SFSFF 2012: PREVIEW—By Michael Hawley

Just four months after blowing everyone away with the awesome spectacle that was Abel Gance's Napoleon, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) returns for its 17th annual event at the Castro Theatre from July 12 to 15, 2012. When the line-up was first announced I heard a few people grouse about it having a "greatest hits" vibe; but, the reality is only two of this year's 17 programs are repeats—Wings (from back in 1999) and Pandora's Box (shown in 2003). Personally, I've never seen any of them on a big screen and am therefore completely psyched. Big Names from the silent era are much in evidence, both in front of the camera (Clara Bow, Emil Jannings, Felix the Cat, Pola Negri, Louise Brooks, Douglas Fairbanks, Roland Colman, Buster Keaton) and behind it (Ernst Lubitsch, Victor Fleming, Georg Wihelm Pabst, Joseph von Sternberg, William A. Wellman). There are several tempting, unfamiliar rarities as well. I searched for films I might skip out on—if only to get a breath of air and a decent meal—but came up empty handed.

An issue that's sure to be a subject of discussion this year—and it's one the festival isn't shying away from—is that of digital exhibition. SFSFF dipped its toe in the digital waters two years ago with the restoration of Metropolis, saying it was the only option available. This year they're wading ankle deep with two DCP presentations, Lubitsch's The Loves of Pharaoh and Wellman's Wings. The latter is SFSFF17's opening night film, which is clearly making a statement. The great digital vs. 35mm divide is also the focus of this year's Amazing Tales from the Archives presentation (see below for details). So no matter which side you're on—if a side needs to be taken at all—there should be plenty here to chew on.

Plain and simple, if you've never attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, you owe yourself the experience of seeing a silent film the way it was meant to be seen, in a landmark 1922 movie palace with accomplished live musical accompaniment. What follows is a stroll through SFSFF17's line-up with some hopefully interesting facts, figures, gossip and trivia—a bit more than what's available on the festival's website and brochure, but considerably less than what we'll find in the scholarly essays that appear in the complementary program guide during the festival.

Thursday, July 12

7:00 P.M. Wings (1927, USA, dir. William A. Wellman)—Until The Artist, this drama about two WWI pilots in love with the same girl was technically the only silent film to win the Best Picture Oscar®, or rather, Most Outstanding Production. While I've never seen Wings, I am familiar with the famously heartbreaking kiss between Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen (both of whom served as pallbearers at the 1965 funeral of Wings co-star Clara Bow). Gary Cooper, who turns up in a supporting role as a doomed pilot, began a much-publicized affair with Bow during the shoot. The film seems best remembered for its aerial stunt photography—with director William Wellman having been hired specifically for his WWI aviator experience. None other than William Wellman, Jr., author of The Man and His Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture, will introduce this screening. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will accompany, with Ben Burtt providing live Foley effects. Burtt is a nine-time Oscar® nominee for Best Sound / Sound Editing, with wins for ET: The Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Following the screening, a festive opening night party will be happening at the top-floor loft of the McRoskey Mattress Company.

Friday, July 13

10:30 A.M. Amazing Tales from the Archives: Into the Digital Frontier—One of the hottest topics amongst cinephiles this spring was the "This is DCP" series at NYC's Film Forum, where several digitally restored classics, including Five Easy Pieces, The Red Shoes and Rear Window, were screened in DCP, or "digital cinema package" format. The highlight was a comparative 35mm vs. DCP, side-by-side showing of Dr. Strangelove. This series was the undertaking of Grover Crisp, Sony Pictures executive vice president in charge of asset management, film restoration and digital mastering. I'm excited Crisp will be at the Castro performing another side-by-side demonstration for SFSFF audiences. (For an in-depth report on the Film Forum series, check out Miranda Popkey's piece at Capital New York). Also on the program will be Andrea Kalas, vice president of archives at Paramount Pictures, who will discuss the restoration of Wings, which will have opened the festival the previous evening in DCP. Admission is free.

1:00 P.M. Little Toys (1933, China, dir. Sun Yu)—Director Sun Yu is known for a string of socially conscious dramas made in the silent era's twilight years. In 2009 the festival brought us Sun's 1932 Wild Rose and now follows up with this decade-spanning epic about the calamities which befall a rural toymaker during a time of political upheaval. Sun made the movie to rouse nationalism following Japan's invasion of Manchuria. It stars two of China's most popular actresses of the 1930's playing mother / daughter protagonists; Lingyu Ruan (who we saw two years ago in A Spray of Plum Blossoms) and Li Lili (Wild Rose).

