The Silent London Poll of 2023: And the winners are …

I may be a humble blogger typing at my desk, but just imagine I am a glamorous celebrity cracking first-rate jokes while wearing a designer ballgown. I have counted the votes, and I am ready to announce the winners of the Silent London Poll of 2023!

Congratulations to all the people mentioned below – as ever, these categories were bursting with great nominations. Thank you for all your votes, and your comments, which remind us all of the passion for silent film out there.

Without further ado, let me open this giant stack of golden envelopes. Here are your winners.

1. Best orchestral silent film screening of 2023

Your winner: Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1925), with a score composed by Stephen Horne, orchestrated by Ben Palmer and performed by Orchestra del Teatro Comunale directed by Timothy Brock, in the Piazza Maggiore Bologna, as part of Il Cinema Ritrovato

I said: “Before Monday night’s screening of the original 1925 adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s weepie, some people in Bologna were still dropping the names of Barbara Stanwyck and King Vidor. After Monday, the talk of the town was only Belle Bennett, Henry King and Stephen Horne, whose marvellous score, alongside Bennett’s impeccable performance, left the piazza awash with tears. Horne has long championed this film, as have I, and the new restoration from MOMA is a very welcome, and beautiful thing. I really hope more people get to see this wonderful film now. Silent melodrama really can be the very finest melodrama.”

Honourable mention: Lady Windermere’s Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925), at the same festival, with Timothy Brock’s new orchestral score.

The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)

2. Best silent film screening with a solo musician or small ensemble of 2023

Frances Marion for Hippfest at Home

Hippfest approaches! But before the IRL festival in Bo’ness, 20-24 March, the Hippfest at Home programme promises online treats for you to enjoy in the comfort of your own home. And the first event is coming up very soon indeed!

Next Friday evening, 26 January, I will be delivering a lecture called Frances Marion: Hollywood’s Favourite Storyteller, with clips accompanied by the brilliant Mike Nolan. Find out more about the Oscar-winning genius who wrote the best films for stars such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Marie Dressler and more.You can book your ticket here (it’s free or just £3 if you can spare the change).

See you there I hope!

EDIT: Here is the lecture on YouTube

• You have just a week left to vote in the prestigious Silent London Poll of 2023. Every vote counts, and we need more of them.

Season’s greetings, Silent Londoners

I am just about to sign off for the year, so I wanted to take a moment to thank you for reading, and supporting, this blog in 2023. This year has been another very challenging one, on the world stage, and in the arts, but I continue to be impressed by the resilience, energy and imagination of people in the silent film world. So much work going on, so many opportunities to share great films and music with each other.

The Silent London Poll of 2023: vote for your winners now

Season’s greetings Silent Londoners. It’s that time of year when we like to look back at the year, and especially at all the great silent movies we watched.

2023 was a busy year. We had in-person and online film festivals, seasons, screenings and conferences, some fabulous new restorations, discs and some big anniversaries. We had new books and DVDs to enjoy. I was a little distracted, but the silent film scene was booming.

Velvet Curtains and Gilded Frames: a refreshing take on the history of film, theatre and art

Velvet Curtains and Gilded Frames: The Art of Early European Cinema, Vito Adriaensens, Edniburgh University Press 2023

This is a guest post by Alex Barrett for Silent London. Alex Barrett is an award-winning independent filmmaker based in London.

All too often over the years, the term “theatrical” has been thrown at films as an insult, as if showing an influence from the stage is something to be deplored. Such a notion stems, perhaps, from the idea that if cinema is to be considered a true art form, it must distinguish itself through uniqueness, shedding any influence from the other arts.

The notion of medium-specificity is discussed early on in Vito Adriaensens’ refreshing take on film history, which argues for a different tack: in this engaging study of early European film, Adriaensens seeks to show how heavily the roots of Euro cinema were, in fact, entangled in other art forms and how, by associating itself with the established arts, the fledgling medium sought to legitimise itself in the eyes of its audience.

Danish and German Silent Cinema review: the rich entanglements of transnational filmmaking

Danish and German Silent Cinema: Towards a Common Film Culture, Edited by: Lars-Martin Sørensen and Casper Tybjerg, Edinburgh University Press, 2023

This is a guest post by Alex Barrett for Silent London. Alex Barrett is an award-winning independent filmmaker based in London.

