1 September

Chaplin V Keaton: Open Day  South West Silents  present an open day at 20th Century Flicks where they take over their two mini cinemas and screen the best shorts by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.  With recorded scores.  20th Century Flicks, Bristol Link

2 September

The Living Picture Craze: An Introduction to Victorian Film  In this three week course let the BFI take you on a  journey back to the end of the Victorian era; a time of intense modernisation and unprecedented change. Using the BFI’s unique collection of surviving Victorian films they will debate with you common myths about the period and the materials, as well as examine what the films reveal about the society that produced them,  leading you through the many spectacles and curiosities made during film’s formative years, 1895-1901.   BFI Southbank, London Link

4 September

Lorna Doone  (Dir. Maurice Tourneur, US, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 70mins) Based on R.D. Blackmore’s famous novel from 1869, the 1922 screen version of Lorna Doone was one of the films made by French director Maurice Tourneur after his move to the United States. It had previously been filmed in Britain by the Clarendon company in 1912 and by American Biograph in 1915. In this version Madge Bellamy takes the role of Lorna, a long-lost aristocrat who was taken as a child and raised by an outlaw family – headed by the sinister Sir Ensor Doone (Frank Keenan) – and is thus unaware of her true heritage. John Bowers plays her lover, John Ridd, who defends Lorna despite the perceived rivalry between their respective families. Find out more at moviessilently.com.   Presented by the Kennington Bioscope.  With live musical accompaniment.  Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link

5 September

The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show This spectacularly entertaining compilation highlights the work of those bold experimenters at the dawn of the moving-picture revolution who were quick to explore the possibilities of the medium. The large-format film was one way to astound audiences with the depth and clarity of the images projected onto a massive screen. For the first time outside London, this special event will showcase a selection of some of the earliest moving pictures. Expect to be astounded by these incredibly rare surviving fragments of Britain’s first films, skilfully preserved by the BFI National Archive and presented here in a new 4K digital format. Introduced by Bryony Dixon, curator for silent film at the BFI National Archive.  The presentation will also feature live music from composer and pianist John Sweeney, whose original score complements the show wonderfully, with accompaniment from percussionist Frank Bockius.  Science and Media Museum, Bradford  Link

6 September

Man With a Movie Camera (Dir. Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 68mins) “An experiment in the creative communication of visible events without the aid of inter-titles, a scenario or theatre “aiming at creating a truly international absolute language of cinema,” is how the inter-titles describe what is about to be seen. Bold claims indeed, but in its awesome sophistication The Man with a Movie Camera does live up to them, making it one of the most contemporary of silent movies. The subject, the life of a city from dawn to dusk, was not original even for 1928, but its treatment was–the cameraman as voyeur, social commentator and prankster, exploiting every trick permissible with the technology of the day (slow motion, dissolves, split screens, freeze frames, stop motion animation, etc). Directed by Vertov, with this variety of complex and innovative camera shots (filmed by Vertov’s equally talented and innovative brother Mikhail Kaufman), the film depicts scenes of ordinary daily life in Russia. A young woman stirs in her bed, apparently fighting a nightmare in which a cameraman is about to be crushed by an oncoming train. She wakes up, and the sequence is revealed to be a simple trick shot. As she blinks her weary eyes, the shutters of her window mimic her viewpoint, and the iris of the camera spins open. Self-reflexive wit like this abounds here–there’s even a delicious counterpoint made between the splicing of film and the painting of a woman’s nails.  Find out more at openculture.com .  With live musical accompaniment from The Cabinet of Living Cinema.  LSO St Lukes, London EC1 Link

The Last Laugh (Dir. F W Murnau, Ger, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 90mins)  The Last Laugh is one of the most important films of the Weimar Republic and a most important piece of cinema history.  Emil Jannings, probably the greatest actor of his time, plays a proud hotel doorman, whose character is devastated when his manager demotes him to washroom attendant because of his advanced years.  The film also gained importance for film history through a new camera technology, the “unchained camera” used by the famous UFA-cinematographer Karl Freund for the first time.  Find out more at rogerebert.com .  Presented by South West Silents.  With live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.  The Cube Cinema, Bristol Link

7 September

The Live Ghost Tent – Quarterly meeting of The Laurel and Hardy Society. Film screenings to be confirmed.  The Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link