4:00 P.M. The Loves of Pharaoh (1922, Germany, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)—This historical melodrama was Lubitsch's last German production, a Hollywood calling card to prove he could indeed helm large-scale epics boasting 6,000 extras, lavish costumes and gargantuan sets. The great Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh, The Blue Angel) stars as an Egyptian ruler who spurns an offer of marriage to the Ethiopian king's daughter and thereby ignites a war by choosing the king's beloved slave girl instead. Long considered a lost film, this new digital restoration—assembled from fragments found in far-flung places—was executed by the same company (Alpha Omega GmbH) that resurrected Fritz Lang's complete Metropolis. Ten additional minutes are still thought to be missing. And who best to accompany this grandiose presentation than the incomparable Dennis James on the Castro Theatre's Mighty Wurlitzer. The photograph below is one of only 17 stunning, high resolution stills from The Loves of Pharaoh to be found on the festival's Press Room page.

7:00 P.M. Mantrap (1926, USA, dir. Victor Fleming)—Clara Bow makes her second appearance at 2012's festival in the film she claimed her personal favorite. Released shortly before It—the movie that gave her a moniker—Bow got rave reviews as the man-eating Minneapolis manicurist who strays from her backwoodsman husband and aims straight for a famous divorce lawyer. The story is adapted from a Sinclair Lewis novel, with Bow's character considerably softened, and the titular "Mantrap" is actually a Canadian boondocks town where the action is set. Cinematography is by the great DP James Wong Howe and the film's intertitles are said to be quite witty. Mantrap also witnessed the beginning of a hot and heavy affair between Bow and the film's director Victor Fleming, who would of course go on to direct The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. Noted film critic Michael Sragow, who wrote Victor Fleming, an American Movie Master, will introduce the screening. Stephen Horne accompanies on grand piano.

Mantrap will be preceded by Twin Peaks Tunnel, a recently restored short about the construction of one of the world's longest railway tunnels—one that just happens to begin right outside the festival's doorstep. Parts of the film are available to watch on YouTube and there's some terrific footage of Castro and Market Streets circa 1918.

9:15 P.M. The Wonderful Lie of Nina Petrovna (1929, Germany, dir. Hanns Schwarz)—Each year SFSFF engages a contemporary filmmaker to choose a film from the line-up and present it as a Director's Pick—with past pickers ranging from Alexander Payne to Terry Zwigoff. The Bay Area's Philip Kaufman has selected this tale of a St. Petersburg courtesan who leaves her officer lover for the affections of a lowly lieutenant. It's considered the best of Austrian director Hanns Schwarz' 24 films, with one ardent IMDb user gushing "it's more poignant and visually dazzling than Ophuls, more erotic and atmospheric than Sternberg, with a camera more sinuously alive than Murnau or Lang." The film stars Brigitte Helm as Nina Petrovna, two years after her mesmerizing screen debut in Metropolis and one year after starring in Marcel L'Herbier's L'Argent (SFSFF 2011 Winter Event). Accompaniment will be provided by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Saturday, July 14

10:00 A.M. The Irrepressible Felix the Cat! (1924-1928, USA, dir. Otto Messmer & Pat Sullivan)—Felix the Cat was the first cartoon character with a name famous enough to draw people into movie theaters. He was so iconic that Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic with a Felix doll and Aldous Huxley wrote the cartoon proved "what the cinema can do better than literature or spoken drama is to be fantastic." These cartoons were also noted for integrating social issues and current events into their storylines. The festival will present seven Felix animated shorts, all but one from his days at the Educational Pictures distribution company. Leonard Maltin and film scholar Russell Merritt will introduce the screenings, which will be accompanied by Donald Sosin and Toychestra, an all-woman experimental music ensemble from Oakland. And remember, as with all SFSFF screenings, children under 10 are admitted free!

12:00 P.M. The Spanish Dancer (1923, USA, dir. Herbert Brenon)—Pola Negri was one of the biggest stars of the silent era and the first European actor to be lured to Hollywood (by Paramount in 1922). Her German mentor, Ernst Lubitsch, had been the first European director to cross over. I haven't seen any of her movies so I'm excited to experience this, her third American film and first big spectacle. Based on a Victor Hugo novel, it's the story of a gypsy singer who becomes involved in 17th century Spanish court intrigue. Negri's co-stars include the handsome Antonio Moreno as her lover and Wallace Beery as the King of Spain!? Adolphe Menjou also has a small role. The print we'll be seeing is a new restoration done by the Dutch EYE Film Institute, which also restored last year's Lois Weber film, Shoes. Rob Byrne, who worked on the restoration, will introduce and Donald Sosin accompanies on grand piano.

