Category Archives: Blog

Blog, Book

Pre-order now: The Silent Film Companion

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I have been wanting to share this news for a long time. I am delighted to tell you that The Silent Film Companion: A Recovered and Expanded History is now available to pre-order from Rutgers University Press. This book, which will be published on 12 January 2027, contains 57 entries on individual silent films. It is intended as a guide for students who are studying these films, but it is also intended to broaden the scope of the silent cinema that students encounter in the first place, and it can well be enjoyed by those of us who do not have essays to write!

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Blog, DVD

Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico: coming soon to Blu-ray

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This is a place to share silent film news. So, um, here is some news about a silent film, that is really a sound film, or several sound films, or no film at all. But I think you want to hear about it.

Between 1930 and 1932, Sergei Eisenstein shot film, more than 30 hours of astonishing images, in Mexico, for an ambitious project he planned to call ¡Que Viva México! He never got the chance to turn that footage into a film – but many other people tried, in his lifetime and beyond. With vary degrees of success.

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Blog, Screening, The Curse of Queen Kelly

Queen Kelly in Belfast this month

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Hello! How are you handling the Pordenone comedown? I am mostly answering emails and drinking tea. But I just wanted to pop on here to let you know that the Queen is coming to Belfast. And so am I.

The gorgeous new restoration of Queen Kelly (Erich von Stroheim) will screen at the fabulous Queens Film Theatre (where else?) on Wednesday 21 October. I will be there to introduce the story of how Gloria Swanson, Joseph P. Kennedy and Stroheim came to make, and abandon, this taboo-busting masterpiece maudit. I may bring along a few books to sell too, if I can squeeze them in my carry-on.

Blog, Festival

Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 8

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Even the most beautiful tram ride eventually comes to a halt. Even the transcontinental railroad has a beginning and an end. It is also true that after eight days of divas, detours, detectives and decadence, the Giornate del Cinema Muto closes its doors for another year. I had a wonderful festival with great films and better friends. I am overwhelmed by the strength and creativity of this silent film community. As Catherine Cormon said when she accepted her Jean Mitry award, the goal is for this festival to keep going and going, so we continue to deepen our relationship with our silent film heritage. Film won’t save itself.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 7

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Let’s begin in the logical place, at the very end of the day. Tonight was a gala night in Pordenone, a celebration of some of my favourite women. For sure we had Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson on the big screen, but if you want a really iconic duo, check out our Jean Mitry prize-winners, Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi and Catherine Cormon from Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam. I don’t pretend to know everyone in the film archiving world but I know enough to know that these two were very worthy winners. And Elif’s speech in which she talked about expanding the canon, refusing to accept that films were lost, and “acts of resistance against the establishment” made my heart sing.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 6

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I have spent a lot of words on Le Giornate del Cinema Muto so maybe I need some new ones. Conveniently enough, day six of the festival proved a fruitful day for neologisms – right from the start.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 5

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Even here at Pordenone, not every film you watch can be a masterpiece. So rest assured that tonight’s gala screening of A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926), with live benshi narration from Kataoka Ichirō, more than fulfilled the festival’s chef d’oeuvre quotient for the day. It screened in the evening, with more shorts, all accompanied by benshi narrators and live music from Matsumura Makia, Katada Kisayo and Kiyomoto Nobuakira. Five stars all round. And there is another benshi programme tomorrow morning, featuring another canonical Japanese silent, one I may perhaps even prefer, so we are truly blessed.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 4

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“There is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” So the Bible says, but there was much rejoicing in heaven, or rather the second balcony of the Teatro Verdi, today over Seven Sinners (Lewis Milestone, 1925). And we don’t repent a second of it.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 3

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Pordenone is basically a very long tram ride, and although the views at every stop are very diverting, I have no intention of disembarking any time soon.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 2

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If you are anything like me, then you may well consider the two-hour flight to Italy for the Pordenone Silent Film Festival at least partially justified by the chance to see four minutes of a lost FW Murnau film. Right or wrong, it’s how we’re made. And yes today I did get to see two separate fragments of Murnau’s Satanas (1920). Well, they say the devil has all the best films.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2026: Pordenone Post No 1

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The long hot summer of 2026 continues here at Pordenone. The first day of festivities for the 45th Pordenone Silent Film Festival dawned with a blaze of sunshine, a bustling market and an abundance of good vibes in northern Italy. And we closed with the glow of the Spanish sun. Now, to my mind, it is never truly autumn until Le Giornate del Cinema Muto has shut up shop for the year, but bonfire night edged a little closer with the new fizzing and sparkling festival logo that greeted us at the gala tonight.

