April
2 April
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 Hugo Max. Kino Teatr, Hastings Link
5 April
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 Hugo Max. Little Theatre Picturehouse, Bath Link
8 April
Our Dancing Daughters (Dir. Harry Beaumont, US, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 83mins) In Our Dancing Daughters, Joan Crawford stripped to her teddy and tore into a Charleston powered by a zillion watts of sexual energy – and shocked the corsets and cravats off parents who’d heard disturbing rumblings of what their children were up to. But the younger generation couldn’t get enough: they’d found their icon of Flaming Youth. Crawford became a star in this milestone silent about a good girl who hides her heart behind a party-girl mask and loses the man she loves to a gold digger. The film’s portrait of a fascinating (and a bit frightening) 
breed of young women who match men drink for drink and vice for vice was so popular it bred two similarly themed movies: Our Modern Maidens and Our Blushing Brides. After the film’s release, box office grosses for Loew’s theaters soared, as did the volume of fan-mail for Joan (and as did her salary). According to legend (well, Wikipedia!!) Joan Crawford stripped naked in front of the producer in order to get the lead role in this film. When the decision maker told Joan that the director was in charge of casting, Joan went to his office, repeated her performance, and got the part. Find out more at ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth. Link
9 April
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 Hugo Max. Picturehouse, Epsom Link
10 April
Peace on the Western Front (Dir. Fred Swann & Hans Nieter, UK/Ger, 1931) (Screening format – not known, ?? mins) 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. Find out more at iwm.org.uk Presented as part of the British Silent Film Festival Symposium, 2026. With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Perdón, Viejita (Excuse Me, Old Lady) (Dir. Jose A Ferreyra, Arg, 1927) (Screening format – not known, 33mins) Perdón, viejita tells the story of Carlos (Ermete Meliante) and Nora (played by María Turgenova, director Ferreyra’s then wife between),two wayward young adults who decide to bury their criminal past and begin a new life together with Doña Camila (Floricel Vidal), Carlos’s mother, and Elena (Stella Maris), his younger sister. Everything seems to be going well until Elena is seduced by a pimp named El Gavilán, and whose gift of a stolen ring serves first as bait for the impressionable Elena, then as incriminatory evidence against Nora….. Director José Agustín Ferreyra (1889–1943) was the most consistently productive director of the silent period in Latin America, and one of only a handful who succeeded in making the transition to sound after 1930. Having grown up in a tough working-class suburb of Buenos Aires, he frequently brought a gritty sense of reality to his films. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by Meg Morley. Community Centre, Cromer Link
11 April
Weekend Wives (Dir. Harry Lachman, UK, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 86mins??) Battling husband and wife Henri and Helene Monard both embark on secret assignations, she with man-about-town Max Ammon and he with Follies star Madame le Grand. 
Unfortunately both couples decide to head off to the same seaside destination for an illicit weekend! What could possibly go wrong. Max Ammon is played by actor, director and producer Monty Banks and Madame le Grand by Estelle Brody (the fabulous Lancashire lass in Hindle Wakes (1927) ). Both Banks and Brody were American born but both achieved considerable fame in Britain. Unusually for a British film of this era, much of it was shot on location in Paris and Nice. Find out more at wikipedia.org Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. Introduced by Monty Banks biographer Lisa Stein Haven. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The White Heather (Dir. Maurice Tourneur, USA, 1919) (Screening format – not known, 70mins) Painter-turned-film-director Maurice Tourneur applies his pioneering talent for expressive lighting and composition to this sensational melodrama about class, morality and social ambition. The story begins at ‘Shetland castle… nestled amongst the heather-covered hills of Scotland, where the ancient customs of that region are still scrupulously observed’. Here, Lord Angus Cameron is facing financial ruin and desperate to annul his secret marriage to lowly housekeeper Marion. The only proof of their union is a marriage certificate locked in a trunk aboard a sunken yacht: The White Heather. The hunt is on as Marion, with the help of lovelorn Alec McClintock and the gamekeeper Dick (played by a young John Gilbert, just before he found fame as cinema’s hottest heart-throb besides Valentino!) fights to save her reputation and secure a future for her son. The film’s dramatic climax features groundbreaking underwater sequences that enraptured contemporary reviewers and still thrill today. Find out more at silentfilm.org Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Triumph of the Rat (Dir. Graham Cutts, UK, 1926) (Screening format – not known, 74mins) After achieving considerable success as Parisian low-life criminal The Rat (1925), Ivor Novello went on to make two sequels. This second film sees Pierre Boucheron, alias ‘The Rat’ and a former underworld notoriety, now living the high life as 
