January
11 January
Celebrating 100 Years of Laurel and Hardy with Neil Brand Neil Brand returns with the premiere of his all-new Laurel and Hardy Centenary Tour. Neil will 
introduce and live-accompany the best gags, stunts and stories from their earliest days, tracing the development of their timeless and hilarious comic technique, in pristine clips from the latest restorations. Two classic shorts, The Finishing Touch and You’re Darn Tootin’, complete the show with Neil’s own score. With live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand. BFI Southbank, London Link
18 January
High Treason (Dir. Maurice Elvey, UK, 1929) (Screening format – 35mm, 95mins) A British sci-fi thriller set in 1950s London, involving a plot by evil arms dealers to blow up the Channel Tunnel and fly planes into buildings. Based on 
a stage-play by Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, the film features imagined variants of television used for broadcasting and televisual telephony. A very British vision of the future, it was unquestionably influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Find out more at scifist.net With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link
24 January
Safety Last (Dir. Fred C Newmeyer/Sam Taylor, US, 1923) (Screening format – not known, 73mins) A boy (Harold Lloyd) moves to New York City to make enough money to support his loving girlfriend (Mildred Davis), but soon discovers that making it in the big city is harder than it looks. When he hears that a store manager will pay $1,000 to anyone who can draw people to his store, he convinces his friend, the “human fly,” (Bill Strother) to climb the building and split the profit with him. But when his pal gets in trouble with the law, he must complete the crazy stunt on his own. The image of Harold Lloyd hanging desperately from the hands of a skyscraper clock during Safety Last! is one of the great icons of film history (although it was achieved with a certain amount of film trickery) and this remains one of the best and best loved comedies of the silent era. Find out more at rogerebert.com. With live organ accompaniment by Darius Battiwalla. St Mary-at-Finchley, London Link
25 January
Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) + Cops (Dir. Edward F Cline/Buster Keaton, US, 1922)(Screening format – not known, 45/18 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. Cops sees Buster Keaton ending up with a load of furniture in the middle of parade of policemen. An anarchist’s bomb lands in his carriage. After lighting his cigarette with it, he tosses it into the ranks of police. When it explodes the police chase him all over town by the entire Los Angeles Police Department. Find out more at wikipedia.org . With live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney. Barbican, London Link
31 January
An Evening with the Kings of Silent Comedy Featuring four classic comedy shorts; Chaplin’s The Tramp; Harold 
Lloyd’s Number Please; Buster Keaton’s The High Sign; and Laurel and Hardy’s Angora Love. With live piano accompaniment by Forrester Pyke. Chalmers Church Hall, Bridge of Allen Link
February
14 February
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 91 mins ) In The Lodger, 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 With live musical accompaniment by Minima. The Nutshell, Winchester Link
March
8 March
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 (a sound version, which involved some re-shooting and dubbing and is now famous for its ‘KNIFE!!!’ scene, was subsequently released). 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 with a new score by Barbara de Biasi, performed by a classical ensemble. Barbican, London Link
20 March
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 Julia Faye, 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 . With live musical accompaniment by Jonny Best. Brewery Arts, Kendal Link
April
19 April
My Grandmother (Dir. Kote Mikaberidze, USSR, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 80mins) This gem of early avant-garde Soviet Union filmmaking was banned for almost 50 years because of its less than subtle political criticism. But what stands out more is the sophisticated blending by director Kote Mikaberidze of real action, animated 
sequences,modern editing techniques, bold satire and absurdist set designs as he unfolds the story of a notoriously lazy bureaucrat who is fired from his comfortable job. On the advice of his ex-colleague, the unemployed pen-pusher sets out to find himself a “grandmother” – an influential bureaucratic patron who will provide him with a letter of recommendation in order to get his job back. But life never goes that smoothly! Find out more at obskura.co.uk. With live musical accompaniment from Stephen Horne and Meg Morley. Barbican, London Link
Silentfilmcalendar.org 