2:30 P.M. The Canadian (1926, USA, dir. William Beaudine)—This is a remake of a 1917 film, The Land of Promise, which bears the name of the Somerset Maugham play on which both films are based. A destitute woman journeys to the wilds of Canada to live with her brother and then marries a rough homesteader (actor Thomas Meighan, who played the same part in both movies) to evade her sister-in-law's ire. (Yes, it does sound a lot like Lillian Gish's 1928 vehicle The Wind (SFSFF15). Director William Beaudine was known for his efficiency and prolificacy, directing nearly 30 silents. He later became known for making series films like The East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys. But for me he's the guy who helmed notorious 1945 sex-ed feature Mom and Dad for exploitation pioneer Kroger Babb. Stephen Horne accompanies on grand piano.

Preceding the screening of The Canadian, the 2012 SF Silent Film Festival Award will be presented to the Telluride Film Festival "for their longtime dedication to the preservation and exhibition of silent film." Fest directors Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger will be there to receive the honor.

5:00 P.M. South (1919, UK, dir. Frank Hurley)—The festival follows last year's The Great White Silence with another Antarctic expedition documentary, South. It's an assemblage of photos and film footage taken by Australian photographer / adventurer Frank Hurley, when he accompanied Ernest Shackleton on that ill-fated trans-Antarctic trip aboard the ship Endurance. These materials exist today only because the intrepid Hurley dove into icy Antarctic waters ("stripped to the waist" as he wrote in his diary) to rescue them from the sinking ship. If you saw the 2000 documentary The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition, you've already been exposed to Hurley's work, which is said to have changed expedition photography forever. The festival will screen a new restoration by the British Film Institute with original tints and toning. Actor Paul McGann (Dr. Who, Withnail & I) will read from Shackleton's letters accompanied by pianist Stephen Horne.

7:00 P.M. Pandora's Box (1926, USA, dir. Georg Wilhelm Pabst)—Of all the programs in this year's festival, this tops my list—a new frame-by-frame restoration of one of the great films of all time, starring iconic Louise Brooks as cinema's quintessential femme fatale. I'm embarrassed that I've never seen it on a big screen, but am happy I've saved the experience for this opportune moment. Diary of a Lost Girl (1928), another memorable Pabst / Brooks collaboration, played the festival two years ago. This new restoration—paid for by good old Hugh Hefner—was produced by San Francisco-based Angela Holm and David Ferguson, who will introduce the film with some on-screen "before and after" comparisons. Sweden's Matti Bye Ensemble will provide accompaniment for this, the festival's 2012 Centerpiece Presentation.

10:00 P.M. The Overcoat (1926, USSR, dir. Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg)—It's become a SFSFF tradition to reserve Saturday's final screening as a Late Show slot for silent cinema's off-kilter output. Past selections have included Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages, Aelita, Queen of Mars and a trio of Tod Browing / Lon Chaney collaborations (West of Zanzibar, The Unholy Three, The Unknown). This year's unsettling oddity is an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's most famous short story about the repercussions of a lowly office worker's obsession with obtaining a new overcoat. An acquaintance who attends the Pordenone Silent Film Festival wrote me that it's "a real jaw-dropper" and said people came out of the screening "completely mind-blown." I recently watched it on YouTube in the hopes of being disappointed—an early evening might have been nice, but nothing doing. This should be excellent and I can only imagine what the Alloy Orchestra has cooked up in the way of a score.

Sunday, July 15

10:00 A.M. The Mark of Zorro (1920, USA, dir. Fred Niblo)—This is a movie I've wanted to see for ages and I'm surprised the festival has never shown it. Based on Johnston McCulley's 1919 short story "The Curse of Capistrano," the film was Hollywood's first big swashbuckler and made Douglas Fairbanks a bigger star than he already was. He had a hand in writing the script and was responsible for coming up with that unmistakable Zorro "look." It was released the same year Fairbanks married Mary Pickford and was the debut release of United Artists, the company he co-founded with Pickford, Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. Director Fred Niblo would later work with Ramon Navarro in Ben Hur and Rudolph Valentino in Blood and Sand. Be on the lookout for 12-year-old Milton Berle in the uncredited role as "Boy." Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer would seem the perfect choice for accompaniment. And once again, kids under 10 are admitted free!

12:00 P.M. The Docks of New York (1928, USA, dir. Josef von Sternberg)—No less than renowned film historian Kevin Brownlow considers this von Sternberg's finest film, which was released one year before he'd depart for Germany to make The Blue Angel. It's also his last silent film—excepting 1929's The Case of Lena Smith which is lost—and was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1990. Betty Compson, a major silent star largely forgotten today, plays a prostitute who gets involved with the sailor (George Bancroft) who rescues her from a suicidal drowning. The film is by all accounts visually stunning, with an unsentimental and non-judgmental mindset towards its characters. I'm especially interested in seeing Olga Baclanova—best known as Cleopatra the trapeze artist in Tod Browning's Freaks—in a supporting role as the sailor's wronged wife. The intertitles are supposed to be something else. A wedding scene carries one that reads, "If any of you eggs know why these heels shouldn't get hitched, speak now or forever hold your trap." Donald Sosin will provide accompaniment on the grand piano.

