This year's installment of the widely praised San Francisco Silent Film Festival (www.silentfilm.org/), held in a genuine still-standing and in operation silent-era movie theayter with a Mightu Wurlitzer organ and sufficient pit space for a full-er musical ensemble, if desired, will include a program introduced by Eight Doctor Paul McGann!!!!!
It is the 1919 British exploration documentary SOUTH.
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...I hope to go to at least a show or two , at least .
If I really become financially gifted/lucky-foolish , perhaps I could buy an all-festival pass , but I'd have to REALLY get " movie-mad " to get my " money's worth " there...It AIN'T cheap .
I did see ONE silent movie in a theatre once. It was the Roxy Screen Room in Philadelphia, one of the tiniest places I've ever been in (the room had either 4 or 6 seats across, with the aisle in the middle) and a screen not much bigger than some rear-projection systems I've seen. The movie-- the 1984 Giorgio Moroder "restoration" of METROPOLIS. Wow. I loved the film, the color tinting and effects, and the ROCK MUSIC. There's one unintentionally hilarious moment in that version of the film, owing to how much of the original running time had been missing for decades. A title card reads, "Maria escapes." And we see Maria running down the street. NO IDEA how she got away!!
I had to see the LATER restoration, shown on TCM, which had about 20 additional minutes added back in (still at least 15 minutes missing, maybe more). The "Maria escapes" scene was among those found and put back in. It seems Rotwang (the mad scientist who helps the film's villain for reasons of his own) had fallen for the girl he was holding captive, and tries to put the moves on her. She FIGHTS him off, then grabs the key to unlock the door. Next thing, she's running down the street. So much better... : )
An important part of the plot I didn't get the first time I watched (perhaps it was missing) was that the man in charge of the city, who gets Rotwang to create a robot in order to disrupt the workers' revolution, had stolen Rotwang's love many years earlier, and was later responsible for her death. So while Rotwang "helps" him, he's really planning to get revenge for what the guy did to ruin his life... by destroying the entire city.
I have both restorations on videotape, one of these days I really much watch them back-to-back to more easily compare them.
Hook up two VCRs and two TVs and watch them side-by-side.
Can't do that anymore. But I did it once with 2 versions of "Death of a Great Dane", the only Cathy Gale AVENGERS episode that was available on tape back in the late 80's-early 90's. I taped it again when A&E ran those seasons. It allowed me to see exactly how much was being BUTCHERED out of every broadcast-- 8-1/2 minutes. How those stories still made any sense is beyond me. When I watch them again, it becomes easier to tell when something is obviously missing.
...I went to several films in the festival - including an additional one with Paul McGann involvement !!!!!!!!!
I'd be interested in hearing what you saw, ED; I'm interested in silent films, although truth to tell I often find them hard to sit through. (I find this a bit puzzling; sound films often have long dialogueless sequences, and I don't find them hard to sit through, but there it is.) These days the presentation of silent films is often better than it was when I was young; I understand they used to sometimes get played at the wrong speeds. South (a.k.a. In the Grip of Polar Ice) is quite memorable. For those who don't know, it's about the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica which had its ship trapped by ice and destroyed. The men managed to get back home, but the documentary doesn't follow the latter part of the story in detail, presumably because filming stopped once the ship was destroyed. After the ship was frozen in an ice ridge formed under it and lifted it high into the air. It's a striking thing to see.
...Yeah , Lenny spoke/intro'd , ( co-intro'd ) the last show , definitely .
Thanks, gents.
This post displaced the thread Image's 'Point of Impact' mini begins in October from the Sneak Peeks, Solicitations & PR forum from the home page.
...I saw:
THE IRREPRESSIBLE FELIX THE CAT (FTC shorts)
PANDORA'S BOX (Louise Brooks - hubba hubba !!!!!)
STELLA DALLAS (classic tearjerker/soap opera/mellerdrammy - about " mammy " , I'm a poet and-)
THE CAMERAMAN (Buster Keaton) - with George Melies' A TRIP TO THE MOON opening , in what was apparently a restored version of the long-thought-lost color version released at the same time as the B&W version , this version had no intertitles , instead a fairly lengthy narration/commentary - in English - was read by Paul McGann , (from the audience) along with the film , telling its story , I did not know that he was going to do that gig as well ,
Luke .