Gently down the live stream… 12 from 21, Silent Film in the Modern Age

So, here it is... and what another resilient year it’s been for cinema. I saw a lot more films in theatres this year and stand in admiration all those involved in making this possible, so thank you for the projecting, programming, popcorn and perseverance. Thank you for showing me to my seat, introducing and politely requesting that we all wear masks… every little really does help. But this year’s list is dominated once again by digitally streamed films albeit from live events with Bonn, Bologna, Pordenone and others re-emerging and offering the choice to be there in person or the opportunity to watch from home. the way forward as many are still vulnerable whilst the pandemic lasts whilst those who could attend did so with appetite renewed.

So without further ado and in no particular order here's twelve highlights from the year behind us.

 

When Igor met Mary

1. A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927), with John Sweeney, 10th Hippodrome Silent Film Festival

I’m hoping that 2022 allows me to attend Scotland’s premier silent film festival… OK, one of Europe’s premier festivals! This delicious soviet comedy typifies the focus on programming a mix of well-know and more obscure but historically significant films and is a film I’ve wanted to see for some time.

In 1926 Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks came to Moscow as part of a grand European tour and seeing how rapturously they were greeted, how fetishized they were as something beyond ordinary humanity, Sergei Komarov devised a means of using this to both shine a comic light on the nature of this ultra-fame. He had no special access to the stars, just a collection of newsreels and one crucial sequence in which Mary agreed to perform a short skit with Igor Ilyinsky at the end of which she kisses him on the cheek; the moment which makes this film transcend its sources, from meta to better.

John Sweeney provided accompaniment and delighted in every comedic twist and turn in this joyful film that is as much a celebration of the Muscovite sense of humour as its cinema. As John said in his introduction, this is exactly the kind of film you fall for… one that is largely unseen but one that is further evidence of the strength of Russian comedy and cinematic ideas during the Twenties.

 

2. Siren of the Tropics (1927), Günter A. Buchwald and Frank Bockius, Slapstick Festival 2021

My first missed Slapstick Festival for a few years but the programme was as strong as you’d expect especially this opportunity to see the great Josephine Baker in her first feature. At the time, Hollywood was certainly not ready to go as far as French directors Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant do by placing Baker as the main focus in La sirène des tropiques and by giving her a story largely free of the cliqued tramlines of other multi-ethnic stories. Baker is perhaps treated as more overtly sexual than most white actors at this time – she’s topless twice -  is portrayed as both innocent and with a childlike wildness; she attracts (white) male lust as well as love and protectiveness, revels in powerfully expressive jazz dancing – seriously, that core and the way she co-ordinates massive extensions without any apparent strain -  and yet her character remains in awe of western spirituality. So many questions… but it’s still a shock to see someone as naturalistic as her placed, largely, at the centre of a story from this period and one in which race is not really mentioned.

Live musical accompaniment was provided by Guenter A. Buchwald on piano and Frank Bockius on percussion, who, in addition to deploying an almost telepathic musical synchronicity, smartly avoided the cliches of cultural referencing. This being one of the great jazz babies, they gave us a rip-roaring, hi-tempo jazzed score that not only kept pace but lifted the film to the vibrational level of its all-powered star. When Baker eventually struts her considerable stuff towards the end of the film you felt that this is the moment the players had been pacing themselves for.

 

Marthe Fabris... L’Arlésienne

3. L’Arlésienne (1922), Il Cinema Ritrovato, Günter Buchwald and L’Octuor de France

 

A film with a fantastic sense of place, shot on location in the gorgeous city of Arles and the surrounding countryside of the Camargue, it’s almost entirely shot outdoors, featuring the images of locale and rural practice you’d expect from André Antoine, the director of L'hirondelle et la mésange (1920) and La Terre (1921).

 

This 4k restoration is a thing of beauty completed in 2020 by Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé and La Cinémathèque française from two unique diacetate prints preserved at the latter and it benefited mightily from musical accompaniment based on orchestral arrangements by Gabriel Diot from the score edited by Pathé in 1922. Günter Buchwald rearranged the score, which features compositions from Bizet (who incidentally wrote an opera based on this story), Gillet, Rachmaninov and others. He also added his own Impressions d’ Arles and conducted L’Octuor de France to create a perfectly synchronised emotional narrative that not only pull at present day heartstrings but also recreates the sound of the contemporary silent experience.

