Tag Archives: John Sweeney

Hippfest 2024: seduced by silents

March 24, 2024 PH Leave a comment

The fashionable set is always the first to name a trend. So if you know you know, but if you don’t know you need to know that 2024 is the year of Coquette Core, a prettified aesthetic that can be boiled down to: put a bow on it. That’s technically a beribboned bow with a lower-case b, not a Clara Capital-B-Bow, but the difference is only nominal. At this year’s Hippodrome Silent Film Festival we celebrated the age of the flapper, with all things frilly, feminine and flirtatious.

If you wanted to keep up with the new womenswear trends in the 1920s and 1930s, the cinemagazine Eve’s Film Review would have been your bible, and one of my favourite events at this year’s Hippfest was Jenny Hammerton’s presentation on these witty and inventive female-interest dispatches. Here, every cinemagoer could truly learn how to be “a modern”, and more specifically, how to save your stockings from mud-spatters, advice that all of us in Bo’ness could truly use.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 5

October 11, 2023 PH Leave a comment

Pordenone changes a person. I don’t just mean in the way that my bloodstream is now 80% espresso. It changes your aspirations. My dream now is to live in an apartment designed by Sonia Delaunay, watching Peter Elfelt’s dance films (they are playing before several of the screenings) all day. For loungewear, I would choose the louche shawl-collared robe sported by Jaque Catelain in Le Vertige, and if I ever left the flat, I would wear the stunning geometric coat and hat sported by Madame Gilberte in Le P’tit Parigot. I’d take the vintage Bugatti too, please.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 4

October 10, 2023 PH Leave a comment

We’re at the halfway mark, and let me be abundantly clear: I’m not ready to go home yet. But should you be homesick, there was more than a taste of London in the Verdi today, with Walter Forde’s chase comedy Would You Believe It? (1929) for starters, and even Harry Piel or rather Harry Peel transported us to the Big Smoke for his Rivalen (1923). More of which anon.

More authentically, Jacques Haïk’s Se London!, filmed in the summer of 1927, gave us the view from the streets, whisking us from Hyde Park to Whitechapel in dashing style. I was lucky enough to write about this one for the catalogue, so I was cockahoop to see it on the big screen, with London’s own John Sweeney bringing out the spirit and style of this characterful travelogue. Especially, in the really beautifully photographed Tower Bridge sequence – a real highlight of this film.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2023: Pordenone Post No 2

October 8, 2023 PH Leave a comment

Pordenone eh? It’s like Christmas for silent film fans. Quite literally tonight at the breathtaking conclusion of tonight’s headline film. The title was Hell’s Heroes, and we were watching the silent version of William Wyler’s 1929 sound adaptation of the story better known as Three Godfathers.

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Shhh… Chichester International Film Festival celebrates the silents

July 18, 2023 PH Leave a comment

This August, silent film fans in search of a summer holiday should take trip to sunny West Sussex, and the Chichester International Film Festival. The festival is now in its 31st year, and in 2023 Roger Gibson steps down as Artistic Director and Programmer of the festival, a post he has held for many years. It’s no coincidence that there are a few of his favourite films in the programme, including some of the silent classics.

In fact, there is an especially strong lineup of silent cinema with live music at the festival this year, which runs 4-27 August. The silent film programme comprises Neil Brand’s acclaimed Laurel and Hardy show, John Sweeney playing for Gibson’s choice The Italian Straw Hat, Ben Hall accompanying The Phantom of the Opera on the St John’s Chapel organ, and the Buster Plays Buster show featuring Steamboat Bill, Jr. There’s also a screening of Harold Lloyd’s jaw-dropping stunt comedy Safety Last!.

The Phantom of the Opera

Here is the full silent lineup, and links for booking tickets, which will be on sale on Friday 21 July.

13 & 26 August Safety Last!, New Park Cinema, Chichester – book here.
15 August The Italian Straw Hat with John Sweeney, Guildhall, Priory Park, Chichester – book here.
16 August Buster Plays Buster, Guildhall, Priory Park, Chichester – book here.
22 August Neil Brand Presents Laurel and Hardy, New Park Cinema, Chichester – book here.
25 August The Phantom of the Opera, St John’s Chapel, Chichester – book here.

Harold Lloyd in Safety Last (1923)

Explore the full lineup of the 2023 Chichester International Film Festival here, and the Special Events in particular here.
I am also giving a talk at the festival, on the career of Cate Blanchett, who is the subject of a retrospective strand, and strikes permitting, Roger and I will be leading a Q&A with the actress after a screening of the fabulous Tár. Both of these events are on 21 August.
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The Silent London Poll of 2022: And the winners are …

January 25, 2023 PH 2 Comments

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!

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.

