1 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Chris Green. No.8, Pershore Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Aaron Hawthorne. Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Arts Centre, Pontardawre Link
2 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. The Light, Addleston Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Aaron Hawthorne. Link
South West Silents Club Night presents Richard Barthelmess, an evening exploring the life and career of this leading star of the silent era. Barthelmess (1895 – 1963) began acting in college. Convinced by a family friend, legendary diva Alla Nazimova, to try acting professionally, he made his first film appearance in 1916 in the serial Gloria’s Romance as an extra. His next role, in War Brides (1916) opposite Nazimova attracted the attention of D W Griffith who offered him several important roles, including Broken Blossoms (1919) and Way Down East (1920). He would become one of Hollywood‘s highest paid performers, starring in numerous classics, with his role in Tol’able David (1921), as a teenage mailman who finds courage, considered by many to be his finest performance. Presented by South West Silents. The evening should include a feature length Barthelmess flm with recorded soundtrack. The Landsdown Pub, Clifton, Bristol Link
3 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Palace Theatre, Watford Link
4 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Library, Ramsey Link
Behind The Door (Dir. Irvin Willat, 1919) (Screening format – not known, 70mins) With America entering World War I, German-American Oscar Krug (Hobart Bosworth) is thought to be an enemy sympathizer. He fights his foes to prove that they’re wrong, then immediately enlists and is assigned to the merchant marines. The night before boarding, he marries his sweetheart, Alice Morse (Jane Novak), and she sails with him. A German submarine torpedoes the craft and sinks it. Krug and his bride board a lifeboat. The 
Germans take Alice and leave Krug, who swears revenge on the submarine commander. Restored from surviving incomplete copies held at the US Library of Congress and at the Gosfilmofond, the Russian national archive so that what Kevin Brownlow called “the most outspoken of all the [WWI] vengeance films,” can now be seen in its most complete form since its release in 1919, and it is one of the ‘darkest’ silent film ever made. Wallace Beery co-stars as the villainous German submarine commander but it is Bosworth who will stay in your memory long after the film’s shocking and brutal climax. You have been warned! Find out more at silentfilm.org . With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Hippodrome Cinema, Bo’ness Link
5 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Chris Green. Square Chaple, Halifax Link
Widecombe Fair (Dir, Norman Walker, UK, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 87mins) This is a beautifully shot, heart-warming tale of an impecunious Devon squire and the efforts made by family and good neighbours to save his farm. The beastly bailiff may be on the doorstep and the auctioneer hovering, but the ghost of an ancestor and his buried treasure may be the answer to everyone’s prayers. Every image shimmers in this ravishing adaptation, and the splendid Devon countryside – no rain allowed – has never looked better. With William Freshman as The Lover, Marguerite Allan as The Daughter, Wyndham Standing as The Squire, Violet Hopson as The Widow and Moore Marriott as Uncle Tom Cobleigh, the cinematography is by Claude Friese-Green and it was adapted from a 1913 novel by Eden Phillpotts, loosely based on the popular folk song Widecombe Fair. Find out more at wikipedia.org. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Colin Sell. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Institute of Amateur Photographers’ Award-Winners’ Film Programme of 1935-39 In 1935, during the formative years of amateur filmmaking in Britain, the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers (IAC) sent out a package of seven award-winning films on a ‘World Tour’. Arranged in conjunction with cine clubs across the globe (including Australia, Portugal, India, and Japan), this tour represented the breadth of filmmaking styles and genres open to the amateur filmmaker. To mark the 90th anniversary of the IAC, this specially curated programme features new 2k scans of the tour films, recently digitised at the East Anglian Film Archive and Filmoteca de Catalunya. In particular, watch out for Sister (Kichi Takeuchi, Jap, 1933) with a decidely Ozu-ish feel to it. This is a simple but absolutely beautiful drama of a young woman visiting the grave of her younger brother to lay flowers. Also excellent is Memmortigo (Delmir de Caralt, Sp, 1933) a surrealist collage of images yet a film with a somewhat un-surrealist message, that optimism can triumph over pessimism. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