2:00 P.M. Erotikon (1920, Sweden, dir. Mauritz Stiller)—Don't confuse this with Gustav Machatý's 1929 Czech film of the same title which played the festival three years ago. Stiller's Erotikon is a drawing room comedy about an entomologist studying the sex life of bugs. He has a mutual infatuation with his niece and a free-wheeling wife who's juggling the affections of a sculptor and an aviator. Detached and observational, the film is noted for its complete lack of moral judgment, unlike Hollywood films of the period. It sounds like a major highlight is the opera scene, with a half naked "Queen of the Shah" writhing lubriciously on a stage set worth of Busby Berkeley. Five years after Erotikon, Stiller would set sail for America with a little known actress he had discovered and given the name Greta Garbo. The Matti Bye Ensemble, who accompanied Stiller's The Blizzard at last year's festival, will repeat that honor for Erotikon.

4:30 P.M. Stella Dallas (1925, USA, dir. Henry King)—I knew the name Stella Dallas growing up because whenever I'd complain about how tough life was, one or both parents would respond, "Kid, you've got more problems than Stella Dallas." Oddly, I never sought out the famous 1937 Barbara Stanwyck vehicle—or the 18-years-running radio serial or Bette Midler's 1990 remake—so this will be my first exposure to the ultimate tale of maternal self sacrifice based on Olive Higgins Prouty's 1923 novel. The film was Belle Bennett's big break, as she was chosen over 73 other actresses by Samuel Goldwyn. Tragically, her 16-year-old son, whom she'd been passing off as her "brother" to hide her age from Hollywood producers, died during the production. The film co-stars Ronald Colman as Stella's wealthy husband, reuniting the actor with Henry King, who had directed his first Hollywood starring role (1923's The White Sister). Also making an appearance is 16-year-old Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in his fourth screen appearance. Czar of Noir City Eddie Muller will provide one of his customarily entertaining introductions, and Stephen Horne will accompany the film on grand piano.

7:30 P.M. The Cameraman (1928, USA, dir. Edward Sedgwick & Buster Keaton)—The festival ends with what many consider Buster Keaton's final masterpiece. It was his first film for MGM (a move he'd later call "the worst mistake of my career") and never again would he possess the independence and control necessary to create films worthy of his talents. Shot on both NYC locations and Hollywood sets, the film stars Keaton as accidental news photographer who becomes embroiled in Chinatown Tong Wars. Highlights include a hilarious sequence shot at a public swimming pool and one of film history's best performances by a monkey. The Cameraman was considered lost until an entire print was discovered in Paris in 1968. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will accompany the film, with introductions by Leonard Maltin and SFSFF board member Frank Buxton, who was an acquaintance of Keaton.

Prior to The Cameraman, the Bay Area will finally get to see the most recent restoration of George Méliès' beloved 1902 short, A Trip to the Moon, which premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival. In 1993, a hand-colored print of the film was discovered at the Filmoteca de Catalunya in a state of almost total decomposition. Restoration began in 1999 and took over 10 years to complete. Actor Paul McGann will be on hand to read the film's narration and Stephen Horne will accompany on grand piano.

Cross-published on film-415.

"THE POLITICS & POETICS OF OBSOLESCENCE": THE MUBI INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS ELSAESSER

My thanks to Danny Kasman at MUBI for publishing my brunch conversation with Thomas Elsaesser, recently conducted inbetween panels at the UC Berkeley international symposium on silent cinema—Cinema Across Media: The 1920s. Equal thanks to Laura Horak and Althea Wasow for arranging the time for me to sit down with Elsaesser and, of course, to Thomas himself for being so generous with his time during such a busy conference. Along with the topic of the changing role of national cinemas in international film festivals, Elsaesser and I also discussed another subject of recent interest.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Recently, I was asked to introduce a revival screening of Black Narcissus at the Mostly British Film Festival in San Francisco and what was foremost on my mind was how eager I was to see the film again, even though it was going to be about the eighth time I had seen it. I had to ask myself: "What is it about this movie that keeps you coming back to it again and again?" I knew the story inside out. I knew all its plot developments. The performances were familiar. And yet I keep returning to the film with the same degree of anticipation.

The best clue to understanding this in myself is an observation made by poet Mark Doty in his lovely volume Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, wherein he suggested that paintings exert a gravitational force and that—if a painting "speaks" to you—you are drawn into its orbit, returning to contemplate it again and again, at times for extended lengths of time. This caused me to consider that it was not the narrative or story that was pulling me in but the underlying beauty of the film—its painterly qualities—that had caught me in its orbit. Not only with Black Narcissus; but, recently as well, with a restored print of Luciano Visconti's The Leopard, which I watched at the Castro Theatre and equally appreciated for a similar gravity.

