This historical piece was reprinted in conjunction with the screening of The Grim Game at A Day of Silents 2015. It originally appeared in the March 20, 1920, edition of The Picture Show, which began publication in May 1919. “Danger does not mean anything to me; I was just born without the … [Read more...] about Half-an-Hour with Houdini: The Expert of Extrication
The Grim Game
An inspired, indefatigable, and shameless self-promoter and, not coincidentally, one of the most famous people in the world in the early decades of the twentieth century, Harry Houdini was a natural for the movies. Both he and the new medium trafficked in illusions. Sometimes that worked in … [Read more...] about The Grim Game
The Great Cast Contest of 1915
"An Opportunity to Vote for All Your Favorites and Do Them All Justice" With that announcement, the editors of Motion Picture magazine launched a new popularity contest for actors. They asked readers to vote for the best performers in twelve categories, creating a dream cast of the best stars. The … [Read more...] about The Great Cast Contest of 1915
The Ghost Train
It’s one of those old-school, hypnotizing, daydreamy places very old movies can bring you—an occasion to think of movies “as places,” meta-locales, landscapes and rooms you enter into and loiter around inside: the haunted (or faux-haunted) house in a rain storm. It speaks to some primal pretend-play … [Read more...] about The Ghost Train
Flesh and the Devil
You can read the program essay for our 2007 screening of Flesh and the Devil here Flesh and the Devil is one of the very best examples of the palpable romantic eroticism that can often be found in silent films. A huge hit in its own day, it is still remarkably sexy and entertaining, a great … [Read more...] about Flesh and the Devil
Faces in the Dark
Founders Melissa Chittick and Stephen Salmons Look Back at the Early Days of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival It takes more than a passion for silent film to put on a festival. Melissa Chittick had a film degree from UC-Santa Barbara, and Stephen Salmons had been making Super-8 silent films … [Read more...] about Faces in the Dark
The Donovan Affair
A Movie and Live Theater Event produced by Bruce Goldstein and performed by the Gower Gulch Players Frank Capra’s 1929 comedy whodunit The Donovan Affair was his very first all-talking picture. (His previous film, The Younger Generation, was a “part-talkie,” with alternating reels of silence and … [Read more...] about The Donovan Affair
The Deadlier Sex
The May 5, 1920, headline in the Los Angeles Times for the recurring “Flash” column about Hollywood read, “Blanche Going Abroad.” In the short item, the correspondent bemoaned, in her slightly purple prose: “We shan’t have a single star left in our American firmament if the emigration of our … [Read more...] about The Deadlier Sex