Los Angeles, starting with the German silent Pandora’s Box, in which she plays Lulu, a dangerous Weimar femme fatale who brings the men and women who love her to their knees. After seeing all there was to see in the movie industry on both sides of the Atlantic, Brooks lived to tell the tale, and to be reclaimed as a true star of the early cinema. In her later life, her uniquely provocative voice shone in a series of articles that told the unpalatable truth about the movie business.  The event is free but you need to register here

The Kennington Bioscope present the eleventh of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists including Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   Tonight’s event is a halloween special of magic and mystery, centered around the 1913 German feature  Der Geheimnisvolle Klub (The Mysterious Club).  When Gerhard Bern receives news that, for no ostensible reason, his brother has committed suicide, he travels to Rotterdam to investigate. There he meets and falls in love with the lovely Ilse (Ilse Bois) but danger looms when he to joins The Mysetrious Club.  In a full programme thet are also screening; L’antre de la sorcière (The Witch’s Lair aka The Bewitched Shepherd) (France 1906);  Physique Diabolique (France 1912); and, La fée des roches noires (The Fairy of the Black Rocks) (France 1902) There may also be a surprise extra film, just to keep us on our toes!  Check out our review here of a previous KBTV episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Cinema Detroit presents Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Dir. Benjamin Christensen, Swe., 1922) ) A fictionalized documentary with dramatic reconstructions showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in modern (1922) Europe. Based partly on Christensen’s study of the  Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors, Häxan is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases and mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch hunts.  Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden when first released, Haxan was heavily censored or banned outright in many countries.  But it is now considered to be amongst Christensen’s finest work, a witches’ brew of the scary, the grotesque, and the darkly humorous. Find out more at thedevilsmanor.blogspot.co.uk .  With live piano accompaniment from New York by Ben Model.  Film screens at 7.30pm EDT (11.30 UK time).  See here  for tickets.

Monday 26 October

Retroformat Silent Films from Los Angeles presents Spooky ‘Tunes, a  collection of vintage animated cartoons featuring cartoon stars like Felix the Cat and Pete the Pup to help get you into the spirit of Halloween.  With a live original score by musician Cliff Retallick plus special guest film archivist, historian and distributor of early animated cartoons, Tommy José Stathes (@CartoonsonFilm ).  Event screens at 7.30 PDT (02.30 am 27 Oct UK time).  Click here  to watch

Cinephobe.TV presents The Show (Dir. Tod Browning, US, 1927)  Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome’s dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.  Another dose of grand guignol from master of the macabre Browning, starring John Gilbert, Renee Adoree and Lionel Barrymore With recorded score.  You can watch it here

Sunday 25 October

Episode 31 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include;  Deviled Crabs (1917) starring Pokes & Jabs (Bobby Burns & Walter Stull), with Edna Reynolds; Local Showers (1916) starring Harry Watson, Jr. (“Musty Suffer”), with Dan Crimmins, Della Connor and H.H. McCollum; and, The Haunted House (1921) starring Buster Keaton, with Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, Paddy McGuire and Eddie Cline.   The event normally streams at 8pm UK time but just for this week it will be at 7pm on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Toronto‘s Silent Revue Cinema presents The Phantom Carriage (Dir. Victor Sjostrom, Sw, 1921).  Apparently a favorite of Charlie Chaplin, The Phantom Carriage would influence Sjöström’s Swedish compatriot Ingmar Bergman with his radical depiction of death in The Seventh Seal,  and even inspire the “Here’s Johnny” axe sequence in Kubrick’s The Shining. Simply put: it’s a horror icon. Over 5 months in production and balking at European censors’ concerns over depicting the supernatural, The Phantom Carriage is based on Selma Lageröf’s 1912 novel Thy Soul Shall Bare Witness! and stars none other than the director himself as David Holm, a drunkard forced to reckon with his wasted life by a ghostly carriage driver. Set in a series of flashbacks and featuring groundbreaking special effects, the film eerily captures a distinctively Scandinavian morbidity, yet isn’t without hope. A masterpiece in any right, it’s the perfect Halloween choice! Preceded by the animated Felix the Cat in Switches Witches (1927).  With recorded accompaniment by Marilyn Lerner.  Get your ticket here

Saturday 24 October

AFI Silver Theater presents The Mark Of Zorro (Dir. Fred Niblo, US, 1920)   Don Diego Vega (Douglas Fairbanks) masquerades as an ineffectual fop to bamboozle his enemies and conceal his secret persona: ‘Zorro’: avenger of the oppressed. The first King of Hollywood – dashing, athletic Douglas Fairbanks, pretty much defined the swashbuckling genre with this rip-roaring adventure flick. Featuring horseback stunts, witty chase sequences and sword fighting, this entertaining romp achieves a satisfying blend of humour and heroics that remains the benchmark for action films today.  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 3.00pm EDT.  Screening is free or pay-what-you-can but you need to register.  Details here

Wednesday 21 October

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, NY presents The Penalty (Dir. Wallace Worsley, US, 1920). Lon Chaney demonstrates his unparalleled flair for on-screen transformation with his macabre characterisation of ‘Blizzard’ – a tortured, criminal mastermind. A young boy has both his legs needlessly amputated by an inexperienced surgeon and grows up to become “master of the underworld”, driven to terrible deeds by his passion for sadistic revenge. The film is considered Chaney’s break-out role, cementing his reputation as master of the gruesome and grotesque. Chaney famously refused the use of trick camera angles to simulate his ‘deformity’, forcing his legs into leather stumps in a tightly bent position that was so painful he could only wear them for ten minutes at a time.   With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 7.00pm EDT.  Screening is free or pay-what-you-can but you need to register.  Details here

Tuesday 20 October

Knoxferatu is an annual silent horror film event in Knoxville, Tennessee, pairing silent features and shorts with live musicians for an unforgettable Halloween-season cinema experience.  Rather than canceling the event during the pandemic, Knoxferatu is breaking out of Knoxville with a live streaming mini-event for everyone.  One of the audience’s favorite parts of Knoxferatu every year is the slate of creepy, weird, and obscure shorts. So, for the virtual mini-edition of Knoxferatu, the event will be completely made up of shorts.  Knoxferatu V will feature some of the most popular comedy-horror shorts from past years, as well as some new picks (No details of films to be screened).  With live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  Screens at 7.30pm EDT (12.30 PM UK time).  Screening is free but donations encouraged.  Details here

Sunday 18 October

Episode 30 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films yet to be announced.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 12 October

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents a fortnightly silent screening. Tonight they are spoiling us with an exceptionally rare and cracking good horror double bill.  First up is Frankenstein (Dir. J Searle Darley, US, 1910).  Generally recognised as the first (albeit loose) adaption of Mary Shelly’s novel, starring Charles Ogle as the monster and Mary Fuller as the doctor’s wife.  Then we have Ghosts (Dir. George Nichols, US, 1915), an adaption of a Henrik Ibsen novel and the story of greed, ambition, marital infidelity, incest and syphilitic madness.  Now how did they get all that past the censors? With a knock-out performance by Henry B Walthall.  Anyway, you can watch it  here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time, 3.30am 4 Aug UK time!!).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 11 October