Thomas Elsaesser: Well, first, I recall that The Leopard is a pretty sexy film as well, if I remember it right. I was much younger when I saw it.

Guillén: Can you speak to that quality of what is "painterly" in a film?

Elsaesser: That's a big question, but an interesting one. Now, with Visconti—both in Senso and The Leopard—the director and the art director very clearly thought of where the color scheme comes from, costumes and so on, because they were historical dramas. There you are talking about the echoes of the film literally created with historical paintings, with the settings, with a kind of gravitas, which traditional art conveys. But when you talk about Leo Carrax, or someone like that, using Paul Gauguin—and Gauguin painting is a fascinating subject—using color schemes from Piet Mondrian or an abstract expressionist or a painter friend, that quality is more difficult to locate but it may actually have a deeper resonance.

If we're talking about "painterly", you really have to make a distinction. Are you talking about "painterly" in the 19th Century sense? Or are you talking about Modern art or painting? So I would make a big difference there. Both you can find in film. But Visconti is as operatic as he is painterly whereas obviously Godard is not operatic at all.

Guillén: I guess what's interesting me is that sensorial experience of having an aesthetic arrest when faced with a beautiful painting or a beautiful film; the physical attraction.

Elsaesser: There we come to what we've already talked about: the contemporary contemplative film, which has the quality of attention that you associate with painting. My question is: do you return to the painting because what is beautiful is somehow "out" there or is the effect of the beautiful something you establish in dialogue with the painting? The beauty is not something that your eye slides off after a couple of seconds because you think you recognize it, but more the fact that the longer you look the more the painting becomes something else. You know?

You see a Renoir and at first you think, "Wow, what voluptuous nudes" and then you think, "But, no, the brushstrokes!" How often he must have gone over and caressed that particular part of the body. Or that he gave as many caresses to a painted tree as he gave to the back side of one of his nudes. You see? And then you establish a rapport with the painting. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to put yourself in the place of the painter, as I've just now suggested, but it's that something happens and your mind gets drawn into things that you never thought you'd be interested in or think that you'd notice. Even though this is a painting full of light where all sorts of things happen, if you look long enough and if you follow certain colors and color schemes, you realize incredibly there's a geometric grid underlying the composition which on the surface is not noticeable at all but it gives the painting its strength that allows you to watch it for 20 minutes or half an hour. So if you transpose this to film, then you can call "painterly" films those films that really—on the surface of it—do not evoke painting as such; but, which allow you to unravel the way they were made and why they were made over a period of time. They were made to attach your attention to them.

When everyone was raving about Marlene Deitrich, Josef von Sternberg used to say, "Forget about Marlene. Frankly, the way I think about a great film, if you turn it upside down and back to front, it would still be a great film. Because what really interests me is the distribution of light and shadow over two hours." That would be a painterly point. A filmmaker says, "It's not what everybody else thinks that's important. If that rhythm, that way I catch light and shadow, wasn't consistent and interesting over two hours, Marlene Deitrich wouldn't strike you as beautiful."

Cross-published on Twitch.

SFSFF09—Underworld (1927) Introductory Remarks

I first caught Josef von Sternberg's Underworld (1927) at the Pacific Film Archive von Sternberg retrospective earlier this year accompanied by Judith Rosenberg on piano. I welcomed the opportunity to watch the film again projected on the Castro's giant screen with live piano accompaniment by the indefatigable Stephen Horne for the specific intent of savoring the scene where "Feathers" McCoy (Evelyn Brent) first comes to the attention of "Rolls Royce" Wensel (Clive Brook); namely, by way of an ostrich feather shaken loose from McCoy's outfit, drifting down to Wensel who is sweeping the floor below. Entrances are rarely so insinuating.

Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", had the honors of introducing Underworld to its SFSFF audience. Often asked—in his capacity as the Czar—what he considers to be the first film noir, Muller admitted he rarely answers the question because he considers trying to pin down the first film noir as somewhat an absurd endeavor. Notwithstanding, an ever-expanding roster of scholars continue to sift through pre-1940 films in search of some sort of cinematic missing link to establish a proto-noir precedent. "Here's the deal," Muller punched, "to me, film noir applies to an organic, artistic movement within the business of popular entertainment and it has been more than sufficiently proven that its Hollywood incarnation began in the early 1940s, primarily with two films: the A-list The Maltese Falcon (1941) and a far-less influential—but not insignificant—64-minute B-film called Stranger On the Third Floor made by RKO in 1940." The Maltese Falcon, based on Dashiell Hammett's famous '30s novel popularized the figure of the wisecracking anti-hero up to his ears in an amoral world of greed and avarice. Stranger On the Third Floor introduced to small-scale Hollywood-made crime stories an extravagant expressionism in art direction and cinematography. Both these films, however, are mere touchstones, the progenitors if you will, the exemplars of noir's content and style. The definitive film noir Double Indemnity would not be released until three years later in 1944.