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Silent bulletin: news for summer 2026

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Bonn | Queen Kelly | Rudolph Valentino | Metropolis | Pordenone | Faust | & more…

It’s a long hot summer of silent cinema, my friends. The temperatures are stuck in the roaring twenties and so are we. Here’s a quick roundup of the silent film news you need to know – and some of it is designed to encourage you into an air-conditioned cinema. All of it will keep you cool…

  • StummFilmTage in Bonn and “Bonnline”. Running 13 -25 August with open-air screenings in Bonn, and a parallel online streaming offer, this festival gets more tempting every year. The 2026 edition kicks off with nothing less than Greta Garbo in Gösta Berlings Saga (Mauritz Stiller, 1924) accompanied by Daan van den Hurk and Neil Brand. The streaming platform opens on 15 August, and offers one new film a day, each of which will be available for 48 hours.
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So this is Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato XL 2026

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What is Il Cinema Ritrovato? A few years back at a Bologna dinner, an important person with far more right to speak on these matters than I have, announced that for them, Il Cinéma Ritrovato was not a festival, but a museum. They spoke eloquently, and sincerely, but honestly I think that is a nonsense. Il Cinema Ritrovato, which has just closed its largest ever, “XL” edition, at the age of 40, is a festival in every sense of the word.

Il Cinema Ritrovato is a celebration, it’s true – so it is a festival according to that fluffy definition. Sitting with the crowds watching classics in Piazza Maggiore or encountering rarely seen gems in the Cinemalibero strand will convince you of that – of the love for cinema that animates all the action. Ritrovato is place of joy, of friendships and new connections. A pleasure to attend, even in a heatwave. 

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Blog, Screening, The Curse of Queen Kelly

Cinema Rediscovered: Queen Kelly in Bristol this July

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Royals like to take international tours, don’t they? Now Queen Kelly has played Venice, Lyon, Sao Paulo and many, many cities in the US, the royal entourage is finally en route to the UK. Where better for the British premiere of Milestone’s stunning new restoration of Erich von Stroheim famously unfinished, notoriously excessive, beautiful and sleazy melodrama to play than the UK’s best archive film festival, Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol?

And what is better than one screening of Queen Kelly? Two screenings of Queen Kelly.

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Blog, Book, The Curse of Queen Kelly

Publication day: The Curse of Queen Kelly

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“Tonight I want to welcome you to a showing of a naughty little number I made with my own money – $800,000 of it.”
– Gloria Swanson introducing Queen Kelly in 1967

Silent cinema icon Gloria Swanson was born on this day in 1899. Today, 127 years later, is the publication day for my new book The Curse of Queen Kelly. The title of the book is taken from a phrase Swanson herself used for the disastrous production of her film Queen Kelly, directed, until she fired him, by the great Erich von Stroheim.

My book, published today by Sticking Place Books, tells the full story of how Swanson and Stroheim – and Joseph P. Kennedy became tangled up together in the attempt to make an impossible film. And it tells exactly what happened next, to this brilliant, transgressive and enduring unfinished film.

There are a number of ways you could choose to celebrate this auspicious date:

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Blog, Book, Instant expert, The Curse of Queen Kelly

Instant Expert: Queen Kelly

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Name: Queen Kelly

Age: Somewhere from 92 to 96 years old. Or brand new, maybe?

Appearance: Decadent visions of dissipated European royalty in palatial grandeur, and seedy expat iniquity in East Africa. Erich von Stroheim directed this film, so every frame bursts with expensive vices, exposed flesh, outlandish costumes, drifts of spring blossom or swags of velvet and the occasional splash of bodily fluids. Not to mention more candles than Barry Lyndon, more or less. Gloria Swanson is the star…

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Blog, Screening

Experience the last days of Pompeii

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A short note from friend of Silent London, Maria Wyke, professor of Latin at University College London.

A one-off screening of the rarely seen silent epic film Jone o Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (Jone or The Last Days of Pompeii, 1913, dir. Giovanni Enrico Vidali) will be held in the 500-seat Bloomsbury Theatre from 6 to 8.30 pm on Saturday 9 May 2026. Immerse yourself in the romance and menace of Pompeii’s last days, ending with the terror of its citizens as the volcano Vesuvius erupts and destroys their city in spectacular fashion. The screening will be accompanied by live piano and percussion performed by the professional silent film musicians John Sweeney and Jeff Davenport.

Tickets cost £12 and you can book HERE. This event is part of the activities of the Greek & Latin research project Museum of Dreamworlds as well as the bicentennial celebrations of UCL.

Blog, Book, The Curse of Queen Kelly

Book news: The Curse of Queen Kelly

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People, I have been busy. Book news, and a cat picture, below…

But first… has anyone here seen Queen Kelly? This is the legendary collaboration between Erich von Stroheim, Gloria Swanson and Joseph P. Kennedy: an epic film set in two continents, an illicit romance, a story of innocence and experience. Notoriously, the film was never completed. The cameras began turning in 1928, Stroheim was fired in 1929, and the project was eventually dropped in 1930…

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Blog, Festival

Hippfest’s Sweet 16: Check out the lineup

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Great news from the north, as Hippfest today launches the lineup for its 16th festival, taking place next month: five days of silent film, live music, workshops, talks and a chance to do the Charleston. All in the vintage splendour of the beautiful Bo’ness Hippodrome.

You can read and explore the full lineup here, but here are a few of my highlights. Hope to see you there!

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