The London Film Festival in partnership with the Kennington Bioscope present The Cheaters (1930),  one of Australia’s major surviving silent films.  When embezzler Bill Marsh (Arthur Greenaway) emerges from jail he works with his daughter Paula (Marie Lorraine), who serves as bait, targeting wealthy victims. He is also seeking revenge on businessman John Travers (John Faulkner), who turned him into the police. However, Paula falls in love with Travers’ son and starts to doubt her future in a life of crime. Highly regarded for its set design – including some striking details – mood and atmosphere, and featuring stunningly vivid tinting, The Cheaters was also unusual in being a film produced, directed and starring Sydney’s Isabel, Phyllis, and Paulette McDonagh, who bucked a predominantly male film world and successfully produced four feature films between 1926 and 1933.  Find out more at wfpp.columbia.edu.  Film screens at 1pm UK time, here.  With live piano accompaniment from Cyrus Gabrysch.  (NB  This film will be available to watch on ‘catch-up’ until 1pm UK time on 14 October)

Episode 29 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include T Bound (1924) starring Sid Smith, with Cliff Bowes, Virginia Vance, Bobby Burns and Now Or Never (1921) starring Harold Lloyd, with Mildred Davis, Anna May Bilson, Norma Nichols and William Gillespie  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 10 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Ballettens datter (Daughter of the Ballet) (Dir: Holger-Madsen, Den 1913)    Count de Croisset proposes to the celebrated dancer Odette Blanc. He puts all his love, his fortune and his title at her feet – on one condition: She must give up her job as a dancer. Odette gives him her ‘yes’ with the feeling that she will never miss the theater once she has become a countess. But one day she gets an offer she can’t refuse.  Director Holger-Madsen’s superb eye for evocative compositions provides the ideal framework for influential dancer Rita Sacchetto, starring as a charismatic ballerina torn between love and her art.  With musical accompaniment  by John Sweeney. Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Laurel or Hardy in 5 shorts. The genius of Laurel and Hardy was already in evidence before they first teamed up. Here we present 5 riotous shorts predating their legendary partnership, each one joyfully showcasing their individual talents.
Films  The Serenade (1916), The Rent Collector (1921), Detained (1924), Moonlight and Noses (1925) and When Knights Were Cold (1923).  With musical accompaniment  by Neil Brand. Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Friday 9 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents A Romance of the Redwoods (Dir: Cecil B. DeMille, US, 1917)  When the orphaned Jennie Lawrence (Mary Pickford)  journeys to California to live with her uncle, she discovers him to be dead and his place taken by a criminal impostor, but his threats intimidate her into silence. Lacking money and protection, she  must acknowledge the imposter publicly as her uncle in order to continue to receive food, shelter, and his protection. A stunning new restoration of this Gold Rush Western with Mary Pickford under the assured direction of Cecil B. DeMille, featuring a bold central performance and dramatic location work.  With musical accompaniment  by Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton.  Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Thursday 8 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Abwege (The Devious Path) (Dir: G W Pabst, Ger, 1928)  An affluent lawyer (Gustav Diessl) neglects his wife (Brigitte Helm) and disapproves of her fashionable friends. Bored and sexually frustrated, she retaliates by abandoning herself to the pleasures of jazz-age Berlin. Featuring one of the most extraordinary, decadent nightclub scenes in all of Weimar cinema, this lesser-known film, now newly restored and ripe for rediscovery, sees director G W Pabst on top form. A great realist of Weimar-era cinema, Pabst uses a marital crisis to paint a shimmering portrait of society.  In yet another role that she was born to play, Brigitte Helm gives a stunning performance as the bored wife. With musical accompaniment  by Mauro Colombis.  Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Wednesday 7 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Oι Απάχηδες των Αθηνών ( The Apaches of Athens) (Dir: Dimitris Gaziadis, Gr 1930) Pivoting around picturesque old Athens of the 1920s, and its namesake, the celebrated operetta by Nikos Hadjiapostolou, this adaptation invites us to follow the adventures and romantic entanglements of an Athenian “apache” or city tramp: Kostas, the “Prince”. After saving two men from taking a beating from some bullies, the Prince has a chance encounter with the lovely young seamstress, Titika, and just like that, they fall head-over-heels in love with each other.  But the road to true love can be a rocky one! An historic Greek film of 1930, deemed lost for many decades, The Apaches of Athens was rediscovered in the Cinémathèque Française archives and  restored at the L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory.  It constitutes an attempt to create the first “singing and sound” film produced in Greece.  The film, starring some legendary figures of the Greek music scene, such as Petros Kyriakos, Mary Sayanou, Petros Epitropakis and Giannis Prineas, is an important link in the history of early Greek cinema.   With recorded orchestral accompaniment by the Greek Radio Symphony Orchestra. Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Tuesday 6 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents České hrady a zámky (Dir: Karel Hašler, CZ, 1914) [short] Noted thespian Karel Hašler appears in this self-reflexive comedy short about an actor running late for a performance who must dash through the Czech countryside to arrive at his Prague theatre in time.  Plus  La tempesta in un cranio (Dir: Carlo Campogalliani, It, 1921)  An anarchic, quasi-surreal Italian comedy of multiple delights in which the timorous scion of a wealthy family is gaslit by his friends in order to prove that his fears of hereditary insanity are hogwash.  With musical accompaniment  by Gunter A Buchwald and Frank Bockius.  Further details here.  The films will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Monday 5 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Toodles, Tom and Trouble (Dir: Lloyd Lonergan, US, 1915) [short] Pandemonium breaks out when Tom thinks baby Toodles is stolen and all signs suggest that Trouble the collie is to blame. Don’t worry, the Thanhouser dog Lady continued her career after making this short!  Plus  Where Lights Are Low  (Dir: Colin Campbell, US, 1921)  Sessue Hayakawa achieved global stardom by combining matinee idol glamour with at times problematic ethnic characterizations. Here he’s a Chinese prince seeking to rescue his love from slave traders in San Francisco.   With musical accompaniment  by Philip Carli.  Further details here.  The films will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Sunday 4 October

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents The Brilliant Biograph, an eye-opening compilation designed to change our understanding of early cinema forever. Meticulous restoration work on Victorian-era 68mm films reveals a breathtaking clarity whose beauty we experience emotionally.  With  musical accompaniment  by Daan van den Hurk.  Further details here.  The films will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents Guo Feng (National Customs) (Dir: Luo Mingyou and Zhu Shilin, Chi, 1935)  Chinese silent film remains criminally unavailable, making this a rare opportunity to see a true masterwork starring two great actresses in a characterful story of sisters in love with the same man.  With  musical accompaniment  by Gabriel Thibaudeau.  Further details here.  The films will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Saturday 3 October

The Buster Keaton Society present Buster’s Big Birthday Bash – A Zoom Watch Party.  Absolutely no idea as to what this will comprise, but given who’s running it and given also that we’re all Buster fans its got to be worth a look.  To take part go here.  Meeting ID: 847 2629 0453,  Passcode: Damfino. 

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents The Urge to Travel.  Left homebound by the Covid nightmare and yearning to travel, this afternoon programme captures that longing with eight short travelogues selected to feed the intense desire to return to beloved locales and explore new places.  Films include  Un voyage Abracadabrant (1919), New York (1911), Planty krakowskie (1929), Un voyage au Caire (Nos vedettes à l’étranger) (1928), Over Besseggen på motorsykkel (1929), Belgique pittoresque: Ostende; Bruges (1921), Svatojanske proudy (1912), Trieste (anni ’30), Londonerbilleder (c.1920).  With musical accompaniment  by Jose Maria Serralde Ruiz.  Further details here.  The films will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

The 39th Pordonone Silent Film Festival in this year’s On-Line version presents   Penrod and Sam (Dir: William Beaudine, US 1923).  Americana at its best, centered on a group of scamps and the endearing mischief they make. The film, which prefigures Boyhood in its nostalgic look at childhood, surprisingly avoids much of the era’s racial stereotypes.  With musical accompaniment  by Stephen Horne  Further details here.  The film will remain available for 24 hours to view on ‘catch-up’.

