Spring Silence... Kennington Bioscope 9th Annual Silent Weekend Day Two

 

This is Part Three of the Cinema Museum Silent Spring long weekend, I’m putting my hot takes out in reverse order because… why not!? A brilliant few days incorporating the British Silent Film Symposium 2026 run by Kings College London and the 9^th Kennington Bioscope Weekender.

 

Ypres (1925) with Cyrus Gabrysch, introduced by Lawrence Napper

“… fantasy must cower before the stark realities of mankind’s agony – such as Ypres.”

Former soldier Blair Philips writing in The Stoll Herald, November 1925¹

Philips was qualifying his description of this film as being like a “dream…” emerging from “the mist of yesterday…” which would still be a living nightmare for those who survived one of the bloodiest and most desperate battles of the Great War.

Directed by Walter Summers, using a mix of reconstructions of the Battle of Ypres mixed with contemporary footage from both side, this was one of a number of films aiming to pay tribute to the loses and bravery of a nation still in mourning. Produced for British Instructional Pictures, Ypres followed on from The Battle of Jutland (1921), Armageddon (1923) and Zeebrugge (1924) in this approach and also focused on the experience of individuals to humanise the almost inconceivable events.

A series of maps are also used to show how the British and Commonwealth soldiers in particular were able to, just about, defend the Ypres Salient – a bulging line of attack/defence which emerged as the warring parties fought their way up through North-Western Europe as the Germans attempted to outflank their opposition and cut off supplies from the French ports. It’s a film and a series of events I could easily spend a lot more time on – so watch this space and read Lawrence’s book (link below).

Summers manages to make an entertaining as well as instructional film and the comic asides were more necessary for the audience then rather than now, although we don’t have to look far to see the horrors of war as filtered through the modern apparatus of “instruction”.

“Whole companies were annihilated and the marvel is how anyone remained to break up the infantry attacks which were delivered again and again.”

An officer of the 1st Gloucestershire’s who was at Gheluvelt

 

Rediscoveries and restorations Part II, with John Sweeney, introductions from Dave Glass and Glenn Mitchell

The Cattle Rustler’s End (1911), starring J. Warren Kerrigan as Curley Temple (Shirley not!?)  and Pauline Bush as his sweetheart Fannie, was a pacey tale of illicit love and cattle theft directed by a young Allan Dwan. Fannie’s father disapproves and so the couple meet by a tree where, unfortunately, a cattle rustler has also hidden the branding tools of his evil trade. One thing leads to another and Curley is accused and, as usual, it’s left to the woman to sort things out. This was another rare gem transferred from a nitrate 35mm print for digital restoration by Bob Geoghegan’s Archive Film Agency.

Racing for Life (1924), a five-reeler directed by Henry MacRae and starring Eva Novak and William Fairbanks, featured some extensive time-dilation as motor cars raced around their practice lap and, in the minute or so of elapsed time, our hero, seemingly miles away, has to fight off his kidnappers – including his own brother – race on foot, steal a police motorbike and run across the track to the pit in order to start half a lap behind the others.

This was, without doubt, great fun though and, coming on 35mm from Tony Saffrey’s collection, almost the first time in a century that this extraordinary race has been seen and it was a thrill!!

There was also time for a quick Mabel Normand film, Mabel lost and Won (1915) from Bob Geoghegan’s collection and which is so rare it doesn’t even have an IMDB page! Once again the KB brings you the rarest of the rare as well as the finest of everything else (yes, I work in marketing and I cannot lie!).

 

Charles Vanel, one man alone with his cod...

Pêcheur d’Islande (Fishers of the Isle) (1924), with Stephen Horne, introduction by Liz Cleary

I was rather grumpy (Liverpool FC might have lost again?) when watching this in Pordenone in 2023 but this film was transformed for me here with Liz Cleary’s introduction being a large part of that. Liz became interested not just in the film but in the novel from which it was drawn, as well as the location and the way of life depicted, being driven to find out more and even to visit the locations. Inspiration is infectuous but she also added so much context to enable me to see the strength and purpose of the film.

Perhaps it’s also as I’ve just watched Rose of Nevada, Mark Jenkin’s new film about the lives of trawlers on a small fishing boat. If you go to Whitby, Fleetwood or former fishing villages such as Aberdaron in North Wales, you will see grave after grave marking generations of deaths at sea and for this reason too, the film’s downbeat yet also inspiring narrative rings so true. Without giving any spoilers away, sometimes in cinema deaths have to actually mean something and not simply be a plot point… Also, the exhausting practicalities of line fishing here and trawling as in Rose are humbling in themselves.

Pierre Loti abides...

Liz’s pilgrimage to the film’s locations, Paimpol and Ploubazlanec in northern Brittany, gave us a sense of the unchanging waters and she also gave us the background of former naval seaman Pierre Loti’s 1886 novel on which the film is based. Loti was an extraordinary character as the photograph above might suggest and the story drew on his experience of the Far East as well as the Atlantic – his ability was in his description of the land and the sea and director Jacques de Baroncelli crafts a poetic tale that pulls the viewer in with stunning locations, and compositions as characters fade in and out of each other’s thoughts: the shooting of one character features flashing images of his loved ones in the manner of Abel Gance.

