By Gary Meyer.   (April 9, 2024)

The past several years, after the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, many of the attendees compare notes and proclaim the just completed Festival the best ever. Looking at the 2024 schedule I have a hunch that could be said again.

Starting Wednesday, April 10 at the Palace of Fine Arts with a stunning Technicolor restoration of the Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler THE BLACK PIRATE with live musical accompaniment by the Donald Sosin Ensemble, the Festival will offer 22 programs through Sunday, April 14 featuring popular stars including Clara Bow, Laurel and Hardy, Norma Talmadge, Buster Keaton, Brigitte Helm, and Harold Lloyd. Some big names may be in established classics, but others are in previously “lost” movies or those only available in poor quality prints before these screenings.

A large part of the selection will be movies few of us have seen, or have even known about until now.  And that game of discovery is what keeps thousands of fans returning each year to one of our great film events, experiencing movies on the big screen with live music and enthusiastic audiences that is the attraction that brought audiences to early cinemas. And in 2024 the thrill is still there.

Watch the Festival Trailer here.

It is hard to know where to start and I’m not going to even attempt to cover all of the films. If you go to the website you’ll see descriptions and photographs for each program. When you attend your first film at the festival, be sure to get the free beautifully designed 120 page book with fantastic essays about the films and the talent that made them. (And see below for more posters, clips and ephemera.)

The following will get you started and from there you should study the program and pick a selection of movies both familiar and unknown.

THE BLACK PIRATE, starring Douglas Fairbanks in a rousing pirate adventure with deception and romance— and some great swordplay and stunts. Wait until you see Doug sliding down the ship’s sails. One stunt that was partially faked was the kiss between Fairbanks and his romantic interest, played by Billie Dove at the film’s end. His wife, Mary Pickford, doubled for Dove.

(The quality on the version of THE BLACK PIRATE showing at the festival is far superior to this but you get an idea of how effective this early Technicolor process is.)

It was the fourth film shot totally in the gorgeous subdued two-strip Technicolor process.

Fairbanks and his art director emulated Howard Pyle’s illustrations in “Book of Pirates” and N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations for a 1911 edition of “Treasure Island”.

Thursday is a very full day.

Always a highlight is the AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES on Thursday morning at 11am—free admission.  David Pierce, the co-author of the Dawn of Technicolor traces the history that led to the breakthrough in color film that is seen in THE BLACK PIRATE. Bryony Dixon of the British Film Institute will share recently found film of director Michael Powell as an actor before he became one of the great film directors. Denise Khor discusses and shows clips from THE OATH OF THE SWORD, a 1914 drama thought to be the earliest surviving Asian American film that was shot at the University of California in Berkeley. Her book, Transpacific Convergences: Race, Migration and Japanese American Film Culture before World War II is a fascinating study of a rarely discussed area of American cinema.

The SF Silent Films Festival collaborates with archives and collectors around the world doing restorations of many films. Several of this years movies were done by the SFSFF team as well as providing funding. Two of then play at 2pm.  Clara Bow was on her way to being a star when, in 1926, she appeared in eight movies, one of them being DANCING MOTHERS. Bow plays Kitten Westcourt, the flirtatious daughter of a wealthy couple. When her mother (Alice Joyce) is attracted to the same “man about town” that she tried to stop her daughter from dating, the plot takes some surprising turns.

In April, 1926 Clara negotiated her first contract with Paramount and insisted that it not have a “morals clause.”

Clara Bow, often described as a sex symbol, made 46 silent films and 11 talkies. Alma Whitaker wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “She radiates sex appeal tempered with an impish sense of humor … She hennas her blond hair so that it will photograph dark in the pictures … Her social decorum is of that natural, good-natured, pleasantly informal kind … She can act on or off the screen—takes a joyous delight in accepting a challenge to vamp any selected male—the more unpromising specimen the better. When the hapless victim is scared into speechlessness, she gurgles with naughty delight and tries another.”

A “lost” short film with Clara Bow, THE PILL POUNDER precedes DANCING MOTHERS. Screenwriter David Stenn wrote what he thought was the definitive biography, the fascinating Clara Bow: Runnin’ Wild, but he had never heard of this short film.

The story of how THE PILL POUNDER was found is another reminder that “lost” films can show up in the strangest ways.