Wednesday 30 September

The Kennington Bioscope present the tenth  of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianist John Sweeney and Costas Fotopoulos and with specially recorded accompaniment from Lillian Henley and Colin Sell.  Tonight’s event comprises a veritable cornucopia of silent film gems including;  Our Film Stars – Photoplay Magazine Screen Supplement #6 (USA 1919) with behind the scenes footage of silent stars;  Flux The Cat (NL 1929) – an animated U.S. Royal Cord tyre advert.;  Le Dytique (The Water Beetle) (FR 1912) – Microscopic shots of  a family of water beetles;  L’orgie Romaine (Lions of the Tyrant) (FR 1911) – a hand-tinted historical melodrama directed by Louis Feuillade;  Le Chien Insaisissable (The Elusive Dog) (FR 1912) – A shaggy-dog story, and;  Old Isaacson’s Diamonds (USA 1915) – Another episode from The Girl Detective, Kalem’s popular series starring Ruth Roland as a ‘society girl’ employed as a special investigator.  Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY presents Our Hospitality (Dir. Buster Keaton/John G Blystone, US, 1923)  This is a riotous satire of family feuds and Southern codes of honor. In 1831, Keaton leaves his home in New York to take charge of his family mansion down South. En route, Keaton befriends pretty Natalie Talmadge (Keaton’s real-life wife at the time), who invites him to dine at her family home. Upon meeting Talmadge’s father and brothers, Keaton learns that he is the last surviving member of a family with whom Talmadge’s kin have been feuding for over 20 years.   In the climactic waterfall stunt a dummy stood in for Talmadge but Keaton used no doubles, and nearly lost his life as a result.  This 7-reel silent film represents the only joint appearance of Buster Keaton and Natalie Talmadge; Keaton hoped that by spending several weeks on location with his wife, he could patch up their shaky marriage (it didn’t work). Also appearing are two other members of the Keaton family: Keaton’s ex-vaudevillian father Joe (who performs an eye-popping “high kick”) and his son Joseph Keaton IV, playing Buster as a baby. With live on-line piano accompaniment from Ben Model.  The event is free (or Pay-What-You-Can) and streams at 7pm EST (Midnight UK time) but you need to register to take part.  More details here

Monday 28 September

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents a fortnightly silent screening. Tonight’s film is The Bargain (1914), Hollywood (and real) cowboy Willian S Hart’s first feature. The second Hart Western to be named to the National Film Registry (after Hell’s Hinges (1916) ), selected apparently on account of Hart’s charisma, the film’s authenticity and its realistic portrayal of the Western genre.  Find out more at  www.loc.gov. Watch here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time, 3.30am 4 Aug UK time!!).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 27 September

Episode 27 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films Be Reasonable (1921) starring Billy Bevan, with Mildred June, Eddie Gribbon, Ethel Teare, Bobby Dunn, Al Cooke, Kewpie Morganand Tiny Sandford; plus Remember When? (1925) starring Harry Langdon, with Natalie Kingston, Vernon Dent, Sam Lufkin, Irving Bacon, William McCall and Anna May the elephant.   The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Bristol’s Slapstick Festival present Slapstick’s Big Comedy Night In.  While this may not exactly be a silent film screening, its a fund raising event for next year’s Slapstick Festival which hosts an excellent and diverse programme of silent films, so it deserves our (and your) support.  Hosted LIVE by Infinite Monkey Cage star and stand up comedian Robin Ince, a glittering array of celebrity friends and supporters of the UK’s biggest annual celebration of silent and classic onscreen comedy come together for one night only to take part in an evening of fun, laughter and music.  Robin will be compèring this unique comedy event with a dream line-up of performers, including Sir Michael Palin, Rob Brydon, Stephen Merchant, Jo Brand, David Mitchell, Harry Hill, Jack Dee, Lucy Porter, Lee Mack, Graeme Garden, Stephen Fry, Jess Robinson, Tony Hawks, Richard Herring and Frankie Boyle! For further details and to tune in, go here

Sunday 20 September

Episode 26 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films include Yes, Yes, Nanette (1925) starring James Finlayson, with Lyle Tayo, Oliver Hardy, Jack Gavin, Florence Lee and  Sue “Bugs” O’Neil; Bunny’s Dilemma (1913) starring John Bunny, with Flora Finch, Wally Van and Lillian Walker, and; The Boat (1921) starring Buster Keaton, with Sybil Seely and Eddie Cline.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 13 September

Episode 25 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films will be detailed shortly.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 31 August

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents a fortnightly silent screening. No details available yet on tonight’s screening but it will come with live musical accompaniment .   Watch here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time, 3.30am 4 Aug UK time!!).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 30 August

Episode 23 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format is three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s films will be detailed shortly.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Friday 28 August

California’s UCLA Library present Mothers Of Men (Dir. Willis Robards, US, 1917). Produced by progressive-minded filmmakers before women had the right to vote, Mothers of Men is set in an America after suffrage has been won to tell the story of Clara Madison (Dorothy Davenport), a lawyer who pursues electoral victories from judge to governor, earning herself a raft of enemies along the way. When a muckraking newspaper editor conspires to frame her unwitting husband in a bomb plot, Governor Madison is forced to make the ultimate choice between “head and heart.” Through Madison’s struggles, the film confronts the stereotypes and misogynist attacks that women civic leaders faced at the time, illuminating how they’ve persisted into the present day.  Presented as part of a centennial cinematic celebration of the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) this special program also features notable figures from the political and academic worlds in conversation about this history of women’s suffrage and the continuing struggle for universal suffrage throughout the country. The event begins at 4:00pm US Pacific time/Midnight UK time.  Not clear whether the film presentation will have live or recorded musical accompaniment.  Watch the screening and discussion via Eventbrite here  (NB  This looks to be a one-off event with no opportunity to view at a later date.)

Sunday 23 August

Episode 22 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films scheduled for this week include The Simp (1920) starring Lloyd Hamilton, with Marvel Rea and Otto Fries; and The Waiter’s Ball (1916) starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, with Al St John, Corinne Parquet, Kate Price, Robert Maximillan, Joe Bordeaux and Alice Lake, The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 22 August

The newly revived cinephobe.tv present The Mystic (Dir. Tod Browning, US, 1925) Returning to one of his favorite themes, crooks bilking the gullible nouveau riche, Tod Browning both co-wrote (with Waldemar Young) and directed this evocative silent melodrama starring Conway Tearle as Michael Nash, an American criminal who imports a gang of Hungarian gypsies to gain control over a fortune. The victim, Doris Merrick (Gladys Hulette), is persuaded by fake medium Zara (Aileen Pringle) to hand over her jewels to Nash. But all is not what it seems.  Somewhat of a disappointment in comparison with Browning’s later thriller The Unholy Three (1925), The Mystic benefited from the presence of costume designer Romain de Tirtoff (aka Erté) whose extravagant black-and-white creations were luxuriously modeled by the sophisticated Aileen Pringle. .  The film can be viewed here at 4:30pm UK time.  The film comes with a recorded soundtrack.

