The 110 year old French film, “A Trip to the Moon” will be shown in color this next weekend, at the Kansas Silent Film Festival. It’s been seen in black and white, but as the article explains, the hand colored version had been thought to be lost.
I can’t wait to see this movie. I’ve seen the B&W of course, but this will be something special.
I go to this film festival every year, as I live about a mile from the university where it takes place, lucky for me.
Ooooooh, and this year there will be another John Gilbert film, “Monte Cristo”. I saw him in "Bardelys the Magnificent, and God, he was hot. His daughter had been originally scheduled to be a guest at the festival, but her health is poorer, I understand. I’m sorry to hear that. One of the other films to be shown features her mother, Leatrice Joy.
Woo-hoo! I have seen Monte Cristo and Bardelys, and will be seeing the last elusive six John Gilbert films available at MoMA and the Library of Congress in the next month. And yes, “hot” doesn’t *begin *to cover him.
Leatrice Fountain had a stroke recently, but I believe she is recovering–as much as one can at her age. Which Leatrice Joy film will be shown?
We just saw this at the Portland festival. It was preceded by a one hour documentary about how the film was discovered and restored, so hopefully that will be included in what you see.
Oh, I’ve never seen Clinging! I assume you have seen Way Down East, but it is still terrific–no matter how many times I have seen the river rescue (and even though I know damn well how it was filmed), my heart is always in my mouth. The greatest suspense-rescue scene ever filmed!
This was actually in the Foreign Film Festival (PIFF). The restorers of the film are from Denmark. They had to wait some 20 years after discovery of the colorized (hand-painted) copy for technology to become available that could do what needed to be done, including the digitized coloring of some B&W splices for missing and deteriorated frames. Portland also has an African Film Festival, and a Music film fest.
I haven’t actually seen WDE, at least not since adulthood. When I was growing up a PBS station showed a few silent films and I may have seen it then, your mention of the river rescue jogs my memory of something I saw like that. It was back then I saw Battleship Potemkin, the first silent film I remember viewing.
Perhaps the Gish film that impressed me the most, (and I’ve mentioned it before in silent film threads) is Broken Blossoms. A real downer of a movie, but a powerful message.
Oh, to see this in a theater ! In film school, I got to see quite a few silent films. In addition to the “popular” items ( Broken Blossoms, Birth Of A Nation, etc. ) I saw some oddball and rare prints. The instructor was one William K. Everson. I took his Film History class for two years. What an astonishing collection that man had.
We saw Alexander Nevsky in there too. A talkie, but an astonishing bit if filmmaking. Lest you wonder if John Williams steals, watch the Battle Of The Ice sequence from that film. Why, note for note, there’s yer theme from Jaws. :dubious:
Must admit, I’ve not seen a silent film in a long time and I look forward to seeing the one smash hit currently running.
I was hoping to go see the 1925 Lady Windermere’s Fan this evening, but I discovered this afternoon that the cinema’s put up a notice cancelling it - no reason given. Bah!
Bummer. Ronald Colman was so much taller than his May McAvoy that there are production stills of her standing on a box next to him. And he wasn’t especially tall.
Indeed I did. Two years in a row. He taught at the School of Visual Arts where I was fortunate enough to attend just before he ended his tenure there. ( also had two years of Film Theory and Criticism with Amy Taubin. )
I was the projectionist in the second year I took it. Was quite the thing. Bill would hand me a 16mm can and sternly look at me and say things on the order of " gently, gently".
My god was I terrified of having to splice a tear in one of his prints !! Yes, they were all on safety film but still. HIS collection?!!
Eve, last night was the first night of the film festival. The feature film was the Leatrice Joy movie “Clinging Vine” that we spoke of upthread.
I’d never seen any of Joy’s films, and this one was interesting and funny. She played a very mannish executive assistant to an important businessman. Said businessman
has a grandson whom she fires by telegram! But when they meet at a houseparty given by her boss she falls for him. His grandmother, the wife of her boss, gives her pointers on how to act more “feminine”, along with some rather cynical comments on how to deal with men.
Hilarity ensues, a scam is foiled, and there’s a happy ending of course, while “A.B.”(she goes by her initials) remains herself, but likely to be happier in life.
I actually liked the performance of “Grandma” as much as I did Leatrice Joy. It’s the kind of role I’d have liked to have played, a strong supporting role that gets in some good digs along the way.
)
Was quite the thing. Bill would hand me a 16mm can and sternly look at me and say things on the order of " gently, gently".