Is it a little hot in here… or is it just me? Outside the weather is turning autumnal, inside here I am contemplating the sizzling lineup for HippFest’s Taste of Silents season, which opens next month. Complete with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert sharing a cigarette, and much more, in Flesh and the Devil (Clarence Brown, 1926).
Stephen Horne will accompany Flesh and the Devil on piano and flute at the beautiful Hippodrome Cinema in Bo’ness, Falkirk on 20 September. This event will open the programme, which has been curated by the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival’s Young Programmers: an educational programme to support future cinema programmers and film exhibitors.
Thank you for bearing wth me during a few several technical glitches related to this year’s poll. Relax, enjoy your glass of wine-flavoured carbonated beverage, and welcome to our glittering award ceremony. I have counted the votes, and I am ready to announce the winners of the Silent London Poll of 2024!
Congratulations to all the people mentioned below – as ever, these categories were bursting at the seams with excellent, worthy nominations and a great reminder of how exciting the global silent film scene is. Thank you for all your votes, and your comments, especially.
Without further ado, let me open this giant stack of golden envelopes. Here are your winners.
1. Best orchestral silent film screening of 2024
Your winner: The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926), with a score composed by Neil Brand, arranged by George Morton, conducted by Ben Palmer, performed live by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordneone, at Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone
I said:“t’s a big, big movie, with the youthful star trio of Ronald Colman (on $1,750 a week), Vilma Banky (on $1,000 a week) and Gary Cooper (on $50 a week!) in a desert love triangle, and a tremendously terrifying climax, as the townsfolk run for their lives when the river bursts its manmade bounds. Plus we were to enjoy the world premiere of a wondrous new score composed by Neil Brand, arranged by George Morton, conducted by Ben Palmer, and performed live tonight by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone. If you know the film you will know that it is celebrated for its scale, but also that this is a Frances Marion script, with a touch of melodrama (Vilma overhearing Ronald’s confession that he won’t propose to her, but not the reason why), her pet subject of adopted children, and her love of a grand theme – here the pioneers’ battle for mastery over the elements, and capitalism’s battle for mastery over the populace. You’ll also know that between the big action scenes there are several more sedate moments, discussions of policy and payroll. As, quite frankly, we have come to expect, Brand’s score was buoyant and nimble, keeping the film on its toes, teasing out the romance and flooding (yes, I went there) the auditorium with sound during those blockbuster setpieces, starting with a sandstorm in the first reel and the deluge in the last. Timed to a T, so that image and sound met in perfect harmony, and just a joy to listen to – for what it’s worth, I think it’s a winner. Geddit?”
Lillian Gish in The Wind (1928)
2. Best silent film screening with a solo musician or small ensemble of 2024
Back to school time! Here’s a roundup of the silent movie news I really want to share with you as summer turns into autumn. Just think how many of these forthcoming delights you could enjoy for less than the cost of a dynamically priced Oasis ticket.
Screenings and festivals
I missed StummFilmTage Bonn this year again – both in person and online. But Paul Joyce and Paul Cuff both kept us up to date with their fabulous blogs.
I may be a humble blogger typing at my desk, but just imagine I am a glamorous celebrity cracking first-rate jokes while wearing a designer ballgown. I have counted the votes, and I am ready to announce the winners of the Silent London Poll of 2023!
Congratulations to all the people mentioned below – as ever, these categories were bursting with great nominations. Thank you for all your votes, and your comments, which remind us all of the passion for silent film out there.
Without further ado, let me open this giant stack of golden envelopes. Here are your winners.
1. Best orchestral silent film screening of 2023
Your winner: Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1925), with a score composed by Stephen Horne, orchestrated by Ben Palmer and performed by Orchestra del Teatro Comunale directed by Timothy Brock, in the Piazza Maggiore Bologna, as part of Il Cinema Ritrovato
I said: “Before Monday night’s screening of the original 1925 adaptation of Olive Higgins Prouty’s weepie, some people in Bologna were still dropping the names of Barbara Stanwyck and King Vidor. After Monday, the talk of the town was only Belle Bennett, Henry King and Stephen Horne, whose marvellous score, alongside Bennett’s impeccable performance, left the piazza awash with tears. Horne has long championed this film, as have I, and the new restoration from MOMA is a very welcome, and beautiful thing. I really hope more people get to see this wonderful film now. Silent melodrama really can be the very finest melodrama.”