11 September

From Morn To Midnight (aka Von morgens bis Mitternacht)  (Dir.  Karl Heinz Martin, Ger, 1920 ) (Screening format – not known,   73 mins) From Morn To Midnight is perhaps  the purest example of German expressionist cinema with its bi dimensional grossly distorted sets and the exaggerated make-up, costumes and acting mannerisms of the cast. The characters don’t have names and are designated by their function: the Cashier, the Lady, the Young Man, the Bank Manager, the Fat Man, the Second-Hand Dealer, etc. In each scene, a clock is displayed showing the progression of the day until Midnight.  Adapted from a play by Georg Kaiser, written in 1912, and first staged in 1917, the film version was adapted and directed by Karl Heinz Martin who had already made a name for himself in Frankfurt and Hamburg as the most radical theater director then working in Germany.  The story traces the exploits of a lowly bank cashier.  When a rich woman visits his bank one day, he begins to understand the lure of money, and steals a huge sum. He attempts to find pleasure in spending the cash, only to ultimately realise that material pleasures are insubstantial.    The film gained only a limited initial release in Germany and was long considered lost until a version was discovered in Japan in 1963.   Find out more at britishsilentfilmfestival.com.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.  New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester. Link

12 September

From Music Hall to Cinematograph – The films, life and work of Alf Collins and the Collins’ Family  Ray & Sylvia Spare give an illustrated presentation on their great-grandfather, film pioneer Alfred Collins. Although now largely forgotten, Alfred Collins was a prolific early British director (IMDb has him as the director of 226 films) working with his wife Maud from studios in South London.  The talk features new research on Alf and his extended family of song-writers, performers and filmmakers & includes films unseen for decades.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.  Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

ABC in Sound     In this illustrated talk the BFI’s Bryony Dixon celebrates her (and William Fowler’s) rediscovery, after 86 years, of Lazlo Moholy Nagy’s ABC In Sound (1933),  Thought lost for many years, this playful film combines abstract geometry and textures to create a visible soundtrack, and even features the fingerprints of the director himself.  Bryony goes on to look at the roots of experiments in sound film from the earliest days of cinema into the era of modernist art film.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

The Oyster Princess (aka Die Austernprinzessin )  (Dir. Ernst Lubitsch, Ger, 1919)  (Screning format – not known, 58mins)  ‘If I don’t have a husband in five minutes, I’ll demolish the entire house!’ Ossi Oswalda, one of the funniest females in screen history, plays a spoilt young woman in The Oyster Princess whose self-made millionaire father promises to marry her to a prince. Lubitsch’s exquisitely orchestrated comedy satirises the fashion for all things American, with surreal gags about conspicuous consumption and crazy dance styles.  Find out more at sensesofcinema.com  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film programmer Margaret Deriaz.  With live musical accompaniment.  Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

Peace on the Western Front (Dir. Fred Swann/Hans Nieter, UK, 1931) (Screening format – DCP) Towards the end of 1930, two veterans of the First World War, one German and the other British, came together to shoot a film pilgrimage of the Western Front battlefields to impress upon younger generations that war, “is not a childish game, a glorious adventure”, but “a hideous ugly thing”. Released in 1931 the film gained a following among the burgeoning peace movement and became an unofficial film for the League of Nations Union. The soundtrack was recorded on discs, now sadly lost, so a script has been created from the synopsis in the original press brochure and accounts of the battlefields and war-ravaged towns written at the time.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival. Introduced by Toby Haggith, Senior Curator from the Imperial War Museum. With live musical accompaniment.  Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

Comradeship (Dir. Maurice Elvey, UK, 1919) (Screening format – not known, 92mins)  Maurice Elvey’s Comradeship (1919) was his first film for Stoll and also the British studio’s first feature-length production, made towards the end of the war. It featured the stage actress Lily Elsie – in one of her rare film appearances – as a Red Cross matron and in many ways the film is a surprisingly modern take on the physical and emotional costs of war amongst both the participants and their families. Elvey took the opportunity to incorporate authentic footage of victory celebrations in London in 1918. Find out more at wikipedia.org   Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival. Introduced by Maurice Elvey expert Dr Lucie Dutton.  With live musical accompaniment.  Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

The Song of the Scarlet Flower (aka Sången om den eldröda blomman) (Dir.  Mauritz Stiller, Swe, 1919 ) (Screening format – not known,  101mins)  The Song of the Scarlet Flower is based on a famous novel by Finnish writer Johannes Linnankoski about the farmer’s son Olof, who is banished from his father’s farm, and takes a job on the river  but who cannot forget Annikki, the daughter of the neighboring farmer. Stiller’s version is regarded as still the best of the four film adaptions of the novel.  The film is one of the highlights of the golden age of Swedish silent film, and is typical of the films in the late 1910s and early 1920s being based on a famous literary source, with a large budget, and filmed principally on location.  Lars Hanson is superb as the carefree charmer Olof. The film was also significant in being the first Swedish film to have a bespoke score by renowned Finnish composer Armas Järnefelt to accompany its release.  Find out more at imdb.com  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With recorded Armas Järnefelt score.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

