The Twelve Days of Silent Night: the year in pantomime. Or, well done 2017!

This just gets harder; how can any sane person possibly reduce such a splendid silent year into a top twelve?! This year I've seen more live cinema than ever before along with a travelling band of fascinated and fascinating individuals who are on a mission to understand more of the immense silvery spaces that make up the lost worlds of cinema without sounds but with music and soul.

1. The Freshman (1925), Guenter A Buchwald, Bristol Ensemble, Slapstick Festival Gala, Colston Hall, Bristol

It's now an annual family tradition with my daughter at Bristol University and the Gala never disappoints especially with so many locals turning out in a packed Colston Hall.

All this and Roy Hudd channelling Max Miller! Now, there was a funny thing!

Catherine Hessling  - La Fille de l’eau (1925)

2. La Fille de l’eau (1925) with John Sweeney, Institut Français

Jean Renoir's first feature film was being shown as part of the annual All About Piano! festival of the keyboard at the Institut français and was part of its ciné-concert stream. It's always good to experience different venues and the Institute provided a superb context for both the film and John Sweeney with a finely-tuned grand piano enabling him to fully tap into his boundless reservoir of musical themes.

What better way of celebrating the versatility of le piano than hearing him accompany for this ciné-concert?

3. Revolutionary Centenary: The New Babylon (1929), Sasha Grynyuk, LSO St Luke’s

This was a reconstruction of an original score by a precocious young man name of Dmitri Shostakovich. Sasha Grynyuk played the complex work to perfection and this one stood out in a year of celebrations… From an historical point of view the centenary is an important one and it was depressing to see so many post-factual judgements based on all that was to come. The film was propagandist, but we know all about such things in 2017.

Les Misérables

4. Play for a day… Les Misérables (1925-6), Neil Brand, The Barbican

One huge film serial, one fair-sized piano and a man with a seemingly endless musical imagination kept us entertained for over five hours at the Barbican. By co-incidence the London Marathon was on the same day buy, carrying the film and his audience with him all the way, Neil Brand emerged the real winner.

The Abbeydale Picture House in Sheffield, South Yorshire

5. Yorkshire Silent Film Festival, The Lodger (1927), Neil Brand, Covent Garden Sinfonia, Ben Palmer, Abbeydale Picture House

Part of the joy of silent cinema is introducing new people to the experience. My sister lives in Sheffield and neither she nor her husband had ever seen a silent film on screen, so it gave me great pleasure to see their reaction to Buster Keaton’s Cameraman, The Girl with the Hatbox and The Lodger featuring the Covent Garden Symphonia playing Neil Brand’s super new score.

The Abbeydale is a great venue, a stunning relic of mass entertainment past and I hope it and the Yorkshire Silent Film festival go from strength to strength. I’ll be back next year.

6. New silent films! This was the year of Alex Barratt’s mesmerising ode to his home town with The London Symphony (2017) which I saw with Ben Palmer conducting the Covent Garden Sinfonia playing James McWilliam's score at the Barbican.

We also the simply remarkable Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), in which Bill Morrison unearthed not only the story of hundreds of lost silent films but also of the perma-frosted town in which they were held in ice for 90 years.  The film creates a compelling narrative by weaving past, present, fact and fiction together with mind-boggling cohesion.

Maurice Elevy's master-stroke!

7. British Silent Film Festival Another smashing long weekend in Leicester during which Balfour mania reached new heights as Betty charmed us in film after film including Cocktails (1928) and A Sister of Six (1927). I also particularly enjoyed Maurice Elvey’s Balaclava (1928) with his extraordinary re-enactment of the battle as soulful as it was accurate especially when accompanied by John Sweeney’s thunderous accompaniment. Kevin Brownlow described it as the most impressive large-scale action scene in British silent cinema and it’s hard to think of many sound films that come close.

My official James Murray Pordenone mug...

8. Pordenone Bellissimo! The Crowd (1928), Carl Davis, Pordenone Orchestra

This was my personal highlight as an event: my first trip to La Giornate del Cinema Muto and eight days of films long and short from breakfast to well past supper time, thank goodness the bars don’t close early in Italy. To be honest, it felt like the step up from Premier League to Champions League and I struggled to get out of the qualifying stages only to rally against the sheer class of the proposition. It’s a silent marathon and not a sprint and I can’t wait for next year.

Picking favourites is impossible but the opening round featuring Eleanor Boardman and James Murray in King Vidor’s The Crowd is the most memorable… A supernaturally-charged Carl Davis conducted the Pordenone Orchestra playing his own spectacular score for one of my favourite silent films and even up in the Gods at the Teatro Verdi my socks were detached and flying high over Friuli-Venezia Giulia skies.

