A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival's Winter Event

Protagonists Jean and Francois share a moment of camaraderie in Abel Gance's J'accuse.

Saturday, December 12, 2009
The Castro Theatre

Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, Abel Gance, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Tod Browning will all descend on San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre on Saturday, December 12 for The San Francisco Silent Film Festival's Winter Event. Two well-known films comprise the festival's evening roster: Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr.; and Tod Browning's West of Zanzibar (1928), co-starring Lon Chaney and Lionel Barrymore.  Dennis James will accompany both films on the "Mighty  Wurlitzer", sound effect artist Todd Manley will join him for Sherlock, Jr. The films chosen for the morning and afternoon screenings may not be as well known to modern audiences, their filmmakers being noted for other works more familiar to contemporary viewers.

Merian C. Cooper, Marguerite Harrison and Ernest B. Schoedsack on location for Grass.

Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack created arguably the greatest action-adventure film of all time, King Kong (1933). However, that work was not their first important contribution to the genre,  they also created Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) and the Silent Film Festival's opening film Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927).  Building on their prior success with Grass, and Robert J. Flaherty's parallel success with Nanook of the North (1922), the pair created a documentary adventure tale hybrid portraying a family's daily struggle for survival living near the jungle in Siam, now Thailand. The filmmakers shot on location in Thailand, employed locals as actors and made extensive and exciting use of hundreds of local animals, especially elephants, known as Chang in Thai.

While their publicity materials, much of which is available on Milestone's DVD release, stressed the film's veracity, the film was in fact largely fictionalized. The family portrayed in the movie, while all Thai, was not composed of an actual married couple and their children. Considering their sophisticated presentation, clearly the breathtaking action sequences involving animal attacks, as well as the more pastoral deceptions of village life  were staged and not spontaneous events. However, like H. P. Carver's The Silent Enemy (1930), the filmmakers attempted to capture realistically an exotic and ancient, but in actuality an already extinct, way of life.  The Academy recognized the artistry of the film when it nominated the film along with King Vidor's The Crowd and F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, which won the award, for the first and only prize given for "Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production" at the 1927 Oscars. Pianist Donald Sosin will accompany the screening with an original score.  Author Mark Vaz who penned Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong will introduce the film.

Director Abel Gance later in life.

In the afternoon, the Festival will screen J'accuse (1919), by French director Abel Gance probably most famous for his extraordinary epic Napoleon (1927).  Long before Napoleon, Gance created J'accuse, the story of a love triangle consisting of the poet Jean, the woman he loves, Edith, and her husband, Francois, set against the horrific trench warfare of World War I. The two men meet and become friends in the trenches, but the reappearance of Edith in their lives triggers heartrending events. The film succeeds as a tragic love story, as a bitter cry against warfare, and as an astonishing display of original and inventive film-making.

Film historian Kevin Brownlow dedicated his seminal work on the silent cinema, The Parade's Gone By... (1968) to director Abel Gance as he explains in that book, "not because he had a blemish-free record of sparkling successes, but because, with his silent productions, J'accuse, La Roue and Napoleon, he made a fuller use of the medium than anyone before or since." Until now, Americans have only been able to see the version originally released for the U.S. market which edited out most of its pacifist message. Lobster Films and Netherlands Filmmuseum have collaborated on a restoration of Gance's original cut which will make its North American premier at this screening. Film preservationist Robert Byrne, who recently worked with the Netherlands Filmmuseum's restoration team, will introduce the film. Robert Israel will perform his original score for the film live on the "Mighty Wurlitzer".

As always the Festival, in addition to fine programming, offers a chance to see these films as they were meant to be seen, on the big screen in a movie palace with an enthusiastic audience accompanied by first-rate live music. In between  Gance's J'accuse and  Keaton's Sherlock, Jr., the audience will also get the chance to mingle in the mezzanine of the Castro Theatre at a bash featuring drinks, hors d'oeuvres, and live music  In addition, the Festival will also feature several special guests. Besides the preservationist Robert Byrne and writer Mark Vaz, voice actor and silent film buff Frank Buxton will interview Buster Keaton's granddaughter, Melisa Cox, prior to the screening of Sherlock, Jr.  Festival passes, tickets for the screenings and for the party are available at www.silentfilm.org. For more on the evening screenings, please read David Jeffers' Winter in the City and "Make it big. Make it Lon Chaney big".