 

Lyda Borelli 

4. Fior di male (1915), Bonn Silent Film Festival with Cellophon

 

I’m not having a best of list without a new-to-me classic Diva film and here was a prime cut of imperial Borelli in all her operatic pomp and with a collection of magisterial emotional displays only matched by her gorgeous and frequently changing wardrobe. Only in Italy miei amici and it took a German film festival to highlight that point.

Accompanying were the Cellophon duo, aka Paul Rittel and Tobias Stutz who both play cello in ways that are emotionally resonant and respectful of the source visuals. They used admirable flavour and restraint with both recognising the need to underplay when confronted by the operatic fireworks on screen using this most mournfully flexible of instruments in musical tribute to perhaps the greatest Italian silent film diva…

Another excellent presentation from this year’s Bonn festival and I have completely run out of reasons not to go there in 2022.

 

Magda Holm

5. The Girl in Tails (1926), Stephen Horne and Elizabeth Jane-Baldry, Bonn Silent Film Festival

I’m to be disgraced simply because I’m a girl. A meek and mild, simple and unassuming girl…

Karin Swanström’s uplifting film, a delicate mixture of comedy and drama that fully lives up to its promise as A Light Summer Film Story especially with truly delicious accompaniment from Horne and Baldry, without whom no remote access Bonn would be complete. It is notable for addressing so many issues that might be considered more modern concerns and it tackles proto feminism in ways which are never black and white, flowing naturally with the story. It’s sophisticated about its subject and uses cross-dressing as a means of creating conflict as well as comedy and makes points about fairness that doesn’t bang the drum so much as rolls it around the ballroom between social conservatism and the heroine’s “fight against injustice”.

Stephen’s multi-instrumentation and Elizabeth-Jane’s harp work so well together as they leave each other so much space and support, sharing the leading lines with the harp being used as percussion and bass as well as the heavenly flourishes you’d expect. There were some exceptionally lovely themes and the improvised was hard to separate from the pre-arranged which says it all. The ideal accompaniment for this delightful film!

 

Leslie Howard and some of my old neighbours

6. Breaking the silence… The Wit and Wisdom of A.A. Milne, BFI, with Bryony Dixon and Neil Brand

This was not my first cinema of the pandemic but it was the first silent screening with live accompaniment since March 2020… and, what a way to break the silence with BFI Curator Bryony Dixon providing expert introduction and Neil Brand accompanying with all the contextual flourish and narrative instinct you would expect.

There were two films written by Alan Alexander Milne for Minerva Films, founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard with his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel. The company’s board of directors included C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Playfair and A. A. Milne. First up was The Bump (1920) featuring Smith as the famous explorer with a “bump” that enables him to find even the darkest parts of Africa but in London he gets hopelessly lost. Smith was 57 and the film makes great play of his cragginess with a sequence notating the origins of the scars on his face, a shark bite here and a lions’ claw there; he’s explored the world and has the autographs left by every predator he’s met.

The second film featured Leslie Howard in Bookworms (1920) another witty tale of love and adventure this time transporting a knight and fair maiden to Edwardian semi-detached suburbs in what is now West Wimbledon. Turns out the location was just around the corner from where I used to live too.

 

Henry Edwards

7. The parade returns… The Joker (1928), with Stephen Horne, Le Giornate 40th Edition Streaming, Day One

The 40th Edition of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto mixed physical media and digital content with the cinemuto-philes returning to Pordenone for the full programme including live screenings, accompaniment and lashings of Aperol Spritz late into the night… and a lighter schedule available online and worldwide. It was the best of both worlds and the best we can hope for as the cautious C-19 recovery continues.

 

The streaming got off to a rip-roaring start with a big party in Nice, featuring the annual carnival, covered extensively, including one or two hangovers and a reunion of Mander and Horne; not a long-lost music hall pairing but the star of The First Born, accompanied once again by the man who produced one of the most memorable scores for modern restorations at the London Film Festival in 2011. Directed by Danish Georg Jacoby this “Euro pudding” had a charming cast to match its location and story of playboy jewel thievery with The Joker played by the British actor and director, Henry Edwards, in prototypical Bond fashion admittedly more Niven than Craig.