the kept man of Zelie de Chaumet. But when she learns he is planning to marry another woman, her vengeance pursues him into the murkiest depths of Paris… Novello would play Pierre Boucheron for a third and final time in The Return Of The Rat (1929). Find out more at wikipedia.org Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Redicoveries and restorations I To include A Victim of Circumstances (1913), a lost film from the Thanhouser studio, and Sprechende Hande (1925), a German documentary about a care home and school for the deafblind. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Cardboard Lover (Dir. Robert Z Leonard, US, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 75mins) A ditzy American girl (Marion Davies at her comedic best, and another film which showcases her wicked gifts at mimicry ) 
visiting Monte Carlo is hired by a tennis champ to be his “cardboard lover”–to pretend to be in love with him so he can teach his two-timing fiancé a lesson and win her back. What he doesn’t realize is that the girl isn’t pretending–she actually is in love with him, and she sets out to win him for herself. Find out more at backlots.net Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. Introduced (via video) by Ben Model. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Student of Prague (Dir. Henrik Galeen, Ger, 1926) (Screening format – not known, 134mins) This darkly romantic tale, with echoes of the Faust legend and Poe’s William Wilson, is a superbly crafted remake of Stellan Rye’s supernatural chiller of 1913. An impoverished student (Veidt) sells his mirror reflection to a moneylender and is subsequently stalked by a Doppelgänger over whom he has no control. Veidt is perfectly cast as the obsessed student, his virtuosic portrayal of a split personality plumbs terrifying depths and his deterioration is reflected in an extraordinary alteration of his face, which seems to grow thinner and more furrowed in the course of the film. The haunting cinematography and art direction are by Guenther Krampf and Hermann Warm (art director of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari).Find out more at 1000misspenthours.com Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
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 Hugo Max. Aldeburgh Cinema, Aldeburgh Link
12 April
Ypres (Dir. Walter Summers, UK, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 69mins) In 1925, with the cooperation of the War Office, British Instructional Films set out to make a dramatic, feature-length reconstruction of the five Ypres battles in which 1.7 million soldiers lost their lives. Directed by William Summers, the result is a silent classic. Unlike the famous 
1916 documentary The Battle of the Somme, the Ypres footage is entirely ”faked” and the film shares some of Somme‘s propagandist approach. Regardless, the film is no less fascinating as an artistic endeavour of its time and it features some stunning images. A degree of authenticity is provided by real soldiers taking part and by the filming having taken place in the actual Ypres trenches.Find out more at therealmofsilence.com Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Redicoveries and restorations II To include The Cattle Rustler’s End (1911), starring J. Warren Kerrigan, and Racing for Life (1924), directed by Henry MacRae and starring Eva Novak and William Fairbanks. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Pêcheur d’Islande (aka Island Fishermen). (Dir. Jacques de Baroncelli, Fr, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 93mins) Pierre Loti’s 1886 novel was filmed several times, but never as hauntingly as this 1924 French silent feature directed by Jacques de Baroncelli. The Island fishermen are the flinty Bretons who depart every 
summer for months of cod fishing in the subarctic waters of the North Atlantic; a supernatural encounter leaves one of their number, Yann (Carles Vanel), so deeply affected that he can no longer accept the conventional domestic life proposed by his sweetheart (Sandra Milovanoff): he has fallen in love with death. Baronicelli’s direction blends ethnographic realism with a misty abstraction in the best tradition of French poetic realism. Find out more at silentfilm.org. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
