2 May
The Wedding March (Dir. Eric von Stroheim, US, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 113mins) The setting is Vienna in 1914 before the outbreak of war. 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? Find out more at www.silentfilm.org . With recorded soundtrack. Sands Cinema Club, Rotherhithe Link
3 May
Trail Of The Law (Dir. Oscar Apfel, 1924) (Screening format – 35mm) Rare sceening for a little known and frequently but incorrectly thought lost film. An early starring role for Norma Shearer although little is known of the plot. All I have is “A girl masquerades as a boy to help avenge her mother’s murder” and as ‘Variety’ magazine said in its 1924 review…‘That’s all there is to the plot, and it can be seen that the brain is not seriously taxed keeping up with it… Miss Shearer is cute and appealing, even in trousers and cap, but the usual imagination is needed to conceive of her palming herself off as a boy.” Find out more at imdb.com Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. Introduced by Kevin Brownlow. With live piano accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth, London Link
4 May
Lady Windermere’s Fan (Dir. Fred Paul, UK, 1916) + Blue Bottles (Dir. Ivor Montagu, UK, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 66/26mins) This 1916 version of Lady Windemere’s Fan is the earliest known film adaption of Wilde’s 1892 play, although it apparently suffers from some rather staid camera work and much of Wilde’s sparkling dialogue is lost in the inter-titles. Find out 
more at letterboxd.com . Blue Bottles was part of a compendium of films directed by Ivor Montagu in 1928, in conjunction with H G Wells (who wrote the stories). All were made by Angle Pictures and starred Elsa Lanchester (image, right) in the leading role. Lanchester‘s eponymous character is a rather scatterbrained maid who accidentally foils some crooks after blowing a police whistle. The film also stars Charles Laughton. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk . With recorded soundtrack. Birkbeck Cinema, University of London, WC1 Link
L’Inhumaine (Dir. Marcel L’Herbier, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 135mins) Famous singer Claire Lescot (Georgette Leblanc), who lives on the outskirts of Paris, is courted by many men, including a maharajah, Djorah de Nopur (Philippe Heriat) , and a young Swedish scientist, Einar Norsen (Jaque Catelain). At her lavish parties she enjoys their amorous attentions but she remains emotionally aloof and heartlessly taunts them. When she is told that Norsen has killed himself 
because of her, she shows no feelings. At her next concert she is booed by an audience outraged at her coldness. She visits the vault in which Norsen’s body lies, and as she admits her feelings for him, but all is not what it seems and further tragedy looms. While the plot of the film was something of a creaky melodrama with strong elements of fantasy, from the outset L’Herbier’s principal interest lay in the style of filming: he wanted to present “a miscellany of modern art” in which many contributors would bring different creative styles into a “single aesthetic goal”, in effect a manifesto of the modern decorative arts. Find out more at sensesofcinema.com . With live musical accompaniment from pianist Jane Gardner and violonist Roddy Long. Institut Français Écosse, Edinburgh Link
5 May
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm ) A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Bunting’s daughter (June Tripp) is a blonde model and is seeing one of the detectives (Malcolm Keen) assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect he may be the #avenger. Based on a best-selling novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, first published in 1913, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, The Lodger was Hitchcock’s first thriller, and his first critical and commercial success. Made shortly after his return from Germany, the film betrays the influence of the German expressionist tradition established in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922). Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as the Opening Night Gala of the 2017 Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by the Orchestra of St Paul’s with the first performance of a newly composed score by Neil Brand. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield Link
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) + Do Detectives Think (Dir. Fred Guiol, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 45/19 mins) In Sherlock Jr, a kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train station – only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theatre, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic with its special effects and elaborate stunts making it a landmark in motion picture history. Find out more at silentfilm.org. Starring Laurel and Hardy but before they became an established partnership, Do Detectives Think sees a judge (James Finlayson) hiring two detectives (guess who!) to protect him from an escaped criminal. Find out more at wikipedia.org. With live organ accompaniment by Donald MacKenzie. St John’s Church, Notting Hill, London Link
6 May
Phantom Of The Opera (Dir. Rupert Julian, 1925) (Screening format – 35mm, 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 labelling 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 acclaimed musicians Minima. St Peter’s Church, Cowleigh, Malvern, Worcs. Link
Cartoon Carnival (Dir. various) (Screening format – 35mm) Start the day off with Krazy Kat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and more from the earliest days of animation. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
The Cameraman (Dir. Edward Sedgwick/Buster Keaton, 1928) (Screening format – 35mm, 67mins) Keaton stars as a wannabe news cameraman trying to make his mark in the MGM newsreel department. One of Keaton’s last films as director and one of his very best. Find out more at wikipedia.org. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
Girl With A Hat Box (Dir. Boris Barnet, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm, 67mins) Anna Sten plays a mischievous milliner who enters into a marriage of convenience with a homeless college student so that he can use her Moscow apartment. The film that proves that not all Russian silent films come with large doses of propaganda, this is one of the most delightful silent comedies ever made and Anna Sten is just knockout. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
Man Without Desire (Dir Adrian Brunel, 1923) (Screening format – 35mm) 18th-century Venetian Count Vittorio Dandolo (Ivor Novello) is 
devastated by the death of his lover Leonora (Nina Vanna) and loses all interest in life. Wishing to escape from his grief, he devises a method of putting himself in a state ofsuspended animation. He awakens 200 years later in 1920s Venice where he meets Genevia, Leonora’s double, who turns out to be a descendant of his former love. Falling immediately in love with Genevia, he proposes marriage which Genevia accepts. He then discovers that his 200-year slumber has left him with the ability to love but unable to experience passion, and the marriage remains unconsummated. The film was Brunel’s feature-length directorial debut and has been described as “one of the stranger films to emerge from Britain in the 1920s”. The film’s theme of loss of sexual desire, and by implication impotence, was exceptionally frank for its time; oddly however, it appears to have been passed for release without interference by the British film censors, who at this period has a reputation for extreme zealousness where sexual matters in film were concerned. Find out more at imdb.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