BFI 35mm Silents From Bologna Another outing for a recent BFI presentation at Bologna headed by Zigomar, Roi des Voleurs (France 1910) directed by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset. Léon Sazie’s adventure serial Zigomar appeared in Paris-based newspaper Le Matin from 7 December 1909 to 22 May 1910. After this daily publication, it was also published as a brochure by the publisher Ferenczi, with catchy cover art drawn by Georges Vallée. Appearing every Wednesday at the newsstand, Sazie’s Zigomar became one of the most popular serials of this period and this popularity caused the appearance of the similar picaresque serials such as Fantômas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. Preceding Zigomar will be Harry the Footballer (GB 1911) directed by Lewin Fitzhamon and Ferdinand Zecca’s Ali Baba et les Quarante Voleurs (France 1902) from hand-coloured nitrate. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Bright Eyes (Dir. Géza von Bolváry, Aust/GB, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 85mins) A British-Austrian co-production – also known as Champagner – featuring Betty Balfour, variously described as `the British Mary Pickford’ or `Britain’s Queen of Happiness’. The film also stars Jack Trevor, and Fritz Greiner. Jenny (Balfour) works in the kitchen of a luxurious hotel. She is in love with Jean, the charming headwaiter, but Jean has his eyes on Lola, the hotel dancer, who is kept by a senile millionaire. Jenny manages to get Jean to come see her and stupidly steals a champagne bottle for the occasion. When someone rats her out, she escapes through the corridors but her misfortune turns out to have a silver lining. Find out more at imdb.com Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Lillian Henley. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Cinema’s First Nasty Women – Gender Adventures Shorts directed by James Young Deer, Sidney Olcott, Jay Hunt, and Richard Wallace with Lillian St. Cyr (Red Wing), Gene Gauntier, Texas Guinan and Katherine Grant. Gender Adventures – From the Old West to the (now not so) distant future, women take centre stage and drive the action in this programme of adventures. Produced from 1910 to 1926, these rarely-seen silent films showcase actresses cross-dressing in adventure and comedy, assuming a range of identities that gleefully dismantle traditional gender norms and sexual constraints. On the Western frontier, young women disguise themselves as boys to seek their fortune; other films show the rambunctious gun-toting femininity cultivated out West, while we close the programme with a hilarious sex role-reversal comedy from the Hal Roach Studios. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Colin Sell. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Wedding March (Dir. Eric von Stroheim, US, 1928) (Screening format – 35mm, 113mins) A bittersweet look back at pre-World War I Vienna, made by its native son, Erich Von Stroheim. The Wedding March is a tour-de-force in its modern acting, engaging story and sure direction from one of the top director-screenwriters of the 20th century. The aristocratic and somewhat jaded Prince Nicki (Stroheim), pursued by all the ladies, begins a flirtation with Mitzi (Fay Wray), a crippled harpist who works in a suburban wine-garden, and who is in turn idolized by Schani (Matthew Betz), an uncouth and violently jealous butcher. Meanwhile, amidst the sumptuous and corrupt milieu of the family palace, Nicki is drawn into complicity against his will, as his unscrupulous mother informs him he must marry Cecelia (ZaSu Pitts) , the daughter of a wealthy commoner, in order to revive the family fortune. With passions rising, can this all end in anything other than tragedy? The story – royalty in love with a poor commoner – had been tried before but has such twists, insights, and realism that the Russian film school, at the time, used The Wedding March as the template screenplay for its students as a model of perfection. The original release suffered commercially from the emerging competition of talking pictures but it has since gained appreciation as not just a superb example of silent cinema but one of the best films of all time. Find out more at www.silentfilm.org . Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Cyrus Garbysch . Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known , 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok, the film was an unauthorised adaption of 
Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org. With live musical accompaniment by Minima. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol Link
6 November
Behind The Door (Dir. Irvin Willat, 1919) (Screening format – not known, 70mins) With America entering World War I, German-American Oscar Krug (Hobart Bosworth) is thought to be an enemy sympathizer. He fights his foes to prove that they’re wrong, then immediately enlists and is assigned to the merchant marines. The night before boarding, he marries his sweetheart, Alice Morse (Jane Novak), and she sails with him. A German submarine torpedoes the craft and sinks it. Krug 