2. Best silent film screening with a solo musician or small ensemble of 2022

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Funny Valentines: Silent comedy at Slapstick 2023

November 29, 2022 PH 1 Comment

This February, comedy fans will head west to Bristol, Unesco City of Film for the annual Slapstick Festival. As usual, there is plenty for fans of silent cinema in the programme, with stars from Charley Bowers to Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin to Marlene Dietrich. Presenters include Kevin Brownlow, Steve Massa and Polly Rose, as well as the marvellous Ayşe Behçet, whose Charlie’s London posts you may remember from this very site, back in the day.

The 2023 Slapstick festival runs from 14-19 February this year, and here’s what’s coming up silent in the programme.

WEDNESDAY 15 FEBRUARY

2pm: The Cigarette Girl Of Mosselprom [1924]

Hosted by Lucy Porter

Watershed £8.50/£5.00

Dir: Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, Soviet Union, 78 mins, cert TBA

In stark contrast to most films made immediately after the Russian Revolution, this is an endearing rom-com filled with likeable characters and some self-effacing insights into the filmmaking process. At the centre of it all is cigarette seller Zina (played by the future Cannes award-winning director Yuliya Solntseva) and the love tangles that surround her when she is talent-spotted to become an actress. With an introduction from stand-up comedian and actor Lucy Porter and live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney.

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Il Cinema Ritrovato: a week in 1922

July 3, 2022 PH 4 Comments

Three little words of Italian you need to learn if you attend Il Cinema Ritrovato: Cento Anni Fa. This must-see strand of the festival, curated by Bologna’s silent cinema supremos Mariann Lewinsky and Karl Wratschko, dials back the programming clock by a century. The name means simply: a hundred years ago.

So it was that this week, in between blasts of restorative Italian sunshine and shots of iced coffee, I spent a week in the 1922 cinematic universe: a world of gorgeous location photography, penetrating psychodrama, impeccable slapstick and to generalise, a healthy number of female-led films (including a handful of nasty women). It was clearly a good year for the movies, so much so that even though I skipped some of the Cento Anni Fa screenings as they were already familiar to me (or outside my days at the festival), that left plenty of room to explore some less well-trod pathways through the year, one massive restoration project and at least one cult classic that I had been saving up for a big-screen viewing. Here are some of those highlights.

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Tromsø Stumfilmdager 2022: An Arctic adventure in film and music

May 1, 2022 PH 4 Comments

All silent film festivals are not the same. Tromsø Stumfilmdager in northern Norway is full of surprises. For one thing, it was the first time I have ever been offered, and gratefully accepted, earplugs before a silent movie screening.

But first of all, as we’re (mostly) Brits here, you’ll want to know about the weather. And boy was there are a lot of it. Tromsø is 69 degrees north, comfortably inside the Arctic Circle and yet in late April they often expect balmy temperatures of 5 Celsius or so, and clear skies. Not this year. As our pilot informed us en route, “winter has returned”, and we spent four days in the Arctic snow. A delightful Christmas-card novelty for us, but something of a drag for the locals who were looking forward to spring.

There was no escaping the weather on-screen either. The movies included the stories of a seasonal thaw, a woman driven insane by the desert winds, a serial killer operating under the cloak of city fog and a demon destroyed by sunlight. Ten points if you guess all of those titles correctly (although you could just check out the programme here).

The Verdensteatret in Tromsø – what a venue!

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Hippfest is back in Bo’Ness for 2022

February 8, 2022 PH 1 Comment

Hippfest returns! You don’t know how happy it makes me to think about watching silent films with live music at the stunning Hippodrome in Bo’Ness.

The festival is held from Wednesday 16 to Sunday 20 March and the full toothsome lineup just dropped, as they say. Here are a few highlights, some of which have been postponed from the sadly cancelled 2020 edition. I am so ready.

The Dodge Brothers accompany FW Murnau’s City Girl on Saturday night – this is the Scottish premiere of their brilliant score for this incredible, jaw-dropping Hollywood silent.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2021: Pordenone Post No 7

October 8, 2021 PH 3 Comments

This is my tenth Giornate, which means I have graduated from newbie, all the way to novice, but also that I have been present for a quarter of the festival’s history. This is the 40th Pordenone Silent Film Festival – an annual celebration of silent cinema that began with a short retrospective of Max Linder films at Cinemazero in 1982, viewed by around eight people. Tonight in the Verdi, it seemed like every other seat was taken for a rendez-vous with Linder.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2021: Pordenone Post No 6

October 7, 2021 PH 2 Comments

Pordenone 6

Unprecedented scenes in the Teatro Verdi tonight, as the audience of customarily meek silent film enthusiasts stamped their feet, booed and exclaimed “outrageous!” “Close the curtains!” and “Down with this sort of thing!” But more reports on the incident the papers are calling the 2021 Giornate riot later.