Tall Tales and Incredible Journeys (Dir. various) (Screening format – 35mm) Take a journey into the impossible with this collection of short fantasy films, some exquisitely hand coloured, by two of early cinema’s most extraordinary talents, George Méliès and Segundo de Chomón . Melies probably needs no introduction, being perhaps the best known early 
exponent of cinema trickery and innovation. His most well known film, A Trip to the Moon (1902), is included in this collection. By contrast, Chomon is almost forgotten. Starting work in his native Spain he soon moved to France to join the Pathe Freres where he made numerous innovative silent films from 1907-12. Some critics compared his work favourably to Melies although others saw him merely as a mere imitator. In 1912 he moved to Italy and helped provide special effects for the classical epic Calabria (1914) as well as working on visual effects on Gance’s classic Napoleon (1927). Find out more at wikipedia.org. Being screened as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp), Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
Flesh And The Devil (Dir. Clarence Brown, 1926) (Screening format – 35mm, 113mins) Greta Garbo, John Gilbert and Swedish heartthrob Lars Hanson star in MGM’s lavish melodrama about boyhood friends who each fall in love with the same woman. This is the film that made Garbo a star in the USA and it’s silent cinema at 
its most lush and intoxicating. The romantic chemistry between Garbo and Gilbert was a director’s dream because it was not faked. The two actors quickly became involved in their own romantic affair and before production of the film was completed had already moved in together. Flesh and the Devil marked the beginning of one of the more famous romances of Hollywood’s golden age. They would also continue making movies together into the Sound Era, though Gilbert’s career would collapse in the early 1930s while Garbo’s soared. Find out more at imdb.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
Deeds Not Words: The Women Pioneers of Silent Comedy (Dir. Various) A selection of rarely-screened shorts celebrates the talented women of silent comedy. While the Suffragettes were fighting for women to have the vote, their cinematic counterparts were more than equal to the men, creating and starring in some of the most successful, subversive and inventive films of the era. This special selection of rarely-screened shorts celebrates the brilliant women of silent comedy. Presented as part of the London Comedy Film Festival. Curated and presented by BFI Silent Film Curator Bryony Dixon with a new live score by The Lucky Dog Picturehouse. BFI Southbank, London Link
7 May
Such Is Life (Dir. Carl Junghans, 1930) (Screening format – DCP, 71mins) This Czech film captures the tragic story of an aging laundress (Vera Baranovskaja) whose drudgery and toil support a licentious and abusive alcoholic husband (Theodor Pištěk). A psychological drama with social themes, it draws from Zola’s novel, The Kill, and with full cinematic expression, a progressive approach to montage and emphasis on the symbolic power of close-ups, represents the climax of silent film. Find out more at wikipedia.org . With live musical accompaniment. Barbican, London Link
Ben Hur (Dir. Fred Niblo, 1925) (Screening format – 35mm, 155mins) Betrayed by his boyhood friend, Massala, Ben Hur is imprisoned as a galley slave on a Roman ship and left to die. Saved by a sympathetic general, he sets out to find his lost family. And one day, many years later, Ben Hur and 
Massala meet once more for a final, violent reckoning as competing Roman charioteers in the Circus Maximus……The most epic silent film of them all, Ben Hur is a gripping tale of love and revenge. At its premiere in 1925 nothing like it had ever been seen before. The dazzling special effects, thrilling action, glorious technicolour sequences and a cast of thousands helped Ben Hur make MGM’s reputation as the blockbuster studio. The famous chariot race is jaw-dropping even today – captured by forty two cameras, with hundreds of horses and thousands of extras, the sequence was recreated almost shot-by-shot for the 1959 remake with Charlton Heston. Find out more at moviessilently.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). Abbeydale Picture House, Sheffield. Link
October: Ten Days That Shook The World (Dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 104mins) Borrowing its title from a book by American journalist John Reed, Sergei Eisenstein’s Ten Days That Shook the World reenacts the crucial week-and-a-half in October, 1918, when the Russian Kerensky regime was toppled by the Bolsheviks. Eisenstein used the film to further develop his theories of film structure, using a concept he described as “intellectual montage”, the editing together of shots of apparently unconnected objects in order to create and encourage intellectual comparisons between them. A largely non-professional cast was employed, the “actor” playing Lenin, a nonprofessional cement factory worker named Nikandrov, so closely resembles the genuine article that the effect is striking while a University student took on the role of Kerensky and Zinoviev was played by his real brother. The film was not as successful or influential in the Soviet Union as Battleship Potemkin with audiences finding the film stilted and artificial. Eisenstein’s montage experiments met with official disapproval; the authorities complained that October was unintelligible to the masses and he was also required to re-edit the work to expurgate references to Trotsky, who had recently been purged by Stalin. Nevertheless, film historians now consider it to be an important film, a sweeping historical epic of vast scale, and a powerful testament to Eisenstein’s creativity and artistry. Find out more at imdb.com. With recorded soundtrack. Watershed, Bristol Link
8 May
Ben Hur (Dir. Fred Niblo, 1925) (Screening format – 35mm, 155mins) Betrayed by his boyhood friend, Massala, Ben Hur is imprisoned as a galley slave on a Roman ship and left to die. Saved by a sympathetic general, he sets out to find his lost family. And one day, many years later, Ben Hur and Massala meet once more for a final, violent reckoning as competing Roman charioteers in the Circus Maximus……The most epic silent film of them all, Ben Hur is a gripping tale of love and revenge. At its premiere in 1925 nothing like it had ever been seen before. The dazzling special effects, thrilling action, glorious technicolour sequences and a cast of thousands 
helped Ben Hur make MGM’s reputation as the blockbuster studio. The famous chariot race is jaw-dropping even today – captured by forty two cameras, with hundreds of horses and thousands of extras, the sequence was recreated almost shot-by-shot for the 1959 remake with Charlton Heston. Find out more at moviessilently.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). Link
May 9
7th Heaven (Dir. Frank Borzage, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 110mins) Chico (Charles Farrell) is a poor Parisian sewer cleaner who aspires to work his way out of his dead-end job and into the middle class. 