Charles Vanel – who really did have an issue with transport in his career (c.f. The Wages of Fear) – is an unknowable rock of conflicted emotion as Yann the fisherman and elfin Sandra Milovanoff is sadly beguiling as Gaud – the woman who does battle with his affection for the stormy seas.

Stephen Horne’s accompaniment included Breton folk songs as well as his own improvisations, as usual it made for the perfect connection between the sentiments and the time.

 

Harry, Bebe and Snub play with shoes

Focus on… Rolin’ with Glenn Mitchell and Dave Glass, accompaniment John Sweeney

Glenn Mitchell and Dave Glass resumed their ongoing mission by discussing the history and early output of Hal Roach’s Rolin’ company before it rebranded as the Hal Roach Studio and the Kings of Comedy did battle – Sennet vs Roach! Here we find a number of soon to be extremely famous folk such as Snub Pollard, Bebe Daniel’s and Harold Lloyd, just not the Harry we’re that familiar with.

Initially Lloyd played the role of Willie Work in one-reelers but by 1915 “Chaplinitis” was in full bloom and he wore an odd two-whisp moustache and tight-trampy clothes as Lucky Luke – the Chaplin you can meet between reels?  Giving them Fits (1915) was Lloyd, Pollard and teenage Daniels’ debut for the company and is a riotous tale of events in a shoe shop in which Harry is for some reason called Luke the Fluke – a chance-based play on words.

Luke proved popular enough to move to two-reels and under his own name, “Lukes” as opposed to Rolin’s. Pollard also got his own series and in 1918 Roach started making films with a fellow called Stan Laurel and the rest was, eventually, history. You can’t help but be infected by Glenn and Dave’s enthusiasm and this reflects the high energies of these wonderful comedies and the fast-developing world of the business of laughter on screen: there was no luck involved, just talent and application.

Irene (1926), with Stephen Horne, introduction by Kelly Robinson

Colleen Moore knew the score alright and she was one of the most vivacious personas cinema has ever seen: an icon of the Jazz Age who even had an F. Scott Fitzgerald-autographed mini-copy of The Great Gatsby in the library of her legendary dolls house. Kelly Robinson showed the evidence in her introduction to this zippy film which showcased Moore at the height of her powers and popularity.

Directed by Alfred E Green, Colleen plays the titular Irish-American as the daughter of the Ma and Pa O’Dare – played by Cork’s wonderful Kate Price (who even mimes in Oirish) and Charles Murray who presents as drunk for most of the story. Is it just me or whether The Irish only ever drunk and/or policemen in most silent films? Anyway, Irene is the scatty but definitely smart heart of the family of five, sorry foive!, who scrape by in an apartment until she loses her job.

Madame Lucy – whose business motto is “Pay cash – look what happened to the Light Brigade – they charged!”

Colleen and Kate from Cork

After being kicked out by Ma who, y’know, was only joking… Irene moves to New York and gets a job – that luck of the Irish! – delivering parcels to the posh estates on the Boston Park Road. This is where she meets handsome and likable rich person Donald Marshall (Lloyd Hughes) who has just invested in a fashion house run by one Madame Lucy who, you’ll never believe… is Aberdeen’s George K. Arthur who inherited his aunt’s business and her name, somehow?

Lucy declares that to make any woman beautiful is a simple art and, well, soon Irene arrives with some parcels and Donald decides she should be the proof of this theory – much to “Madame’s” dismay. Irene asks for two pals to accompany her – there’s a lot of female solidarity in the film – and Lucy spends most of the remaining storyline extremely unconvinced to comic effect of course. I like George in this role and he sparks well with Colleen’s feisty resilience.

There’s a grand finale at a fashion show that was filmed in Technicolor and on the BFI’s 35mm print this has faded so the section from a copy held in Russia was used – it was colourful but lower quality, Moore’s smile radiated through though. It’s another fine exhibit in the case for Colleen Moore being one of the stars of the age and of enduring charm. My Gen-Z daughter was impressed with her pep and sisterly attitude, especially when sharing roller skates with another late-night reveller who missed the last bus.

Stephen Horne accompanied with the style and verve Colleen demands – Moore not less! A good time was had by all!!

Sadly, I had to away before the grand finale with the UK premier of the latest restoration of The Three Musketeers (1921). It’s available direct from the Film Preservation Society on Blu-ray and hopefully will be screened somehow and somewhere else.

 

A fabulous long weekend of silent frolicking – details of Day One and the Silent Film Symposium to follow in the coming days… Thank you to all at the KB and KC!

 

1.       The Great War in Popular British Cinema of the 1920s: Before Journey’s End, Lawrence Napper, Palgrave Macmillan (2015)

Nurturing nature… No Blood Relation (1932), Kennington Bioscope

Without noticing it I’ve now being attending the Kennington Bioscope for over 11 years and there is always something to learn every time I go: something that will delight and move me in unexpected ways as well as historical-cultural insights you don’t get in the same way or at least with the same frequency. The KB formula is flexible and based on a freer programming schedule than most other cinemas, and tonight was no exception with a first half celebrating the 130th anniversary of cinema in this country – RW Paul and the Lumiere brothers both projecting film programmes on the same day – February 20^th in London – and a main feature from Japanese director, Mikio Naruse, that just blew our collective socks off with its style and quality.