At its simplest, the history of silent film in Denmark and Germany can be seen as a story of two halves, divided by World War I: first, there was the rise of the Danish Nordisk Film Company, a major player in production and distribution throughout Europe whose success was ultimately stymied by the war; and then there was Germany’s UFA, a government-funded consolidation of private film companies ready to capitalise on the creative boom born from the county’s post-war malaise.

The First Year (1926): The cure for matrimonial measles

This is an expanded version of an essay I wrote for Sight and Sound in 2020. The First Year (Frank Borzage, 1926) screens this week at MoMA on the opening night of the After Alice, Beyond Lois programme, curated by Kate Saccone and Dave Kehr to commemorate 10 years of the Women Film Pioneers Project.

Frank Borzage was one of the greatest Hollywood directors of young love. When we remember his silent work in particular, a very distinctive kind of romantic melodrama come to the fore: a passionate tale in which two youthful lovers confront unbearable adversity and yet are finally saved by the redemptive, mystical power of true love. Most famously, this path from darkness into light was trod by Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell in a trio of celebrated Borzage films from the end of the silent era: 7^th Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928) and Lucky Star (1929).

After Alice, Beyond Lois: Celebrating the Women Film Pioneers Project at MoMA

Some news is too good not to share, even if the Atlantic Ocean makes this a little inconvenient for me, personally. If you can be in New York later this month and next, I urge you to attend a particularly excellent birthday party.

The Women Film Pioneers Project, an impeccable resource for early and silent film history, has reached its 10^th birthday. The brainchild of Jane Gaines, and managed by Kate Saccone, the WFPP has been doing the good work of balancing the gender books of film history for 10 years now, and this calls for a celebration. One that takes the form of a film season, curated by Saccone with Dave Kehr at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The Magician (1926): Rex Ingram, Michael Powell and the French Riviera

Michael Powell made films in the south of France. Before that one. His first job in the film industry was working at the Victorine studios of Rex Ingram, just outside Nice, in the mid-1920s. He was 19 and he took on pretty much any job he could on set, trying to learn the business from the ground up. It worked, didn’t it? He even appeared in front of the camera a few times, often playing a sappy creation called Cicero Simp in the Riviera Revels comic shorts.

Phantom Pipes: Häxan at Regent Street Cinema

I am almost home from my festival jaunts, and it seems the weather has turned chilly since I left home. The nights are drawing in, the candles are flickering… it must be spooky season.

Why not kick off your annual creepathon with a screening of a silent classic: Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 demonic drama-documentary Häxan? My excellent friends at Evolution of Horror, who leave no stone in scary cinema unturned, are hosting a screening of Häxan with live organ accompaniment at one of London’s most historic film venues, the Regent Street Cinema.

There’s more. The screening, which takes place this Thursday, 19 October, will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by EOH’s own Mike Muncer, with peerless horror expert Kim Newman, terrifyingly knowledgeable actor James Swanton – and myself, the world’s most squeamish woman, and something of a silent film aficionado, it has been said.

The Evolution of Horror events are always good fun – I have been part of panels for Nosferatu and The Birds in the past, so I know what I am talking about. And to get a sense of EOH’s insightful yet irreverent style, you can explore their treasure trove of podcasts here. Just don’t have nightmares. Well not unless they look as stunning as the work of Johan Ankerstjerne. In which case, be my guest.

As they say here in France: je vous souhaite une bonne séance!

• Book tickets for Häxan here.
• And don’t miss the screening of The Phantom of the Opera on 29 October either.
• Visit the Evolution of Horror website here.
• Check out my calendar here – I have two Powell and Pressburger events this week, and more to come.

Booking now: Neil Brand’s An Evening with Laurel and Hardy

Excuse me while I push at an open door. Who here would like to see one of the world’s finest silent film experts and accompanists host a show dedicated to the comic brilliance of Laurel and Hardy? Ah, that’s all of you. Well good news, friends, as Neil Brand is taking his An Evening with Laurel and Hardy show on the road across Britain. And I mean across Britain.

Brand, his piano, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of Stan and Ollie, will set you up for a side-splitting dive into Hollywood’s golden age of slapstick. You may just learn something, but laughs are guaranteed.