Thursday 20 August

Bristol’s Slapstick Festival present this live streamed event in which Infinite Monkey Cage co-presenter, podcaster and stand-up comedian Robin Ince talks to veteran film critic and historian David Robinson, author of the official biography of Charlie Chaplin, about the life, times, work and enduring appeal of the ‘Little Tramp’. Also features an audience Q&A.  This one-off event takes place at 7:30pm UK time.  Participation is by Eventbrite ticket here with a donation towards the next Slapstick Festival.

Wednesday 19 August

The Kennington Bioscope present the ninth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   This week they are screening another two films from the Jean Desmet Collection, by kind permission of the Netherlands EYE Filmmuseum. Enjoy a hair-raising ride, plus picturesque scenes of Paris, in the short comedy film, Un Partie de Tandem – A Ride on the Tandem Bike (1909), with a specially pre-recorded accompaniment by Colin Sell. The main feature is an eternal tale of adventure from the pen of 19th Century novelist, Jules Verne, In Search Of The Castaways: The Children Of Captain Grant (1914), an exciting cinematic adaptation produced by the French Éclair company, with film scenario written by Jules’ son, Michael Verne. This cinematic version is “an adventure film in which the children of Captain Grant go in search of their father. Lord Glenarvan and Lady Helena find a letter in which Captain Grant asks for help. Together with the children of Grant and Jacques Pagnanel they go looking. Since the letter is unclear, they have to search the entire thirty-seventh parallel. They experience many adventures in South America, Australia and New Zealand…” Native New Zealander, John Sweeney, was keen to screen this action film, with its varied landscapes, all shot in France, but with some standing in for his homeland, and he will perform a live improvised accompaniment., Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 17 August

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents The Flapper (Dir. Alan Crosland, US, 1920)   High-spirited 16 year old Genevieve ‘Ginger’ King (Olive Thomas) is packed off to boarding school by her wealthy father when she becomes too much for sedate Orange Springs.  And that’s where the fun starts  She falls for an older man, gets involved with some jewel thieves and innocently ends up carrying the loot. The Flapper was scripted by Francis Marion and is credited with popularizing the slang term “flapper” throughout the United States in the 1920s,  Star Olive Thomas was in her mid-twenties when she made the film but managed a credible portrayal of teenager Ginger.  After winning a  “Most Beautiful Girl in New York City” contest in 1914 Thomas became an artist’s model and then a Ziegfeld Girl before moving into pictures.  Married to Jack Pickford, Mary’s younger brother, the two had a turbulent relationship and  just months after the completion of The Flapper while the couple were visiting Paris. she drank poison in still unclear circumstances and died shortly afterwards.   Oh, and look out for Norma Shearer in an early un-credited role as one of Ginger’s school girl friends.      This evening’s films come with live musical accompaniment .   Watch here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time, 3.30am 4 Aug UK time!!).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 16 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present – Le Moulin Maudit (Dir.Alfred Machin, Bel, 1910)  In this exquisitely coloured short melodrama Dutch girl Johanna loves poor Joachim, but marries the wealthy miller instead. When the miller finds the two lovers together he takes an awful revenge   +   Maudite soit la Guerre (War Is Hell) (Dir,Alfred Machin,Bel, 1914) Made just before the outbreak of The Great War, this is a startling masterpiece of early cinema, The film shows how war destroys love and friendship through the story of two friends obliged to fight each other as pilots in the airforce of their respective (unnamed) countries.  The films will be streamed shortly after their live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Sabrina Zimmermann (Violin)  and Mark Pogolski (Piano) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Saturday 15 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present – Storm Over Asia (Dir. Vsevolod Pudovkin, USSR, 1928) A classic of Soviet revolutionary film, Storm Over Asia opens with an ethnographic study of the everyday life of the Mongols before moving on to present a picture of their struggle against British colonial rule.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Stephen Horne (Piano, Flute, Accordion) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Friday 14 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present– Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (aka Le fantôme du Moulin Rouge)(Dir Rene Clair, Fr, 1925)   The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge continues with the same mischievously surreal themes of Clair’s first two short films with the story of a man, frustrated in his romantic ambitions, who becomes the victim for a scientific experiment in which a strange doctor separates the soul of the man from his body.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (Harp) and Stephen Horne (Piano, Flute, Accordion) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Thursday 13 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present The Student of Prague (Dir. Henrik Galeen, Ger, 1926)  This darkly romantic tale, with echoes of the Faust legend and Poe’s William Wilson, is a superbly crafted remake of Stellan Rye’s supernatural chiller of 1913. An impoverished student (Conrad Veidt) sells his mirror reflection to a moneylender and is subsequently stalked by a Doppelgänger over whom he has no control. Veidt’s virtuosic portrayal of a split personality plumbs terrifying depths.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Stephen Horne (Piano, Flute, Accordion) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Wednesday 12 August

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY will be screening Lady Windemere’s Fan (Dir. Ernst Lubitsch, US, 1925) Based on the play by Oscar Wilde and a classic of the silent era, Lady Windermere’s Fan has come to define director Ernst Lubitsch’s sublime touch – suave direction, sparkling wit, meticulous performances, and precise mise-en-scene in which every glance, gesture, and object subtly conveys meaning. Concerning the  hypocrisy of Victorian morals, particularly the institution of marriage, Lady Windermere’s Fan begins as Mrs. Erlynne returns from foreign travels to blackmail her daughter’s husband into introducing her into polite society so she can snag a lord she’s determined to marry. The plan backfires when her daughter, who does not know of her existence, mistakes the scheming older woman for a rival. Already a critically acclaimed director in Germany, Lubitsch’s success continued in the US with classic films like The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be, Ninotchka, Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living, and he is credited with bringing to American cinema all the distinctive aspects of European comedy, replete with what one critic would call “its charm, decadence, and frivolity.” With live on-line piano accompaniment from Ben Model.  The event is free (or Pay-What-You-Can) and streams at 7pm EST (Midnight UK time) but you need to register to take part.  More details  here

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present  Duck Soup (Dir. Fred Guoil, US, 1927)  Playing together in this film although not yet the famous duo, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are vagrants who wreak havoc in an abandoned villa +  College (Dir. James W Horne/ Buster Keaton, US, 1927) which sees Buster Keaton having to master sporting activities and competitions in order to win his beloved. College is one of the best sports parodies in film history, in whose breathtaking finale Keaton did without doubles and camera tricks and brilliantly demonstrated his athletic skills.  The films will be streamed shortly after their live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Neil Brand (Piano)  and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Tuesday 11 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present Peg o’ the Mounted (Dir. Alfred J Goulding, US, 1924)  When an injured and exhausted Mountie collapses outside her cabin, it falls to Baby Peggy to take up the challenge and track down the illegal moonshiners  +  Wolf Lowery (Dir. William S Hart, US, 1917)  The only surviving example of Hart’s directorial work, Wolf Lowery sees him as the owner of the Bar Z Ranch. He gets worked up when he finds a squatter on his land, but after he discovers that the settler is a woman, Margery Wilson, his attitude changes. The films will be streamed shortly after their live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Neil Brand (Piano) and Günter A. Buchwald (Viola, Violin) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Monday 10 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present Mädchen am Kreuz (Girl On THe Cross)  (Dir. Luise and Jakob Fleck, Ger, 1929) Young student Mary spends her vacation starting with boat trips, visits to her wealthy groom, and gardening. In fast-paced, rhythmic cuts, Louise and Jakob Fleck draw their audience into a light-hearted, urban comedy of love that transforms itself into a melodrama about sexual violence, shame and perpetrator-victim reversal with a single scene.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Richard Siedhoff (Piano) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Sunday 9 August

The newly revived cinephobe.tv present The Blackbird (Dir. Tod Browning, US, 1926) In this, one of the numerous Tod Browning/Lon Chaney collaborations, Chaney plays The Blackbird, a master criminal who stages daring robberies in London’s Limehouse district, and between crimes disguises himself as The Bishop, a kindly, crippled keeper of a rescue mission. The Blackbird falls for Fifi Lorraine (Renee Adoree), a singer in the music hall.  But he has a rival for Fifi’s attentions in the shape of West End Bertie, an aristocratic crook who also frequents the music hall.  And there is certainly no love lost between these two rivals for Fifi’s affections.  This is a typical slice of Browning grand guignol with Chaney again excelling in the ‘making himself grotesque’ stakes.  The film was a financial success albeit the least profitable of Chaney’s films for MGM.  It can be viewed here at 10.45am UK time.  The film comes with a recorded soundtrack.