 

To start at the ending, No Blood Relation (生さぬ仲), is the oldest surviving feature-length film from a director who ended up making so many more over the next three decades and whose work is certainly less well known than his contemporaries like Yasujiro Ozu. They have different styles but Naruse is just as effective in dealing with the human condition and in foregrounding women in emotional narratives that address timeless questions about their role in contemporary Japan as it evolved into a more militaristic and industrialised country.

 

Naruse intimate film acknowledges the cultural clash as well as the changes in relationships as a successful film star, Tamae Kiyooka (Yoshiko Okada) returns home after six years away. Okada was the star of Ozu’s Woman of Tokyo (1933) and led a dramatic life herself and would defect to Soviet Russia after the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 with her lover, the acting coach and activist, Ryōkichi Sugimoto. She had already been the subject of industry scandal but would now remain in the USSR until her death in Moscow in 1992.

Yukiko Tsukuba, Toshiko Kojima and Jōji Oka

Back in Naruse’s film she is greeted by dozens of photographers and hundreds of admirers before finding her brother, Keiji (Ichirō Yūki) who helps her escape the hubbub and find a suitable hotel. He we have just seen working with a street thief, Gen the Pelican (Shozaburo Abe) in a slapstick strip scene in which a casing mob search the young man only for his pal to have taken the purse in question. This is played for laughs but their criminality will soon aid Tamae’s plan to be reunited with her daughter.

 

The scene shifts to that daughter Shigeko (a remarkably assured performance from young Toshiko Kojima) as she plays with her toys and with her adoptive mother Masako (Yukiko Tsukuba) who is married to Tamae’s former lover and is the child’s natural father, Shunsaku Atsumi (Shin'yō Nara). The two split after the baby was born as the actress was more interested in another man and her career and so Atsumi, his mother Kishiyo (Fumiko Katsuragi) and now his new wife have raised the child.

 

Shozaburo Abe and Ichirō Yūki

It's going to get worse, but Atsumi’s day is already going badly as he has been declared bankrupt; a fact that gets him little sympathy from his mother who has got used to the wealthy way of living. He receives an unexpected offer to rescue the business and is crestfallen when he meets the potential investor, Tamae, who had left him holding their baby as she moved on to another life with another man. Her offer is simple but unacceptable: let me have my daughter back and I will save your business and your honour.

 

Despite his clear lack of business acumen Atsumi stands strong and gets arrested as a result of his business mismanagement. As the investigation proceeds the tug of love begins in earnest as Tamae bribes his mother to help her kidnap Shigeko with the aid of her brother. But the child will not be swayed and nor will her adoptive mother who is far more connected than her biological mother.

 

Yoshiko Okada

She is helped by her husband’s handsome pal Masaya Kusakabe (Jōji Oka who is just so cool in Ozu’s Dragnet Girl!) who is a martial artist and heroically coded, giving the bad guys a beating but otherwise trying to negotiate between the two mothers. Ultimately it’s a tale of the desire for parenthood and the love that can only be nurtured. Timeless in its way and riveting till the end.

 

Accompaniment was provided by John Sweeney who improvised a sympathetic concerto that was entirely within the film, filling out the emotional lines with fluidity and steadfast commitment to some wonderful emoting on screen. Naruse expert, programmer Dr Kelly Robinson, introduced and gave us a summary of the director’s career and highlighted his use of camera movement and pull-ins to maximise the emotional impact of his characters, it’s a startling technique and sets him apart from Ozu and others of the time. He’s certainly someone I want to see more of and this year’s Hippfest (18^th to 22^nd March!) will feature another of his films, Apart from You (1933).

We kicked off with Ian Christie and those magnificent men and their projection machines. First up on 20^th February 1896 was a performance at the Marlborough Hall in Regent Street – now remodelled as the Regent Street Cinema - arranged by the Lumiere’s, or rather their enterprising father Charles-Antoine, which was presented by multi-skilled theatrical Félicien Trewey, a frequent collaborator of the boys who specialised in making funny hats and, indeed, we saw a film demonstrating this. There had been earlier screenings in France and their most famous film, Train Entering Station, was almost certainly not part of the programme until later in the year.

 

The films we about 50ft long and lasted some 50 seconds but still a step forward in the recording of life and entertainment. The films included Le Débarquement du congrès de photographie à Lyon (1895) as well as Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895) which had been shown in the French screenings but no one really knows the programme for Marlborough Hall, although these early films were more likely than not. Surprisingly the brothers were not really interested in moving pictures and it was their father who thought they could improve on the equipment of the time and they had moved away from motion pictures in 1905. Their company issued about 2,500 films and, astonishingly all have been preserved and now restored. They are however, closely guarded by the Association frères Lumière and rarely screened… which is maddening, n’est pas?

 

Finsbury Technical College

Far – far – fewer of RW Paul’s films are extant and yet we can see him advancing the art of direction and narrative in ways that his technocratic colleagues from Paris did not. His programme took place in Finsbury Technical College, Britain’s first technical college opened almost exactly three years before on 19^th February and eventually to become part of Imperial College. Paul was an electrical engineer who developed his camera with the legendary Bert Acres – the pair had no option given Edison’s approach to IP… hoarding patents as well as necessity, is truly the mother of invention!