Irene (Dir. Alfred E Green, US, 1926 ) (Screening format – not known, 90 mins) This romantic comedy starring Colleen Moore, and partially shot in Technicolor was produced by Moore’s husband John McCormick, and based on the musical Irene written by James Montgomery with music and lyrics 
by Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy. Moore plays Irene, a feisty Irish girl in Philadelphia, who clashes with her family and walks out, heading to New York City to seek fame and fortune. She gets a job as a dressmaker’s model and becomes involved with Donald, the scion of a wealthy family. Donald’s mother doesn’t approve of Irene and sets out to discredit her in Donald’s eyes. Find out more at wikipedia.org. Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
The Three Musketeers (Dir.Fred Niblo, US, 1921) (Screening format – not known, 120mins) There have been many screen adaptations of the story of Alexandre Dumas’ musketeer D’Artagnan, going all the way back to 1903 but it is Douglas Fairbanks’ 1921 production that set the bar both for future film versions of The Three Musketeers as well as for the swashbuckler genre itself. In no other role is Douglas Fairbank’s boyish vigour as irresistibly engaging than as D’Artagnan. “When 
Alexandra Dumas sat down at his desk,” wrote LIFE magazine critic Robert E. Sherwood, “he doubtless had but one object in view; to provide a suitable story for Douglas Fairbanks to act in the movies”. D’Artagnan is a naïve and ambitious farm boy who yearns to join the Musketeers, the elite regiment of guards under King Louis XIII (Adolphe Menjou). After his arrival in Pairs, he 
meets three members of the regiment, Athos (Leon Barry), Porthos (George Siegmann) and Aramis (Eugene Pallette) and joins their struggle to defend Queen Anne (Mary MacLaren) against the devious Cardinal Richelieu. More than a thrilling adventure picture, The Three Musketeers is a handsomely-produced, emotionally sensitive telling of Duma’s classic novel, buoyed by Fairbank’s electrifying presence. Find out more at sensesofcinema.com Presented as part of the Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
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 piano accompaniment by Forrester Pyke. Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling Link
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 Hugo Max. Cinema City Picturehouse, Norwich Link
17 April
The Crowd (Dir. King Vidor, US, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 98 mins) One of the last great masterpieces of the silent era, The Crowd combines awe-inspiring camera–work with a thrilling, often tender realism that would influence the great postwar directors, King Vidor’s pioneering film follows John and his wife Mary as they struggle against the de-humanising effects of ordinary life in the city, and strive to set themselves apart from the crowd. More akin to the neo–realism of European films, The Crowd offers a rare morbid view of society far removed from the upbeat, 
lively fare reflected in most American silent films of the era. Vidor won universal acclaim for his innovative methods of illustrating the harsh, impersonal aspects of urban existence. The cinematography by Henry Sharp (much of it shot on location in New York City with hidden cameras) earned enthusiastic praise for his innovative style and amazing camera angles. Under pressure from MGM, Vidor reluctantly filmed an upbeat alternate ending, where John inherits a fortune and ends living in the lap of luxury, but this was thankfully rejected by preview audiences and his more ambivalent finale prevailed. Find out more at afi.com. With live musical accompaniment by Ashley Valentine. With an introduction by event curator Ellen Cleary. Finch Community Cinema, London Link
Kinaesthesia (Dir. Gerald Fox, UK, 2025) (Screening format – digital, 97mins) A new documentary exploring the evolution and depiction of dreams in silent cinema. An exploration of the relationship between film and dreams, Kinaesthesia (the sensation of movement) is a lyrical documentary inspired by the film historian Vlada Petrić, which draws on an extensive archive to offer a journey through the history of dreams in early cinema. Encompassing French Impressionism, German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, the American Avant-garde and popular silent comedy, this is an illuminating and enjoyable cornucopia of delights that also acts as a love letter to cinema as a true art form. With recorded score. Plus Q&A session with director Gerald Fox. BFI Southbank, London Link
18 April