and his bride board a lifeboat. The Germans take Alice and leave Krug, who swears revenge to the commander (Wallace Beery)…. Restored from surviving incomplete copies held at the US Library of Congress and at the Gosfilmofond, the Russian national archive so that what Kevin Brownlow called “the most outspoken of all the [WWI] vengeance films,” can now be seen in its most complete form since its release in 1919. And it is possibly the ‘darkest’ silent film we have ever seen. Find out more at silentfilm.org . Presented as part of the Inverness Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Eden Court, Inverness Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Weald Library, Alconbury Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Chris Green. Old Courts, Wigan Link
People on Sunday (Dir. Robert Siodmak/Edgar G Ulmer, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 74mins) Famously, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann worked with Siodmak on this landmark of realist film making, a magical blend of documentary and fiction which takes us back to a glorious summer Sunday in late-1920s Berlin where five 
young workers take a day off to spend a flirtatious afternoon together at a lake on the edge of the city.. While they enjoy freedoms undreamt of by their parents, sexual rivalry soon lends an edge to their flirtations. The people portraying the characters were all amateurs belonging to a Berlin collective who, the opening credits inform us, had returned to their normal jobs by the time of the film’s release. They included a taxi driver, a record seller and a wine merchant. But together, the cast and crew produced a classic of silent film and one which still feels remarkably modern. Find out more at archive.org With live musical accompaniment by instrumental band Haiku Salut and pianist Meg Morley. Barbican, London Link
Mitchell & Kenyon’s Fiction Shorts The Mitchell & Kenyon film company was a pioneer of early commercial motion pictures based in Blackburn in Lancashire, England, at the start of the 20th century. They were originally best known for minor contributions to early fictional narrative film and Boer War dramatization films. Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon founded the firm of Mitchell & Kenyon in 1897. Under the trade name of Norden, the company was one of the largest film producers in the United Kingdom in the 1900s, with the slogans of `Local Films For Local People’ and `We take them and make them’, they operated initially from their respective business premises at 40 Northgate and 21 King Street, Blackburn. The first reported showing of a Mitchell & Kenyon subject was a film of Blackburn Market, shown at 40 Northgate, in Blackburn, on 27 November 1897. The company produced films either on their own initiative or as commissioned by local businesses. This presentation comprises of a selection of their early fiction films preserved at The Cinema Museum. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Lure of Crooning Water (Dir. Arthur Rooke, GB, 1920) (Screening format – 35mm, 105mins) This 1920 British comedy, one of several rural romances directed by Arthur Rooke, features Guy Newall, Ivy Duke and Hugh Buckler and was adapted from a novel by Marion Hill. Georgette Verlaine (Duke) is a favourite stage actress whom Dr. John Longden (Buckler) persuades to recuperate in the country because her lifestyle is ruining her health. He is in love with her and selects a pretty place called `Crooning Water’ where she stays with Horace Dornblazer (Newall), his wife Rachel (Dibley), and their three children. The fact that there is one man who does not fall for her smiles drives Georgette to try and win the admiration of Horace. Duke and Newall (who scripted this film) were married in real life and both ranked as major silent stars in England. Ivy Duke made her last film in 1928 and never made a talkie. Newall continued to act in films in the 1930s. They divorced in 1929. They both died in 1937. Newall was in his early 50s, Duke was only 41. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Colin Sell. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Die Heimkehr des Odysseus (aka The Homecoming Of Odysseus, aka The Death Cheat) (Dir. Max Obal, Ger, 1922) (Screening format – 35mm, ??mins) Starring Luciano Albertini, Claire Lotto, Heinrich Schroth. The film’s sets were designed by the art director Hans Sohnle. Other than it being a silent historical drama, I can find out nothing more about this film itself. The muscular, buoyant Luciano Albertini had first been a circus artist before turning to films as an actor, producer and director, first in Italy then in Germany where his Latin appeal made German ladies swoon. By 1920, Albertini’s feats of strength and circus acrobatics were already an established factory brand. The public knew exactly what they were getting when they entered the cinema: breathless action. The plots constructed around this basic principle were always of secondary importance to what was a winning formula. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney . Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Gold Diggers (Dir. Harry Beaumont, US, 1923) (Screening format – not known, ??mins) This is the premiere of a new restoration by Joshua Cattermole and Jim Groom of The Gold Diggers, a comedy directed by Harry Beaumont. The screenplay, by Grant Carpenter, was based on the play of the same title by Avery Hopwood which ran for 282 performances on Broadway in 1919 and 1920. Both the play and the film were produced by David Belasco. The film stars Hope Hampton, Wyndham Standing and Louise Fazenda. Long thought lost – along with most of a 1929 remake – The Gold Diggers has long been sought after by film scholars as the precursor of some of Busby Berkeley’s most successful musicals of the 1930s. Long thought lost, this largely complete print follows Wally Saunders’ attempts to marry chorus girl Violet Dayne , but his uncle, Stephen Lee objects, regarding all chorines as gold diggers and refuses to give his approval. Violet’s friend Jerry La Mar agrees to go after Lee so aggressively that Violet will look tame by comparison and the stage is set for fireworks. Find out more at nitrateville.com . Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Cyrus Garbysch . Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Dragnet Girl (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1933) (Screening format – not known, 110mins) Tokiko is an office typist who is more pleased at catching the attention of the owner’s son than he knows. That’s because her real boyfriend is Joji, a washed up boxer turned gangster and her employer is a great opportunity to milk him for them both. However, when Kazuko, the innocent sister of Hiroshi, a hopeful new member of the gang, comes to Joji to plead with him to send Hiroshi away, the gangster is attracted to her. However, Tokiko is jealous and determined to win Joji back no matter what the cost…..Yasujiro Ozu’s cool and clever gangster film is one of Japanese cinema’s masterpieces. Dazzlingly stylized, spirited and kinetic, Dragnet Girl is also an intimate, compassionate study of young people caught in the cultural cross fire. For all its snappy and whimsical homages to Warner Brothers gangster flicks (check out all of those background Hollywood gangster film posters), this is still an Ozu film, ending not with gunshots or kisses but with a still life in an empty room. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Lillian Henley.. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Faust (Dir. F W Murnau, Ger, 1926) (Screening format – not known, 107mins) Like Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau is a towering figure of Weimar cinema, thanks to films such as Nosferatu (1922), The Last Laugh (1924), and, after moving to America, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). Murnau’s approach to framing and his use of liberating camera movements suggested to subsequent filmmakers a new way of using the pictorial space. Faust, the director’s final German film, draws on sources including Marlowe and Goethe in service of the story of a man who makes a deal with the devil. Murnau’s Faust was the most technically elaborate and expensive production undertaken by Ufa until it was surpassed by Metropolis the following year. Filming took six months, at a cost of 2 million marks, only half of which was recovered at the box office. According to many film historians, Faust seriously influenced subsequent studio shooting and special effects techniques. Murnau used two cameras, each filming multiple shots; with many scenes requiring multiple takes. Faust was Murnau’s last German film, immediately prior to his move to the US. Find out more at rogerebert.com. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment by Costas Fotopoulos. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Echoes of the North; Four Chapters in Time This is a specially created film of rarely seen early 20th century archive footage shot around the North of England. It will be accompanied by a new score – the first ever all-brass 
soundtrack for a silent film – composed by Neil Brand and performed by the world-famous Brighouse and Rastrick Band. Echoes of the North has been created in partnership with Yorkshire Film Archive, North West Film Archive, North East Film Archive, and Archive Film Agency. The premiere of Echoes will be complemented by a selection of short films scored by Morecambe and Lancaster-based musicians. Presented by the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. Link
12 November
Stranger Films with Alasdair Beckett-King Stand-up comedian, animator and video games writer Alasdair Beckett-King uses films and clips from the eccentric early pioneers of film comedy, including; Charley Bowers, George Melies and Ladislaw Starewicz to showcase the absurdly alternative comedy that paved the way for today’s contemporary slapstick movies and physical comedians. White Bear Pub, Bristol Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live harp accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. Old Market, Hove Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Aaron Hawthorne. Link
Phantom Of The Opera (Dir. Rupert Julian, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 103mins) A title that needs no introduction, The Phantom of the Opera has spawned many remakes, remasters and sequels. This original film version, produced with moments of early Technicolour, sees Lon Chaney, the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces’ perform one of his most iconic roles. His ghastly make-up and outrageous performance made this title a benchmark in the American silent film era. 