Honourable mention:Lady Windermere’s Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925), at the same festival, with Timothy Brock’s new orchestral score.
The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928)
2. Best silent film screening with a solo musician or small ensemble of 2023
Next Friday evening, 26 January, I will be delivering a lecture called Frances Marion: Hollywood’s Favourite Storyteller, with clips accompanied by the brilliant Mike Nolan. Find out more about the Oscar-winning genius who wrote the best films for stars such as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Marie Dressler and more.You can book your ticket here (it’s free or just £3 if you can spare the change).
I don’t want you to get the idea I am wanted by the authorities, but I tend to move around a lot. So for the second year in a row, I was only in town for the first half of Hippfest – or the early, funny stuff, as I like to think of it.
I’ve said before that the programming at Hippfest, now in its 13th year, is impressively eclectic. I’d say that with extra emphasis during the midweek portion of the event. Actualities, fantasy, action, adventure, comedy, and a sheepdog smoking a pipe. What is not to love?
Well done everyone! The Silent London Poll of 2022 had a record-breaking number of votes, and the winners reflect a thriving, international silent film scene. Congratulations to all the people mentioned below, some of these categories were bursting with great nominations. Thank you for all your votes. And for making me blub a little when I was typing this up.
Without further ado, let me open this giant stack of golden envelopes. Here are your winners!
The Manxman (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929)
1. Best orchestral silent film screening of 2022
Your winner: The Manxman (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929), with a score composed by Stephen Horne, orchestrated and conducted by Ben Palmer and played by Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone, with soloists Louise Hayter and Jeff Moore, at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone.
I said: “Horne’s music is as deft as Hitch’s camera: always gorgeous, but sometimes delicate and other times thick with portents of doom… Needless to say, Hitch and Horne brought the Verdi to its feet once more.
Honorable mention: The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927) with a score conducted and composed by José María Serralde Ruiz, performed by Orchestra San Marco di Pordenone, , at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone.
La Dixième symphonie (Abel Gance, 1918)
2. Best silent film screening with a solo musician or small ensemble of 2022
Save the date, Silent Londoners, The Scottish silent film festival with the warmest welcome in the world is back in 2023.
The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival at Scotland’s oldest purpose-built cinema, the Hippodrome in Bo’ness, will take place Wednesday 22 to Sunday 26 March 2023. The full programme and tickets will be released on Tuesday 7 February. Not too long to wait.
But there’s more news. A development many attendees have long been asking for – a festival pass!
It is too hot to think in Bologna in late June. Which means that the best way to digest Il Cinema Ritrovato is always at a later date, back in cooler climes. So this week I was honoured to appear with José Arroyo and Richard Layne on their fantastic podcast Thinking Aloud About Film for a special episode dedicated to all things Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022.
• The podcast can also be listened to on Spotifyhere and on iTunes here.
• Silent London will always be free to all readers. If you enjoy checking in with the site, including reports from silent film festivals, features and reviews, please consider shouting me a coffee on my Ko-Fi page.
You know how much I love the Bo’ness bonanza that is the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival. So this week I was honoured to appear with José Arroyo and Richard Hayne on their fantastic podcast Thinking Aloud About Film for a special episode dedicated to all things Hippfest 2022.
This blogpost is a version of the introduction I was honoured to give at the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival on Friday for the Nasty Women: Gender Rebels double-bill. The films were brilliantly accompanied by Meg Morley, and the festival continues all weekend.
Welcome to the world of Nasty Women. Cinema’s First Nasty Women is a curatorial project from two American academics, Maggie Hennefeld and Laura Horak. The name is taken from Donald Trump’s notorious remark about Hillary Clinton, and for the past five years, Hennefeld and Horak have been screening films that reveal women being transgressive, riotous and unbiddable on the silent screen at festivals around the world.