"Having said that," Muller qualified, "I have found—as a person interested in film preservation and film history—that it is great fun and it is invaluable to spur interest in older films by searching for film noir's antecedents. That's why I am here today and happy to introduce 1927's Underworld as a co-presentation of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Film Noir Foundation. Not that I actually believe that Underworld is truly a film noir. It is a gangster picture and it is one of the first of its kind. Some people would argue that 1912's The Muskateers Of Pig Alley by D.W. Griffith or a film in 1915 called Regeneration directed by Raoul Walsh might be the first true depiction of gansters on the movie screen. Be that as it may, I think Underworld is the first example of what society would come to identify as the gangster picture." Structurally, dynamically, and visually, Underworld possesses the elements that have led to the creation of the recently-released Public Enemies. The game hasn't really changed all that much. Honestly speaking, Muller considers such silent films as Sunrise or A Cottage on Dartmour to be "much more noir."

Offering backstory on Underworld in order to provide insight into the moviemaking process and some of the practical and pertinent clues to the roots of film noir, Muller observed that most film historians—especially those enamored with the auteur theory—consider Underworld to be a Josef von Sternberg film. It was the director's third assignment but the first produced with the full support of a major studio, namely Paramount. Underworld was also the first film to display many of the visual flourishes that became Josef von Sternberg's signature. Of even greater historical significance to Muller, however, was that Underworld was the first story credit for Ben Hecht, who would go on to become one of the most prolific and respected screenwriters of Hollywood history, if not the most prolific and respected screenwriter of Hollywood history.

Hecht came to Hollywood in 1925 at the behest of his colleague Herman Mankiewicz (screenwriter for Citizen Kane) who, like Hecht, was a newspaper reporter with literary ambitions. "Mankie"—as he was known—extended an invitation to Ben Hecht in a telegram, which famously included: "Millions are to be made out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let it get around." Once ensconced in an office at Paramount earning $300 a week, Hecht got a crash course in picture writing from his sarcastic pal. "I wanted to point out to you," Mankiewicz advised, "that in a novel a hero can lay 10 girls and marry the virgin for the finish. In a movie, this is not allowed. The hero, as well as the heroine, have to be virgins. The villain can lay anybody he wants, have as much fun as he wants cheating and stealing, getting rich, and whipping the servants; but, you have to shoot him in the end and—when he falls with a bullet in his forehead—it is advisable that he clutch the Gobelins tapestry on the library wall and bring it down over his head as sort of a symbolic shroud. Also, covered by such a tapestry, the actor does not have to hold his breath while he is being photographed as the dead man." Ben Hecht had an immediate reaction to this advice. To quote: "The thing to do was to skip the heroes and heroines and to write a movie that contained only villains and broads. That way I do not have to tell any lies."

In his 1954 autobiography, A Child of the Century, Hecht explained that, "As a newspaper man I have learned that nice people—the audience—loved criminals, and doted on reading about their love problems as well as their sadism. My movie, grounded on this simple truth, was produced under the title Underworld. It was the first gangster movie to bedazzle the movie fans and there were no lies in it, except for a half dozen sentimental flourishes introduced by its director Joe von Sternberg." Hecht thought so little of von Sternberg's additions that—upon seeing the film—he sent the director a very blunt note via telegram: "You poor ham. Take my name off the picture." Paramount kept Hecht's name on the film and Underworld ended up being nominated for and winning the very first Oscar® ever presented for Best Original Story. Hecht would win again in that category in 1935 for a film called The Scoundrel.

Several years later, Howard Hughes wanted Ben Hecht to write a movie based on the exploits of Al Capone. Hecht was a newspaper man in Chicago and knew the Capone territory very well. Hecht agreed to this with specific conditions. He had to be paid $1,000 per day in cash with the money delivered precisely at 6:00. "In that way," Hecht said, "I stood to lose only a single day's labor if Mr. Hughes turned out to be insolvent." He was not only a good writer, he was a smart businessman. The finished script of Scarface incorporated many elements that Hecht used in Underworld and also brought a pair of midnight visitors to his Hollywood hotel. Muller donned Hecht's persona to tell the tale.

"They entered the room as ominously as any paid movie gangsters; their faces set in scowls and guns bulging under their coats. They had a copy of my Scarface script in their hands. Their dialogue belonged in it.

" 'You da guy who wrote dis?' I said that I was.

" 'We read it.' I enquired as to how they liked it?

" 'We want to ask you some questions.' I invited them to go right ahead.

" 'Is dis stuff in here about Al Capone?'