The Alley Cat (Dir. Hans Steinoff, Br-Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 79mins)  This rarely-seen British-German silent drama starring Jack Trevor, Mabel Poulton & Clifford McLaglen is an East-End murder-mystery that teeters on the absurd, with a man who thinks he has killed a millionaire being cared for by a Cockney girl and who then becomes a composer.  Apparently full of action, character, fun and frenzy what could  there be not to like!  Find out more at wikipedia.org.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

13 September

The City of Song (Dir. Carmine Gallone, Br-Ger, 1931)(Screening format – not known, 96 mins)  The City of Song was an early Anglo-German musical romance.  When a rich English (Betty Stockfeld) woman travels to Naples seeking distraction, she finds it in the form of her Italian guide (Jan Kiepura), who has a wonderful singing voice.   She persuades him to return with her to London where she will promote his singing career.  But will success prove elusive and what of his true love back in Naples?   Jan Kiepura was a famous singer from the 1930s.  Find out more at  wikipedia.org  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film historian Geoff Brown.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

British silent rarities from the Archive Film Agency   Enjoy a selection of comedies and drama from the 1910s and early 1920s, recently digitised from nitrate originals by the Archive Film Agency and unseen in the UK for decades. A Merry Night is a drunken comedy with some disorientating special effects, The Nervous Curate and The Curate’s Double both feature hapless clergymen, always good for a joke as are henpecked husbands in Mr O’Kelly Takes His Missus to Southend. Part II of the programme changes tone and features H.B Parkinson’s 1922 A Tale of Two Cities with Clive Brook in an early role and Fred Paul’s 1921 The Oath made as part of the Grande Guignol series.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film academic Laraine Porter.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

The Silver Lining  (Dir. Thomas Bentley, Br, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 90mins)  Another little known drama from British International Pictures, starring Marie Ault (the hard-bitten Mrs Hawthorn from Maurice Elvey’s Hindle Wakes) in a story of two brothers who fall out over a girl, after which one tries to frame the other for a crime he didn’t commit.  Find out more at  wikipedia.org.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

Tons of Money  (Dir. Frank Crane, Br, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 80mins) Aubrey Allington (Leslie Henson), pursued by his creditors and learning of a possible inheritance, is persuaded by his wife to fake his own death and return as his long-lost relative George Maitland to claim the inheritance. He returns as Maitland (who had been living in Mexico) but so does the real George Maitland, as well as Henry (brother of Aubrey’s butler Sprules) who is also impersonating Maitland in the hope of claiming the inheritance. Tons of Money began life as a stage play, the first in a long line of Aldwych farces.  Comedian and star Henson then recreated the role in this film adaption.  Find out more at imdb.com.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

Spring Awakening (aka Frühlingserwachen)  (Dir, Richard Oswald, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known,   95mins)   Moritz Stiefel faces expulsion due to poor marks. When he is caught with an essay titled “Shame and Lust”, he is indeed kicked out – instead of classmate Melchior Gabor, who actually authored the essay. Gabor was drawing on his experiences with neighbourhood girl Wendla. Then Wendla turns up pregnant. Stiefel descends into despair … Based upon a play of the same name by Frank Wedekind (who was also the source for Pabst’s Pandora’s Box)  the film provided a chance to explore “modern” youth culture, complete with cigarettes, jazz music, the gramophone, and a goodly bit of alcohol. Richard Oswald, a master of films of manners and young sex beginning in the 1910s, fully explores the temptations of youth, even early childhood flirtatiousness. At the same time, with his target audience in mind, the film laments the bigotry and double standards of the adult world. Find out more at wikipedia.org.    Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by Michael Eaton.  With live musical accompaniment.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester   Link

The Struggle for the Matterhorn (Dir. Mario Bonnard/Nunzio Malsomma, Ger, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 117mins)  Out of the studio and into the wild: this Alpine thriller (a peculiarly German genre) is based on the true story of English climber Edward Whymper who vies with Jean-Antoine Carrel, an Italian mountain guide, to conquer the Matterhorn. Tyrolean athlete Luis Trenker, later a leading director, cuts a dash as the mean and moody Italian. The breathtaking camerawork creates nail-biting suspense. Find out more at giornatedelcinemamuto.it.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film programmer Miranda Gower-Qian .  With live musical accompaniment.   Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