Jenny Hasselqvist 

9. Jenny on the block… Vem Dömer? (1922) with Neil Brand and Frank Bockius, Pordenone

 There was a very strong Scandinavian strand at Pordenone of which Victor Sjostrom’s lover’s ordeal stood out as it had to, being a rare screening featuring Jenny Hasselqvist who is, for me, one of the greatest silent actors; a master of physical and emotional control who never overplays even in the most extreme circumstances. And she certainly had those at the end of this powerful film.

9. It was Louise Brooks’ year (again). In Italy I saw the recently rediscovered Now We're in the Air (1927) featuring Brooksie shining brightly despite a gurning Wallace Beery and a storyline flying like a bird… I also saw Pandora’s Box (1929) with Stephen Horne accompanying at the beginning and end of the year, the second introduced by Pamela Hutchinson, whose excellent book on the film made the re-watch essential and even more enjoyable.

Shiraz

10. Hurray for Bollywood! Shiraz (1928), with Anoushka Shankar, Barbican, London Film Festival Archive Gala. This one went through the roof and was by some distance my most read post of the year and not surprisingly given the sense of occasion and the way that Anoushka Shankar got to the heart of the film with her intelligent and fluent score. This was one of the most uplifting screenings of the year, a real celebration.

11. Uncanny Tales… Häxan (1922), with Reece Shearsmith and Stephen Horne, Phoenix.

This was a Halloween treat organised by the East Finchley Contingent and which featured a local gentleman giving eloquent voice to Benjamin Christensen’s dramatized documentary on the history of witchcraft. Stephen Horne accompanied with uncanny virtuosity and the shock ending revealed mankind to be the real demonic power.

Häxan (1922)

12. The Cinema Museum/Kennington Bioscope

This list isn’t in any order, but I have saved the most important until last. This year was another vintage one for the Kennington Bioscope and their partners at the Cinema Museum. In addition to the regular screenings every three weeks we have also enjoyed the 3rd Silent Film Weekend and the 2nd Silent Laughter Saturday – dozens of fantastic films accompanied by excellent musicians: John Sweeney, Meg Morley, Cyrus Gabrysch, Lillian Henley, Stephen Horne and others.

Highlights have included the naughtiest Gish, Dorothy, in Nell Gwyn (1926) with Meg Morley, one of the great Italian Diva’s Pina Menichelli in Il Fuoco (1916), with John Sweeney playing and honeyed spoken translation from Lillian Henley (they are the Bioscope’s Dream Team) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) one of the best-looking films of the year, with Cyrus Gabrysch’s piano filling the huge spaces with Death Valley cool as humanity fights for life and love against overwhelming heat and the onrushing Colorado River. Then two weeks ago we had Anna May Wong in Pavement Butterfly accompanied by Stephen Horne and Elsa Lanchester in the British silent treat, Blue Bottles with Meg Morley: great programming and so much talent.

Pina Menichelli in Il Fuoco 

But the Museum itself is also a pure joy, filled with memorabilia and artefacts that connect us to the cultural past. The people who run the museum and make the Bioscope possible are also the real spirit of the enterprise and to all the players, programmers such as Amran Vance and Michelle Facey and the volunteers, I thank you and hope that the Museum continues in its current venue – where once Charlie Chaplin’s family lived.

The fight for the Museum continues and if you have not already signed the petition here is the link.

If there’s one present we all really want from Santa, this is it.

Now there’s a funny thing… The Freshman (1925), Guenter A Buchwald, Bristol Ensemble, Slapstick Festival Gala

Another bumper show at the Colston Halls, mixing old and new as Buster, Stan, Ollie and Harold were preceded by Rory and Roy (who channelled Max)…

It was inauguration day in the US and multi-cultural Bristol was a good place to be - a city that knows its Tricky from its Trump. Cometh the hour cometh the multi-man as Rory Bremner provided pitch-perfect presidential  pretence; a much-needed humorous antidote to a western leadership that cannot even be bothered to count let alone spell-check.

Against the depressingly historic events in Washington DC, it was good to be reminded of the importance of comedy in providing relief and perspective.

First up was Buster Keaton’s The High Sign (1921) – actually his first solo short but delayed in favour of One Week, which he thought was stronger. It probably is but The High Sign is still a belter with a stone face caught up in a ludicrous plan to both kill and protect August Nickelnurser, the town miser who owns the Blinking Buzzards gang $10,000.