When he meets Diane (Janet Gaynor), an abused prostitute, he sympathizes with her plight and tells the police she’s his wife to prevent them from arresting her. To keep up the appearances of marriage, he invites Diane to live with him, and a real romance blossoms until Chico is drafted in the army at the start of World War I. Janet Gaynor won the Best Actress award at the very first Academy Awards for her role in this gorgeously romantic drama of star-crossed Parisian lovers. With beautiful sets, stunning camerawork and a live harp score, 7th Heaven is silent-era Hollywood at its most powerful. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp). Link
May 10
Dragnet Girl (Dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1933) (Screening format – not known, 110mins) Tokiko is an office typist who is more pleased at catching the owner’s son attention 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. Find out more at silentfilm.org . Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. This screening will be accompanied by a new score for harp by celebrated silent film harpist Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. Showroom Cinema, Sheffield Link
Battle of the Somme (Dir.Geoffrey Malins, 1916) (Screening format – not known, 77mins) The Battle of the Somme gave its 1916 audience an unprecedented insight into the realities of trench warfare, controversially including the depiction of dead and wounded soldiers. It shows scenes of the build-up to the infantry offensive including the massive preliminary bombardment, coverage of the first day of the battle (the bloodiest single day in Britain’s military history) and depictions of the small gains and massive costs of the attack. The Battle of the Somme remains one of the most successful British films ever made. It is estimated over 20 million 
tickets were sold in Great Britain in the first two months of release, and the film was distributed world-wide to demonstrate to allies and neutrals Britain’s commitment to the First World War. It is the source of many of that conflict’s most iconic images. It was made by British official cinematographers Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell. Though it was not intended as a feature film, once the volume and quality of their footage had been seen in London, the British Topical Committee for War Films decided to compile a feature-length film. Find out more at Wikipedia Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival and as part of the Somme100Film Centenary Tour. To mark the centenary of the actual battle, a hundred screenings of the film are taking place around Britain, each one accompanied by a live orchestra performing Laura Rossi’s haunting score. Tonight’s screening is accompanied by Musica Kirklees YouthOrchestra and their conductor Thom Meredith. Picturedrome, Holmfirth Link
11 May
Chicago (Dir. Frank Urson & Cecil B.DeMille (uncredited), 1927) (Screening format – not known, 118mins ) Seventy-five years before Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical version of Maurine Watkins’ successful stage play, Cecil B. DeMille’s production company made this saucy silent film version. 
Phyllis Haver is hugely entertaining as the brazen Roxie Hart “Chicago’s most beautiful murderess” – a woman so pathologically shallow she sees notoriety for a murder rap as an opportunity to secure her fortune. Egged on by her crooked lawyer (“they’ll be naming babies after you”) Roxie neglects her long-suffering loyal husband and sets about milking her celebrity status for all she’s worth. The sequence in the prison is an absolute delight – particularly the rivalry between Roxie and fellow-murderess Velma (played by DeMille’s mistress), as are the climactic courtroom scenes. A cracking, satire on fame and the media, this fun-filled tale of adultery, murder and sin (so sinful that DeMille – known for his Biblical epics – was at pains to keep his name off the credits) is as fresh and relevant as ever. Find out more at wikipedia.org . Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
Blackmail (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins) Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she 
has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened. Alfred Hitchcock’s sinister, suspenseful tale of crime and romance is one of the last British silent films to be made. With his traditional cameo appearance in the first reel, to a spectacular moonlit chase through the British Museum in the final reel, Blackmail is a classic thriller from the Master of Suspense. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
12 May
Tall Tales and Incredible Journeys (Dir. various) (Screening format – not known) Take a journey into the impossible with this collection of short fantasy films, some exquisitely hand coloured, by two of early cinema’s most
extraordinary talents, George Méliès and Segundo de Chomón . Melies probably needs no introduction, being perhaps the best known early exponent of cinema trickery and innovation. His most well known film, A Trip to the Moon (1902), is included in this collection. By contrast, Chomon is almost forgotten. Starting work in his native Spain he soon moved to France to join the Pathe Freres where he made numerous innovative silent films from 1907-12. Some critics compared his work favourably to Melies although others saw him merely as a mere imitator. In 1912 he moved to Italy and helped provide special effects for the classical epic Calabria (1914) as well as working on visual effects on Gance’s classic Napoleon (1927). Find out more at wikipedia.org. Being screened as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp), Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). Link
13 May
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm ) A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Bunting’s daughter (June Tripp) is a blonde model and is seeing one of the detectives (Malcolm Keen) assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect he may be the #avenger. Based on a best-selling novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, first published in 1913, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, The Lodger was Hitchcock’s first thriller, and his first critical and commercial success. Made shortly after his return from Germany, the film betrays the influence of the German expressionist tradition established in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922). Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live accompaniment by harpist Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. , Link
Slapstick for Kids (Dir. Various) Hilarious clips from the golden age of cinema, presented for a brand new audience by the inimitable Neil Brand. Neil’s infectious love of silent film shines through in his presentation and his piano playing, as he accompanies joyfully irreverent film moments live on stage. Young audience members will be invited to suggest music, hear it live and discover how it can transform a filmic story – a wonderful afternoon of laughter and discovery for kids of all age. With live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. Stoller Hll, Manchester Link
Beggars of Life (Dir. William Wellman, 1928) (Screning format – not known, 100 mins) Nancy (Louise Brooks), is a young woman on a farm who kills her foster father when he attempts to rape her. She is assisted in escaping from the farm by Jim (Richard Arlen), a young hobo who has stopped to ask for food. By dressing in rough men’s clothing, Nancy, with the assistance of Jim, eludes the police. They hop a freight train and, when thrown off by the brakeman, they wander into a hobo camp. The hobo camp is run by Oklahoma Red (Wallace Beery), a villain….or maybe not! Find out more at silentfilm.org . With live music from the Dodge Brothers and Neil Brand. Stoller Hall, Manchester Link