14 September

Tell Me Tonight (aka Be Mine Tonight) (Dir. Anatole Litvak, Br-Ger, 1932) (Screening format – not known, 91 mins) Another early romantic musical, again starring Jan Kiepura, he of City of Song screened yesterday.    Some dispute amongst sources as to the plot of this one but possibly about a famous opera star, perhaps dominated by his female manager, who disguises his identity and retreats to a Tyrolean village to escape his fans but then falls for the mayor’s daughter. Maybe!.  Find out more at wikipedia.org.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film historian Geoff Brown .    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

The Runaway Princess  (Dir. Anthony Asquith/Fritz Wendhausen, Br-Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known,  78 mins)  A European princess flees a forced marriage to a prince she does not know, and takes refuge in London as a lowly shop worker. Unlike his two previous film’s (Shooting Stars and Underground) which were characterised by a tense realism this, Asquith’s third directorial feature, is much lighter stuff, a romantic comedy which is considered a minor work in comparison.  But there are some nice touches, particularly the outdoor London photography.  Find out more at imdb.com.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film academic Laraine Porter.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

Neil Brand’s Laurel and Hardy Show    From their earliest days on opposite sides of the Atlantic in music hall and on the stage, to their individual comedy films before they were paired up by Hal Roach, and on to their silent masterpieces before the arrival of sound, Neil Brand tells the touching story of the world’s greatest comedy team, who could not have been two more different men!  Fully illustrated with stills, clips (both silent and sound) and Neil’s piano accompaniment and culminating in two of the Boys’ best silent short films, this is a show that promises gales of laughter throughout, as well as getting under the skin of two warm, funny men who continue to make the world laugh when it needs it most.   Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Leicester Museum and Art Gallery Link

The Boer War on Screen  An illustrated talk by Bryony Dixon and Matt Lee on this bitter conflict, perhaps the earliest to be captured on film and newsreel.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

The Midnight Girl (Dir. Adolf Philippe, USA, 1919) + Toni (Dir. Arthur Maude, Br, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 20/72 mins) Little seen musical comedy The Midnight Girl, newly digitised from a nitrate print, was written by and starred Adolf Philipp, leading light of the New York German-language musical and comedy theatre. Marie Pagano plays Clarisse, a Parisian agency Nursing Sister by day, caring for a man who is ailing under newly passed Prohibition Laws. She steals away by night and transforms into the featured dancer in an underground temperance drinking den (“Buttermilk 50 Cents” states a sign). Romantic entanglement threatens as her charge pursues her, wishing to uncover her identity, but Clarisse is already married to her pianist…Find out more at britishsilentfilmfestival.com. Toni is another little known thriller from British International Pictures.  So little known in fact that IMDb has only ” A rich man poses as a detective’s double to save a princess from jewel thieves.” while the BFI can muster simply ” Mild thriller”.  Starring debonair, man-about-town Jack Buchanan the film was based upon a play by Dion Titheradge.  Find out (not much) more at wikipedia.org.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced (and chorus sung) by film researcher and programmer Michelle Facey.  With live musical accompaniment.     Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (aka Le fantôme du Moulin Rouge)(Dir Rene Clair, Fr, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 90 mins)  After two short films, Entr’acte and Paris qui Dort (both 1924) Rene Clair went on to direct this, his first feature length film. The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge continues with the same mischievously surreal themes of his first two short films with the story of a man, frustrated in his romantic ambitions, who becomes the victim for a scientific experiment in which a strange doctor seperates the soul of the man from his body. Disembodied and invisible, the man whiles away his time playing practical jokes but eventually seeks to return to his own body.  However, that body has now been discovered by the police and the doctor charged with murder.   Will soul and body ever be reunited.  Perhaps not in the same class as later Clair silents such as The Italian Straw Hat or Les Deux Timides (both 1928) this is an amusing tale, especially in this UK premier of a newly restored version.  Find out more at imdb.com.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.    With live musical accompaniment.     Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

Tesha (aka A Woman in the Night) (Dir. Victor Saville/Edwin Greenwood, Br, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 95mins)  Tesha is another little known British drama which concerns a Russian dancer (Maria Corda) who marries a shell-shocked war veteran. But she then embarks on an affair with his best friend and crisis beckons when she falls pregnant. Originally shot as a silent, a sound version was released in 1929.   Find out more at wikipedia.org.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.    With live musical accompaniment.     Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

