Essay

A WILD ROOMER, USA, 1926  Charley, a brilliant inventor, has forty-eight hours to make a convincing demonstration of his newest machine in order to collect an inheritance from his father. NOW YOU TELL ONE, USA, 1926 The liars’ club meets to vote on who can tell the most unbelievable story. Along … [Read more...] about The Amazing Charley Bowers

Erich Paul Remark was born a German Catholic in Osnabruck in 1898 and conscripted into the army when he was eighteen. In 1917, he saw a month’s action on the Western Front before being so wounded by shrapnel he was invalided out. Thereafter, he studied to be a teacher and started writing. His first … [Read more...] about All Quiet on the Western Front

The myth, promoted by Walt Disney himself, was that the Disney empire “all began with a mouse.” In fact, according to Walt in Wonderland, Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman’s book on the silent films of Walt Disney, it all began with a little girl. The Alice series of silent films starring a … [Read more...] about Alice in Disneyland

Aelita abides. Rarely seen, it’s known mostly from photos featuring oddly-garbed women posing amid disorienting geometric shapes. Foreign distributors saddled it with the embarrassing subtitles “Queen of Mars” or “Revolt of the Robots.” In 1929, Aelita was described by the New York Times as “far … [Read more...] about Aelita Queen of Mars

Eighty years after Bardelys the Magnificent’s 1926 premiere, a cellar in France yielded a nearly complete print of John Gilbert’s final film with King Vidor. Considered lost, the film had come at the peak of the actor’s popularity. Prior to Bardelys the Magnificent, Gilbert had been one of the … [Read more...] about Bardelys the Magnificent

You can read the program essay for our 2017 screening of The Adventures of Prince Achmed here On the morning of Sunday May 2, 1926, a frantic Carl Koch scoured the streets of Berlin looking for a replacement projector lens. Back at the Volksbuehne theater, he had left behind house conductor … [Read more...] about The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Presenters: Robert Byrne, Stefan Drössler, Bruce Goldstein, Thierry Lecointe, and Hisashi Okajima FLIPPING OVER EARLY CINEMA A virtually unknown Parisian entrepreneur inadvertently saved a piece of early cinema with his small business making flipbooks from the films of the Gaumont company, … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2019

Presenters: Serge Bromberg, Robert Byrne, Bryony Dixon, Jennifer Miko DETECTING SHERLOCK Preservationist and president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival board of directors, Robert Byrne has been collaborating with the Cinémathèque Française on restoring William Gillette’s Sherlock … [Read more...] about Amazing Tales from the Archives 2015