I have had fantastic experiences at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, both as a presenter and a viewer. I’ve been introduced to several films that are new favorites, such as A Cottage on Dartmoor and Tonka of the Gallows, films I never would’ve been able to see otherwise. But my absolute peak … [Read more...] about 25 Years: Peak Silent
25 Years: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
A roadshow engagement of Around the World in 80 Days in 1957 at San Francisco’s Coronet Theatre opened with newscaster Edward R. Murrow introducing Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon. My parents took me. I was just a kid, but I’ve been hooked on silents ever since. Back then the most I could do was … [Read more...] about 25 Years: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
25 Years: Adventures from the Archives
What do I like about the San Francisco Silent Film Festival? Apart from the fabulous Castro cinema with its huge screen, gorgeous décor, perfect sightlines, and refreshingly sturdy balcony (for a cinema of its age)—hmmm ... everything. The people, the films, the mattresses. My revelatory … [Read more...] about 25 Years: Adventures from the Archives
25 Years: William Wyler’s Tokyo Holiday
The fun of a film festival is not only seeing the wonderful films, little-known ones in particular, but also meeting wonderful people. In the case of silent film festivals, we no longer get to see the film’s original casts or crew members because most of them died decades ago—still, unexpected and … [Read more...] about 25 Years: William Wyler’s Tokyo Holiday
25 Years: Forward into the Past*
When Melissa Chittick and I got up on the Castro Theatre stage to introduce Lucky Star at the first Silent Film Festival on July 14, 1996, Frank Borzage’s lost-until-1990 Janet Gaynor-Charles Farrell love story was sixty-seven years old, and I was thirty-eight. Today Lucky Star is ninety-three years … [Read more...] about 25 Years: Forward into the Past*