Episode 21 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films being screened tonight are  Her First Kiss (1919) starring Ethel Teare and Slim Summerville, with Laura La Varnie, Harry Booker, Bobby Dunn, Marvel Rae, Gus Pixley and Roscoe “Tiny” Ward; together with probably by favourite Buster Keaton short, The Goat (1921) also starring Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, Kitty Bradbury, Garry O’Dell, Eddie Cline and Mal St. Clair. The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present Mälarpirater (Dir. Gustaf Molander, Swe, 1928) Gustaf Molander, who had worked closely with Sjostrom and Stiller, began to direct films and quickly showed that he was something more than an apt pupil. His Malarpirater  was a fresh and spontaneous piece about three boys who steal a boat and sail away for a summer adventure on Lake Mälaren. Based on Sigfrid Siwertz’s novel it is well acted by Einar Hansson and Inga Tidblad.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Günter A. Buchwald (Piano, Viola, Violin) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Saturday 8 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present L’Argent (Dir Marcel L’Herbier, Fr, 1928).  L’Herbier’s classic is a  spectacular large-scale production that describes the world of financial markets and speculators, focusing on two rival bankers, both of whom have a love affair with the beautiful Baroness Sandorf, played of course by the wonderful Brigitte Helm.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Günter A.Buchwald (Piano) and Wolfgang Fernow (Kontrabass) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Friday 7 August

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present Looping the Loop (German: Die Todesschleife) (Dir.Arthur Robison, Ger, 1928)   Circus and variety films were a popular genre in the silent film era. This late silent era thriller starring Robert Reinert (who died before it was completed) tells the story of a clown who, while disguising his identity, woos a young artist.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Richard Siedhoff (Piano) and Mykyta Sierov (Oboe) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Thursday 6 August

It might not be ‘On-Line’, but given the paucity of silent films on UK terrestrial TV it would be a shame not to give a shout out to The Polite Burglar (Dir. Sadie Andrews, UK, 1929)  being screened today on Talking Pictures TV at 11.3Oam.  Ostensibly a comedy about a woman, her husband and a burglar, the film was specifically produced for a meeting of the London Amateur Cinematographers’ Association on 27 March 1929. The film was the basis of a competition for the club members who were invited to record the mistakes incorporated into the film. The film is part of the Women Amateur Filmmakers Collection at the East Anglian Film Archive.  The film is accompanied by musician and composer Laura Rossi. 

Bonn’s International Silent Days Film Festival present East And West (Dir.Sidney M. Goldin, Au, 1923).  One of the few surviving examples of Yiddish cinema, East And West is also a delightful comedy detailing the exploits of the daughter of a rich Jewish American businessman who travels to the wedding of her demure cousin who lives in a traditional Polish shtetl.  The film will be streamed shortly after its live screening at the festival itself along with a recording of the earlier live musical accompaniment performed by Richard Siedhoff (Piano) and Mykyta Sierov (Oboe) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours.  Find out more at here

Wednesday 5 August

The Kennington Bioscope present the eighth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   This week they are screening another selection of  silent shorts  from the collection of the EYE Filmmuseum in the Netherlands and  will be taking a vicarious voyage, traveling with first-class films, across the Mediterranean, seen through the lens of a selection of European travelogues, plus a Vitagraph drama, The Lonely Princess (USA 1913), directed by and starring Maurice Costello and Clara Kimball Young, shot on location in Venice and an Italian comedy, Robinet in Vacanza (IT 1912),  which sees Robinet, played by the multi-pseudonymous Marcel Perez, attempting to take his vacation.  And as if that wasn’t enough,  regular pianists Cyrus and John will also be joined by Lillian Henley and Costas Fotopoulos, Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Tuesday 4 August

It might not be ‘On-Line‘, but given the paucity of silent films on UK terrestrial TV it would be a shame not to give a shout out to Sally Sallies Forth (Dir. Frances Lascot, UK, 1928) being screened today on Talking Pictures TV at 11.20am.  This was the first ‘all-woman’ film production in the UK and tells of how a disgruntled young woman accidentally becomes a maid for the day at a garden tea party. The film is part of the Women Amateur Filmmakers Collection at the East Anglian Film Archive.  The film is accompanied by musician and composer Laura Rossi. 

Monday 3 August

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents  a double bill of comedy shorts from the great Charley Chase.  First up is What Price Goofy (Dir. Leo McCarey, US, 1925) in which Chase plays a Mr Jamison, a man with a very jealous wife.  But what will the wife do when she realises that her husband is entertaining a visiting professor who turns out to be an attractive woman.  This is followed by Bad Boy (Dir. Leo McCarey, US, 1925) with Charley playing Jimmy Jump, a man trying to please bth of his parents.  But one wants ‘manliness’ and the other wants ‘ sensitivity’.  And Jimmy just wants to marry his girlfriend.   This evening’s films come with live musical accompaniment .   Watch here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time, 3.30am 4 Aug UK time!!).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 2 August

It might not strictly be a ‘live’ On Line event but this is definitely one worth catching up with.  Cinephobe.tv was a free to use film streaming channel noted for regularly screening more obscure and less commercial movies but which for some reason went off line a couple of months ago.  However, its back up and running this weekend and one of its first presentations is The Chronicles of the Grey House (Dir Arthur von Gerlach, Ger, 1925) (97mins) an eerie, fantastical old dark house melodrama, focusing on a deadly inheritance dispute between two brothers with strikingly different wives. Pictorially ravishing – even by Weimar standards – this period drama evokes the feudal past in all its uncompromising strangeness. It’s renowned for its Rembrandt-inspired lighting, magnificent production design and wild, poetic landscapes shot on location.  Find out more at  wikipedia.org.  The film screens at 4pm UK time here.  But not only are they showing the film, it is also preceded by an introduction from the Kennington Bioscope‘s own highly knowledgeable cinephile Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky).  So its definitely one ‘not-to-be-missed’.