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Giornate journal 2020: Pordenone post No 7

October 11, 2020 PH 1 Comment

The last night of Pordenone is always bittersweet – the fun is over for another year. There are bags to be packed and it’s time to make one’s journey home, marathons and rail strikes permitting.

The same melancholy accompanied the closing of the 39th Limited Edition, but there’s a note of triumph too. The online version snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, you might say. Fewer films, of course, and none of the bonhomie that brews in the Verdi and the Posta, but something else. A celebration of the global silent film community.

The Giornate welcomed twice as many accredited delegates as usual this year. Many of those will be people who can’t usually travel to Italy, but perhaps there are some among them who might visit for the first time in person next year – the dates are 2-9 October 2021 people, mark it in your diaries. The Limited Edition has been a great advertisement for the real deal.

Day Eight

Three things I can’t resist: a film about a ballerina, a Nordisk romantic drama from the early teens, and accompaniment by John Sweeney. So although I had an elsewhere to be on Saturday, I raced home to catch up with Balletten Datter (Holger-Madsen, 1913). German dancer Rita Sacchetto, known for her Tanzbilder dance interpretations of famous works of art, plays Odette, a feted ballerina who gives up the stage to marry a count. But the footlights are calling, and jealousy is festering between her titled husband and her dance director …

The absolute highlight was a solo scene in which Sacchetto plays dressup in her old stage gear in front of the mirror. A joyous diva moment, thrilling acted and deftly staged of course. This was, I fear, a silly film. But I loved it and the Danish Film Archive is to be credited for its recent swath of first-rate digital restorations, and for making them so accessible in this of all years. Sweeney, of course, did us proud with a film that swung between on and off-stage sequences – he made it all feel like a dance.

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019: Pordenone Post No 6

October 10, 2019 PH 4 Comments

Norma Desmond reckoned the silents didn’t need dialogue. But she never came to the Giornate. This may be a silent film festival but it’s good to talk. And listen. So I spent about as much time listening to people chat today as I did watching them mouth words. And yes, today did mark the return of benshi artist Ichiko Kataora to Pordenone with the Japanese silent Chushingura (1910-1917). So there is a method to this festival madness, I promise you. Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019: Pordenone Post No 6 →

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Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019: Pordenone Post No 2

October 6, 2019 PH 5 Comments

It was a day for film stars in Pordenone today: from the contract players lining up to do studio promo in this morning’s Films on Film programme to Ita Rina the Slovenian tragedienne in the Estonian drama Kire Lained at the end of the night. But when I consider all the stars shining brightly in the Verdi today, I have to confess, my heart belongs to William S.

Tonight’s evening screening was devoted to the western star William S Hart, kicking off a whole strand devoted to his peculiarly soulful machismo and hearty horsemanship. Before the feature we had two short films. One was a talkie clip from 1939 with Hart introducing his final film, Tumbleweeds (1925) and lamenting, it seemed, both the decline of the old west and the passing of his days as a western star. Only slightly less poignant was a silent fragment of Hart on a promotional tour of New York in 1919 and, so the intertitles told us, pining for the frontier lands. Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2019: Pordenone Post No 2 →

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The Silent London Poll of 2018: The Winners

January 1, 2019 PH 5 Comments

January is a time for looking forwards, not back, right? That’s just not the Silent London way. With immense thanks to all of you for voting and sharing in the 2018 poll, I am delighted to announce your silent film highlights of the past year.

Best DVD/Blu-ray of 2018

It arrived late in the year, but hotly anticipated and was everything we wanted it to be. Kino Lorber’s magnificent Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers box set is your favourite release of the year. And mine too. Check out selected highlights from the set on UK Netflix now.

Best Theatrical Release of 2018

Never let it be said that there is any kind of bias in this list – but the BFI’s release of Pandora’s Box, in a gorgeous new restoration topped your choices this year. And of course I wholeheartedly agree.

Read: Peter Bradshaw on ‘an intensely erotic silent era classic’

Best Modern Silent of 2018

Slim pickings in this category, but an overwhelming number of you got creative and chose John Krasinski’s held-breath horror A Quiet Place in this category. I see what you did there and I like the way you think.

Read: Peter Bradshaw ‘Silence never sounded so terrifying’

Continue reading The Silent London Poll of 2018: The Winners →

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A weekend with Lois Weber: silent movies at the 2018 Cambridge Film Festival

September 25, 2018 PH 1 Comment

Festival season is upon us. There’s Pordenone, of course, and London and also the Cambridge Film Festival all in October. A trip to the fenland city is very appealing at this time of year – and all the more so with a tempting selection of silent films.

The star of the slate is Lois Weber, one of the very best American silent film directors. And Cambridge will be showing four of her films over the weekend, all with live music. One of these in particular, The Blot, is rarely shown, but I think it’s very special indeed. Kevin Brownlow says that you won’t find a better film for showing you how life was really lived in the 1920s. That’s very probably true, but I think that inadvertently undersells it. There is a lot more to the film than its realism. It’s a real heartbreaker, and a nuanced drama too.