14 May
Tall Tales and Incredible Journeys (Dir. various) (Screening format – not known) Take a journey into the impossible with this collection of short fantasy films, some exquisitely hand coloured, by two of early cinema’s most extraordinary talents, George Méliès and Segundo de Chomón . Melies probably needs no introduction, being perhaps the best known early 
exponent of cinema trickery and innovation. His most well known film, A Trip to the Moon (1902), is included in this collection. By contrast, Chomon is almost forgotten. Starting work in his native Spain he soon moved to France to join the Pathe Freres where he made numerous innovative silent films from 1907-12. Some critics compared his work favourably to Melies although others saw him merely as a mere imitator. In 1912 he moved to Italy and helped provide special effects for the classical epic Calabria (1914) as well as working on visual effects on Gance’s classic Napoleon (1927). Find out more at wikipedia.org. Being screened as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harp), Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). National Centre for Early Music, York Link
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 90mins) A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Bunting’s daughter (June Tripp) is a blonde model and is seeing one of the detectives (Malcolm Keen) assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect he may be the avenger. Based on a best-selling novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, first published in 1913, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, The Lodger was Hitchcock’s first thriller, and his first critical and commercial success. Made shortly after his return from Germany, the film betrays the influence of the German expressionist tradition established in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922). Find out more at silentfilm.org Being screened as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live harp score by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry. National Centre for Early Music, York Link
The Kid (Dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1921) + The Champion (Dir. Charlie Chaplin, 1915) (Screening format – not known, 53/33 mins) The Kid is Chaplin’s first feature length film and a masterful blending of comic genius and sentimentality. In the film, Edna Purviance deposits her new baby with a pleading note in a limousine and goes off to commit suicide. The limo 
is stolen by thieves who dump the baby by a garbage can. Charlie the Tramp finds the baby and makes a home for him. Five years later Edna has become an opera star but does charity work for slum youngsters in hope of finding her boy. Will Edna find the child and will the little tramp get the girl? As Chaplin says, “A comedy with a smile–and perhaps a tear” . Find out more at imdb.com. In The Champion, Charlie finds a “good luck” horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner “who can take a #beating.” After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. Will he win and more importantly will he get the girl. The Kid is believed to have been the first film ever shown at The Kinema when it opened in 1922. It will be shown today as part of The Kinema’s 95th Anniversary celebrations with the original recorded soundtrack as composed by Chaplin. The Champion will be accompanied live by Alan Underwood at The Compton Organ. The Kinema in the Woods, Woodhall Spa, Lincs Link
16 May
Buster Keaton and the Yorkshire Dales on Film (Dir. Various) An evening of slapstick comedy and a fascinating glimpse at Yorkshire in days gone by with short films from Yorkshire Film Archive. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Dales Jam and Richard Ormrod. Victoria Hall, Settle Link
17 May
Sin & Silent Film (Dir. Various) The beginning of new series of screenings which will showcase the darker side of silent film, including a rare screening of The Devil’s Needle (Dir. Cheter Withey, US, 1916), one of a glut of films made at this time highllighting the evils of drug abuse. In the film, artist David White (Tully Marshall) has a model, Rene (Norma Talmadge), who is a drug addict. He falls for Wynne Mortimer (Marguerite), the daughter of a wealthy man (F A Turner). But Wynne is engaged to Hugh Gordon, her father’s priggish right-hand man (Howard Gaye). To ease White’s hurt, Rene offers him some of her drugs. At first he refuses, but he sneaks a taste and soon becomes hooked….Find out more at moviessilently.com . Presented by South West Silents and introduced by James Harrison (BBC Bristol). Lansdown Public House, Clifton, Bristol Link
Blackmail (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins) Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice 
agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened. Alfred Hitchcock’s sinister, suspenseful tale of crime and romance is one of the last British silent films to be made. With his traditional cameo appearance in the first reel, to a spectacular moonlit chase through the British Museum in the final reel, Blackmail is a classic thriller from the Master of Suspense. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
18 May
Battle of the Somme (Dir.Geoffrey Malins, 1916) (Screening format – not known, 77mins) The Battle of the Somme gave its 1916 audience an unprecedented insight into the realities of trench warfare, controversially including the depiction of dead and wounded soldiers. It shows scenes of the build-up to the infantry offensive including the massive preliminary 
bombardment, coverage of the first day of the battle (the bloodiest single day in Britain’s military history) and depictions of the small gains and massive costs of the attack. The Battle of the Somme remains one of the most successful British films ever made. It is estimated over 20 million tickets were sold in Great Britain in the first two months of release, and the film was distributed world-wide to demonstrate to allies and neutrals Britain’s commitment to the First World War. It is the source of many of that conflict’s most iconic images. It was made by British official cinematographers Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell. Though it was not intended as a feature film, once the volume and quality of their footage had been seen in London, the British Topical Committee for War Films decided to compile a feature-length film. Find out more at wikipedia.org. Presented as part of the Somme100Film Centenary Tour. Accompanied by a live performance from Oxford University Orchestra conducted by Ben Palmer. Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford Link
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) + The Goat (Dir. Buster Keaton/Mal St Clair, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 45/23 mins) In Sherlock Jr, a kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train 
station – only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theatre, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic with its special effects and elaborate stunts making it a landmark in motion picture history. Find out more at silentfilm.org. The Goat is one of the funniest of Keaton’s shorts, in which he is inadvertently identified as the notorious outlaw Dead Shot Dan. He is pursued throughout the city by the local police chief, using disguises and quick-thinking to elude the lawman. He encounters Virginia, a young lady friend, and goes to her home to visit and hide out, only to discover that Virginia’s father is the police chief. Find out more at tcm.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment by Colin Sell. Link