The Fall of The House of Usher (Dir. Jean Epstein, Fr, 1928) + shorts including The Fall of the House of Usher (Dir. James Sibley Watson Jr. USA 1928) (Screening format – digital, 63/16 mins) An unnamed man pays a visit to the decaying, aristocratic mansion of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher. He finds Usher to be demented… obsessed by death, consumed with fear that his beloved wife Madeline will die, and no less fearful that she will be buried alive. He spends 
his days painting an eerily lifelike portrait of Madeline, but with each brushstroke the life seems to drain from her. Director Jean Epstein and screenwriter Luis Buñuel studiously avoided cheap shocks and opted for a controlled, spookily subtle technique, in this tale of hereditary madness. Epstein’s version changes the relationship of Madeline and Roderick from brother and sister to husband and wife but matches the horror and menace of Poe’s story, with weird, surreal images and an insidious atmosphere conveyed by the glowering halls, fluttering curtains, and nightmarish suggestiveness of the veil and coffin. Look out for French director Abel Gance, fresh from directing Napoleon (1927) in a minor role while his then wife, Marguerite, stars as Madeline. Find out more at rogerebert.com. With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link
A Page of Madness (aka Kurutta Ippēji) (Dir.Teinosuke Kinugasa, Jap, 1926) + shorts. (Screening format – digital, 73mins) A man (Masao Inoue) takes a job as a caretaker at a mental asylum in order to be near his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa). Although his wife suffers genuine mental anguish, the man believes he can rescue her , but all is not quite as it seems….Considered lost for some 45 years, Kinugasa thankfully found the print in his garden shed in the early 1970s. A Page of Madness is a visually stunning, and technically dazzling 
work of surrealism. Teinosuke utilizes flashbacks, rhythmic intercutting, and impressionistic symbolism in this independently produced, experimental, avant-garde work with its cinematic technique equal to if not superior to that of contemporary European cinema and very much reminiscent of Robert Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). The film contained no intertitles as it was intended to be exhibited with live narration delivered by a benshi who would stand to the side of the screen and introduce and relate the story to the audience. Find out more at midnighteye.com . With live musical accompaniment. BFI Southbank, London Link
19 April
Son Of The Sheik (Dir. George Fitzmaurice, US, 1926 ) (Screening format – not known, 68 mins) In this visually intoxicating 1926 classic, Rudolph Valentino, the silent screen’s greatest lover portrays a cultured yet untamed young Sheik who is lured into a thieves’ trap by a beautiful dancer, Yasmin (Vilma Banky). After escaping, he kidnaps the damsel and holds her captive in his desert lair, dressing her in Arabian finery and threatening to unleash his violent passion upon her. Exotic romance 
saturates every frame of this Orientalist epic with lavish set designs by William Cameron Menzies (The Thief of Baghdad). One of the most popular films from the silent era, The Son of the Sheik’s star Rudolph Valentino gave perhaps the finest performance of his career. Unfortunately, it would also be his last as he died suddenly at the age of 31, just days before the film’s release. Find out more at moviessilently.com. Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by violinist Susannah Simmons and pianist Jonny Best. Link
Another Fine Mess – Laurel & Hardy and friends Laurel and Hardy are the eternal optimists of slapstick comedy — two well‑meaning souls whose every attempt to do the right thing somehow ends in disaster. In The Finishing Touch, they are hired to build a house. The result is – of course, complete 
mayhem. Followed by Charlie Chaplin, in his 1917 short comedy, Easy Street. Charlie plays his ‘Little Tramp’ character, who enrols with the local police force. The show is rounded off with a cartoon featuring the biggest animated star of the 1920s, Felix the Cat. Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by violinist Susannah Simmons and pianist Jonny Best. Link
Silent Dreams Shorts Programme The Seashell and the Clergyman‘ ( aka La Coquille et le clergyman) (Dir. Germaine Dulac, Fr, 1928) + shorts including Ballet mécanique (Dir. Fernand Léger, Dudley Murphy, Fr, 1924), Autumn Mists (aka Mists of Autumn) (Dir. Dimitri Kirsanoff, Fr, 1928) and Polizeibericht Überfall (Accident) (Dir. Ernö Metzner, Ger, 1928) (Screening format – digital/35mm, 101 mins) Adapted from a story by Antonin Artaud, The Seashell and the Clergyman is now generally regarded by most critics as the first true Surrealist film, although its fame has largely been eclipsed by the later works of Man Ray ( L’Etoile de Mer, 1928) and Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí (Un Chien Andalou, 1929). The film tells of a young clergyman and his repressed sexual desire for a beautiful but unattainable aristocratic woman. 