 

Ellen Richter

8. Moral (1928), with Donald Sosin, Le Giornate 40th Edition Streaming, Day Seven

 

The rediscovery of Ellen Richter was one of the big themes of this year’s Giornate live in Pordenone and she did not disappoint digitally either. She’s one of those performers who naturally draws the eye and apart from having charisma to burn she has a richly centred persona with a smile that radiates glee as powerfully as sardonic rage. You don’t mess with Ellen but, if you do, she’ll have you back and relish a cool revenge that aims not to destroy but to educate; it’s not just piano she teaches, it’s self-respect.

Here she plays stage performer Ninon d’Hauteville who causes a stir when her troop come to play in the provincial town of Emilsburg and whilst battling the self-appointed Moral Society, gets the chance to teach the Prince Emile XXVII’s “milksop” of a son piano and much more besides. There’s much comedy and cabaret and the fashions are spectacular but so is Ellen and knowing that enables even the truly improbable garb to hang naturally and unselfconsciously. Donal Sosin accompanied with the appropriate sense of occasion and humour.

 

9. Maciste All’ Inferno (1926), with Teho Teardo and Zerorchestra, Le Giornate 40th Edition Streaming Day Eight

This was Bartolomeo Pagano’s 26th performance as the likeable lunk who combines power and morality as the Italian superuomo first introduced in Cabiria (1913). It was something like a cross-over event in the Dante Extended Universe, a follow-up to L’Inferno (1911) with a soul-devouring Lucifer drawn directly from Bertolini, Padovan and De Liguoro’s masterpiece, a feature film diligently drawn from Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.

 

It’s a wild ride with amazing special effects from the legendary Segundo de Chomón along with direction to die for – literally – from Guido Brignone, along with set and costume direction from Giulio Lombardozzi. Maciste must fight in Hell and it’s ugly, fierce and outrageously sexy. Hellzappopin’ alright and wonder it left such an impression on Federico Fellini who remembered it as the first film he ever saw – aged five or six? – even down to the details the capture of Maciste by Proserpina (Elena Sangro).

Spirited accompaniment was provided by Pordenone-born composer Teho Teardo who’s electronica was accompanied by local favourites the Zerorchestra along with Accademia Musicale Naonis and cellist Riccardo Pes. For this tale of many contexts, the cello represented Dante’s “voice” whilst the booming brass of the Accademia Naonis was that of Maciste. This was the performance that kicked off the pre-Festival event in Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile and I’d have loved to have been there in person to see it. Next year… next year.

 

Franciszka Themerson

10. Europa (1931/2). BFI London Film Festival 2021, Opening Night

Well, I made it to one festival at least… this was the first night of the BFI London Film Festival and the screening of a film not seen since 1933; a World Premier of its restored version no less, followed by a second screening. Europa was the first film made by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, two radical minded Polish artists who believed in the political importance of art at a time of confusion.

This was an extraordinary session, not just in terms of the content but also the context given by William Fowler, BFI National Archive Curator, along with renowned Polish film historian and programmer, Jasia Reichardt who first met the Themersons as a child. Europa was based on a poem from Anatol Stern publishing in Reflektor magazine in 1925, attacking the relentless violence of propaganda designed to undermine critical thinking and fuel populist sympathy. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? An important film and one believed destroyed by the Nazis, Europa has outlasted them and stands as a message to us all.

 

Their house

11. Back home… The House on Trubnaya (1928), with Cyrus Gabrysch, Kennington Bioscope 

This was my first visit to the Cinema Museum since March 2020 and it was a delight to see the Kennington Bioscope back up and running. The KB carried on through the pandemic with KBTV on YouTube and whilst the path to the old place is all still familiar, what a time we’ve had. The old team was back together in the flesh and as star of stage and small screen, KBTV’s MC Michelle Facey introduced and John Sweeney warmed up for the first films… we partied like it was 2019.

Boris Barnet’s The House on Trubnaya is very clever slapstick mixed with social observation and the required political messaging: if all bosses are as venal and self-serving as in the film – even over a decade on from the Revolution – then workers need to join unions to support themselves and others, not to mention their ducks… It never lectures just wends its peculiar way scoring laughs over political points and that’s exactly why it remains so watchable.