Chicago (Dir. Frank Urson & Cecil B.DeMille (uncredited), 1927) (Screening format – not known, 118mins ) Seventy-five years before Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical version of Maurine Watkins’ successful stage play, 
Cecil B. DeMille’s production company made this saucy silent film version. Phyllis Haver is hugely entertaining as the brazen Roxie Hart “Chicago’s most beautiful murderess” – a woman so pathologically shallow she sees notoriety for a murder rap as an opportunity to secure her fortune. Egged on by her crooked lawyer (“they’ll be naming babies after you”) Roxie neglects her long-suffering loyal husband and sets about milking her celebrity status for all she’s worth. The sequence in the prison is an absolute delight – particularly the rivalry between Roxie and fellow-murderess Velma (played by DeMille’s mistress), as are the climactic courtroom scenes. A cracking, satire on fame and the media, this fun-filled tale of adultery, murder and sin (so sinful that DeMille – known for his Biblical epics – was at pains to keep his name off the credits) is as fresh and relevant as ever. Find out more at wikipedia.org . Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
The Passion of Jon of Arc (Dir. Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 82 mins) In 1926 Danish film director Dreyer was invited to make a film in France by the Societe Generale des Films and chose to direct a film about Joan of Arc, due to her renewed popularity in France (having been canonised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1920 and subsequently adopted as one of the patron saints of France). Apparently discarding a script provided by the Societe, Dreyer spent over a year researching Joan of Arc including study of the actual transcripts of her trial before producing a script of his own. In the title role Dreyer cast the little-known stage actress Renee Jeanne Falconnetti who had previously acted in just two previous, inconsequential films, both back in 1917. The film focuses upon the trial and eventual execution of Joan of Arc after she is captured by the English. Although not a popular success at the time, the film attracted immediate critical praise. The New York Times critic wrote “…as a film work of art, this takes precedence over anything so far produced. It makes worthy pictures of the past look like tinsel shams. It fills one with such intense admiration that other pictures appear but trivial in comparison.” Falconnetti’s performance has been widely lauded with critic Pauline Kael writing in 1982 that her portrayal “…may be the finest performance ever recorded on film.” The film was subsequently re-edited against Dreyer’s wishes and his original version was long thought lost. But in 1981 a near perfect copy was found in the attic of a psychiatric hospital in Oslo. The Passion of Joan of Arc now regularly appears in ‘Top Ten’ lists not just of silent films but best films of all time. Find out more at rogerebert.com . Accompanied by a new, original live score by musicians Heliopause & This Ship Argo. MAC, Belfast Link
Battleship Potemkin (Dir. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) (Screening format – DCP, 90mins) Considered one of the most important films in the history of silent pictures, as well as possibly Eisenstein’s greatest work, Battleship Potemkin brought Eisenstein’s theories of cinema art to the world in a powerful showcase; his emphasis on montage, his stress of intellectual contact, and his treatment of the mass instead of the individual as the protagonist. The film tells the story of the mutiny on the Russian ship Prince Potemkin during the 1905 uprising.Their mutiny was short-lived, however, as during their attempts to get the population of Odessa to join the uprising, soldiers arrived and laid waste to the insurgents. Battleship Potemkin is a work of extraordinary pictorial beauty and great elegance of form. It is symmetrically broken into five movements or acts. In the first of these, “Men and Maggots,” the flagrant mistreatment of the sailors at the hands of their officers is demonstrated, while the second, 
“Drama on the Quarterdeck,” presents the actual mutiny and the ship’s arrival in Odessa. “Appeal from the Dead” establishes the solidarity of the citizens of Odessa with the mutineers. It is the fourth sequence, “The Odessa Steps,” which depicts the massacre of the citizens, that thrust Eisenstein and his film into the historical eminence that both occupy today. It is unquestionably the most famous sequence of its kind in film history, and Eisenstein displays his legendary ability to convey large-scale action scenes. The shot of the baby carriage tumbling down the long staircase has been re-created in many films. The sequence’s power is such that the film’s conclusion, “Meeting the Squadron,” in which the Potemkin in a show of brotherhood is allowed to pass through the squadron unharmed, is anticlimactic. Find out more at classicartfilms.com . With live musical accompaniment by Marcelo Graf Reis aka Wushta. Prince Charles Cinema, London Link
19 May
An Evening of Buster Keaton Silents (Dir. Various) An evening of Silent Movies, featuring the many laughs and stoneface of Buster Keaton, featuring Jeff Barnhart. During the past decade Jeff Barnhart has turned his attention to performing live, era- appropriate piano accompaniment to classic silent films. He returns to Whitchurch with a treasure trove of stories and films from the early days of cinematic comedy. For this evening he will feature the movie magic of Buster Keaton possibly filmdoms greatest clown with a collection of his greatest hits. Weaving his musical magic from scene to scene Jeff will provide an unforgettable evening of education, entertainment, and above all laughter! Whitchurch & Ganarew Memorial Hall, Ross on Wye. Link
Blackmail (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins) Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice 
agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened. Alfred Hitchcock’s sinister, suspenseful tale of crime and romance is one of the last British silent films to be made. With his traditional cameo appearance in the first reel, to a spectacular moonlit chase through the British Museum in the final reel, Blackmail is a classic thriller from the Master of Suspense. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
20 May
The Gold Rush (Dir. Charles Chaplin, US, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 95 mins) In this classic silent comedy, the Little Tramp (Charles Chaplin) heads north to join in the Klondike gold rush. Trapped in a small cabin by a blizzard, the Tramp is forced to share close quarters with a successful prospector (Mack Swain) and a fugitive (Tom Murray). Eventually able to leave the cabin, he falls for a lovely barmaid (Georgia Hale), trying valiantly to win her affections. When the prospector needs help locating his claim, it appears the Tramp’s fortunes may change. It is today one of Chaplin’s most celebrated works, and he himself declared several times that it was the film for which he most wanted to be remembered. Find out more at moviessilently.com . Presented by the Lost Format Society, with live musical accompaniment by The London Mozart Players. Centrale Shopping Centre Car Park, Croydon. Link
Battle of the Somme (Dir.Geoffrey Malins, 1916) (Screening format – not known, 77mins) For details see 18 May above. Presented as part of the Somme100Film Centenary Tour. Accompanied by a live performance from the Pulham Orchestra, conducted by Margery Baker. Diss Church, Diss. Link
7th Heaven (Dir. Frank Borzage, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 110mins) Chico (Charles Farrell) is a poor Parisian sewer cleaner who aspires to work his way out of his dead-end job and into the middle class. 