 

Paul produced 800 films and all that we have are just 83… he was an innovator and famously created the first two-shot film which Ian has restored to show a man waiting outside a museum and then looking at exhibits inside it. One small step for the cameraman but a huge one for film-kind… and there’s an HG Wells sidebar here in that the two talked about using Paul’s camera to create the effects described in HG’s The Time Machine. It sounds like Virtual Reality way too soon… neither man had the time to complete the project at the time.

When is a car not a car? The ? Motorist (1906)

 

Ian chose a variety of Paul’s films as, again, the exact programme is not known. What we could see was more narratively rich, humorous and – dare I say it – more genuinely “cinematic” than the Lumiere’s work. But it was all stunning, 130-year old life flashing in front of us and all illustrated musically by John Sweeney’s wonderful accompaniment.

 

Another one of those special Bioscope evenings. The place is haunted by the ghosts of cinema past as well as the nerds of cinema present and future. The elements intermingle and the results are always inspiring!

 

Félicien Trewey in a hat!

Spending time with HG Wells and Georges Méliès...

Betty Balfour Lost and Found, Kennington Bioscope

 

In the darkened hush of the former workhouse home of Charlie Chaplin we were watching Betty Balfour on film that so far as is known, does not exist anywhere else in the world. Think about that, in a digital landscape in which seemingly everything is available to stream (or not stream) at the whims of faceless copyright owners who seek to monetise and control IP. Things were not much different back in the Twenties but things got lost, events overtook the physical media and even the films of Britain’s Queen of Happiness were misplaced.

 

Chris Bird screened a fragment of an unidentified Betty Balfour film, 20 seconds or so, with a couple of other players who might have been familiar.  A tantalising glimpse and, maybe, there’s more out there somewhere. Then he introduced us to a film from his collection, a 9.5mm copy of her 1926 British film, Cinders which is no relation to Ella Cinders staring her American counter-part Colleen Moore. Originally in 20 reels and designed for, patient, home viewing, Chris had transferred the spools onto three larger reels – as much as he could without fear of too much stress on the celluloid from the projection process.

 

Betty's Cinders is along way from the Ball. (All images courtesy of Christopher Bird)

This 95-year-old film was projected from Chris’ 70-year-old projector* and, unsurprisingly there were one or two unexpected additional stops on the way as the past was revealed in vivid action accompanied by the fleet fingers of Colin Sell on the piano. Colin had not seen the film, few others have, but he was able to anticipate the rhythms of Balfour’s perfectly timed comedy whether she was getting trapped in revolving doors, falling down or simply turning her sparkling peepers towards the camera. She has perfect timing, a mix of Stan Laurel, the aforementioned Miss Moore and even Mary Pickford with whom she was often compared. The jewel in the crown of British silent stars and voted in the top two by readers of the Daily Mirror along with Ivor Novello.

 

As Chris pointed out, 9.5mm was only ever intended for home projection but, on the big screen here it looked fabulous – the use of a single central sprocket allows the gauge to pack more punch than it’s diameter might suggest and it was Film Club as only the Kennington Bioscope can provide with every break in the film filled by improvisational flourishes from Mr Sell and the story continuing in the determined hands of Camera-Chris! Just to add more jeopardy, Chris also provided a live translation of the French intertitles on this precious celluloid survivor.

 

The Ball is in full swing and Betty is having it...

The story centred on Betty from the get-go as the down-trodden – but unbowed! – chamber maid in a guest house who gets to assist a reasonably mad Professor Pottiefax (Fred Wright) as he looks after his beetles at the expense of all other cares. He rewards her fortitude after winning a fortune and a hotel in the south of France (always a favourite hang-out of the British film set. The professor has too a time on the dance floor and is photographed in compromising positions with some of the dancers who, for reasons best know to themselves, are wearing kilts.

 

Evil French hoteliers try to blackmail him out of his good fortune but they’ve reckoned without our Betty and also her ability to make handsome friends who will pitch in when the going gets industrial, in this case Richard Dalrey (André Roanne). It’s a slight film in some ways but this is primary evidence of the extraordinary appeal of Balfour and further explains the good humour she was so effortlessly capable of supplying on the screen!

  

The view from the projectionsist (Christopher Bird)

Daughter of the Regiment (1929) was an altogether bigger budgeted affair being a British/German co-production released in Germany as Die Regimentstochter and directed by Hans Behrendt: a Euro pudding as they used to be called. This was a 16mm print courtesy of Bob Geoghegan/Archive Film Agency and, once again, the only copy of the film left anywhere. Chris and Bob projected and Ashley Valentine accompanied this slightly more robust stock and again we were drawn in by the uniqueness of the experience and the privilege of seeing a film not in circulation, not digitised, and only in a private collection.

 

The plot was based on Gaetano Donizetti’s 1840 opera which explains some of the grand gestures and the joyful mood of a nimble if predictable story arc. Betty is Marie, a foundling who has become the “daughter” of a French Regiment stationed in the Pyrenees on the French Spanish border. They guard against incursions from Spanish smugglers and gangs, with Quippo the sergeant, acting as Marie’s adopted father.