Episode 20 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This evenings films are;  Pep  Up (1929) – starring Cliff Bowes, with Adrienne Dore, Marshall Ruth, Billy Dale and Emily Gerdes; Love’s Young Scream (1928) – starring Jack Duffy, with Anne Cornwall, Jimmie Harrison, William Blaisdell, Glen Cavender, James Donnelly and Billy Engle; and, Fluttering Hearts (1927) -starring Charley Chase, with Martha Sleeper, Oliver Hardy, William Burress, Eugene Pallette and Charlie Hall.  The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 26 July

Hollywood Heritage Museum in California presents The Deadlier Sex (Dir. Robert Thornby, US,  1920) starring Blanche Sweet, Mahlon Hamilton and in his first featured role, Boris Karloff. This is a board-room ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between the daughter of a railroad magnate who kidnaps her business rival – taking him to the wilderness to save her father’s company and show him that money can’t buy everything.  The film may be little known and was described by Sweet herself as one of several “what I knew I shouldn’t do.” But although it was never a critical or popular success Sweet got good reviews for her performance, typical of much of her work in that she doesn’t play a shrinking violet or damsel in distress but rather a woman of action and determination.   With live musical accompaniment by Michael D Mortilla.  Screening on Vimeo at 10am Pacific Coast Time (6pm UK time).  Details here.  (NB  This is a ‘one-off’ screening, not available to view on ‘catch-up’)

Episode 19 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This evenings films are;  The Hole In The Wall (1919) – starring Jane Bernoudy, with Bobby Vernon, Fred Ardath, Eddie Boland, Babe Nathan and Steve Murphy; At Coney Island (1912) – starring Mabel Normand, with Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling, Gus Pixley and Kenneth Casey: A Little Hero (1913) – starring Mabel Normand; and, Distilled Love (1920) – starring Alice Howell, with Oliver Hardy, Dick Smith, Eunice Murdock, Eva McKenzie, Fay McKenzie and Billy Bevan.   The event streams at 8pm UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Toronto‘s Silent Revue present Peter Pan (Dir. Herbert Brenon, US, 1924)  This was the first cinematic outing for  J M Barrie’s famous story of the magical boy who refuses to grow up.  If you only know the story from the 1953 Disney version you’re in for a surprise as this is a lot darker telling.   Betty Bronson was personally selected by Barrie to play Peter Pan and also making her screen debut was Mary Brian as Wendy.  A young Anna May Wong makes a fleeting appearance while perennial screen villain Sam Torrence makes an admirable Captain Hook.   Peter Pan is rightfully regarded as one of the silent era’s crowning achievements. with Brenon’s pioneering adaptation fully realising the visual splendor of Barrie’s fantasy in this sumptuous and grand scale production. The film is accompanied by a recorded score by Tania Gill composed specifically for this event.  The film is being screened on Vimeo at 4pm Toronto time (9pm in the UK) with a requirement to register in advance (and hopefully make a donation) here   (NB  Its not clear whether this film will remain available on ‘catch up’ to view later.)

Wednesday 22 July

The Kennington Bioscope present the seventh of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists including Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney.   This week they have teamed up with the British Film Institute to screen the silent film version of Harold Brighouse’s classic play Hobson’s Choice (Dir. Percy Nash, UK, 1920).  Not as well known as the 1953 version directed by David Lean and starring Charles Laughton, this 1920 version is a faithful rendition of the play, albeit largely studio bound, with some nice performances from a largely unknown cast..  You can find out loads more about the film from South West Silents‘ hugely knowledgeable Mark Fuller here.  As well as this main feature there will also be a full supporting programme (details TBC).  Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Tuesday 21 July

Sands Films Cinema Club in Rotherhithe present Coeur Fidele (Dir. Jean Epstein, Fr, 1923). An early example of director Epstein’s remarkable talent, Coeur Fidele is on one level a simple and rather slight melodrama of love and jealousy.  But at another level it is a unforgettable kaleidoscope of radical cinematic technique, utilising  rhythmic editing, overlays, close-ups, point-of-view shots and montage scenes as well as dramatic lighting and lens distortion effects to enhance the narrative. Epstein had already established himself as an influential film theorist with the publication of several books but with Coeur Fidele, his third film, he was now putting those ideas into practice and in the process helping to lay the foundations of the French school of 1930’s cinema.  Subsequent Epstein silent films would include Lion of the Mongols (1924), The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) and Finis Terrae (1929).  The screening tonight will be preceded by a short presentation on the film and the work of Jean Epstein. It will be screened with a recorded score.  The film will screen at 8pm (UK) and you can access it here.  (NB  This event will  also remain available on Facebook/Vimeo to watch later.)

Monday 20 July

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents Back To God’s Country (Dir. Ernest Shipman, US, 1920).  Written, produced and starring Nell Shipman (who probably also co-directed) the film follows the exploits of a young wife trapped on an ice-bound ship with its murderous captain, who must escape in order to save her severely wounded husband. Nell Shipman is, today, an almost forgotten female pioneer of silent film but in many ways she was decades ahead of her time.  A feminist, an environmentalist and a campaigner for animal rights long before such terms had ever been coined, she was a successful actress, screen-writer, animal trainer, producer and director and also performed her own stunts (which proved almost fatal on more than one occasion).  Her films were distinguished for their portrayal of women in brave, strong-willed, adventurous roles,  while her passion for outdoor location shooting in the wildest of settings and conditions gave her films a rugged and realistic quality often lacking in other Hollywood productions of the time and Back To God’s Country is no exception.    —  Plus —  The Escape on the Fast Freight (Dir. Paul Hurst, US, 1915), episode 13 from the action film serial The Hazards of Helen, featuring Helen Holmes who not only starred as the quick thinking, independent and adventurous heroine, but also did all of her own stunts. The serial eventually ran to 119 episodes from 1914 to 1917 with Holmes starring in the first 48.   This evening’s films come with live musical accompaniment .   Watch here  on their You Tube channel (broadcast 7.30 pm US West Coast Time).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 19 July

Episode 18 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment. Tonight’s films are;  The Water Plug (1920) – starring Billy Franey, with Robert McKenzie, Silas Wilcox and George Jeske; Robinet’s White Suit (L’ABITO BIANCO DI ROBINET, 1911) – starring Marcel Perez, with Ernesto Vasar; and, Number Please? (1920) – starring Harold Lloyd, with Mildred Davis, Roy Brooks, Noah Young and Sunshine Sammy Morrison The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Hollywood Heritage Museum in California presents The Deadlier Sex (Dir. Robert Thornby, US,  1920) starring Blanche Sweet, Mahlon Hamilton and in his first featured role, Boris Karloff. This is a board-room ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between the daughter of a railroad magnate who kidnaps her business rival – taking him to the wilderness to save her father’s company and show him that money can’t buy everything.  The film may be little known and was described by Sweet herself as one of several “what I knew I shouldn’t do.” But although it was never a critical or popular success Sweet got good reviews for her performance, typical of much of her work in that she doesn’t play a shrinking violet or damsel in distress but rather a woman of action and determination.   With live musical accompaniment by Michael D Mortilla.  Screening on Vimeo at 6pm Pacific Coast Time (2am, 20 July UK time).  Details here.  (NB  Apart from a repeat screening on 26 July, this is a ‘one-off’ event, not available to view on ‘catch-up’)

Saturday 18 July

The Jewish Film Institute and San Francisco Silent Film Festival jointly present Broken Barriers (Dir. Charles Davenport, US, 1919) Long-thought lost but rediscovered and newly restored by The National Center for Jewish Film, the film is back on the screen after 100 years! Originally released as Khavah but later retitled Broken Barriers, this is the first American screen adaptation of the work of Sholem Aleichem (Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof, etc). Born in Russia in 1859, Yiddish author Sholem Rabinovich, who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem, was the most read and revered Jewish writer of his time. This film focuses not on Tevye the milkman, but on his daughter Khavah, who falls in love with the gentile boy Fedka, sending reverberations through her family and community. The film’s substantive depiction of Jewish life is a rarity even amongst the precious few surviving early American films with Jewish content.   With live musical accompaniment featuring a brand new commissioned score by renowned musician Sascha Jacobsen.  Find out more  here.  This is a pay-to-view screening ($15) for which you need to register.  (NB  It is a one-off screening and will not be available to view on ‘catch-up’. )