The Wizard of Oz (Dir. Larry Semon, US, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 93mins) Sharing little in common with the classic Judy Garland version of 1939 and differing radically from L Frank Baum’s source novel, this version of Oz is primarily a vehicle for director and star Larry Semon.  Dorothy is portrayed by Dorothy Dwan, the then Mrs Semon, and Oliver Hardy crops up as the Tin Man.  Although the film did reasonable business on first release it was never a critical hit and this judgement hasn’t changed over the years  Although perhaps not the worst silent film of all time (although this is an accolade some have awarded it) this version of Oz has little to recommend it…oh, unless that is you like projectile vomiting ducks!.  Find out more at moviessilently.com.  With live organ accompaniment from Donald MacKenzie.  St Mary and St Giles Church, Stony Stratford Link

Lotte Reiniger’s Fairy Tales  + Show & Tell with pianist Lillian Henley   Featuring a stunning selection of Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette fairy tales accompanied live by pianist Lillian Henley.  At this special event, as well as accompanying the short films, Lillian will talk to us about what she does as a silent film musician and how she helps the audience follow the stories on screen through the music.  Barbican, London  Link

15 September

A Surprise Film!  A secret early sound film will delight audiences.  Come along and find out what it is.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by film historian Geoff Brown .    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

A slow journey across Europe – A programme of early travelogues.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by Bryony Dixon .    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

‘An Appreciation of Film’: The Leicester Film Society in the 1930s’  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by Sue Porter.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

The Puppet Man  (Dir. Frank Hall Crane, Br, 1921) (Screening format – not known, 60mins) Another British rarity, this time from the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company with a story set in Austria about a disfigured and vindictive circus puppeteer.  Leading man Hugh Miller was still working in the 1960s and had a minor role in Lawrence of Arabia.  Find out more at imdb.com.    Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  With live musical accompaniment.    Phoenix Cinema, Leicester Link

Screening the Victorians This spectacularly entertaining compilation highlights the work of those bold experimenters at the dawn of the moving-picture revolution who were quick to explore the possibilities of the medium. The large-format film was one way to astound audiences with the depth and clarity of the images projected onto a massive screen. This compilation will showcase a selection of some of the earliest moving pictures. Expect to be astounded by these incredibly rare surviving fragments of Britain’s first films, skillfully preserved by the BFI National Archive and presented here in a new 4K digital format.  Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival.  Introduced by Bryony Dixon .  Leicester Museum and Art Gallery Link

19 September

Regeneration (Dir Raoul Walsh, US, 1915) (Screening format – not known, 72 mins) 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  Presented by South West Silents and Wessex Film & Sound Archive and also featuring amateur film footage from the archives.  With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne.  Hampshire Record Office, Winchester  Link

20 September

Early Women Film Makers – Highlights from a new collection of films from the BFI. More women worked in film during its first two decades than at any time since. This necessary and timely collection highlights the work of early silent cinema’s most innovative and influential women directors, re-writing and celebrating their rightful place in film history.  Presented as part of the Sea Change film festival.  With recorded score.  An Talla, Isle of Tiree, Inner Hebrides. Link

21 September

Early Women Film Makers – Highlights from a new collection of films from the BFI. More women worked in film during its first two decades than at any time since. This necessary and timely collection highlights the work of early silent cinema’s most innovative and influential women directors, re-writing and celebrating their rightful place in film history.  Presented as part of the Sea Change film festival.  Introduced by Shona Thompson.  With recorded score.  An Talla, Isle of Tiree, Inner Hebrides. Link

22 September

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  With live musical accompaniment by Tony Judge.  Jacaranda Records, Liverpool Link

Phantom of the Moulin Rouge (aka Le fantôme du Moulin Rouge)(Dir Rene Clair, Fr, 1925) (Screening format – DCP, 78 mins)  After two short films, Entr’acte and Paris qui Dort (both 1924) Rene Clair went on to direct this, his first feature length film. The Phantom of the Moulin Rouge continues with the same mischievously surreal themes of his first two short films with the story of a man, frustrated in his romantic ambitions, who becomes the victim for a scientific experiment in which a strange doctor separates the soul of the man from his body. Disembodied and invisible, the man whiles away his time playing practical jokes but eventually seeks to return to his own body.  However, that body has now been discovered by the police and the doctor charged with murder.   Will soul and body ever be reunited.  Perhaps not in the same class as later Clair silents such as The Italian Straw Hat or Les Deux Timides (both 1928) this is an amusing tale, especially in this newly restored version.  Find out more at imdb.com. With live piano accompaniment.  BFI Southbank, London Link

