Buster Keaton, SUNRISE, THE CAT AND THE CANARY: San Francisco Silent Film Festival Screenings
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival will present a special series of screenings on Valentine’s Day, Saturday, February 14, at the Castro Theatre. The screening films are the Buster Keaton vehicle Our Hospitality (1923), the Russian comedy A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927), F. W. Murnau’s Academy Award-winning (for "Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production") Sunrise (1927), and the haunted-house caper The Cat and the Canary (1927).
I haven’t seen either Our Hospitality or A Kiss from Mary Pickford. I’m not a silent-comedy fan so Keaton films are usually a low priority (though I’ve stone-facedly sat through quite a few of them), but Sergei Komarov’s Mary Pickford sounds particularly intriguing as it features newsreel footage of one of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford’s European trips. (I’m not sure if it’s the much publicized 1920 European honeymoon tour, during which they were reportedly mobbed by out-of-control fans, or some later tour.)
In The Story of Cinema, David Shipman wrote, "It is ironic that that tour should be best preserved via a film made in the Soviet Union — for the couple were, after all, two enormously wealthy people, major props of a capitalist industry. No one can doubt the charm and genuine pleasure of the couple, but one does notice them searching for the camera between smiles — just to make sure it’s there."
Murnau’s Sunrise is considered by many one of the greatest silent films ever. I’m not one of those. I’m sure the original must have been great to look at (even the available restored prints look a bit fuzzy and dark), but the plot — what little there is of it — invariably leaves me cold. My chief problem with Sunrise, in fact, is that if I were George O’Brien I’d have unremorsefully drowned village lass Janet Gaynor to live sinfully (and blissfully) ever after with big-city gal Margaret Livingston.
Note: Janet Gaynor could be an outstanding actress; but not in Sunrise. Academy members (there were considerably fewer in those days) clearly felt otherwise, as Gaynor won the very first best actress Oscar for her performance in Sunrise, in addition to her work in the maudlin and way overlong 7th Heaven and the much superior — and now all but forgotten — Street Angel.
The Cat and the Canary is no masterpiece, but it’s perfectly watchable thanks to Paul Leni’s expressionistic touches, with the assistance of cinematographer Gilbert Warrenton’s lenses. As the wimpish "hero," Creighton Hale is more tolerable than Bob Hope in the 1939 remake, but that’s not saying much. Laura La Plante, however, is a lovely heroine (La Plante was Universal’s top female star in the mid-to-late 1920s), while veteran Flora Finch — she’d been in movies since the early 1900s — has the chance to display her well-honed comedic skills.
Photos: Courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Schedule and synopsis from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival press release:
At noon the Valentine’s Day Event will begin with Buster Keaton’s ingenious take on Romeo and Juliet, Our Hospitality (1923). Keaton turns the age-old drama of two lovers caught in the middle of a feud between families into a laugh-out-loud parody of Southern hospitality, circa 1830. Upon learning he’s inherited the ancestral mansion, Buster takes the first train home to reclaim his heritage. Soon he’s courting a sweetheart — and dodging her family’s bullets. The climax of the film involves a daredevil rescue attempt above a roaring waterfall, a stunt which Keaton performed himself.
Next at 2:40pm is a madcap slapstick farce from Russia, A Kiss from Mary Pickford (1927). The story involves a movie theater ticket-taker who’s in love with an aspiring actress, but she only has eyes for movie idols like Douglas Fairbanks. Deciding he can win her over by becoming a famous screen star himself, the ticket-taker lands a stunt man job at a movie studio. When Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford arrive on a promotional tour, the ticket-taker gets all the fame he could ever want — at his own peril!
At 6:30pm the program will shift from comedy to drama with Sunrise (1927), a timeless ode to the forces of love, desire, guilt and redemption, widely regarded as one of the supreme artistic achievements of the silent era. Director F. W. Murnau infuses his fable of a man, a temptress, and a wife with a lyrical, dreamlike intensity that makes for a heightened emotional experience of unforgettable power.
At 9:30pm the Valentine’s Day Event will conclude with The Cat and the Canary (1927), directed with macabre abandon by Paul Leni (The Man Who Laughs). At the stroke of midnight, the heirs to a fortune gather in an old dark house for the reading of a will. One of them will inherit the estate and take possession of the famous West diamonds — but only if they can survive the night without going insane.
The Castro Theatre is located at 429 Castro Street in San Francisco.
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6 Responses to “Buster Keaton, SUNRISE, THE CAT AND THE CANARY: San Francisco Silent Film Festival Screenings”
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“The Cat and the Canary” has been on TV. But I’ve never seen the 1939 version. Where can I find it?
Ah, but you’re not George O’Brien. ;-)
I won’t call Sunrise the greatest silent film, but it is one of my top films. I never fail to be moved by the simple story, sometimes achingly told and always weep at the wedding sequence in the city. The plot is no less creaky than a dozen films from the same era, or even today.
There may have been fewer Academy members, but Gaynor did just fine, she had a terrible wig as has been mentioned by others elsewhere.
Andre, you need to come up to SF and revisit it!
Donna, it’s certainly tempting.
I actually saw a restored print of “Sunrise” just a few years ago, at the Academy. I did look better than previous prints, but it still gave only an idea of what the movie must have looked like when it first came out.
I think these silent movies were great…IN THEIR TIME. But now I really think that we are only holding on to them for nostalgias sake and not for any intrinsic cinematic value
I respectfully (but strongly) disagree. I’ve seen a number of silent films that feel less dated than many of the movies being made today. Check out Erich von Stroheim’s “Greed” one of these days, or Rex Ingram’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Or “Ben-Hur,” which, though no masterpiece, I find infinitely superior to the more recent (and more famous) version with Charlton Heston.
For lesbians, I’d recommend everything with Corinne Griffith. Others might recommend everything with Louise Brooks as well, especially “Pandora’s Box.”
Hey cool info! I myself am a buster fan.