The film was a critical and commercial success upon release, and still stands as an important film in cinematic history to this day, with press quotes from the time labeling the film an ‘ultra-fantastic melodrama’ (New York Times), ‘produced on a stupendous scale’ (Moving Picture World) and ‘probably the greatest inducement to nightmare that has yet been screened’ (Variety). The mysterious phantom (Lon Chaney) is a vengeful composer living in the catacombs under the Paris Opera House, determined to promote the career of the singer he loves (Mary Philbin). Famed for the phantom’s shock unmasking, incredible set designs and the masked ball sequence, it still packs a punch. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Tamworth Castle, Staffs Link
13 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Minima. Maltings, Farnham Link
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – digital, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with 
names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org Introduced by Silent Film Curator Bryony Dixon. With live piano accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link
19 November
Nosferatu (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – digital, 96mins) A German Expressionist horror masterpiece starring Max Shreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’ with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. In the film, Count Orlok travels across Europe leaving a trail of death in his wake. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved. Find out more at wikipedia.org With recorded score by Hans Erdmann. BFI Southbank, London Link
21 November
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (Dir. F W Murnau, 1922) (Screening format – digital, 96mins) To mark its 100th anniversary, this is a very special screening of the recently fully restored version of F W Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), one of the most iconic films of the German expressionist era, let alone cinema itself. In this first-ever screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, a simple real-estate transaction leads an intrepid businessman deep into the superstitious heart of Transylvania. There he encounters the otherworldly Count Orlok (portrayed by the legendary Max Schreck, in a performance the very backstory of which has spawned its own mythology) who soon after embarks upon a cross-continental voyage to take up residence 
in a distant new land… and establish his ambiguous dominion. The film was an unauthorised adaption of Stoker’s ‘novel with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the story. Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaption and a court ruling ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed. However, a few prints survived and the film came to be regarded as an inspirational master work of the cinema. Brilliantly eerie, with imaginative touches which later adaptions never achieved and featuring some of the most iconic images in cinema history, Nosferatu continues to haunt modern audiences with its unshakable power of gothic imagery and blood curdling suspense.. Find out more at www.rogerebert.com Presented by South West Silents and Bristol Ideas. Introduced by author and film historian Sir Christopher Frayling (plus Q&A). With live musical accompaniment by Neil Brand. St George’s, Bristol Link
23 November
Tumbleweeds ( Dir. King Baggot, US, 1925) + The Gunfighter ( Dir. Wiliam S Hart, US, 1917) (Screening format – not known/digital, 78/? mins) The Kennington Bioscope present a double-bill of westerns starring the legendary William S Hart. First up is Tumbleweeds which depicts the Cherokee Strip land rush of 1893. The film is said to have influenced the Oscar-winning 1931 Western Cimarron, which also depicts the land rush. Set in Caldwell, Kansas on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, the movie features cowboy Don Carver (Hart) as a “tumbleweed” (i.e., a drifter) who decides to settle down after falling in love with Molly Lassiter (Barbara Bedford). Carver decides to get in on the Cherokee Strip land rush but when he’s arrested and parted from his new love, he’s in danger of missing 
the big race. Find out more at wikipedia.org Next up is The Gunfighter, both directed by and starring Hart. This is the UK premiere of a new reconstruction of this previously lost film, combining an incomplete original nitrate print with two 9.5mm copies. Produced by historian and editor Christopher Bird together with Kevin Brownlow, with recreated title cards by Fritzi Kramer. Cliff Hudspeth (Hart), the leader of a band of outlaws in Arizona, has a long list of kills to his name. He is reformed by the local seamstress (Margery Wilson), but must be prepared to kill again when the town is threatened by a rival bandit’s gang. Future stars John Gilbert and Alice Terry are rumoured to be among the extras. This reconstruction was premiered at Pordenone in 2019, but has since been upgraded with new scans of the 9.5mm prints and some additional title cards. Find out more at moviessilently.com Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, London Link
27 November
Piccadilly (Dir E A Dupont, UK, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 92 mins) A film noir before the term was in use, uncredited German director E.A. Dupont’s Piccadilly is one of the true greats of British silent films, on a par with the best of Anthony Asquith or Alfred Hitchcock during this period. Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) owns a nightclub featuring dancers Mabel (Gilda Gray) and Vic (Cyril Ritchard). After a confrontation with Wilmot, Vic quits performing at the 
club. When the joint starts losing business, a desperate Wilmot hires former dishwasher Shosho (Anna May Wong) as a dancer. She is an instant hit and forms a rapport with Wilmot, which makes both Mabel and Shosho’s friend (King Ho Chang) jealous, leading to a mysterious murder. A stylish evocation of Jazz Age London, with dazzlingly fluid cinematography and scenes ranging from the opulent West End to the seediness of Limehouse. One of the pinnacles of British silent cinema, Piccadilly is a sumptuous show business melodrama seething with sexual and racial tension – with an original screenplay by Arnold Bennett. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk . With live piano accompaniment by Lillian Henley. Palace Cinema, Broadstairs Link
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