 

One of the gangs breaks into their compound whilst the troop are away and Marie bravely – or as she thinks – frightens them away by firing a single shot that Quippo hears and brings his men back to then suffer his charge’s boasting about her soldierly prowess. She goes out riding in the hills and falls trying to collect wildflowers. She is rescued by a handsome young man Tonio (Alexander D’Arcy) who is reluctant to give her his name even though she clearly wants to know all about him… Maria and Tonio… this is a Southwest Side of France Story?

Directed by Hans Behrendt the film shifts in scale from these locations shots of the parched Mediterranean hinterland to the crowded traffic of Paris as the visiting Countess Brascani (Olga Limburg) notices her lost brother’s family crest on the swaddling Maria had been found in and which is now frames on her wall. There can be no doubt that she is a Brascani and has to leave her regimental family for a noble lifestyle in the north. Naturally she must marry another noble and her response when the countess shows her “the man she is going to marry” is hilarious “what, that?!”.

 

But, what about Tonio I hear you ask? Well, after reacquainting themselves as Maria rides her pony through Paris and spots him in his car, she starts to suspect that he might be a smuggler. She loves him but how can she marry such a man and, is the unattractive wealthy man the least worst option?

 

We’ve all been there, to varying degrees, and I hope you get your chance to see this film sometime. Any Betty is good Betty and despite the mixed reviews Chris read out from the British press, the Germans seem to have been far keener. We have more in common that that which divides us in Europe, especially our sense of humour!

 

Ashley Valentine competed the picture with elegant flourishes and good anticipation for this unseen film and is fast becoming a vital part of the Bioscope operation. London’s Silent Film Speakeasy** is flourishing and we’ve never needed it more!

 

At the start of the evening Chris also showed an unidentified fragment of another Betty Balfour film which one keen-eyed Bioscoper identified as Raise the Roof a 1930 UK musical directed by Walter Summers and starring Betty, Maurice Evans, and Jack Raine. But even that’s still a mystery, as Chris’ fragment doesn’t have a soundtrack: is this an unknown silent version?

 

And, this being the Biosxcope, there was even more with another collector handing Mr Bird a reel containing all that survives (not much) of George Pearson’s Satan’s Sister (1925), featuring Betty, Guy Phillips and Philip Stevens. Hopefully, this will be screened at a later show.

 

Discovery and entertainment all delivered in real time in Kennington: it’s what they do and the way that they do it!

 

And not forgetting this glorious audience! Pic from Christopher Bird

Screen shots from Cinders... courtesy of Mr Bird - unseen in a long time!

*Designed by a Czech refugee, J Danek, in the 1930s - Chris' was made in the 1950s at their factory in Windsor.

**As PH from SL famously put it!

Yet another Top Ten, 2025 in live silent cinema...

Have you noticed that there are more and more best-of lists this year? Most are aimed at generating engagement either with heated debates on the socials or via ecommerce, but some are just the outpourings of unquiet minds, butterflies who just need to bring some order at this disturbing time of the year between normal service and Christmas’ mourning. This is one of those, it punctuates the space between regular rants about live screenings and hot digital media – or lukewarm in the case of the last post. So, here we go after the year in which I published the THOUSANDTH post on this blog and crossed the one MILLION words mark… I’ll try be brief.

Gösta Berlings saga (1924), BFI with John Sweeney

January was the hottest month as a cool breeze blew in from Sweden as the BFI screened the SFI’s restoration of Mauritz Stiller’s adaptation of Nobel laureate Selma Lagerloff’s novel. I was honoured to introduce the film and to interview Sonja Kristina, the granddaughter of Gerda Lundequist (who played the matriarch of Ekeby), who then attended the event with her children and grandchildren.

The film is long and may have its faults but it is a major work and features Lars Hanson, the young Greta Gustafson and my favourite Silent Film Principal Dancer/Actor, Jenny Hasselqvist. The restoration looked stunning bringing new vibrancy and order to the film and, cometh the three hours cometh the accompanist - John Sweeney topped things off with energy and invention, as ever the perfect player for the long dance!

Dans l’Hellade / In Ancient Greece (1909) from Christopher Bird's collection

Museums of Dreamworlds… Kennington Bioscope Programme of Antiquities

This was a collaboration between the Bioscope, the BFI and the Department of Greek and Latin, at my daughter’s alma mater, University College London as part of Museums of Dreamworlds: Silent Antiquity in the BFI National Archive. Introduced by the BFI’s Bryony Dixon, and presented by Professor Maria Wyke from UCL it was a selection of films from 1901 to 1927 all of which drew their inspiration from the classical world of Greece and Rome – very loosely in some cases!

Most of the films were from the BFI’s archive with one - Dans l’Hellade / In Ancient Greece (1909) from Christopher Bird’s collection on 28mm digitally scanned by the Cinema Museum. The project asks “…how did silent cinema design its Greek and Roman dreamworlds? What did cinema gain from recreating the distant past? What did the past gain from being recreated in moving images?” On the night, we found some answers and some more questions and we also discovered how Helen’s fabulous face and fancy for the tailors of Troy led to the war between Sparta and Troy: even now we know these stories so well we can understand these jokes.

A 1919 Erdmann with colour filters!