This May you will be able to take the nasty women home with you on a four-disc DVD and Blu-ray box set, containing 99 films, dating back to the very beginnings of cinema, sourced from a dozen international archives. It will be crammed with “feminist protest, anarchic, destructive slapstick, and suggestive gender play”.
It may already feel like a long time ago, but 2021 was one heck of a year. We were online, we were in-venue, sometimes we were both. But we were all grateful for the films, and the music. Below, it gives me great pleasure to reveal your chosen favourites, and a selection of your insightful and amusing comments too.
Thank you for your votes. Here are your winners!
Best real-world silent film screening of 2021
Your winner:Casanova (1927), accompanied by the Orchestra San Marco, conducted by Günter Buchwald, playing his new orchestral score
You said:
“Casanova at Teatro Verdi, by Gunther Buchwald. But I also want to mention: Shoes at the Frankfurt Schauspiele with Maud Nelissen trio and also Bett und Sofa at open-air Beykoz Kundura Istanbul with Korhan Futaci and his band.”
“I only saw one (down from pre-pandemic 30 or 40 a year). So that one wins! It was a goodie though. Pandora’s Box, 35mm, Hebden Bridge, with Darius Battiwalla. Well worth the terrifying road trip over icy moors!”
Hip-hip hooray, it’s Hippfest programme announcement day. News that arrives like a sweet, sweet vaccination into the veins of a drizzly February.
While personally I am sorry not to be watching these films in the warm embrace of the Hippodrome this year, the lineup is immense, and I delighted to tell you that the films will be available to stream not only in the UK, but also in Europe and North America. So if you have never had the pleasure of a trip to Bo’Ness, the silent cinema capital of Scotland, well now is your chance to experience the award-winning Hippfest magic.
The Eagle (1925)
The full lineup is online … NOW. So you can peruse at your leisure. But may I please bring your attention to:
Brooksie! I am honoured that Hippfest has asked me to introduce a very special screening of Augusto Genina’s Prix de Beauté starring Louise Brooks on the Saturday afternoon, which will be accompanied by Stephen Horne, who really has a way with this film.
Rudolph Valentino! Without even consulting me, the Hippfest hipsters programmers chose my favourite Valentino film for the Friday night gala. It’s The Eagle, everyone! And with Neil Brand at the keys, this will be well worth dimming the lights in your lounge for. I insisted on writing the programme notes for this one …
Body and Soul (1925)
Oscar Micheaux and Paul Robeson! Delve into the history of Black silent film history with a rare screening of Oscar Micheaux’s 1925 film Body and Soul starring Paul Robeson, with music by Wycliffe Gordon.
Sunday with Mary Pickford! Not only is Hippfest showing the silent Hollywood masterpiece that is Sparrows, with an introduction from Cari Beauchamp, but earlier that day, we are invited to a cookalong with Jenny Hammerton of Silver Screen Suppers to make one of Pickford’s favourite recipes, and to mix a special Hippfest cocktail.
Die Frau, Nach der Man Sich Sehnt (1929)
Marlene Dietrich! So happy that this is in the programme: on Saturday night, the Frame Ensemble will accompany the gorgeous German silent The Woman Men Yearn For/Die Frau, Nach der Man Sich Sehnt, starriung the divine Dietrich.
There’s more! So much more, including Bryony Dixon introducing Asquith’s Underground with Brand’s orchestral score, Pudovkin’s Chess Fever, Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, talks, a quiz, a tour of the Hippodrome … Book your pass as early as you can to support this wonderful festival.
““I am delighted to present our tenth HippFest… a year later than we originally planned but no less of a milestone!,” says festival director Alison Strauss. “We are looking forward to welcoming back all the many fans of HippFest and to throwing open the virtual cinema doors for audiences joining us for the first time. It’s exciting to think that more people might take the plunge because attendance this year is as easy as turning up in your own front room. This is definitely one of the upsides of a virtual festival. Whilst we will miss all being together under the star-studded ceiling of the Hippodrome we have tried to create a comparable cocktail of screenings with music, workshops, events and activities to sweep you up in the marvellous magic of early cinema. If dressing up is your thing, go for it! If you like mingling with other festival-goers, dive in to our virtual festival hub! However you do HippFest we’re sure you’ll have a great time.”