and represented a critique of patriarchy – state and church – and of male sexuality. The film was a crucial influence on future Surrealist films with the styles that Dulac employed in the film – superimpositions, montage, displacement shots, hallucinatory, spectral imagery – being reused in later, better-known Surrealist films. Upon coming before the British Board of Film Censors, they famously reported that the film was “so cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable” and promptly banned it. Find out more at anothergaze.com With live musical accompaniment. Introduced by filmmaker Gerald Fox. BFI Southbank, London Link
Metropolis (Dir. Fritz Lang, 1927) (Screening format –digital , 149 mins ) 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. Following its world premiere in 1927, half an hour was cut from Fritz Lang’s masterpiece and lost to the world. Eighty years later a spectacular discovery was made when the footage was found in a small, dusty museum in Buenos Aires. The film was then painstakingly reconstructed and digitally restored so that at last audiences could see the iconic futuristic fairy tale as Lang had envisioned it. Find out more at silentfilm.org With recorded score. Introduced by film-maker Gerald Fox. BFI Southbank, London Link
Kinaesthesia (Dir. Gerald Fox, UK, 2025) (Screening format – digital, 97mins) A new documentary exploring the evolution and depiction of dreams in silent cinema. An exploration of the relationship between film and dreams, Kinaesthesia (the sensation of movement) is a lyrical documentary inspired by the film historian Vlada Petrić, which draws on an extensive archive to offer a journey through the history of dreams in early cinema. Encompassing French Impressionism, German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, the American Avant-garde and popular silent comedy, this is an illuminating and enjoyable cornucopia of delights that also acts as a love letter to cinema as a true art form. With recorded score. BFI Southbank, London Link
Voglio a Tte! (aka I Want You, aka The Maiden From Amalfi, aka Consuelita) (Dir. Roberto Roberti, It, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 60mins) Made in 1922 and shot on the Amalfi coast, the film was held up for 3 years by Italian censors who probably objected to the portrayl of Southern Italy as impoverished. Eventually re-edited it was re-titled Consuelita and was now supposedly set in Spain. The film was the last major role of Francesca Bertini, one of the great Italian divas of the silent screen who made over 145 films. She plays Consuelita, a young girl who desires to escape her small Spanish fishing village. The director, Roberto Roberti, was the father of director Sergio Leone. Find out more at silentfilm.org With recorded score (?) Megascreen, Bristol Link
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
21 April
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Dir. Lotte Reiniger , Ger, 1926) + Cinderella (Dir. Lotte Reiniger , Ger, 1922) (Screening format – not known, 65/10 mins) The first feature-length animation in film history, The Adventures of Prince Achmed was masterminded by Lotte Reiniger and hand-tinted frame by frame. Based on ‘The Arabian Nights’, the film tells the epic tale of Prince Achmed, who is tricked into mounting a magical flying horse by a wicked sorcerer. The horse carries Achmed off on a series of adventures, over the course of which he joins forces with young Aladdin, battles ogres and monsters and romances the beautiful Princess Peri Banu. Find out more at wikipedia.org With live musical accompaniment by experimental noise conjuror mutterichbindoom from The SECT Silent Club. Garden Cinema, London Link
24 April
Salome (Dir. Charles Bryant, US, 1923) (Screening format – not known, 74mins) This is a film adaptation of the Oscar Wilde play of the same name and is a loose retelling of the biblical story of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist at the request of Herod’s stepdaughter, Salome, whom he lusts after. The film stars Alla Nazimova who, though largely forgotten today, was an international sensation in the early 20th century. Born in Yalta in 1879, she studied acting at Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Arts Theatre in 
the 1890s. In 1907, she found acclaim on Broadway, where her groundbreaking performances in European Modernist plays by Anton Chekov, August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen generated millions of dollars. Six years later, Metro put Nazimova under contract at $13,000 per week, making her the highest-salaried actress in the industry. The highly stylized costumes, exaggerated acting, minimal sets, and absence of all but the most necessary props in Salome make for a screen image much more focused on atmosphere and on conveying a sense of the characters’ individual heightened desires than on conventional plot development and as such it has been labelled by some as one of the first ‘art films’ to be made in the US. But for all its style, the film was a popular failure and a financial disaster for Nazimova who had bankrolled its production and from which she never really recovered. But in the years since, its weirdly beautiful atmosphere and aesthetic – combining Art Nouveau, modernism and the glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age – have led to its growing recognition as an exotic gem, and a cornerstone of camp. To find out more see www.loc.gov. Introduced by film curator Erik Anderson Scott. With recorded soundtrack (?). Finch Community Cinema, London Link
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 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 nevertheless, a highly amusing tale. Find out more atimdb.com. With live musical accompaniment by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Stephen Horne. Jubilee Hall, Chagford Link