Cyrus Gabrysch accompanied in style and relished this return to the silent film “club” he helped found. This was a fitting welcome home to him and everyone else involved in this wonderful collective.

 

Léontine takes flight

12. Anarchy in the UK… Nasty Women: A Comic Tribute, BFI with Meg Morley 

There was a guy, I’m not sure if you remember him, who once referred to his presidential rival as a “nasty woman” long ago in The Time Before. In response film historians Maggie Hennefeld and Laura Horak ran a programme of comedy shorts at the 2017 Le Giornate del Cinema Muto featuring women behaving nastily for comic effect. As there is plenty more where that came from the BFI decided on a re-run with a new-old favourites thrown in.

Thus, we had Florence Turner’s incredibly flexible fizzog in Daisy Doodad’s Dial (1914), Alma Taylor and Chrissie White giving plenty of cheek in Tilly’s Party (1912) and Texas Guinan our riding and out gunning the men in The Night Rider (1920). There was also the enigmatic gallic anarchy of the legendary Léontine, also known as “Titine” in France and Betty” in the United States, about whom almost nothing is known. Three films Léontine s’envole (1911), Léontine enfant terrible (1911) and Léontine garde la maison (1912) showed her daredevil comic flair and it is to be hoped that her story emerges in more detail. What a talent she was.

Meg Morley accompanied with thematic variety and satisfying melodic invention. No two scores were the same and she kept pace with the on-screen anarchy with the acuity of a seasoned jazz player, one used to working as part of an improvisational team, this time with her bandmates on screen.

A splendid afternoon on the Southbank and we drank a toast to the nasty but nice trailblazers who are being remembered anew.

 

So much more to discover in 2022… I hope to see you all then!

 

Breaking the silence… The Wit and Wisdom of A.A. Milne, BFI, with Bryony Dixon and Neil Brand

 

C. Aubrey Smith’s famous explorer John Brice has an abnormally large “bump” on his head enabling him to discover the Equator and the North Pole with greater facility than the common man (or woman) and so it is with me and locating the Southbank after so many months away. This was not my first cinema of the pandemic but it *was* the first silent screening with live accompaniment since March 2020… and, what a way to break the silence with BFI Curator Bryony Dixon providing expert introduction and Neil Brand accompanying with all the contextual flourish and narrative instinct you would expect.

 

As with the best silent screenings, you leave the twenty first century schizoid experience behind you and pattern recognise your way back into the streets and suburbs of your greatgrandparents' or grandparents’ age, all too familiar Edwardian streets in SW20, West Wimbledon* or mock-classical town houses in Kensington or Westbourne Grove, even the St John’s Wood to Kilburn area where Alan Alexander Milne was brought up. The buildings are probably still there, but the people who live inside them have changed a lot but almost all of them would be familiar with the works of Milne that followed this early and short flurry of film activity.

 

He was involved with writing four stories filmed in 1920 for the company Minerva Films, founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard with his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel. The company’s board of directors included C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Playfair and A. A. Milne whilst one of the company's investors was H. G. Wells. This was the English intelligencia playing with the new media and, whilst the results in Milne’s case were commercially disappointing, the two films screened today were very well made, charmingly well written, played and skilfully directed by Brunel.

 

C Aubrey Smith a few decades earlier...

The first was The Bump (1920) featuring C. Aubrey Smith as the famous explorer mentioned above. Smith was 57 and the film makes great play of his cragginess with a sequence notating the origins of the scars on his face, a shark bite here and a lions’ claw there; he’s explored the world and has the autographs left by every predator he’s met.

 

Brice’s reputation is legend and in one well upholstered parlour, young Lilliam Montrevor (Faith Celli) is fascinated by his daring and manly pursuits. Her almost-beau, Freddy (Douglas Marshall) compares poorly as he can only dance and have a good time, he’s never explored or risked more than shoe leather. Lilliam, Freddy and her parents head off for a dance on Freddy’s scooter, the most unmanly transport they can imagine.

I’ve met a man at last!