• The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival takes place online Wednesday 17 – Sunday 21 March 2021. Passes cost £20 or £5 for concessions. To read more about Hippfest and to book, click here.
• Silent London will always be free to all readers. If you enjoy checking in with the site, including reports from silent film festivals, features and reviews, please consider shouting me a coffee on my Ko-Fi page.
You don’t need me to tell you that it’s a tough time right now. All I can say is that I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves out there, celebrating the small wins and staying connected.
Talking of connections, I have news of upcoming online delights for silent cinephiles. Viz, to wit, henceforth, etc etc.
Hippfest is back! Yes, the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival returns, online, this 17-21 March. The star attraction here is the wonderful Marlene Dietrich silent The Woman Men Yearn For (1929), along with a new score from Frame Ensemble. But believe me there are more delights yet to be announced. I am sworn to secrecy, however, and shall remain silent until the full programme is announced on 16 February. Read more.
I trailed this event last year, but the full programme for Slapstick 2021 (1-17 March 2021) is a few steps closer to being announced – the full details will be revealed on Monday 25 January. Passes are on sale now, at a variety of price points, and individual tickets for each event will be on sale on Monday, too. Read more.
On 4 February Coram hosts an online roundtable celebrating the centenary of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, and its depiction of care, with Bryony Dixon and Kate Guyonvarch. Sounds fascinating. Book here.
The Silent Comedy Watch Party courtesy Ben Model and Steve Massa was a trailblazer in the online silent game during the early weeks of the pandemic, and has gone from strength to strength. Wouldn’t you know it, they will be celebrating their 50th edition a year to the day since they started, this March? Catch up with previous weeks and get set for future episodes (this Sunday we’re treated to Alice Howell, Martha Sleeper and Charley Chase) here.
Kennington Bioscope shows no sign of slowing down – the shows just seem to get better and better. The next episode, on Wednesday, promises a programme called “Daring Deeds”. I can’t wait for historian-host Michelle Facey to explain further. Set a reminder.
Today is the anniversary of the births of Yevgeni Bauer, DW Griffith, Conrad Veidtand Sergei Eisenstein. What special silent film powers are unleashed on 22 January?
Next week: I reveal the winners of the 2020 Silent London Poll! Iron your bowties and polish your stilettoes, ladies and gentlemen…
Stay safe, lovelies. I’ll be back in touch next week to open those golden envelopes.
• Silent London will always be free to all readers. If you enjoy checking in with the site, including reports from silent film festivals, features and reviews, please consider shouting me a coffee on my Ko-Fi page.
I am delighted to share some very welcome news. Personally, I was really sorry that Hippfest had to be cancelled this year – a week or two earlier and it would have been fine. It’s no secret that it’s one of my favourite festivals, so I am already excited about returning to Bo’ness in 2021.
So I am chuffed to my boots to let you know that on Saturday 4 July, at 8pm (BST) Hippfest will be screening a classic silent horror movie with live accompaniment by the maestro Neil Brand on YouTube. That’s what I call a Saturday night. Continue reading Hippfest at home: horribly good news→
Happy 10th birthday to our favourite friends north of the border, The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival! This annual Bo’ness bonanza of silent cinematic goodness has pulled out several stops for its 10th anniversary edition, which runs from 18-22 March 2020, and features great movies, brilliant musicians, special guests and apparently, a barrage of custard pies.
This is an edited version of the screening notes I wrote for the screening of Laila at the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival 2019. That screening was accompanied by a spellbinding score by Rona Wilkie and Märit Falt, commissioned by Hippfest, which will be touring Scottish venues with the film in the coming months – more details below.
George Schnéevoigt was born in Copenhagen in 1893. His Danish father was a musician and his Finnish mother was a photographer. He lived with her in Berlin for much of childhood, before returning to Denmark as a young man to become a filmmaker. As a director at the Nordisk studio, he directed several films, but he also worked as a cinematographer, most notably on some beautiful films by Carl Th. Dreyer (The Parson’s Widowand Leaves from Satan’s Book, both 1920). It was when working as a cinematographer on a film called The People of the Wilds (1928), a melodrama set in the Sami community in northern Norway, that he was struck by the inspiration for his Laila (1929).