Buster manages to convince both the gang boss, the unfeasibly tall Joe Roberts, and August and his daughter (Bartine Burkett) that he is a dead shot thanks to the use of a hungry hound to create the impression he’s hitting all the targets in the funfair. It’s a tough commission but somehow Buster managers to get the job half done with the aid of an hilarious chase through August’s escape-routed house.

Of the films we saw, this was the favourite of my student daughter and her pal: Buster remains the coolest fool!

Dorothy Coburn and Oliver Hardy take a nap

Next we had Laurel and Hardy being offered a bonus to complete a new house on time in The Finishing Touch (1928). Homeowner Sam Lufkin obviously has more money than sense as this pair don’t look capable of working either faster or smarter. It’s the usual elegant disaster from the boys all given extra spice by the impatient promptings of a petite-yet-fearsome nurse (Dorothy Coburn), who runs a hospital nearby and asks them to keep the noise down.

Naturally there’s a cop on hand - Ed Kennedy – to keep a watchful eye and to make sure they’re both quick and quiet. Predictably, they manage neither but there’s no finer sight in silent of Ollie falling hard and Stan convincing himself and the World that it’s none of his fault.

Beat-perfect jazzy accompaniment was provided by The European Silent Screen Virtuosi, comprised of Geunter A Buchwald on piano and violin, Romana Todesco on double bass and Frank Bockious on percussion.

Roy Hudd in Max Miller style quiet suit...

Now then, the phrase “National Treasure” is often over-used but there are few more deserving of that epithet than Roy Hudd, a man whose illustrious career has always run in hand with preserving our music hall past. He is President of the Max Miller Appreciation Society and has kept The Cheeky Chappie’s legacy alive through his one-man shows and even playing him in a Doctor Who audio story (Pier Pressure).

Dressed in an outrageous Miller-esque silky suit, Roy proceeded to bring the house down with material now more sepia than blue but still showed why timing and stage-craft are so important to stand-up and slapstick alike.

"They don't make 'em anymore, duck!"

Harold's inspiration: Lester Laurel in The College Hero

Now for the main event and the screening of Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman (1925), accompanied by the 25-piece Bristol Ensemble orchestra, conducted by Guenter Buchwald and playing composer Carl Davis’s lovely score.

This was Lloyd’s biggest hit of the twenties and whilst some, like me, might prefer say Speedy, this film is an undoubted classic of structure and style as Harold is put through humiliation after humiliation until it seems he can sink no lower but just as redemption seems beyond him, well… what do you expect?

Lloyd produced and his team of writers - John Grey, Sam Taylor, Tim Whelan, and Ted Wilde – along with directors Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor – worked out this narrative arc with slide-rule precision and it was one that would only really work with Harold’s particular persona. Of the big three (or four), Lloyd was perhaps the closest to the common man of the jazz age: perpetually optimistic and ambitious, he has the go-getting intensity of the classic American and his relentless spirit sees him through.

The new arrival: keen to impress!

Chaplin is of an earlier time as is Buster and both are somehow more “primal” blue-collar personas. Lloyd is on the up and here he’s off to conquer Tate University at all costs! His idol is The College Hero (James Anderson) and he pins a photograph from the College magazine, the Tattler… he devours the literature and is very impressed with a film about a college hero who has a signature shuffle he dances before extending his hand in welcome to every new acquaintance.

Harold’s living a fantasy of college life at a time when only the privileged few would attend (the World’s turning again…) but it was obviously an inspiration as dozens of similar films were to follow after The Freshman’s success.

Harold’s initial experience is cringe worthy and the College Cad (Brooks Benedict) repeatedly lines him up and plays him for the fall. Harry borrows a line from his film hero and asks them to call him Speedy as he starts to bribe his way to friendship through buying ice cream and soda for all.

Jobyna Ralston

He hosts the "Fall Frolic" dance in an attempt to secure his popularity but his tailor (Joseph Harrington) has to be on hand as he has not completed proper stitching for his dress suit… it’s very funny but the humiliating conclusion is all to inevitable.

Only the daughter of the hostel manager, Peggy (the excellent Jobyna Ralston) see him for who he is and loves him for it. She tells the momentarily crestfallen Harry to be himself but he still thinks he has a chance if he can only get to play in the big football game…

 
The final set piece is perfectly timed and you’re shifting in your seat well before Harry gets his chance…He does succeed in an all-American way but he only because he just won’t give up: ever!!

When all artifice is stripped away that is perhaps the quality that Lloyd most represents: energy and resilience for an audience struggling in their own lives. We’ve never needed him more…and I'm now not meeting anyone new without doing the college shuffle!

A super time was had by all and once again I was mightily impressed by Bristol and its comedy commitment – the Colston Hall was pretty much sold out and this festival just gets bigger and better.

Rory and the band take a bow!