When he meets Diane (Janet Gaynor), an abused prostitute, he sympathizes with her plight and tells the police she’s his wife to prevent them from arresting her. To keep up the appearances of marriage, he invites Diane to live with him, and a real romance blossoms until Chico is drafted in the army at the start of World War I. Janet Gaynor won the Best Actress award at the very first Academy Awards for her role in this gorgeously romantic drama of star-crossed Parisian lovers. With beautiful sets, stunning camerawork and a live harp score, 7th Heaven is silent-era Hollywood at its most powerful. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best (piano). Link
Exploring Silent Indian Cinema (Dir. Various) The history of India’s silent film era is explored, moulded by pioneers like Save Dada, Hiralal Sen, JJ Madan and Dadasaheb Phalke. This event includes a rare screening of India’s first feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913). The film is directed and produced by Dadasaheb Phalke, the “father of Indian Cinema”. The narrative of the film is based on the eponymous legend recounted in the Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The story centres around the hero Harishchandra, a noble king, who, to honour his promise to the sage Vishwamitra, sacrifices his kingdom, his wife, and eventually also his children. By the end, however, having pleased the Gods with his actions, Harishchandra’s former glory is restored. Introduced by film historian and South Asian Cinema Foundation (SACF) director Lalit Mohan Joshi with live music specially written and led by Pandit Vishwa Prakash. BFI Southbank, London Link
21 May
The Rink + Easy Street + The Immigrant (Dir, Charles Chaplin, US, 1916/17) (Screening format – not known, 24/19/22 mins) Three classic Charlie Chaplin films. In The Rink, after causing restaurant chaos at work, Charlie the bumbling waiter tears up the local roller rink with his skating. In Easy Street the reformed little tramp becomes a police constable who must fight a huge thug who dominates an inner city street. The Immigrant sees the little tramp arriving in America, finding the girl of his dreams but then having trouble paying for a meal. Presented as part of the Merge Festival. Introduced by Silent London’s Pamela Hutchinson. With live piano accompaniment byNeil Brand. Tate Modern, London Link
Cartoon Carnival (Dir. various) (Screening format – not known) A cavalcade of animation from the early days of cinema, with Krazy Kat, Dinky Doodle and Walt Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Link
Battle of the Somme (Dir.Geoffrey Malins, 1916) (Screening format – not known, 77mins) For details see 18 May above. Presented as part of the Somme100Film Centenary Tour. Accompanied by a live performance from the Hastings Sinfonia conducted by Derek Carden. St Mary in the Castle, Hastings. Link
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm ) A serial killer known as “The Avenger” is on the loose in London, murdering blonde women. A mysterious man (Ivor Novello) arrives at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting looking for a room to rent. The Bunting’s daughter (June Tripp) is a blonde model and is seeing one of the detectives (Malcolm Keen) assigned to the case. The detective becomes jealous of the lodger and begins to suspect he may be the #avenger. Based on a best-selling novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, first published in 1913, loosely based on the Jack the Ripper murders, The Lodger was Hitchcock’s first thriller, and his first critical and commercial success. Made shortly after his return from Germany, the film betrays the influence of the German expressionist tradition established in such films as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922). Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Link
Steamboat Bill Jr (Dir. Buster Keaton/Charles Reisner, US, 1928) (Screening format – disc, 71 mins) In Steamboat Bill Jr a crusty river boat captain hopes that his long departed son’s return will help him compete with a 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). Not a commercial success at the time, this is now rightly regarded as a Keaton classic. Find out more at Wikipedia With live organ accompaniment from Donald MacKenzie. Regent Street Cinema, London Link
22 May
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 45 mins) In Sherlock Jr, a kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train 
station – only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theatre, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic with its special effects and elaborate stunts making it a landmark in motion picture history. Find out more at silentfilm.org. Plus a selection of early cartoons including Walt Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
23 May
The House on Trubnaya (Dir. Boris Barnett, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 64mins) The film is set in Moscow at the height of the New Economic Policy era. The petty-bourgeois public carries out their philistine life full of bustle and gossip in the house on the Trubnaya Street. One of the 
tenants, Mr. Golikov (Vladimir Fogel), owner of a hairdressing salon, is looking for a housekeeper who is modest, hard-working and non-union. A suitable candidate for use seems to him a country girl nicknamed Paranya, full name Praskovya Pitunova (Vera Maretskaya) asthe house on Trubnaya receives shocking news that Praskovya Pitunova is elected deputy of the local council by the maids Trade Union …Another classic comedy from Boris Barnett, a real delight. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best (piano). , Link
24 May
A Tribute To David Shepard. This evening’s Kennington Bioscope is intended as a tribute to renowned film preservationist David Shepard who died in January. Films being shown include Regeneration (Dir Raoul Walsh, US, 1915) and the documentary The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War (Larry Ward, US, 1975) (Screening format – not known) Regeneration is the story of a young Irish-American (Rockliffe Fellowes) forced into a life of crime, but ultimately redeemed when he falls for Marie (Anna Q. Nilsson), the film was shot on location on New York’s Lower East Side, and features real prostitutes, gangsters and homeless people as extras. It also features a fire on an excursion ferry, which recalls the General Slocum disaster of 1904, 
when over 1000 people died – the second worst disaster on US waterways. Find out more at moviessilently.com . The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War was a project very close to David’s heart and is a compilation documentary narrated by Lowell Thomas, illustrating changing attitudes toward the war and its participants, as well as toward the movies themselves. Every shot is an image preserved from those days – actual and faked news films, government propaganda films, fiction films that range from the sensational excesses of ‘Hun brutality’ to the sentiment of D.W. Griffith, as well as magazine covers, posters, lantern slides and still photographs. The filmmakers were doctoral candidates in American studies, and apart from being quite entertaining, the film has been praised by historians for its balance and accuracy. Winner, Gold Medal, 1975 Chicago Film Festival. Find out more at imdb.com Introduced by Kevin Brownlow, with live piano accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth, London Link