Speedy (Dir. Ted Wilde, US, 1928) (Screening format – mot known, 86mins) Harold Lloyd’s final silent film sees him reprise his ‘glasses character’ as a baseball-obsessed New Yorker (the film features a cameo from the legendary Babe Ruth) who becomes determined to save the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar, motivated in no small part by its owner being the grandfather of his love interest. Filled with Lloyd’s trademark rapid-fire visual humour and elaborate set-ups, it’s a fine example of his innovative approach to comedy. Find out more at allmovie.com.  With live piano accompaniment by Lillian Henley.  Palace Cinema, Broadstairs  Link

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Groβtadt) (Dir. Walter Ruttman, Ger, 1927) (Screening format – not known,   65mins)  This is a visual symphony in five movements celebrating the Berlin of 1927: the people, the place, the everyday details of life on the streets. Director Walter Ruttman, an experimental filmmaker, approached cinema in similar ways to his Russian contemporary Dziga Vertoz, mixing documentary, abstract, and expressionist modes for a nonnarrative style that captured the life of his countrymen. But where Vertov mixed his observations with examples of the communist dream in action, Ruttman re-creates documentary as, in his own words, “a melody of pictures.” Within the loose structure of a day in the life of the city (with a prologue that travels from the country into the city on a barreling train), the film takes us from dawn to dusk, observing the silent city as it awakens with a bustle of activity, then the action builds and calms until the city settles back into sleep. But the city is as much the architecture, the streets, and the machinery of industry as it is people, and Ruttman weaves all these elements together to create a portrait in montage, the poetic document of a great European city captured in action. Held together by rhythm, movement, and theme, Ruttman creates a documentary that is both involving and beautiful to behold. Find out more at sensesofcinema.com .  With live musical accompaniment by Paul Robinson’s HarmonieBand.  Home, Manchester  Link

25 September

Ingeborg Holm  (Dir. Victor Sjostrom, Swe, 1913) (Screening format – not known, 72mins) Ingeborg Holm is a social drama directed by Victor Sjöström, who later worked in Hollywood under the anglicised surname Seastrom, where he directed He Who Gets Slapped (1924) and The Wind (1928) amongst other films.  . Reportedly based on a true story, Ingeborg Holm was adapted from a 1906 stage play by Nils Krok, who co-wrote the screenplay with Sjöström. It was perhaps the first feature length narrative film – a film that came along a full two years before D. W. Griffith made Birth of a Nation –  chronicling the misfortunes of a widow (Hilda Borgström) whose deteriorating health leads to dependence on the Workhouse and estrangement from her children. The film prompted debate in Sweden over such conditions and brought about changes to the law.  Find out more at wikipedia.org. Presented by the Kennington Bioscope.  With live musical accompaniment.  Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link

27 September

A  Gothic Night Out Join the Musical Museum for a night of Gothic film where, from beneath the stage, the haunting tones of the Mighty Wurlitzer organ will rise again as they did almost one hundred years ago. Donald MacKenzie, talented organist and silent film maestro will provide the spine-chilling accompaniment to a quartet of Silent Horror Films – presenting extracts from Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Musical Museum, Brentford  Link

28 September

Cottage on Dartmoor (Dir. Anthony Asquith, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 84mins)  Joe (Uno Henning) works as a barber in a shop in a Devon town, alongside a manicurist called Sally (Norah Baring). He becomes infatuated with her and asks her out but  it is clear that Sally does not reciprocate Joe’s feelings.  Joe’s infatuation with her develops into obsession. Meanwhile a young  farmer Harry (Hans Schlettow), begins to woo Sally and the couple begin seeing each other which leaves Joe in despair. After a fight with Harry, Joe is jailed but swears revenge on Harry and Sally.  A Cottage on Dartmoor is a tale of love and revenge set in the bleak landscape of Dartmoor and a thoughtful distillation of the best of European silent film techniques from a director steeped in the work of the Soviet avant-garde and German expressionism. One of the last films of the silent era and a virtuoso piece of film-making, A Cottage on Dartmoor was a final passionate cry in defence of an art form soon to be obsolete. Find out more at    silentfilm.org. With live musical accompaniment by Wurlitza .   Noss Mayo, Devon Link