25 April
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 Hugo Max. Prince Charles Cinema, London Link
29 April
Erotikon (Dir. Gustav Machatý, Cz, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 85 mins) Before his infamous erotic film Ecstasy (1932) starring Hedy Kiesler (later to become Hedy Lamarr), Gustav Machatý directed this exploration of the moral consequences of a night of passion between a Prague playboy and a stationmaster’s daughter. Erotikon tells the story of Andrea (Ita Rina) the beautiful but unsophisticated 
daughter of a rural railway worker. When rich, sophisticated womaniser George Sydney (Olaf Fjord) misses his train connection one stormy night he persuades the railway worker to let him stay at their house. When the railway worker is called away George seduces his daughter. Leaving the next morning, George has soon forgotten Andrea and embarked upon a new relationship with the married Gilda (Charlotte Susa). Andrea remains 
infatuated with George but, on discovering she is pregnant, leaves her village to avoid the shame.Now regarded as a landmark Czech silent film, shooting started in November 1928 with exterior scenes shot in Prague and Karlovy Vary. Machatý and his Czech cinematographer Václav Vích used modern American lenses making the image very soft. Vích worked on 
over a hundred films in different countries during his career. In the 1930s, he was one of the top technicians in the Italian film industry and often worked with the director Max Neufeld. The production designers on Erotikon were Julius von Borsody and Alexangr Hackenschmied.The masterly direction and camerawork transform a simple story into a work of compelling power, full of symbolism. It set a benchmark in the portrayal of female sexuality, as personified by the exquisite Ita Rina. Find out more at silentfilmcalendar.org. Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth. Link
30 April
Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series, which was so popular it ran for 45 episodes, was sanctioned by Arthur Conan Doyle, who thoroughly approved of Eille Norwood as Holmes. This programme features a selection of three episodes: ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, wherein Holmes falls for ‘the woman’; ‘The Golden Pince-Nez’, which features Holmes’ deductive powers at work, and ‘The Final Problem’, featuring the sinister Professor Moriarty. With live musical accompaniment by Meg Morley. Pound Arts Centre, Corsham Link
May
2 May
Another Fine Mess: The Madcap World of Laurel and Hardy Laurel and Hardy are the eternal optimists of slapstick — two well‑meaning souls whose every attempt to do the right thing somehow ends in disaster. In Soup to Nuts, they bungle as waiters at an upper‑class party. In Two Tars, a minor fender‑bender spirals into a full‑blown street war. And in Angora Love, a stray goat follows them home, leading to a chaotic water fight as they try to keep it hidden from their landlord. Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best and percussionist Trevor Bartlett. Link
Steamboat Bill Jr (Dir. Buster Keaton/Charles Reisner, US, 1928) (Screening format – not known, 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). Featuring some of Buster’s finest and most dangerous stunts, it’s a health and safety nightmare maybe but it’s entertainment that will live forever. The final storm sequence is still as breathtaking today as it was on first release. Not a commercial success at the time, this is now rightly regarded as a Keaton classic. Find out more at Wikipedia Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best and percussionist Trevor Bartlett. Link
6 May
An Evening With Charlie Chaplin Including three of his most famous shorts, The Immigrant, The Cure and Easy Street all written and directed by Chaplin in 1917. With live musical accompaniment by Meg Morley. Plus a discussion with Jacqueline Riding, a specialist in British history and art, on how Chaplin’s work and outlook were always shaped by the world he came from. Cidermill Theatre, Chipping Campden. Link
9 May
Jone or The Last Days of Pompeii. (Dir. Giovanni Enrico Vidali , It, 1913) (Screening format – not known, 95mins) Based upon the 1834 Edward Bulwer-Lytton novel The Last Days of Pompeii, this is one of two film versions of his story, both made in 1913 by competing Italian film production companies. The Ambrosio Company had already made a version of the story in 1908 but in 1913 decided to remake it in a more expensive and extravagant production, to be directed by Mario Caserini and Eleuterio Rodolfi. When their rivals, the Pasquali Company announced that they were making an equally ambitious version of the book it ended up in a 
legal battle. Although Ambrosio couldn’t prevent the release of the Pasquali version they did manage to amend its title to Jone or The Last Days of Pompeii, which was released four days after the Ambrosio version. Set in Pompeii in AD79, both films focus on the couple Jone and Glauco, the blind slave girl Nidia who secretly loves Glauco and the evil priest Arbax who wishes to do away with Glauco so he can marry Jone. The film culminates in a spectacular eruption of Versuvius (which conveniently erupted in 1913 allowing actual footage to be incorporated into the film). Find out more at museocinema.itWith live musical accompaniment by John Sweeney (piano) and Jeffrey Davenport (percussion). Bloomsbury Theatre, London Link
11 May
The Black Chancellor (Die. August Blom, Den, 1912) (Screening format – not known, 48mins) The Black Chancellor was one of the many films made during the first golden age of Danish cinema, when its cinematic output was cutting edge, far ahead of almost anything 