Lois Weber calling the shots

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Buster and beyond: silent comedy at the 2018 Slapstick Festival

November 27, 2017 PH Leave a comment

More silent film goodness to look forward to in 2018, and this time a little closer to home.

The 2018 edition of Bristol’s Slapstick festival takes place at venues across the city centre from 25-28 January and tickets are on sale now. If you’re not familiar with this event let me tell you how it breaks down. Funny films. Funny people. That’s it, really. The Slapstick Festival celebrates the tradition of visual comedy on screen, beginning in the silent era. And it invites famous comedians to present and share their favourites, as well as a host of experts and the best silent movie musicians in the business.

So next year, silent comedy fans can look forward to:

Betty Balfour in The Vagabond Queen (1929)

The Silent Comedy Gala at Colston Hall on Friday night will be hosted by Tim Vine. The headline film is the superlative Sherlock, Jr, accompanied by Charlie Chaplin’s A Dog’s Life and Angora Love, starring Laurel and Hardy. The Buster Keaton feature will be accompanied by the world premiere of a new, semi-improvised score composed by Günter Buchwald and performed by the renowned European Silent Screen Virtuosi and members of Bristol Ensemble. A Dog’s Life features Chaplin’s own composition for the film and will be performed by a 15-piece Bristol Ensemble conducted by Buchwald.
Comedian Lucy Porter introduces two screenings of female-led silent comedies at the Watershed Cinema: Betty Balfour in The Vagabond Queen, and Constance Talmadge in Her Night of Romance. Porter is great at these intros, both knowledgeable and passionate, so don’t miss these. Music by John Sweeney too.

Someone else who is rather good at introducing silent movies is Kevin Brownlow, who will introduce a lesser-known film, Skinner’s Dress Suit, starring the brilliant Laura La Plante and Reginald Denny. Piano accompaniment by Daan Van den Hurk.
Meet the Austrian answer to Laurel and Hardy, Cocl and Seff, with a screening of some of their rarely seen work at the Watershed, with music by Stephen Horne and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry.
And there will be a chance to see even more rare films at a screening called Lost and Found, in which collector Anthony Saffrey and historian David Robinson will present some recently rediscovered silent comedies, from André Deed (AKA Foolshead) Marcel Perez, Max Linder, Karl Valentin and more. Music will be provided by Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Daan Ven den Hurk.

Continue reading Buster and beyond: silent comedy at the 2018 Slapstick Festival →

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Silent films at the Cambridge Film Festival 2017: the movies men yearn for

October 16, 2017 PH 1 Comment

Silent Londoners are an erudite group, and no doubt we’re all regularly found in halls of academe, talking loftily of theories and histories, of books and poems and one-reel Snub Pollard movies. But even though we’re such scholars, we could all do with a trip to Cambridge this month to complete our silent film education.

The Cambridge Film Festival is one of the best regular film festivals in the country for silents, and this year, the programme of early film is full of surprises, and wonderful music. Here’s what you should be looking out for.

Ivan Mosjoukine in The Loves of Casanova (1927)

The Cambridge Film Festival runs from 19-26 October 2017. Read more here.

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Watch, read, repeat: Pandora’s Box at the pictures

September 22, 2017 PH 4 Comments

A few weeks ago I brought you news about a release date for my book on Pandora’s Box. In that post I also promised you some news about opportunities to see the film too. Here we go …

In case you are wondering, this is the correct order of business, in my humble opinion: watch the film, then read the book, then watch the film again. Repeat as required and enjoy!

So I have a few dates and venues confirmed, where you can come along, watch the film, with an introduction or Q&A from moi, and if you feel so inclined, buy a copy of the book (very reasonably priced, lots of pictures). It would be great to see some Silent Londoners in the audience. As more dates are arranged, I’ll add them to this post, but as ever, pay attention to the Silent London social media channels to get the breaking news.

So far, ALL these screenings are 35mm projections with live musical accompaniment. Because if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. And seeing Pandora’s Box on the big screen is definitely a thing worth doing.

19^th November 2017: NFT1, BFI Southbank, London: 35mm projection, introduction, live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney, book launch. Book tickets here from 3 October on.
24^th November 2017: Cube Cinema, Bristol: 35mm projection, introduction, live piano accompaniment by John Sweeney. Book tickets here.
3^rd December 2017: Phoenix Cinema, Finchley, London: 35mm projection, introduction, live accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Book tickets here.
10th December: Eden Court, Inverness: 35mm projection, Q&A, live accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Book tickets here.
28th January 2018, Home, Manchester: 35mm projection, introduction, live accompaniment by Stephen Horne. Book tickets here.