 

Early Colour Live!, Birkbeck University with John Sweeney, Christopher Bird and Iain Christie

Another collaboration and a set of early colour films on celluloid from Chris Bird’s collection and hand-cranked by the man himself on his own projector. We saw hand-coloured film that would have required sixteen images hand colouring for every foot of film equating to one second, Pathé’s pioneering stencil colour system, William Friese Greene’s Biocolour and more all revealing the sophistication and relentless innovation of cinema’s first decades.

Such treats do not come around very often and here’s hoping for more from the gang in 2026.

 

Inka Länta

With Reindeer and Sled in Inka Länta’s Winterland (1926), Hippfest at Home, Hippfest #15

 

I wasn’t able to get to Falkirk this year but luckily was able to enjoy the online edition. As online presentations go, Hippfest at Home is perhaps the most successful in capturing the atmosphere and the feeling of actually being there. You have establishing shots of the live introductions shot from the back of the stalls showing the lovely old stage of the oldest cinema in Scotland, the Hippodrome (1912) and then the option of seeing the film and the musicians accompanying. As always, Alison Strauss leads from the front with such relaxed expertise and enthusiasm – this kind of impassioned poise is reflected across the whole team who love the films but also the audience and the combination is what makes this impossible festival work so well.

Pick of the pics was this dramatized documentary about the reindeer herding lives of the Sámi people who co-existed with them in the most precarious of ways in the far north of Sweden, across Scandinavia and even into Russia. The screening encompassed Sámi old and new with the UK premiere of a new score by Sámi-Finnish joiker and electronic musician Hildá Länsman plus sound designer Tuomas Norvio, collaborating with the Norwegian Sámi musician Lávre Johan Eira and Swedish composer, cellist and bass guitarist Svante Henryson. Traditional forms of Sámi song – “joik” - were deployed alongside moder instruments and electronica to create a visceral and sometimes startling score to this restored documentation of this remarkable people.

Hotel booked; I look forward to the 16^th Edition in March!

Betty Balfour

The Sea Urchin (UK 1926), with Colin Sell, 8th Kennington Bioscope Silent Film Weekend

April and it was time for an early breakfast and the finest coffee that Lambeth can provide as we dove into this mini-Giornate del cinema muto in Charlie’s old workhouse home. Highlights came thick and fast and included the World Premiere of the new Nasty Women full programme, Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy, with Colin Sell, presented by Michelle Facey. There were British films, Boy Woodburn (UK 1922) (35mm) with Cyrus Gabrysch playing, introduced by Lawrence Napper and with Ivy Duke and Guy Newall on screen, along with rare US prints, Clive Brook in The Yellow Lily (US 1928) (35mm) with Ashley Valentine and introduction by Liz Cleary

My favourite was The Sea Urchin (UK 1926) (35mm), with Colin Sell and introduced by Lawrence Napper which included Britain’s Queen of Happiness, Betty Balfour (more of whom is coming in ’26 with a recently rediscovered film… check out the KB website!). It was a proper delight with The Sea Urchin in question being our BB’s Fay Wynchbeck who as the film starts is a disruptive student in a Parisian girls’ boarding school. Her singing and dancing leads the other girls slightly astray and there’s a fabulous shot of their after-hours partying through the keyhole which Alfred H would have been lauded for. Fay has rich relatives but there’s a family feud in her way… I swear Colin Sell laughed at parts as he played along with glee!!

Christopher Bird at the EMG gramophone (picture from Lynne Wake)

Un Chien Andalou (1928), 35mm nitrate, live 78 RPM DJ Chris Bird, BFI

June was a mixed blessing as I couldn’t make it to Cinema Ritrovato but at least I had the BFI’s Film on Film long weekend to provide the look and feel of nitrate and celluloid! This was a wonderful weekend with lots of colourful treats and my chance to stay awake (see original post in October, 2017) for all of Lubitsch’s wonderful The Student Prince of Old Heidelberg (1927), but my favourite live cinematic experience had to be the surreal presentation of Bunel’s masterpiece in NFT1.

"NOTHING, in the film, SYMBOLIZES ANYTHING. The only method of investigation of the symbols would be, perhaps, psychoanalysis." [Luis and Salvador...]

Luis Buñuel’s original score was a “mash up” – as The Kids now say – of Argentinian Tango music with Wagner et al, thereby inventing Classical Lounge Core without knowing it. Chris Bird, who collects shellac as well as celluloid, was tasked with cutting from one to the other by playing contemporary pressings on two 78 rpm turntables, one of which was a top of the range EMG machine from 1932 which produced remarkable clarity and range. It was the hip-hop triumph of the season and exactly the kind of madness the creators wanted!

 

Anna May Wong in The Thief of Bagdad

 The Thief of Bagdad (1924), with Neil Brand, BFI Anna May Wong: The Art of Reinvention

The BFI’s Anna May Wong season was my favourite of the year and included one great day in which I caught up with her in two of the great silent fantasy films which I had been waiting to see on film and on screen. Peter Pan (1924) caught the eye with JM Barrie’s hand-picked pocket rocket betty Bronson and its closeness to the original play as well as accompaniment from Costas Fotopoulos but The Thief of Bagdad (1924) featuring a dazzling Douglas Fairbanks and epic accompaniment from Neil Brand featured more AMW and was on such a scale it have NFT1 buzzing!! I could happily watch both films every day of the week!