Wednesday 15 July

The Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington NY will be screening The Kid (Dir. Charles Chaplin, US, 1921) Chaplin’s first full-length feature about a little tramp who discovers a small orphan and brings him up but is left desolate when the orphanage reclaims him. Beneath the comedy, there are definitely some more serious thematic elements at work and and the film is noted for its pathos. In that regard, the opening inter-title proves to be true: “A picture with a smile — and perhaps, a tear.”Chaplin directed, produced and starred in the film.  Find out more at wikipedia.org .  With live on-line piano accompaniment from Ben Model.  The event is free (or Pay-What-You-Can) and streams at 7pm EST (Midnight UK time) but you need to register to take part.  More details here

Sunday 12 July

Episode 17 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  This week’s screenings include Oranges And Lemons (1923) – starring Stan Laurel, with Katherine Grant, Eddie Baker, George Rowe, Martin Wolfkeil, Owen Evans, Sammy Brooks and Fay Wray ;  The Bathtub Bandit (1917) – starring Ham & Bud (Lloyd Hamilton & Bud Duncan), with Robert N. Bradbury, Juanita Sponsler, John Steppling; and,  The Rink (1916) – starring Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell, James T. Kelly, Henry Bergman, Frank J. Coleman, Albert Austin, John Rand, Charlotte Mineau, Leota Bryan and Lloyd Bacon.   The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Wednesday 8 July

The Kennington Bioscope present the sixth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists Cyrus Gabrysh, Colin Sell and John Sweeney.   This week they are screening four silent shorts on the subject of filmmaking and filmgoing from the EYE Filmmuseum, Une promenade dans Los Angeles (1912), a scenic look around LA; Arthème Opérateur (1913), a French short featuring projection booth shenanigans; Photoplay Magazine Screen Supplement (1919), the first episode of a series of reportages about movie stars and film studios. We’ll meet Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Miles Minter, John Emerson and Anita Loos, among others; and The Picture Idol (1912). Clara Kimball Young and Maurice Costello star in this Vitagraph light comedy about a girl in love with a movie star, who follows him everywhere.  And if that wasn’t enough, they are also screening their first Pathescope 9.5mm film online, a print of Four Square Steve (1926), one of the Universal Mustang westerns, with an early role for Fay Wray, from the collection of Christopher Bird. Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 6 July

Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, presents  Body And Soul (Dir.  Oscar Micheaux, US, 1925). Directed by the legendary African American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, the film is a direct critique of the power of the cloth starring Paul Robeson, making his film debut at the age of 27.  One of a number of ‘race’ films produced for America’s segregated southern audiences, Body and Soul features an all-black cast, led by Robeson in a twin role as both a scheming convict posing as a reverend, attempting to swindle his congregation of their offerings, and his long-lost twin brother. The themes of morality and civility that run through the film are typical tropes of the race film, but Micheaux’s film has a potent force enhanced by Robeson’s undoubted star charisma.    The film comes with live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick   Additionally, veteran studio executive, independent producer, manager and educator Kevin Jones will discuss Oscar Micheaux’s landmark film.  Watch here on their You Tube channel (broadcast time 7.30 pm US West Coast Time).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 5 July

Episode 16 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment. This week’s films are:   SHINE ‘EM UP (1922) – starring Paul Parrott, with Eddie Baker, Jobyna Ralston;  A THRILLING ROMANCE (1926) – starring Wanda Wiley, with Earl McCarthy, Joe Bonner, Al Hallett; and, THE SCARECROW (1920) – starring Buster Keaton, with Joe Roberts, Sybil Seely, Luke, Joe Keaton, Eddie Cline. The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Saturday 4 July

We may all have missed out on this year’s Hippodrome Silent Film Festival but the good folk at HippFest are doing their best to make up for this with their first live on-line event.  They will be screening the classic 1920 version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde starring John Barrymore and with an early but memorable performance from Nita Naldi.  Providing the live piano accompaniment will be Neil Brand while the film will be introduced by @silentlondon‘s Pamela Hutchinson.  Find out more on Facebook here

Sunday 28 June

Episode 15 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  No film details are yet available.   The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Toronto’s Silent Revue present Robert Wiene’s visually astounding The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, which celebrates its centenary this year! One of most highly recognized of German Expressionist film (and silent film in general), Calagari has inspired over a century of film-making and visual culture, including the films of Tim Burton, and even the Marvel Comics Universe. The film screens with a special German Expressionist surprise short. With live musical accompaniment from Marilyn Lerner.  Screening at 9pm Toronto time (1am 29th June UK time!!) This event is free (although donations are encouraged) and will be presented via a Vimeo link to those who register through the Eventbrite link here

Friday  26  June

The Netherlands Silent film Festival present their third silent film with live accompaniment event.  Pianist Daan van den Hurk  will once again accompany the silent comedy shorts live!  We are also promised a few other surprises, but you have to tune in to find out what they are.  The event kicks off at 7pm UK time.  Further details here.  (NB  And remember, this is a one-time event, you can only watch live, there is no option to catch it later.)

Thursday 25 June

CINEMATEK Belgium will be hosting another live event this afternoon featuring four complete films and one extract from the great French silent comedian Max Linder.  The films include Victime du quinquina (Max Takes a Tonic, 1911), Le rendez-vous (Max and the Rendezvous, 1913),  Amoureux de la teinturière (Of The Deepest Dye, 19212) and Max émule de Tartarin (Wanted: A Bearskin, 1912).  The extract comes from Linder’s last American film, The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922) his pastiche of Alexandre Dumas’ famous story which also starred regular Harold Lloyd leading lady Jobyna Ralston.  The event comes with live piano accompaniment and is scheduled for 14:00hrs UK time on Facebook here

Wednesday 24 June

The Kennington Bioscope present the fifth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7:30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by pianists Cyrus Gabrysh, Costas Fotopoulos and John Sweeney.   This week the KenBio guys and gals have really upped their game as they will be featuring not just two shorts (Robinet’s White Suit (1911) with live accompaniment by Cyrus plus Il Pescara (1912) with pre-record accompaniment by Costas) but they are also hosting their first feature length film, Kidnapped (1917) with live piano accompaniment by John.   And as if that wasn’t enough, the film will be introduced by @MoviesSilently‘s Fritzi Kramer.  Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Monday 22 June

Bumping Into Broadway (Dir. Hal Roach, US, 1919) + High And Dizzy (Dir. Hal Roach, US, 1920) (23/26 mins) Two shorts starring Harold Lloyd.  In the first he is an impoverished, unpublished playwright struggling to pay the rent, particularly when he gives all his remaining cash to the  equally hard up actress (Bebe Daniels) he idolises so she can pay her own rent. In the second film,  Lloyd is a doctor fresh out of medical school who has opened his own practice but as yet with no patients.  His first customer is a young lady  (Mildred Davis, and soon to become Mrs Harold Lloyd) prone to sleepwalking and, this being a Harold Lloyd film, it can only end with doctor and patient on the ledge of a tall building.   Presented by Retroformat Silent Films, live from Los Angeles, the film not only comes with live musical accompaniment but also features a live discussion with Suzanne Lloyd, Harold’s grand-daughter, talking about his life and work.  Watch here on their You Tube channel (broadcast time TBC).     (NB  This event will  also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 21 June

Episode 14 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  No film details are yet available.   The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.       (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 18 June

Like most other festivals this year, Mostly Lost 2020 has fallen victim to Covid-19.  The festival brings together silent film enthusiasts in an effort to identify recently rediscovered films and film snippets.  However, as a small bonus during lock-down, the Library of Congress has joined with CINEMATEK Brussels to host a virtual screening of films that have played during past “Mostly Lost” events yet still remain unidentified. STILL MOSTLY LOST will be streamed on Thursday June 18, 2020 via Facebook with live musical accompaniment from Stephane Orlando. You too can help to identify those films… Streams at 19:00 in Europe, 18:00 in UK and 13:00 on US East Coast.  Follow the action  here  (NB   Not confirmed but suspect that this is a one-off event with no opportunity to catch up later.)