from the rest of Europe or America and August Blom was one of the country’s finest directors. In the film, Chancellor von Rallenstein is terrorizing the country. He even forces Princess Irene to marry Prince Deima, even though she is already engaged to her true love, Pawlow. When Rallenstein finds out about their secret wedding, he furiously sets out to sabotage the marriage. Find out more at dbcult.com. Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by bassist and multi-instrumentalist Russ Sergeant. Nook Gallery, King’s Heath, Birmingham Link
12 May
The Black Chancellor (Die. August Blom, Den, 1912) (Screening format – not known, 48mins) The Black Chancellor was one of the many films made during the first golden age of Danish cinema, when its cinematic output was cutting edge, far ahead of almost anything from the rest of Europe or America and August Blom was one of the country’s finest directors. In the film, Chancellor von Rallenstein is terrorizing the country. He even forces Princess Irene to marry Prince Deima, even though she is already engaged to her true love, Pawlow. When Rallenstein finds out about their secret wedding, he furiously sets out to sabotage the marriage. Find out more at dbcult.com. Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by bassist and multi-instrumentalist Russ Sergeant. Nook Gallery, King’s Heath, Birmingham Link
14 May
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. Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Stephen Horne and Meg Morley. Botanical Gardens, Birmingham Link
15 May
The Goldrush (Dir. Charles Chaplin, US, 1925) (Screening format – digital, 95mins) 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. The film contains some of Chaplin’s most iconic sequences, such as the eating of a boot and the dance of the bread rolls. Find out more at moviessilently.com . Introduced by comedian, writer, and film enthusiast Paul Merton together with Chaplin’s grandson Spencer Chaplin. With recorded Chaplin score. Regent Street Cinema, London Link
16 May
Slapstick Saturday With some of the funniest slapstick shorts from the silent era, including Buster Keaton pulling off gravity-defying stunts that would make a modern CGI artist sweat, while Laurel & Hardy turn the simplest tasks into total, glorious disasters. Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment by Meg Morley. MAC, Birmingham Link
1926 Mix Tape Looking back exactly one hundred years to 1926 – a vintage year for avant-garde subversion and fledgling animation – this collection of seminal shorts range from the hypnotic, rotating visual puns of Marcel Duchamp’s Anémic Cinéma to the surrealist cine-poem of Man Ray’s Emak-Bakia. Plus a rare look at a pre-Mickey marvel: Alice’s Mysterious Mystery, directed by a then-budding animator named Walt Disney. Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment composed and performed by students at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. The Edge, Birmingham Link
The General (Dir. Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926) (Screening format – not known, 75mins) Widely considered one of the greatest films ever made and one of the most revered comedies of the silent era, Buster Keaton’s effortless masterpiece sees hapless Southern railroad engineer Johnny 
Gray (Keaton) facing off against Union soldiers during the American Civil War. When Johnny’s fiancée, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), is accidentally taken away while on a train stolen by Northern forces, Gray pursues the soldiers, using various modes of transportation in comic action scenes that highlight Keaton’s boundless, innovative wit and joyful, lighthearted dexterity, to reclaim the train and thereby save the South. Find out more at busterkeaton.com . Presented as part of the Flatpack Film Festival. With live musical accompaniment composed and performed by Stephen Horne. MAC, Birmingham Link
17 May
The Goldrush (Dir. Charles Chaplin, US, 1925) (Screening format – digital, 95mins) 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. The film contains some of Chaplin’s most iconic sequences, such as the eating of a boot and the dance of the bread rolls. Find out more at moviessilently.com . With recorded Chaplincomposed score. BFI Southbank, London Link
19 May
George Méliès and Buster Keaton in Concert Two pioneers of visual fantasy meet in a specially created cine‑concert. To set the stage, we celebrate Georges Méliès, whose imagination and technical ingenuity carried cinema beyond the simple recording of 
everyday life and opening up its magical possibilities for the first time. Followed by Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jnr (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1924) in which, 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, forcing him to use his amateur detective skills. Although not a popular success on its initial release, the film has come to be recognised as a Keaton classic. Find out more at silentfilm.org. Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by Frame Ensemble. , Link
20 May
The Red Kimono (Dir. Walter Lang, US, 1925) (Screening format – not known, 77mins) The Red Kimono was the directorial debut of Walter Lang, whose greatest fame was from the 1930s to the 1950s, notably for Fox musicals. Written by famed journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns and adapted by future director Dorothy Arzner, The Red Kimono tells the story of a woman on trial for the murder of a man who had tricked her into prostitution. It was one of a series of social-conscience films produced by 
former actress Dorothy Davenport under her married name, Mrs. Wallace Reid. The first of these, Human Wreckage, was intended to draw attention to the issue of drug addiction that had caused her husband’s early death (Wallace Reid, a famous screen actor, became addicted to 