Italia Almirante Manzini abides

Zingari (IT 1920), with Günter Buchwald, Elizabeth-Jane Baldry and Frank Bockius, Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto 44

This was the pure diva pomp and circumstance of Italia Almirante Manzini playing the Queen of the Gypsies in Zingari (IT 1920) and it brought the Teatro Verdi to its feet with a combination of on-screen energy and the startling accompaniment from a super group comprised of Baldry, Buchwald and Bockius or BBB for short. The film tells the story of Vielka, daughter of the Gyspy King Jammadar (Alfonso Cassini) who is fierce and unruly, determined to sacrifice everything for the man she loves, Sindel (Amleto Novelli) even though he is from a rival clan and physically puts the old man in his place when challenged, starting the feud that runs the entire narrative.

Vielka is supposed to marry Gudlo (Franz Sala), who’s not a patch on Sindel so no wonder she burns their farmhouse and gets herself exiled. Will there be any happy ending, do operas ever have happy endings? Günter let loose his inner gypsy on violin and the others followed on with one of the most passionate accompaniments of this year’s Giornate!

The German Retreat and Battle of Arras (GB 1917), Laura Rossi, Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto 44

Made when the Great War looked like it might be winnable and has a propagandist purpose beyond earlier films in showing the changed momentum of the conflict to those back home. It is also historically significant for the events it memorialises, the techniques it uses to do this and its intent.. Geoffrey H. Malins was director of photography as he had been for the two Somme films and this film is another great technical achievement and awe-inspiring in the greater context.  It didn’t feel triumphant though, more grimly determined to help complete the job and this was partly down to the excellence of Laura Rossi’s musical choices.

Laura has scored for the other films and was on hand to hear her new composition played in the Teatro Verdi by the Orchestra di Pordenone & Coro del Fruili as conducted by Andrej Goričar. Her score enabled us to really see the film, devoid of any post-facto contextualisation, in ways that were connected to the original intent. She allowed us a bit of both but underscoring the documentation on display to allow our own interpretation – a most historical musical agenda, incredibly effective and created.

 

Lillian Gish

Way Down East (1920), with Stephen Horne, BFI, Too Much: Melodrama on Film

Another film that anyone professing to blog about silent film should surely have seen already but as with the two above, I’ve been waiting to see it “live” on film and with an ace accompanist. I was not disappointed and am persuaded that Lillian Gish probably influenced Griffiths’ development of the story. Working not only with the best actor he also had one of the best cameramen and had clearly been watching the works of Sjostrom and Weber as this story is uncompromising. It’s also a surprise to see the film take the approach it does to Gish’s unmarried mother character and, indeed, to see her fight back against the guilty party: This man – an honoured guest at your table – why don’t you find out what HIS life has been?

This feels more Gish than Griffith but either way it’s a direct hit on the Patriarchy where you least expect it. Anna’s driven by a rage of frustrated indignity at the unfairness of her situation and the fact that through no fault of her own she is denied happiness in the arms of the man she actually loves – played by Richard Barthelmess.

Stephen Horne provided yet another one-man orchestral score off the hoof and covered this film’s vast space and time with constantly evolving mood and melody all played on three or was it four instruments with just the two hands, or so he says!

 

The UK forecast...

Thank you to all who have programmed, played, introduced and archived this year, lets do even more in 2026 as I write my way towards my second million words…

 

 

 

Lazybones (1925), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

 

Dave Glass’ introduction included a visual essay starting with William Fox (of whom more later at the KB) which then focused on an overview of the director of tonight’s main feature, Frank Borzage with a reminder of his chief elements of style, his longevity and quality. He made four features in 1925 starting with perhaps Norma Talmadge’s finest performance and finest film, The Lady and ending up with Lazybones (1922) – an outstanding year commercially as well as artistically.

 

The title may indicate a romantic comedy with some predictable turns of fate to enable the titular character, Steve Tuttle (Buck Jones) redemption as a hard-working, hero and yet the film is so much more than that and is an a-typical romance in which the main character’s laziness is a more existential challenge to his self-awareness. When the need arises, he is decisive and quick to action, but he is faulted by an unwillingness to challenge his heart even as he often does the right thing and has moral courage. Borzage – and Frances Marion’s script – enable our full sympathy but there’s something unsaid, un-done and unfulfilled which at the last is revealed as a very smart piece of filmmaking.

 

Mr Glass covered the arrival of Herr Murnau at Fox where he was sent to encourage and review other director’s to add more Germanic nuance to their work but seemingly he spent as much time watching Borzage at work as advising him, the results of this cross-continental pollination are there for all to see in the combinations of Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor with a bit of George O’Brien and a bit more of the splendid Mary Duncan (City Girl and The River being two of the greatest films about love made by each director or any human).

 

Buster Jones... how's he gonna to get the day's work done?

Buster Jones is a handsome chap albeit no Charles Farrell I hear my wife – and a number of others –cry, but he’s got his charms and here is conveys “Lazy” in ways that belie his casting in so many westerns. He’s a careful ploy by Borzage, playing against type and in ways which the audience really can’t pin down. Bones is indeed lazy and he gets caught napping even by the local fish quick enough to leap off the line after waking the somnambulant fisherman, insists that his ragged roof doesn’t need fixing as it’s not raining and asks his Mom (Edythe Chapman) to remind him to fix their wonky gate: “that darn gate!” says everyone who passes through it today, tomorrow and for years to come.