Steamboat Bill Jr   (Dir. Buster Keaton/Charles Reisner, US, 1928)  (71  mins) A crusty river boat captain hopes that his long departed son’s return will help him compete with an aggressive business rival.  Unfortunately, William Canfield Jnr (Buster Keaton) is an effete college boy.  Worse still, he has fallen for the business rival’s daughter (Marion Byron).     Featuring some of Buster’s finest and most dangerous stunts, it’s a health and safety nightmare maybe but it’s entertainment that will live forever.  The final storm sequence is still as breathtaking today as it was on first release. Not a commercial success at the time, this is now rightly regarded as a Keaton classic. Find out more at Wikipedia.   Presented by the Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY, with live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.  You need to register here to take part.

Sunday 14 June

Episode 13 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Films this week consist of In And Out (1921) – starring Monty Banks, with Juanita Hansen, William Blaisdell and Cliff Bowes; Grief (1921) – starring Jimmie Adams with Charles Reisner, Albert Austin, Frankie Lee, Dinky Dean Reisner and Max Asher; and the brilliant Mighty Like A Moose (1926) – starring Charley Chase, with Vivien Oakland, Anne Howe and Charles Clary.  The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.  (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Wednesday 10 June

The Kennington Bioscope present the fourth of their Live Stream Broadcasts on the KBTV  channel on You Tube at 7;30.  In an impressively high tech format they present silent films introduced by Michelle Facey (@best2vilmabanky) and accompanied live by regular pianists Cyrus Gabrysh and John Sweeney plus tonight a debut from Costas Fotopoulos.  This week’s films, again supplied by Amsterdam’s Eye Museum, include: The Lie (1915) – a tale of jealousy and deceit in a small fishing community;  Cutey Plays Detective (1913) – a comedy in which a young man uses his amateur thespian experience to get the dirt on a love rival., and: The Girl Detective – The Mystery of the Tea Dansant. (1915) – a standalone installment of a series starring Ruth Roland as a “society girl” working as a special investigator with the police. Check out our review here of a previous episode to get an idea of the format.  The event kicks off at 7:30 UK time.  You can watch  here .  Or why not subscribe here for future event details delivered straight to your In-Box.    (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Sunday 7 June

Episode 12 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa.  The usual format will be three silent comedies introduced by Steve and with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.  Tonight’s films include;  All Wet (1924) – starring Charley Chase, with Helen Gilmore, William Gillespie, Jack Gavin, Martin “Tonnage” Wolfkeil; Le Singe de Petronille (Pétronille and her Monkey, 1913) – starring Sarah Duhamel, and;  Matchmaking Mamma (1929) – starring Carole Lombard. The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.  (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Thursday 4 June

The Epic of Everest (Dir. J B L Noel, UK, 1924) (85mins)  The third attempt to climb Everest culminated in the deaths of two of the finest climbers of their generation, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, and sparked an on-going debate over whether or not they did indeed reach the summit.  Filming in brutally harsh conditions with a hand-cranked camera, Captain John Noel captured images of breathtaking beauty and considerable historic significance. The film is also among the earliest filmed records of life in Tibet. But what resonates so deeply is Noel’s ability to frame the vulnerability, isolation and courage of people persevering in one of the world’s harshest landscapes.  Find out more at silentlondon.co.uk  Presented as part of the We Are One: Global Film Festival.  Details here.  Screens at 10:00 UK time. (NB. Looks like this is a ‘one time’ event with no opportunity to catch up later)

Tuesday 2 June

Shiraz; A Romance Of India (Dir. Franz Osten, 1928) (97mins) Based on a play by Indian author Niranjan Pal, Shiraz tells the fictionalised love story of the 17th-century princess who inspired the construction of the Taj Mahal.  It was directed by Germany’s Franz Osten, one of at least 17 films he made in India between 1925 and 1939, best known of which are The Light of Asia (1925) and A Throw of Dice (1929).  Shot entirely on location in India with an all-Indian cast, it features lavish costumes and gorgeous settings – all the more impressive in this restoration by the BFI National Archive with specially commisioned score by Anoushka Shankar. The film was the brainchild of producer Himansu Rai, who also stars as humble potter Shiraz, who follows his childhood sweetheart (Enakshi Rama Rau) when she’s sold by slave traders to the future emperor (Charu Roy).  Find out more at silentfilm.org  Presented as part of the We Are One: Global Film Festival.  Details here .  Screens at 17:15 UK time.  (NB. Looks like this is a ‘one time’ event with no opportunity to catch up later)

Sunday 31 May

Organ virtuoso Donald McKenzie will be providing live accompaniment to a screening of Harold Lloyd classic Speedy (1928) on the mighty Willis Organ at London’s Alexandra Palace. Speedy was Lloyd’s final silent film and sees him reprise his ‘glasses character’ as a baseball-obsessed New Yorker who is determined to save the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar, motivated in no small part by its owner being the grandfather of his love interest. Filled with Lloyd’s trademark rapid-fire visual humour and elaborate set-ups, it’s a fine example of his innovative approach to comedy. Find out more at allmovie.com.  The film will be available on You Tube here at 7pm  (NB   Not clear if this is purely a live event or if you can catch up later.)

Sunday 31 May

Now up to Episode 11 of the Silent Comedy Watch Party, live from New York and hosted by accompanist Ben Model and silent film historian Steve Massa. This week’s three comedies are; THE RIVALS (1923) – starring Slim Summerville & Bobby Dunn, with Esther Ralston;  JUST IMAGINATION (1916) – starring Harry Watson Jr., with Dan Crimmins, H.H. McCollum, Della Connor, Maxfield Moree, and; BUMPING INTO BROADWAY (1919) – starring Harold Lloyd, with Bebe Daniels, Snub Pollard, Helen Gilmore, Noah Young.  The films are introduced by Steve with Ben doing live piano accompaniment from his Upper West Side apartment.   The event streams at 20:00 UK time on You Tube. Further details here.  (NB  This event will be available to watch live but will also remain available on You Tube to watch later.)

Friday  29  May

The Netherlands Silent film Festival present their second silent film with live accompaniment event.  Pianist Daan van den Hurk  will once again accompany five silent comedy shorts live!  We are also promised a few other surprises, but you have to tune in to find out what they are.  The event kicks off at 7pm UK time.  Further details here.  (NB  And remember, this is a one-time event, you can only watch live, there is no option to catch it later.)