“Join Neil Brand, composer, writer, broadcaster, musician who is a world expert on silent film & silent comedy with his all-new show about the immortal comedy duo. Fully illustrated with stills, clips & Neil’s superlative piano accompaniment, this show promises gales of laughter throughout. “

Check out the tour dates here. There is bound to be a show somewere near you, so treat yourself. And keep up to date with more of Brand’s work here.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 8

The final day of the Giornate, for indeed this was the final day of the Giornate, was a lot like the Ryder Cup. Confused? Well bear with me as I unpack this extremely rare sporting analogy. It was a case of Europe vs the United States, with the home continent playing the first half of the day and Hollywood taking over just as the sun was about to set.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 7

You don’t have to be superstitious to notice when the date is Friday the 13th, and conduct yourself cautiously as a result. And of course I am not superstitious – unless you count the fact that I am convinced I willed this evening’s gala into existence by the power of my mind. But that’s a story for later on…

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 6

Good vibes only at the Giornate on this sunny Thursday. All of us who made it to the extra-early morning serial knew that we had got out of bed on the right side as soon as we realised that this episode of Le P’tit Parigot might have been called La P’tite Parisienne. Yes, it was young Bouboule’s time to shine, as she raced to the rescue of Biscot in a very fetching Delaunay pinafore, and explained her actions in a nifty flashback while the two of them filed through his prison bars. The episode took a turn for the torrid towards the end, but otherwise oh what a joy.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 5

Pordenone changes a person. I don’t just mean in the way that my bloodstream is now 80% espresso. It changes your aspirations. My dream now is to live in an apartment designed by Sonia Delaunay, watching Peter Elfelt’s dance films (they are playing before several of the screenings) all day. For loungewear, I would choose the louche shawl-collared robe sported by Jaque Catelain in Le Vertige, and if I ever left the flat, I would wear the stunning geometric coat and hat sported by Madame Gilberte in Le P’tit Parigot. I’d take the vintage Bugatti too, please.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 4

We’re at the halfway mark, and let me be abundantly clear: I’m not ready to go home yet. But should you be homesick, there was more than a taste of London in the Verdi today, with Walter Forde’s chase comedy Would You Believe It? (1929) for starters, and even Harry Piel or rather Harry Peel transported us to the Big Smoke for his Rivalen (1923). More of which anon.

More authentically, Jacques Haïk’s Se London!, filmed in the summer of 1927, gave us the view from the streets, whisking us from Hyde Park to Whitechapel in dashing style. I was lucky enough to write about this one for the catalogue, so I was cockahoop to see it on the big screen, with London’s own John Sweeney bringing out the spirit and style of this characterful travelogue. Especially, in the really beautifully photographed Tower Bridge sequence – a real highlight of this film.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 3

As Erich Von Stroheim never ever once said: I’ll keep this fairly brief. That’s partly because I was a little distracted today by matters literary, only some of which is relevant to this dispatch.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 2

Pordenone eh? It’s like Christmas for silent film fans. Quite literally tonight at the breathtaking conclusion of tonight’s headline film. The title was Hell’s Heroes, and we were watching the silent version of William Wyler’s 1929 sound adaptation of the story better known as Three Godfathers.

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 1

Watch your step, Pordenauts. Leaving the Verdi after the first afternoon of screenings at this sun-soaked Giornate, I almost walked into the path of the Pordenone Pnthlon relay race. A timely reminder that this festival of silent cinema is a marathon not a sprint, so get set, but don’t tear off too fast, we have eight days ahead of us.

The White Sister (1923): Lillian Gish’s leap of faith

This is a guest post for Silent London by James Patterson.

In a 1909 Los Angeles Times review of F. Marion Crawford’s novel The White Sister, the critic noted that Crawford (1854-1909) was “a greater favourite” in Europe “than any other American”. (1) The book is about a young woman who upon learning her fiancé is killed on a foreign mission, enters a convent to become a hospital nun. According to the LA Times, the novel has a happy ending. Spoiler alert: The 1923 film version with Lillian Gish (1893-993) and Ronald Colman (1891-1958) does not end happily.

The White Sister was a popular stage play in the U.S. with actress Viola Allen (1867-1948), who starred in the first film version in 1915. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the film “is one of the important and pretentious attractions that has been achieved since the invention of motion pictures, for it not only presents a legitimate star in the play in which she was successful but also shows a distinct advance in the art of animated photography.” Publicity for the film boasted: “It was the most beautiful story ever written about a man’s devotion and a woman’s self-sacrifice.” Sadly, the 1915 version of The White Sister, an Essanay production, is among the thousands of lost silent films.