The SFSFF 2007 - Day 2

How often does the day come along when you have a chance to see rare Hal Roach silent shorts, followed by sensational Hollywood and Italian action features, anything written by June Mathis, and Wild Bill Wellman directing Louise Brooks and Wallace Beery in Hobohemia? If that’s not enough, add shaking the hand (Thank you, thank you, thank you!) of David Shepard, America’s most revered silent film preservationist, learning the book table has a rare first edition of Jim (Oklahoma Red) Tully’s Beggar’s of Life for sale (at a bargain price!), and then getting William Wellman Jr to autograph it! Tomorrow I expect Blackie Norton, Mary Blake and Father Tim to march down Market Street singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, followed by C. B. DeMille parting the Golden Gate for the Children of Israel!

Fast Company (1924)

Saturday, July 14, 10:30 a. m., The Castro, San Francisco

This absolutely hysterical Our Gang short begins with fat little Joe Cobb in bed, startled awake by his equally chubby parents sparring in the kitchen. Every time his ma clubs his old man with the rolling pin, everything that’s not nailed down goes flying, including Joe! Ernie and Farina talk the kids into a day at the swimming hole, after little Farina struggles with an uncooperative hose that shuts off every time he tries to get a drink. With no one to blame, he finally shakes his fist at the neighborhood in frustration. Mickey is just setting off to deliver eggs from a cart pulled by a goat and can’t go swimming (you already knew they’d never make it to the swimming hole, didn’t you?), so they dawdle. He bumps into a rich kid who’s waiting for an escort from the train station to his swanky hotel and they trade places. Of course, they all end up running amuck in the hotel, with a tuxedo-wearing monkey driving the cart while throwing fireworks at the adult patrons. One by one they climb up a fire escape to gain reentry. The biggest laugh in the picture comes, as the last one through the window is the goat! The gang ends up wearing grass skirts and war paint in a bizarre headhunter fantasy, before they all get sick, smoking a corncob pipe, and the hotel staff runs them off

The Boy Friend (1928)

Max Davidson reluctantly takes his pretty young daughter (played by Marion Byron) shopping, where she flirts with handsome Gorden Elliott, "…who had played football in college, and studied law in his spare time." They wait for the shoe salesman, and Byron laughs at the holes in his socks, running off when he reciprocates. Leaving her package on the floor, Elliott opens it to discover a pair of lace bloomers, which he waves as he chases her down the street! Somehow, she invites the young man to her home for dinner, and her parents decide he might run off if he thinks they are crazy. They do a sensational job convincing him, not surprisingly, until Max finds out Elliott is his Boss's son! Add to this a perpetually eating beat cop played by Edgar Kennedy, a footrace down the sidewalk to catch the boy, and a car wreck finale with mom and dad in the rumble seat wearing togas! Byron and Davidson also paired in the sensationally funny Roach short, Pass the Gravy (1928).

Valley of the Giants (1927)

Saturday, July 14, 1:15 p. m., The Castro, San Francisco

Milton Sills is sensational in this adaptation of Peter B. Kyne’s novel about timber wars in the Redwoods of Northern California. He falls for a girl and discovers she’s the daughter of his father’s enemy, the neighboring lumber baron who is trying to bankrupt their mill. In the film’s most amazing scene, the girl and her father unknowingly ride the caboose of a runaway train. Sills, who begins the ride sitting on an enormous log at the opposite end, walks the row flat cars to set the brakes and save them, as the train plummets down the mountain, picking up speed. The sequence features shots of the hero hanging from a log by his hands as the train races over a trestle, and close-ups of the breaking wheels ground flat where they meet the rails in a shower of sparks as they stop just before plummeting off the tracks.

Tomorrow …

Sweet Lois Wilson has her day, eventually, in Miss Lulu Bett. Think of Louise Brooks at the end of The Show Off, times ten!

Here’s a small finale teaser…