 

Jones looks like one of life’s easy winners and yet here he presents as a man preparing himself for disappointment by prevarication: why look life square in the eye when you can just sleep it off. Borzage makes sure his audience isn’t lulled into the dream by wrong-footing us and heaping humiliations on Steve, and us, as time and again he’s caught napping. It’s enough to drive Erich von Stroheim out of the theatre in floods of tears.

 

We are waiting for something to happen, something to reveal the hero within as good defeats evil in a world in which bad men do not profit for being rotten bullies by being promoted. Turns out that it’s that American Dream we used to hear about.

 

Zasu Pitts and Jane Novak

It begins with Frank’s gentle routines being disturbed by the arrival of his sweetheart Agnes Fanning (Jane Novak) and her fearsome mother (Emily Fitzroy). The two ride in by tandem and Mrs Fanning’s stiff-backed posture lets you know to expect the worst… She cannot disguise her disgust at Steve and certainly doesn’t want his relationship with Agnes to develop. Steve manages to get his jalopy running and momentarily impresses before it blows up, he tells Agnes he has plans and whilst in a more typical film there would be a hidden secret to rescue his fortune here you cannot be so sure.

 

Mrs Fanning much prefers the local “Beau Brummel”, Elmer Ballister (William Bailey) who she has lined up for her elder daughter Ruth (Zasu Pitts); he’s a real go-getter and full of it. She writes to Ruth telling her to return from her teaching post and prepare herself for wedlock. But Ruth has been rather busy away from home having married a sailor and born his child only to be rapidly widowed following his death at sea. She returns home with her child convinced that no one will believe that she has ever been married and in a moment of desperation, throws herself into the fast-running waters on the edge of town. Now we see how fast Lazybones can move if he wants to as, hearing her cries he wakes from his slumber-fishing to dive in and save her.

 

Safely on the riverbank, Ruth tells all and Steve agrees an unlikely plan to save her reputation by looking after her baby daughter until she has the strength to confess all to her mother. He returns home with the baby spinning the tale of finding her abandoned and spurred on by Elmer’s callous disdain, announces that he will adopt. Ruth is safe for the moment but when she finally tells her mother the old harridan refuses to listen or believe taking a stick to her terrified daughter in a genuinely shocking moment. Mrs Fanning may well be the wicked witch of the mid-West but a shadow of shame hangs momentarily across Emily Fitzroy’s brow before she grits her teeth in cruel resolve.

 

Steve finds a baby

Ruth cannot take her baby back and Steve realises that he’s in for the long haul. Agnes cannot face this with the inevitable implications concerning the child’s true father, and she tells poor Steve that she will never speak to him again… her final card played to her lasting regret. Events move forward to 1915 with Kit now a young girl (played by Virginia Marshall) who is still regarded with suspicion by the locals. Agnes sees her trying to befriend a local child only for the mother to pull her away whilst Steve tells his adopted daughter that it’s all his fault for being lazy.

 

War comes and Steve listlessly enlists only to find himself an accidental hero after he sleeps through the order to advance and ends up capturing a German squadron from the rear. He returns to a hero’s welcome and to find Kit all grown up and looking mighty pretty (Madge Bellamy). Kit is in love with one Dick Ritchie (Leslie Fenton) who has even fixed that darn gate. Richie proposes but Steve also realises that he has feelings for his young ward…OK, that’s a bit from left field but it’s not the only surprise as events play out in a very European way…

Lazybones packs an accumulation of little punches that leave your thoughts provoked long after the film has stopped playing. It is an intelligent film from Mr Borzage and one that stands the test of time with a message that nothing should be taken for granted in a world of false formalities. Zasu Pitts is a vital counter to the easy-going, she’s a remarkable performer with a uniquely-unsettling way here wilting in front of our very eyes as the woman with her life ruined by the need to keep up her mother’s appearances. Emily Fitzroy is also good as her sister Ruth whose heartbreak is slower burning but none the less real.

 

Madge Bellamy and Buck Jones

Don’t be lazy, make real choices and don’t sleep on the job of life. Borzage’s woke agenda still speaks powerfully.

 

All of this was added extra force by the immaculate improvisations of John Sweeney on the piano as he matched the subtle turmoil on scream meeting every triumph and disaster with carefully conceived flourishes melding with the action in that uncanny way he does, holding us rapt in the space between the thoughts and expressions.

 

The plan unravells in The House of Flickers

A seemingly more straightforward task was provided in his accompaniment of the evening’s first film, The House of Flickers (1925) a short directed by Benjamin Stoloff and starring James Parrott who, as I’m sure you all know, was the brother of the even more famous Charles Joseph Parrott also known as Charlie Chase. It’s a fast-moving comedy about a man trying to sell his picture house only for a cheeky chimp to mess up the nitrate in the projection booth. It features lots of guest players and none more famous that the primate, name of Josephine, who would later steal the limelight from Buster Keaton in The Cameraman. Also featured is The Wonder Dog Pal as Pete the Pup who gives a performance of nuanced dexterity as you would expect.

 

The Kennington Bioscope has never shied away from working with animals or, indeed, children should the need arise.