oh look- it's snowing day 6

House of Bamboo (1955)

oh look- it's snowing day 5

Stranded: I've Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2007)

oh look- it's snowing day 4

Mon Oncle Antoine (1971)

oh look- it's snowing day 3

Christ in Concrete (1949)

oh look- it's snowing day 2

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

oh look - it's snowing

Downhill Racer (1969)







Watching the opening credits was a treat - it was entertaining to see freeze-frames in such rapid succession, just like viewing a film at Chez Shahn. Whee!

single shot - pollock

Pollock (2000)

single shot - lost weekend

Lost Weekend (1945)

I've been away. Seems when one blogs a lot, the rest of life backs up.
Now that things are settling down and holidays are in sight, I should manage to post more regularly.
See you soon.

SFSFF 2009 - sunday

Erotikon (1929, directed by Alexander Hackenschmied) was the film I was most anticipating this year and it truly was fantastic. I especially liked the Soviet-style framing of the actors. I was happily surprised by the sympathetic treatment of the lead character and her situation. Unfortunately, I felt this was undermined by the musical score, composed and provided by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The music accompanying the seduction scene was rather too sweet, more suited for a mother-daughter reunion than for the sensual interplay happening on-screen. There were virtually no dynamics throughout the score. In fact the music made the languid pace actually feel boring. I know I would enjoy the film much more with a different soundtrack. I hope to be given that opportunity sometime.

So's Your Old Man (1926, directed by Gregory La Cava) lifted the mood this afternoon. If not for the beautiful intertitles during Wild Rose, the intricate John Held Jr illustrated cards would surely win the prize. Although W C Fields was just as funny without using that voice, my heart was captured by the scene-stealing caddy in the overly-long golf scene. He is uncredited unfortunately; does anyone know who that was?

The Fall of the House of Usher (1928, directed by Jean Epstein) was also a visual pleasure. Again, I have to credit Stephen Horne for a brilliant and harmonious accompanying score, utilizing both piano and synthesizer for special sound effects. The stunning visuals were a treat, especially the long veil that reminded me of Vera Chytilova's Automat Svet.

But the long days of sequestering myself in the lovely old theater surrounded by thousands of fellow silent film fans finally extracted it's price - I left the remaining film for the rest to see, perhaps for my own viewing another time.

SFIFF 2009 - saturday

Amazing Tales From The Archive is one of the highlights for me of the entire weekend. It's so inspiring to learn about all the work done to bring all these films and fragments to such an appreciative audience. This year the theatre was nearly full to see these little tidbits:
Screen Shots promotional short (1923)
The Actor's Children short (1910)
Polly of the Follies trailer starring Constance Talmadge (1922)
Happiness Ahead trailer fragments starring Colleen Moore (1928)
The Lover's Oath trailer starring Ramon Navarro
How the Hungry Man Was Fed (1911)

I missed the next but was back in time for
Wild Rose (China, 1932, directed by Sun Yu)
The special guest was actress Qin Yi, who received a standing ovation as a well-known actress and wife of the star of this film. Restored by the China Film Archive, it was a beautiful print. Unfortunately the film occasionally jumped its tracks, one time obscuring the FANTASTIC Art Deco set I knew had to be in a film from Shanghai in the early 1930s. It also featured the most beautiful intertitle of the fesetival: the Chinese character for snow that was drawn as if weighed under in snow. Qin Yi said before the film that China was behind the rest of the world in film making but with double exposures and a crane shot, this movie wasn't lacking in any department.

Underworld (1927, directed by Josef von Sternberg)
This was as stunning as everyone told me it would be. The lighting was moody and turned out multiple gradations of gray. The nightclub scene was a stand-out, especially the rapid set of close-ups as the drinking progressed. The look was reminiscent of der Blaue Engel showing that this was pure von Sternberg. Stephen Horne's score was as impressive as ever- understated as the film was in the first half, dramatic and pulling tension as the film making picked up the same speed. Mr Horne really knows how to ratchet up the tension, even dropping back if need be. He doesn't always replicate the sound effects suggested by the screen, rather he underscores these moments and plays around them as a good jazz musician does to swing the melody. Brilliant.

The Wind (1928, directed by Victor Sjostrom)
Far better than I had expected. As phenomenal as it was, it greatly benefitted from the accompaniment of the mightly Whurlitzer organ and TWO wind sound machines hand cranked by sound artists. The overwhelming storm was fighting it out with the volume of the organ - I could feel the wind from the pipes along the wall of the theatre.

More next time about the final day of the festival.

i saw the gaucho on the big screen

I haven't seen many Douglas Fairbanks movies - just The Thief of Baghdad, When the Clouds Roll By and The Mystery of the Leaping Fish, the last two also courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Fest. The hammy qualities overshadow the daring stunt work for me. However, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to view my first Lupe Valez.

You know I'm not easily won over by movie stars but wow, she has a presence. I'd heard about her from friends and its easy to see why she's talked about. Fiery is the best term, and much like Clara Bow especially the eyebrow expressions. Oh Mr. Fairbanks - why walk into a scene when you can do a back flip? Its all so endearing and so much fun.

The best part was the outtakes shown before the feature. The shots of Mary Pickford as the Virgin were not only shot in two-strip technicolor but with a whirling set of metal spikes behind her head lit brightly to replicate the celestial glow. Numerous shots were tried and miraculously those that didn't quite line up just right (as well as those with the technicians making adjustments) have been preserved.

Viewed at the Castro Theatre as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
The booklets published by the festival feature great articles on each film.
This film was written up by local writer and blogger Brian Darr .

125 Hyde, 255-259 Hyde

In case you're in town this week for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, you may be interested in a side trip to view some local motion picture history....



In fact, San Francisco's Bay Area has played a few roles in early film history.

The famous claim made by Leland Stanford that a horse would lift all four feet off the ground while running was solved in 1877 just south of this city. Eadweard Muybridge's photography set-up experiments which came out of that incident have been cited as an important step in the development of motion picture image capturing.

The Miles Brothers ran an early film distribution company in San Francisco. They were also producers of local "actuality" films, forerunners of travelogue films. The most famous is A Trip Down Market Street which was filmed just days before the earthquake and fire of April 1906 wiped out the buildings on the film - as well as their stockpile of motion picture films, their business and San Francisco's film industry.

While San Francisco was recovering from the destruction, Hollywood gained a foothold in movie production. A brief attempt was made in the late 1920s to re-establish the motion picture industry in SF, but there is little information about that. Presumably the stock market crash destroyed those dreams but it seemed to have also taken the back story with it. I didn't much believe it until I saw these buildings:




And this isn't the only one. Two more buildings on the next block are rumored to be former studios. One is blocked by an overgrown tree but it's neighbor sports a dead giveaway:





125 Hyde Street circa 1930
architecture by Wilbur Peugh

255-259 Hyde Street circa 1930
architect unknown