Faith Celli from 1917

At the ball, among the effete fancy dress strides the imposing dress suit of Mr Brice and having go shot of Freddy after his seventh proposal (that month!), Lilliam proceeds to introduce herself and hilariously relives his tall tales of the north pole (wrapping herself up) and the equator (fanning herself) and even his discovery of the Piebald Gorilla who is seen relating his own version of events back in Africa.

Milne’s humour is very Oxbridge, even from this remove, and his title cards are witty in that knowing ironic way we’ve seen from the Fringe and beyond. Lilliam invites Brice round for tea at their house in, wait for it… Stuccoway Terrace and a romance seems on the cards.

But then a strange thing happens and the fearless explorer has to strike out on his own for this expedition and in unfamiliar territory, he asks for help from local natives all of whom seem to lead him further away… still, we do get to see even more wonderful London backdrops. Will Lilliam finally see Freddy and will Brice overcome the discombobulations of the city streets. It’s like a jungle out there…

 

Faint heart, never wonne faire laydee

Off in pursuit... Gif from https://lesliehowardsteiner.blogspot.com

The second film featured young Leslie Howard in Bookworms (1920) another witty tale of love and adventure this time transporting a knight and fair maiden to Edwardian semi-detached suburbs. We find said maiden, Miranda (Pauline Johnson) reading The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in her guardian’s study. She lives with her Uncle Josiah (Jeff Barlow) and her Aunt Priscilla (Henrietta Watson) who employ a “tame dragon” (Mrs. R. Podevin) as Miranda’s guardian.

All is peaceful until one day Richard (Howard) a listless young man wakes up after his usual lie in to spy the neighbour of his dreams across the road. From that moment on he is a man on a mission, revitalised by romance and the need to meet this object of his affection but, every attempt to arrange an introduction is blocked by the Dragon or, in the case of his attempt to call for a Salvation Army collection, the family maid.

Pauline Johnsom a good few years later

He soon learns Miranda’s daily routine and follows her to the library every day only to find that dragon always between him and the goal. And then, then he has an idea. He will leave a note in the book she collects and simply wait for her response. Sounds fool proof doesn’t it, but the trouble with library books is that everybody reads them. A carefully orchestrated chaos ensues that leads to a surprising but satisfying ending. Just as you’d expect.

Neil Brand brought his experience and passion to the accompaniment as a man you could see thoroughly enjoying afternoon tea with Milne, Brunel and Howard. Can a sense of humour be expressed through music? It surely can and Mr Brand demonstrated this fact emphatically. It was so good to see and hear him and Bryony Dixon performing a show, tell and play again.

Before the two half-hour shorts, we were also shown the first film Lotte Reiniger made in England, illustrating Milne’s poem The King’s Breakfast (1937). As with all her work you soon forget you’re watching shadow puppets and get lost in the story and not least the certainty that butter is indeed better on toast than marmalade.

The author

This was an absolute treat and all the rarer for being on the BFI’s own 35mm prints. Here’s to many more such screenings as theatrical life cautiously resumes and we edge forward. The BFI still has social distancing in place, mask wearing for screenings and reduced capacity making the experience feel safe and risk managed in a way that is not always the case in some other sectors. AA Milne may have been a humorous man but he served in the Great War and was injured at the Battle of the Somme, he could spot a phoney like Brice and perhaps generals without method or even a cause.

 

Anyway, I thank the BFI for their hospitality, their diligence and their exceptional content delivery!

 

See you soon.

PS Bryony also mentioned that her colleague Jo Botting has a book in the works about Adrian Brunel, one to watch out for!

* Credit to Twitter user @OokpikUK who spotted the location as Pendarves Road in SW20, West Wimbledon. Richard's house is on the right and Miranda's on the left.

This is literally fifty metres from where I used to live in Lambton Road, Raynes Park/West Wimbledon... no wonder it felt familiar!!

The funniest woman in the World… Exit Smiling (1926), Meg Morley, Kennington Bioscope 2nd Silent Laughter Weekend

The Cinema Museum’s redoubtable tour guide, Morris Hardcastle, was offering his hand at £50 per shake given he had once shook Charlie Chaplin’s hand, for David Robinson and Kevin Brownlow he was suggesting a bargain £100 given the number of silent performers these two have met over the years. But before Exit Smiling, our final film of the packed, inspirational Saturday programme, Mr Robinson told us of meeting its inimitable star, Beatrice Lillie at a screening of the film at the BFI in the late 1960’s and raised the stakes once more. 