25 May
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) + One Week (Dir. Buster Keaton/Eddie Cline, 1920) + Cops (Dir. Buster Keaton/Eddie Cline, 1922)(Screening format – DVD, 45/19/20 mins) In Sherlock Jr, a kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief
(Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train station – only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theatre, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic with its special effects and elaborate stunts making it a landmark in motion picture history. Find out more at silentfilm.org. One Week sees Buster and his new bride struggling with a pre-fabricated home while in Cops Buster contrives to get himself chased by the entire LA police department. With live piano accompaniment by Meg Morley. 1901 Arts Club, Waterloo, London Link
Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lange, 1927) (Screening format –DVD, Jan ’05 pre-restored version, 118mins) Made in Germany during the Weimar period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder (Gustav Frohlich), the wealthy son of the city’s ruler, and Maria (Brigitte Helm), a poor worker, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes of their city. Filming took place in 1925 at a cost of approximately five million Reichmarks, making it the most expensive film ever released up to that point. It is regarded as a pioneering work of science fiction and is among the most influential films of all time. Find out more at silentfilm.org With live piano accompaniment by Dmytro Morykit. MAC, Belfast Link
26 May
Blackmail (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins) Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920’s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night Alice 
agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else and blackmail is threatened. Alfred Hitchcock’s sinister, suspenseful tale of crime and romance is one of the last British silent films to be made. With his traditional cameo appearance in the first reel, to a spectacular moonlit chase through the British Museum in the final reel, Blackmail is a classic thriller from the Master of Suspense. Find out more at screenonline.org.uk Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment by Meg Morley. Link
27 May
Cartoon Carnival (Dir. various) (Screening format – not known) A cavalcade of animation from the early days of cinema, with Krazy Kat, Dinky Doodle and Walt Disney’s Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment by Meg Morley. , Link
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 45 mins) In Sherlock Jr, a kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train station – only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theatre, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic with its special effects and elaborate stunts making it a landmark in motion picture history. Find out more at silentfilm.org. Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live piano accompaniment. Link
Ben Hur (Dir. Fred Niblo, 1925) (Screening format – 35mm, 155mins) Betrayed by his boyhood friend, Massala, Ben Hur is imprisoned as a galley slave on a Roman ship and left to die. Saved by a sympathetic general, he sets out to find his lost family. And one day, many years later, Ben Hur and Massala meet once more for a final, violent reckoning as competing Roman charioteers in the Circus Maximus……The most epic silent film of them all, Ben Hur is a gripping tale of love and revenge. At its premiere in 1925 nothing like it had ever been seen before. The dazzling special effects, thrilling action, glorious technicolour sequences and a cast of thousands helped Ben Hur make MGM’s reputation as the blockbuster studio. The famous chariot race is jaw-dropping even today – captured by forty two cameras, with hundreds of horses and thousands of extras, the sequence was recreated almost shot-by-shot for the 1959 remake with Charlton Heston. Find out more at moviessilently.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Jonathan Best (piano) and Trevor Bartlett (percussion). Link
28 May
The Big Parade (Dir. King Vidor, US, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 151mins) One of the earliest films produced by a newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, The Big Parade was a huge box office smash (MGM’s highest grossing silent feature) and cemented King Vidor as a prestige filmmaker. The story of idle American James Apperson (John Gilbert), who is deployed to Europe when the USA join WWI, its plot points were heavily borrowed from 1924 Broadway play What Price Glory?. Centred around his romance with a French local (Renée Adorée), it is full of strange, wonderful moments and impressive scenes of battle. Find out more at sensesofcinema.com . With recorded soundtrack. Filmhouse, Edinburgh Link
The House on Trubnaya (Dir. Boris Barnett, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 64mins) The film is set in Moscow at the height of the New Economic Policy era. The petty-bourgeois public carries out their philistine life full of bustle and gossip in the 
house on the Trubnaya Street. One of the tenants, Mr. Golikov (Vladimir Fogel), owner of a hairdressing salon, is looking for a housekeeper who is modest, hard-working and non-union. A suitable candidate for use seems to him a country girl nicknamed Paranya, full name Praskovya Pitunova (Vera Maretskaya) asthe house on Trubnaya receives shocking news that Praskovya Pitunova is elected deputy of the local council by the maids Trade Union …Another classic comedy from Boris Barnett, a real delight. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds Link
The Four Just Men (Dir. George Ridgwell, 1921) (Screening format – not known) This little known British silent crime film starring Cecil Humphreys, Teddy Arundell and Charles Croker-King was based on the 1904 novel The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace. Its plot concerns four vigilantes who seek revenge for the public against criminals. Find out more at imdb.com Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds 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 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 Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds Link
Chicago (Dir. Frank Urson & Cecil B.DeMille (uncredited), 1927) (Screening format – not known, 118mins ) Seventy-five years before Bob Fosse’s Oscar-winning musical version of Maurine Watkins’ successful stage play, Cecil B. DeMille’s production company made this saucy silent film version. Phyllis Haver is hugely entertaining as the brazen Roxie Hart “Chicago’s most beautiful murderess” – a woman so pathologically shallow she sees notoriety for a murder rap as an opportunity to secure her fortune. Egged 