morphine after being given it repeatedly following an injury during filming). She introduces the film personally, in a scene set in a newspaper archive, informing us that it is a true story. She was sued by the woman in the real-life case on which it was based – thus establishing a landmark privacy law – because her real name had been used. Both The Red Kimono and Human Wreckage were banned by the British Board of Film Censors. While no copy of Human Wreckage is known to exist, The Red Kimono has at least survived. Find out more at moviessilently.com Presented by the Kennongton Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
23 May
Mountain of Destiny (Dir. Arnold Fanck, Ger, 1924) (Screening format – not known, 86mins) A landmark of early mountain cinema, celebrated for its breathtaking alpine scenery and exhilarating realism, where physical endurance and cinematic ambition collide. Director Arnold Fanck coined the term ‘Natur-Spielfilm’ to describe this genre-defying natural-world drama, set amidst the vertiginous rock faces of the High Alps and photographed with enthralling clarity and scale. The story follows a young man who has vowed to his mother that he will never attempt to reach the summit of the formidable 
Guglia del Diavolo, the mountain on which his father died years earlier. His resolve is tested when his childhood friend Hella decides that she can conquer the mountain. When she gets into difficulty, the young man must decide between honouring his promise and risking everything to save her. Central to the film’s success are the performers, notably Olympic ski champion Hannes Schneider (the father) and professional mountaineer Luis Trenker (his adult son) who perform climbs and descents that are genuinely awe-inspiring, even today. Find out more at wikipedia.org Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by Jonny Best. 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 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 . Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best, violinist Susannah Simmons and percussionist Jeff Davenport. Link
June
4 June
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 . Presented by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best. , Link
10 June
The Strange Case of Captain Ramper (aka Ramper, der Tiermensch (Dir. Max Reichmann, Ger, 1927) (Screening format – 35mm, ??mins) The film follows the story of an aviator who survives a plane crash in northern Greenland, descending into feral isolation before being rediscovered and eintegrated into society through scientific intervention. Produced by Deutsche Film Union and distributed internationally by First National Pictures, it explores themes of human survival, degeneration, and the clash between civilization and wilderness. The plot centres on Captain Ramper (Wegner), a daring German pilot, and his mechanic Charles Ipling (Kossuth), who crash-land during a flight to the North Pole. Ipling dies from the harsh conditions, leaving Ramper to survive alone in the frozen wilds, where he regresses into a beast-like existence among polar bears. The screenplay was adapted by Curt J. Braun from the play Ramper by Max Mohr, with additional contributions from lead actor Paul Wegener. This adaptation preserved the core themes of isolation and psychological transformation from the source material, translating the stage narrative into a visual format suited for silent cinema. Time magazine called it an “original, entertaining” tale of a lost explorer who regresses to an animal-like state during 15 years in the Arctic, only to reject civilization upon his return; the publication commended Wegener’s proficient portrayal. Find out more at wikipedia.org Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
1 July
The Blood Ship (Dir. George B. Seitz, US, 1927) (Screening format – Digital, 70mins) Adapted by Fred Myton from the novel by Norman Springer, The Blood Ship stars Hobart Bosworth, Jacqueline Logan and Richard Arlen and was a big hit at the 2025 Pordenone film festival. As the title suggests, The Blood Ship is a rousing seagoing tale, set aboard a cargo vessel whose captain’s notoriety means that the majority of the crew are only there owing to having been shanghaied. One exception is a former, disgraced sea captain who signs on and discovers 
the tyrannical skipper to be the man who had framed him for murder and kidnapped his wife and daughter. Mutiny is sure to follow. Former stage actor Hobart Bosworth had been a prolific screenwriter and director alongside his acting career but had to limit his activities owing to a decades-long struggle with tuberculosis. Despite this, he maintained an image of considerable physical strength in his on-screen roles as `hard man’. Director Seitz remade the story as a talkie in 1931 under the title Shanghaied Love. The earlier silent version was for many years unseen because its last reel was believed to be lost. Fortunately it was found and the full film restored in 2007. Find out more atmoviessilently.com Presented by the Kennington Bioscope. With live musical accompaniment. Cinema Museum, Lambeth Link
30 July
Pandora’s Box (Dir. G W Pabst, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 135mins) 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 Pthe 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 an international 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 live musical accompaniment by Christopher Eldred. Wiltons Musical Hall, London Link
October
28 October
The Woman That Men Yearn For (aka Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt) (Dir, Curtis Bernhard, Ger, 1929) (Screening format – not known, 78mins) 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 by Northern Silents. With live musical accompaniment by pianist Jonny Best. Link
Silentfilmcalendar.org 