I’m especially looking forward OH! WHAT A NURSE! at 4:15pm. A rarely seen slapstick comedy starring Syd Chaplin in his second role as a female impersonator following CHARLEY’S AUNT (1925). Adapted from a story by playwright and screenwriter Robert E. Sherwood by Darryl Francis Zanuck (who would later become a three-time Oscar-winning producer and head of 20^th Century Fox Studios), it had a working title of NIGHTY-NIGHT NURSE. Chaplin plays cub reporter Jerry Clark who impersonates his newspapers’ advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist where his suggestion to a reader not to marry a man she doesn’t love (Jerry has a crush on her) leads to a series of crazy adventures and a plenty of laughs. Chaplin finds himself also dressed up as a nurse plus the female head of a rum bootlegging gang.

Patsy Ruth Miller plays the object of his affection. Miller is a favorite with Silent Film Festival audiences who have enjoyed her recently as Lon Chaney’s Esmeralda in THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and in Ernst Lubitsch’s surprising SO THIS IS PARIS.

Syd Chaplin had an up and down career starting as a successful star on stage in Karno’s London Comedians where he convinced his boss to bring his half-brother Charlie into the company though he never was the hit Syd was there. Later, when Charlie was negotiating his contract at Keystone Studios, he urged Syd to join him in California. Syd soon became a regular character, Reggie Gussie, a carefree guy who flirted with women and drank when his wife wasn’t watching. His films were not like the typical franticly paced Keystone ones but still became a successful series of shorts. His only extended featurette, A SUBMARINE PIRATE was the second biggest hit at Keystone after Charlie’s TILLIE’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE.

But Syd left acting to become Charlie’s business manager, negotiating large salaries for “the little tramp” and starting a successful merchandising business.

Exploring new ideas, he partnered with pilot Emory Herman Rogers Jr. to develop the first privately owned American airline. They had the first roundtrip Los Angeles to San Francisco flight in one 24-hour period. Charlie and many other celebrities including Amelia Earhart took their first ever airplane flights with the Syd Chaplin Airline Company.

In 1923 he returned to films, acting in a series of Hollywood comedies and then he returned to England but his first film for British International Pictures was his last. As he started working on a second movie, MUMMING BIRDS, a sexual assault accusation caused a scandal and he fled from his home country with unpaid taxes and soon declared bankruptcy. Syd lived in Europe until his death in Nice at 80, on Charlie’s 76^th birthday, April 16, 1965.

When we see OH! WHAT A NURSE!, filled with hilarious situations, we can only imagine what his career might have been had he made the transition to sound.

Eat Drink Film readers can get a discount using this code: EATDRINK.

Norma Talmadge stars in a very “pre-code” THE LADY at 6pm. Her masterful performance is often called one of Norma’s best. A sumptuous production directed by the master of melodrama, Frank Borzage, and written by Frances Marion, it is very much a “pre-code” movie. The Pordenone Silent Film Festival wrote: “THE LADY, like many of Talmadge’s films, was based on a successful Broadway stage play. It represents an exception in her career, however, because it did not meet with the usual popular success. In this instance, some critics were even fierce, and her fans were bewildered to see their favorite in the role of an old woman, telling the tragic story of her past to a sympathetic customer at her bar. We learn she is a former music hall singer, seduced and abandoned, forced to turn her baby over to the care of others, and she spends the rest of her life searching for her son. It was a plot that was too melodramatic and even a bit rough for respectable audiences, especially those in the heartland of America, because it was not difficult to guess her real occupation.”

Unlike that 1925 reaction, the Pordenone response was terrific and San Francisco Silent Film Festival directors Anita Monga and Stacey Wisnia are confident their audiences would love it too.

This Library of Congress restoration with the long missing 4th reel in place is reported to be stunning.

Rounding out the day at 8:15pm, THE SEA HAWK will be interesting to compare to THE BLACK PIRATE. Milton Sills stars as Sir Oliver Tressilien, a wealthy English baronet who is framed for the murder of his fiancée’s brother. His own half-brother arranges for him to be shanghaied and taken to sea where his ship is attacked and he becomes a galley slave. When he escapes he becomes a Moorish pirate, leading to a terrific duel to the death. Is it considered more faithful to the Rafael Sabatini book than Errol Flynn’s 1940 version.

Director Frank Lloyd ordered the construction of four full-scale, sixteenth century ships specially for the film: The Moorish Galleass, The Spanish Galleon, and two English frigates called The Silver Heron and The Swallow. Vessel design was overseen by Buster Keaton’s regular technical director, Fred Gabouri, and production supervisor Harry Weil.