on by her crooked lawyer (“they’ll be naming babies after you”) Roxie neglects her long-suffering loyal husband and sets about milking her celebrity status for all she’s worth. The sequence in the prison is an absolute delight – particularly the rivalry between Roxie and fellow-murderess Velma (played by DeMille’s mistress), as are the climactic courtroom scenes. A cracking, satire on fame and the media, this fun-filled tale of adultery, murder and sin (so sinful that DeMille – known for his Biblical epics – was at pains to keep his name off the credits) is as fresh and relevant as ever. Find out more at wikipedia.org . Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment. Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds Link
The Rink (Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1916) + Limousine Love (Dir. FredGuiol, 1928) + The Finishing Touch (Dir. Clyde Bruckman, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 24/20/19 mins) In The Rink, Charlie Chaplin employs an unorthodox approach to his work as a waiter. He prepares bills by examining food stains on customers clothing, he makes a cocktail with a shimmy of his body while the cocktail shaker remains immobile in his hands and he carelessly places a broiler cover over a live cat that he serves to a startled diner. He is however also incredibly graceful on roller skates, which is how he spends his lunch break…Find out more at imdb.com. In Limousine Love, its Charley Chase’s wedding day and he’s 
running late. When his chauffeur quits in a huff Charley is forced to take the wheel himself, in his formal get-up of tailcoat and top hat, and drive through a remote rural area to the wedding. After stepping away from his car for a brief moment he comes back and resumes driving unaware that he has a beautiful nude girl riding in the backseat, which is where the fun begins….Find out more at imdb.com . In The Finishing Touch Laurel and Hardy are contracted to build a house in one day but on completion a bird lands on the chimney and the house collapses, bit by bit. When the owner demands his money back, mayhem ensues. Find out more at wikipedia.org . Presented as part of the Herne Hill Free Festival. With live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. Herne Hill Railway Station, London SE21 Link
The Informer (Dir. Arthur Robison, 1929) (Screening format – DCP, 101mins) A technically and artistically sophisticated drama set in Dublin amongst members of a revolutionary party in the newly independent Ireland of 1922. The noir-ish story follows the fateful consequences of jealousy and betrayal when fiery Gypo ‘informs’ on his former comrade Francis, out of misguided suspicion over a girl. With a German/American director, a Hungarian leading lady and a Swedish leading man the international nature of the production was typical of a period in filmmaking unencumbered by dialogue and exhibits hallmarks of a distinctively German style thanks to cinematography by Werner Brandes (‘Piccadilly’) and Lubitsch regular Theodor Sparkuhl. The film was released in both part-talkie and silent versions but this afternoon we present the superior, silent version, newly restored by the British Film Institute. Find out more at screenonline.org . Presented with a new recorded score by Irish composer and violist Garth Knox. BFI Southbank, London Link
30 May
Shkurnik (aka A Profiteer, aka The Self-Seeker) (Dir. Nikolai Shpikovsky, Ukr/USSR, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 75mins) Shkurnik is a little known avant-garde film of the period. It is a comic tale of survival in the kaleidoscopic change of circumstances during the civil war in Ukraine and a biting satire on the Soviet propaganda. In the film, the peaceful bourgeois life of an opportunistic Kiev resident is interrupted by the civil war. Seeking first the protection of the white Russian forces he then falls into the hands of the Red Army. Will he survive in the hands of the (female) Bolshevik commisar or will his ingrained thirst for a profit once again put his life in danger. The film, produced by VUFKU, the the All-Ukrainian Photo-Cinema Directorate in 1929, was quickly banned by the Soviet authorities and is virtually unknown to western audiences. Find out more at imdb.com . Presented by the Ukrainian Institute, London and the LSESU Ukranian Society as part of a series to mark “A Century of Ukrainian Revolutions: 1917-2017”. The screening will be preceeded by a presentation ‘Why the Ukrainian Revolution Matters for Historians of the Russian Revolutions? by US slavic studies academic Professor Mark von Hagen. With recorded soundtrack. LSE Old Building, London WC2. Link
The Golden Clown (Dir. A.W. Sandberg, 1926) (Screening format – not known) The Golden Clown is a little known masterpieces of Danish silent cinema and develops the love triangle between the lovable clown, the circus princess and the 
Parisian bon vivant. Like so many films of the silent era, it is a tale of the old rural world and the glamour and danger in the big city. Sandberg was the leading director at the Nordisk Films Kompagni from 1916 until 1926 when he left the company due to their lack of support of his financial management in connection with the production of The Golden Clown. He finished the film with his own funds. Find out more at Silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by leading silent film musician Neil Brand. Link
31 May
Pandora’s Box (Dir. G W Pabst, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – DCP, 135mins) On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of G.W. Pabst on 29 May 2017, the Goethe Institute is presenting one of his most iconic films. The Austrian born director is often named alongside Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau as one of the great directors of Weimar Cinema. Based on two plays by the German author Frank Wedekind, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit, 1895), which Pabst himself had directed for the stage, and Die Büchse der Pandora (Pandora’s Box, 1904), the silent drama follows the tumultuous life of the showgirl Lulu whose unselfconscious sexuality brings about the ruin of all those that fall for her and eventually her own. In a daring move, Pabst chose a little known American actress over the more experienced Marlene Dietrich for the part of Lulu, a decision that made the young Louise Brooks a star. Her innocent looks paired with her natural erotic allure and sense of movement – Brooks was also a dancer – perfectly matched Pabst’s idea of his heroine as unwitting seductress. Subjected to cuts to eliminate some of its “scandalous” content and unfavourably reviewed by critics at the time, it is now considered one of the boldest and most modern films of the Weimar era highlighting Pabst’s command of camera language and montage. Find out more at silentlondon.co.uk . With recorded Peer Raben soundtrack. Goethe Institute, London SW7. Link
The Woman Men Desire (aka The Woman One Longs For, aka Three Lovers, aka Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt) (Dir. Curtis Bernhardt, 1929) (Screening forman – not known, 75mins) 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. But this is a welcome opportunity to see this rarely screened classic which marked an important milestone in Dietrich’s career development Find out more at silentfilm.org . Presented as the Yorkshire Silent Film Festival Finale. With live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. , Link
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