David said she was often described as the funniest woman in the World and on that night in her seventies she still dazzled in unpredictable ways slaying the audience and laughing throughout the screening: “she’s very good, she does things the way I do them!” she remarked at her younger self… a one-off performer with unique timing and sense of the ridiculous and yet who could also reduce you to tears (with or without an onion…).

In her excellent, in-depth introduction, Michelle Facey related the opinions of Chaplin and Keaton on this Anglo-Canadian marvel including the latter sleeping outside her hotel room door – a slapstick guard of honour for this toweringly-talented Torontian. Sadly (for us) Hollywood couldn’t easily cast this quirky and stunningly individual talent and, for this and no doubt several other reasons (maybe she just didn’t want to?) this was Bea’s only silent film and she made few after, much preferring the more interactive and improvisational freedoms of the stage.

Tonight, we watched not only Kevin Brownlow’s 16mm copy of Exit Smiling but, as it turned out, Miss Lillie’s own, so I’d make that another £50 for shaking the hand of projectionist Dave Locke.

Beatrice Lillie and Jack Pickford

We are truly blessed by these associations with the silent past and also by expert accompaniment from the Bioscope Players. Meg Morley, a jazz musician by night and, a silent film accompanist by er, other nights, played along with a thoroughly modern mix of jazz-age themes and improvised scoring that sound for all the world like it’s been months in the preparation. I always imagine the music as a duet and Bea is such a graceful performer with a dancer’s arm extensions and amazing timing, that the music followed suit; to this extent Meg riffed with Bea and took some bold decisions along the way (a flash of Carmen for the vamping!) enjoying the tones as much as the audience.

I’ve previously raved about the actress and the film here if you want a fuller synopsis. I'd watched the Warner Archives DVD but, as ever, it's still a treat to see this film on screen especially in what Ms P. Hutchinson once described as a silent speakeasy: this crowd are fascinating as well as fascinated and all respect the subject.

Raymond Griffith and Vera Reynolds not in a night club...

With Miss Lillie tonight and Mabel Normand last week, it’s easy to forget that men can also be funny too… The day opened with Raymond Griffith in The Night Club (1925) a film that didn’t actually feature a club but as Kevin Brownlow’s introduction made clear, had been logged down as a title before script or even story. Block-booking in advance meant that there had to be a film of this title and so it was squeezed into the first title card as a gentlemen’s club dedicated to avoiding marriage.

Griffith’s character get’s jilted at the alter as his fiancé’s ex returned at the last minute from a presumed death on a desert island and so keen was he to marry that he tries to ban all women from his life. His fortune turns when an uncle dies and leaves him a million, but the condition is that he must marry his second cousin (Vera Reynolds).

He heads off for foreign climes only to find not only bump into but fall in love with Vera’s character, but things get awkward when they both realised, and she miss-hears his intentions. There’s a nice cameo from Wallace Beery (a bad-tempered Mexican) and an even better one from Louise Fazenda who plays his “Carmen” for whom he would kill whether you pay him or not.

Griffith is so watchable, he takes everything in his stride – even this daft script – with a wide-eyed smile and a look straight to the audience. Costas Fotopolous joined in the fun on piano, twinkling the ivories in sympathy with Raymond's knowing gaze. 

Henrietta Watson, Pauline Johnson and the impossibly youthful Leslie Howard

Then we had Tony Fletcher’s traditional sweep through rare and early British film and a revelation to me with a silent and very young Leslie Howard in Bookworms (1920). Based on a scenario from AA Milne (yes, him) it told the story of a young chap, Richard (Howard) and his attempts to woo his neighbour Miranda Pottlebury (Pauline Johnson) away from her over-protective Aunt and Uncle. The Pottlebury’s all use the local library and Richard starts to leave notes in books they order in the hope of communicating with the girl of his fancy… The results are gently amusing, and it is a very charming film with glimpses of post-War English gardens and sitting rooms.