Camera Magazine (Nov. 10, 1923) wrote: “An interesting flotilla set sail from here a few days ago with the departure of the seven ships bought here [in San Francisco] at a cost of $45,000.00 for the Frank Lloyd Productions next picture, Black Hawk. Perhaps no stranger outfit ever set sail on the Pacific, for there were seven ships of all sorts and kinds towed by a torpedo destroyer. Besides their own equipment, the boat carried full crews and cargoes of ropes, lifeboats, sails, winches, and all sorts of sea-going supplies. The destroyer also carried a cook, and a fully equipped galley where all the food was cooked and hauled out via cables to the other ships like a large sea-going cafeteria. Most of the picture will be filmed somewhere in southern waters, with some location work near Burlingame [near San Francisco].”

The title changed to THE SEA HAWK during production mostly shot on Catalina Island.

Rarely seen, this tinted newly restored print should be a treat.

Bonus discount for EDF readers on William Wyler’s HELL’S HEROES on Saturday using this code: EATDRINK

SF Silent Film Festival Board member Judy Sheldon is an enthusiastic supporter of silents films and is the daughter of director William Wyler.

Read about it on Jeff Arnold’s West.

 

The director of the Pordenone Film Festival discusses HELL’S HEROES.

Complete Schedule and to buy tickets here.

This year’s Festival is not at the Castro while that theater is undergoing restoration.

Instead it will be across town at The Palace of Fine Arts which has much to offer. The 1000 seat theater is in one of the iconic buildings of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition.

Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand directed and starred in MABLE AND FATTY VIEWING THE WORLD’S FAIR AT SAN FRANCISCO. The best print is at the Library of Congress but it has no sound so add your own.

 

Located adjacent to The Presidio National Park where there is a lot to do between films (unless you are a glutton for cinematic pleasure and decide to see all the movies). Walk over to the One Letterman complex and gardens created by George Lucas. When you see Yoda, walk to the doors and peek through the windows at the STAR WARS memorabilia. In the center of the lobby is a statue of Oakland born Willis O’Brien, the stop-motion animation master who brought KING KONG and the silent LOST WORLD to life. You might even be invited in to look around if you knock on the door.  Walking further north is the Walt Disney Family Museum, a must see. The new Tunnel Tops Park offers stunning views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Marin, Alcatraz and Fort Point at the base of the bridge where James Stewart pulled Kim Novak to safety in VERTIGO.

For a more energetic hike go to Chrissy Fields or up the Presidio hills paths.

More about the Presidio and what to do there.

Carefully walk across Marina Drive at the stop light and enjoy the bay views from the Marina Green.

And don’t miss walking around the Palace to the beautiful lake and strolling the neighborhood to see historic homes on your shorter breaks.

TRANSPORTATION: Muni buses go to the Palace by riding bus lines 22, 28, 30, 41, 43 or 45.

The free Presidio GO Shuttle operates in the daytime seven days a week from downtown San Francisco to the Presidio with a few stops in between . Check out the schedule.

More transit info here.

Driving instructions from all over the bay area.

There is plenty of free parking on Palace Drive adjacent to the Palace, the lot to the west of the building, and in the Saint Francis Yacht Club parking lot on the Marina Green.

As always, do not leave anything visible that might attract vandalism.

Paid lots are also available.

FOOD- There will be a variety of things to eat will be available for sale at the Palace lobby.  Cow Hollow Catering will run a concession stand in the Palace’s lobby selling a special menu of snacks (including sandwiches, fruit and cheese plates, delectable sweets) plus beverages (including sodas, wine, and beer) throughout the festival. And Cochinita—the Bay Area’s OG Yucatan Food Truck—will be on site (on Palace Drive) on Friday (April 12) from 5–8 pm, Saturday from 1–7 pm, and Sunday from 11 am–5 pm with a variety of offerings.

A short walk to Chestnut Street, into the Presidio, and the adjacent neighborhood offers many options. Look here.

ENJOY THESE SILENT FEST POSTERS AND CLIPS:

 

 

Read the “Book of Pirates” with Howard Pyle’s beautiful illustration (ebook here).

N.C. Wyeth’s illustrations for a 1911 edition of “Treasure Island.”

See more of Wyeth’s pirate paintings here. 

THE DAWN OF TECHNICOLOR, 1915-1935 with James Layton and David Pierce

Bryony Dixon talks us through a series of recent early Technicolor finds.

A Tribute to Clara Bow

 

 

A Tribute to Milton Sills (in Spanish)