" 'God, no! I don't even know Al!' They traded some back-and-forth banter about guys Hecht did know in Chicago and then they prepared to leave, satisfied that the script was about 'dem other Chicago gangsters.' But then they stopped in the doorway.

" 'If dis stuff ain't about Al Capone, then why are you calling it Scarface? Somebody will think it's him.'

" 'That's the reason,' I said. 'Al is one of the most famous and fascinating men of our time. If we call the movie Scarface, everyone is going to want to see it, figuring that it's about Al. That's the business that we call showmanship!'

"My visitors pondered this and one of them finally said, 'I'll tell Al.' He started out the door and stopped. 'So who's dis guy Howard Hughes?'

" 'Ah, he's got nothing to do with anything,' I said—finally speaking the truth—'He's just the sucker with the money.'

" 'Okay, den to hell with him.' "

Ben Hecht's fingerprints are all over some of Hollywood's greatest movies—Gone With The Wind, Notorious, Spellbound, Kiss of Death—way too many films to mention. He was also not only a great original screenwriter, but one of the great script doctors in Hollywood. He created in Underworld and Scarface two of the earliest prototypes of what would become film noir. So, despite the antagonism that existed between the writer and director of Underworld, they do represent—as well as any two artists Muller could mention—the two essential facets of what would become film noir: on the one hand, a tough-minded and morally ambiguous view of a world rife with corruption, deceit and betrayal (that would be Ben Hecht's contribution) combined with the spellbinding and seductive visual style that brings a dreadful but romantic sensuality to people moving through light and shadow, which fairly describes all the best films that Josef von Sternberg ever made.

Whether or not Underworld is considered a film noir ultimately doesn't matter, Muller concluded, it remains an absolutely fantastic, influential and significant film.

Cross-published on Twitch.

SFSFF09—Michael Hawley Previews the Line-up

July is here—which means it's time to jump aboard the time machine and set the dial for 1920s San Francisco. The SF Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) returns for its 14th glorious edition this weekend, and lucky Bay Area filmgoers (and scores of devoted out-of-towners) will get to relive the magnificent era of silent movies once more.

SFSFF is a first-rate act, which explains why it's become the most prestigious annual event of its kind in the Americas. How so? First, you begin with a venue like the built-in-'22 Castro Theater, perhaps the nation's most beloved extant movie palace. Next you program an eclectic, challenging and fun group of films and exhibit them with the best possible 35mm prints. Then you hire the cream of internationally renowned silent movie musicians to accompany the films. Throw in a printed program of scholarly essays, informative slideshows before each screening, lots of special guests and a Grand Prize Raffle courtesy of San Francisco's McRoskey Mattress Company—and there you have it. Thanks to the festival, I've gone from being marginally interested in silent cinema, to having the SFSFF be the most anticipated three days of my film-going year.

When the line-up was announced last month, I'd hoped to find a program or two worth skipping out on. But of course, it all sounds too good, which means being sequestered in the Castro (with time off to go home and sleep) from 7:00PM Friday until 10:00PM Sunday. This year's roster is a typical SFSFF mix of familiar actors (Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, W.C. Fields, John Gilbert) and directors (King Vidor, Josef von Sternberg, D.W. Griffith), with the distinctly less familiar (Soviet-era sci-fi and a French surrealist take on Edgar Allen Poe). Here's a cursory jaunt through the entire weekend's schedule.

Friday, July 10

7:00PM, The Gaucho—At the height of his career in 1927, Douglas Fairbanks wrote and starred in this adventure extravaganza, playing a rakish but honorable Argentine bandit called upon to defend a pilgrimage site from plunder. The film co-stars Lupe Velez in her first major role, an actress I only know from a dubious appearance in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon (a sordid story involving suicide and a toilet bowl). The film was directed by F. Richard Jones, Mary Pickford has a cameo as the Virgin Mary, and Mexican locations stand in for the Argentine pampas. I'm sure I'll know lots more after reading the film's program notes, written by none other than Hell On Frisco Bay's Brian Darr. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. After the screening, the SFSFF opening night party takes place in the Castro mezzanine with drinks and live music.

Saturday, July 11

10:00AM, Amazing Tales From the Archives—For the fourth year in a row, SFSFF offers this FREE-admission spotlight on film preservation. (And speaking of FREE, kids under 12 get into ALL SFSFF shows gratis!) The program's highlights include a restored 1911 Edison short, How the Hungry Man Was Fed, and Screen Snapshots: 7th Series, with behind the scenes footage of Ramon Navarro and Clara Bow. Presenters are Joe Lindner and Heather Olson of the Academy Film Archive, along with 2008's SFSFF preservation fellowship recipient Anne Smatia. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.