A Fugitive Futurist (1924) was your standard time-travelling con which did feature some interesting special affects showing London as it will be in the future… a derelict Strand and water-filled Trafalgar Square are, of course, only just around the corner now thanks to Brexit…

Lillian Hall-Davis, Sybil Rhoda, Humberston Wright and Phyllis Neilson-Terry in Boadicea (1927)

Starlings of the Screen (1925) featured a host of young gals looking for fame with the Stoll Picture Company, including Sybil Rhoda who was to feature in Hitchcock’s Downhill as well as Boadicea (1927) – her favourite performance – with Lillian Hall-Davis.  Various screen tests are featured including professionals such as Moore Marriott playing alongside the hopefuls who include Molly Weeks, Phyllis Garton, Nancy Baird and Shailagh Allen but Sybil wins and gets the part of Melody Rourke in Sahara Love (1926).

“Look at all that sand, dozens of it…”

Crossing the Great Sagrda (1924) is almost indescribable; a mock ethno-graphical film with title cards that could have been written by a Goon had they yet been invented. It featured sand courtesy of Blackpool Borough Council and free-form intertitles each one attributed to a different film company. Whatever it was about, I liked it and I laughed.

Almost as barmy was Beauty and the Beast (1922) featuring Guy Newall as The Beast and Ivy Duke as… you can guess. Meg Morley brought musical method to all the madness.

After lunch it was time to cut to the Chase, Charlie Chase… as Matthew Ross took us through some more highlights from the second coolest silent comic who was so much his own man any comparison belittles his suave majesty.

Charlie helps a pal pull his car out from a muddy patch and ends up losing his own car to Hal Roache’s ACME mud pool and then goes in a brilliantly desperate search of trousers in The Way of all Pants (1927). The session ended with plastic-surgery farce Mighty Like a Moose (1927) which is a work of World-cultural significance.

Mr Sweeney stayed cool at the keys and kept pace with the Chase.

Monty Banks bronze medalist in the Freestyle Moustache 

Then in a surprise entry for moustache of the day (he came third…), Monty Banks twitched his winning ways through A Perfect Gentleman (1927). You can’t fail to like Monty in this well-balanced comedy, as he chases around a ship trying to prove his innocence after having crashed his own wedding inadvertently drunk and then doubled his disgrace by being accused of robbing his former fiancé’s father’s bank. Not the day’s first wedding nor the last bank robbery. 

Costas was really on the beat for this lightweight charmer and he was clearly enjoying himself as his punchy lines accompanied Banks' every pratfall.

The KB weekenders are great for bringing attention to performers such as Banks and Griffiths, but we were about to be reminded of the sheer excellence of one of those who is deservedly still widely remembered. Four commentators were given the essentially impossible task of choosing a favourite moment from a Buster Keaton film.

Even married to the star, Natalie Talmadge wonders why sisters Constance and Norma always had easier gigs...

David Robinson chose the breath-taking closing scenes from Our Hospitality (1923) when our hero rescues Natalie Talmadge from the rapids, a waterfall and over-bearing relatives. Then Kevin Brownlow’s choice was the Tong war from The Cameraman including a mini-tribute to the camerawork in Intolerance I hadn’t previously spotted.

Poly Rose (known to many on The Twitter, as The Flying Editor) is a film editor (natch) who revealed some secrets about Keaton’s own editing for Sherlock Junior. It takes one to know one and it was fascinating to see how this mind-boggling segment was constructed through double exposure. Publicity stills, and contemporary reviews also suggest that there were other versions of Buster’s somnambulant transition from what we see, Keaton test screened his work and fine-tuned the brilliance.

Last up was David Macleod, broadcaster and president of the Blinking Buzzards, the UK Keaton Society, who has written extensively on the comedian’s sound films which extend far beyond his relatively-short silent period. He chose the pulsating climax to Steamboat Bill Jr (1928) as our hero literally risked life and limb in a town torn apart by hurricanes and another extraordinary river rescue.

Buster to the rescue as Marion Byron clings on in Steemboat Bill Jnr

John Sweeney accompanied and once again demonstrated extraordinary fluidity for those river-chase sequences but most of all he really Keatoned those keyboards!

A day of pure concentrated silent bliss – where else would we see these films and hear these musicians?! Thankyou Bioscope and the Cinema Museum.

The Way of all Pants!