With the help of Norwegian producer Helge Lunde, Schnéevoigt was able to make Laila, an adaptation of a popular novel about the Sami people by author J. A. Friis. At the time, the indigenous Sami people, who lived in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, were the targets of a certain amount of racial prejudice – traces of which you can see in the finished film. Nevertheless, Friis’s novel took a slightly more sympathetic view, and had proved a big success. It had first been written as individual stories under the title From Finnmark: Descriptions, but Friis added more chapters to create a cohesive novel named Lajla, using the adventures of a young woman to tie the story together. Continue reading Laila (1929): the epic adventure of a young woman’s life→
Hipp, Hipp, hooray, it’s Hippfest programme launch day. You can now head over to the Hippfest website to read the full lineup for one of my very favourite silent film festivals. And book your tickets while you’re at it – over the years I’ve learned that popular events at Hippfest can and will sell out. Hippfest is just less than two months away, running 20-24 March, 2019 so you want to move quick, but not so quick that you don’t have time to peruse this handy preview, of course.
Here are some of my highlights of the schedule:
The Parson’s Widow (1920)
Forbidden Paradise – You know that your humble scribe is smitten with Pola Negri. So when I saw the restoration of the sizzling Ernst Lubitsch comedy starring Negri and Rod La Rocque at Pordenone, I was bowled over. I am looking forward to watching it again, slightly more composed, but also glammed up for the HIppfest Friday Night Gala. This film deserves your best bib and tucker. I am also psyched to hear the new score by Jane Gardner. Here’s what I said when I saw it in October: “Hearts and reputations are won and lost. Moustaches are twirled. Fingers and furtive glances are everywhere. A revolution rages and is quashed, and always, behind a door Negri is making a conquest or throwing a plan into disarray. It’s ironic and light, but also physical and passionate. I can’t tell you what a treat it is. Seek it out and savour if you can.”
It’s that time of year again, when we get to delve into the Hippfest programme. The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Bo’ness, Scotland, is the most welcoming event in the early cinema calendar, with one of the most glamorous venues. The lineup is always an enjoyable mix of the classic and obscure too, so I await this announcement with more interest than most.
You can read the full lineup and schedule on the Hippfest website, but here are some selected highlights – and yes, I am terribly, terribly biased.
Der Schatz (1923)
Pabst! So much Pabst around these days, which is great. The Hippfest is showing GW Pabst’s first film, the most traditionally expressionist of his career, Der Schätz, with live accompaniment written and performed by acclaimed German composer and musician Alois Kott.
More Pabst! On 22nd March, yours truly will be giving an illustrated “Cuppa Talk” lecture entitled Lost Girls and Goddesses, all about women in Pabst’s silent films. Brooks, Garbo, Nielsen, Helm … all will be in (virtual) attendance.
Galas! The opening night screening has already been announced as The Last of the Mohicans with live accompaniment from David Allison.
On the Friday night, get yourself glammed up for a date with The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg starring Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer, with live music from the maestro Neil Brand. This silent comedy, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, is perfect in practically every way. And Brand, yeah he’s a bit of a legend too.
Lon Chaney in The Penalty
Lon Chaney swings by on Saturday night. You can watch him play “the master of the underworld” in The Penalty with a new score, commissioned by the festival, from Graeme Stephen and Pete Harvey on guitar and cello.
Stick around after The Penalty for an ideal late-night movie: Benjamin Christensen’s loopy Seven Footprints to Satan, with a live score from the always excellent Jane Gardner and Roddy Long. This film has to be seen to be believed!
Sunday night closes with two screening of recent BFI silent restorations. First, the sumptuous Indian romance Shiraz, accompanied by the wonderful John Sweeney, and then Anthony Asquith’s Underground, accompanied live by the dream team of Stephen Horne and Frank Bockius.
Silent London 