12:00PM, Bardleys the Magnificent—This 1926 King Vidor-directed romantic swashbuckler was considered lost, until a near-complete, but unprojectable print was discovered in a French cellar in 2008. It's been digitally restored and will therefore be projected digitally at the festival, marking a SFSFF first. John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman star in a tale of mistaken identity and political intrigue set in the court of Louis XIII. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

2:30PM, Wild Rose—A romance between a poor country girl and a rich Shanghai artist is played out in this 1932 film from acclaimed Chinese director Sun Yu. Set against the backdrop of Japan's invasion of Manchuria, the film is said to explore issues of class-ism and the country's rural/urban divide. It stars Wang Renmei as the titular Wild Rose, and Jin Yan, the "Valentino of China." Jin Yan's widow, Qin Yi will be on hand to introduce the screening. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.

5:00PM, Underworld—George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent star as gangster Bull Weed and his moll Feathers, in this slice of 1927 silent proto-noir from director Josef von Sternberg. Ben Hecht wrote the story (in tandem with an uncredited scenario by Howard Hawks) and then demanded his name be removed once he saw what Von Sternberg had done with it. He won an Oscar anyway. This film will be introduced by San Francisco's own Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. Featuring Stephen Horne on piano.

7:30PM, The Wind—Lillian Gish plays a Virginia transplant driven nuts by West Texas wind, sand, cyclones and despicable suitors in SFSFF's 2009 Centerpiece Film. The movie was made under grueling conditions in the Mojave Desert, and Gish is once again directed by Victor Sjöström (The Scarlet Letter). The performance includes a special wind effect used in silent movie scores of the 1920s. Leonard Maltin will do the intro. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer.

9:45PM, Aelita, Queen of Mars—I missed this at the PFA two years ago when it screened as part of their Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema series, so I'm really glad to see it turn up here. Aided by eye-popping futuristic sets and costumes, the story concerns an earthman who takes a rocket ship to Mars and helps lead a revolution there. Directed by Yakov Protazanov and released in 1924. Featuring Dennis James on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer and theremin, and Mark Goldstein on the Buchla Lightning.

Sunday, July 12

10:30AM, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit—Before there was Mickey Mouse, there was Oswald, a cartoon character created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at Universal Studios in 1927. Disney lost control of the character in a 1928 legal dispute, and future episodes were produced by Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker). This program highlights eight Disney/Iwerks Oswald cartoons with guidance from Leonard Maltin and Iwerks' granddaughter Leslie Iwerks. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.

1:30PM, Erotikon—Once the kiddies have been cleared from the Castro, the SFSFF heats up with this 1929 Czech silent from Gustav Machatý. This is the director who would scandalize the world four years later with Heddy Lamar's nude swimming scene in Ecstasy. In this melodramatic precursor, a young girl has sex with a stranger, gets pregnant, marries another man and then returns to her former lover. The film is noted for its expressionistic imagery and non-judgmental approach to female sexual desire. It's also the first Czech film to appear in the SFSFF. Featuring the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

4:00PM, So's Your Old Man—I guess I was vaguely aware that W.C. Fields made silent films, but it's hard to imagine him without that lilting sneer of a voice. This year we get to experience a "muted" Fields, thanks to the SFSFF Director's Pick program and Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Bad Santa). Fields plays a New Jersey "put-upon paterfamilias" who invents a shatterproof windshield. After a disastrous demonstration at an auto convention, he meets a Spanish princess who leads the way to redemption. Directed by Gregory La Cava in 1926, the film was remade by Fields eight years later as You're Telling Me. This screening will be hosted by Zwigoff, writer Daniel Clowes (Art School Confidential) and esteemed actor/writer/director/SFSFF Board Member Frank Buxton. Featuring Philip Carli on piano.

6:15PM, The Fall of the House of Usher—Of all the films in the festival, this is the one I'm perhaps most intrigued by. French director/film theorist Jean Epstein adapted this Edgar Allen Poe story in 1928, with the assistance of an ultimately disgruntled Luis Buñuel (fresh from making Un chien andalou with Salvador Dali). It's said to be light on plot, but very heavy on atmospherics denoting dread, decay and discomfort. Marguerite Gance (wife of director Abel Gance) stars as Madeleine Usher, the model/muse whose death drives her husband to madness. Featuring Stephen Horne on Piano.

8:15PM, Lady of the Pavements—The 2009 SFSFF comes full circle for its Closing Night Film, with yet another vehicle showcasing the talents of Lupe Velez. This time she's a Spanish cabaret singer being pursued by a Prussian aristocrat in 19th century Paris. This 1929 picture would turn out to be maestro D.W. Griffith's final silent film, and it's generally considered the artistic high point of his later career. Two musical numbers and a dialogue sequence were re-shot to qualify the film as a part-talkie, but the original soundtrack discs are considered lost. In the SFSFF presentation, the two musical numbers will be sung live by vocalist Johanna Seaton. Featuring Donald Sosin on piano.

Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.