San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about silent film as an art form and as a culturally valuable historical record.

Become a Member

By

Prix de Beauté

Arguably no movie star has ever been so thoroughly rehabilitated in popular esteem—going from footnote to icon—as Louise Brooks. In her brief career heyday, she was a Hollywood up-and-comer whose career self-sabotage came too early to afford her the protection an established star might have had from … [Read more...] about Prix de Beauté

By

The Pleasure Garden

The 25-year-old Alfred Hitchcock had done nearly every job on the studio floor by the time he was given his first directing job by the Gainsborough studio boss Michael Balcon—he had designed titles, written scripts, art directed and had been assistant director to the studio’s most successful … [Read more...] about The Pleasure Garden

By

The Patsy

You can read the program essay for our 2008 screening of The Patsy here A channel through which a motion picture reaches the screen. With The Patsy, Vidor was tuned just right. It is a perfect film. There is not a scene, gesture, joke, intertitle, gag, bit of detail, or character out of place. … [Read more...] about The Patsy

By

The Outlaw and His Wife

A master of 20th century cinema, the Swedish director and actor Victor Sjöström is best remembered for his moving performance as the elderly physician reflecting on his life in Wild Strawberries (1957). As a director, his highly acclaimed 1921 adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s novel The Phantom … [Read more...] about The Outlaw and His Wife

By

My Best Girl

On June 21, 1928, less than a year after the release of her final silent film, My Best Girl, Mary Pickford walked into Charles Bock’s salon in New York City for a haircut. The Girl with the Golden Curls needed a change. So, at her request, Bock clipped 12 long ringlets from perhaps the most famous … [Read more...] about My Best Girl

By

Marie Dressler

This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of The Patsy at SFSFF 2013 Marie Dressler had perhaps the most unexpected stardom in all of movie history. At the apex of her popularity during the Great Depression, she was well past 60 and overweight and described her careworn and … [Read more...] about Marie Dressler

By

Marguerite Clark: The Biggest and Littlest Lady in the Movies

This feature was published in conjunction with the screening of Snow White at Silent Winter 2013 “Her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as blood, and her hair as black as ebony....” These words from “Little Snow White” (“Sneewittchen” in German), a story from Grimms’ collected fairy … [Read more...] about Marguerite Clark: The Biggest and Littlest Lady in the Movies