Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009
The 13th annual Kansas Silent Film Festival (KSFF) will be held on February 27 and 28, 2009, at the White Concert Hall on the Washburn University campus in Topeka, Kansas. Sponsored by Washburn, admission is free.
This year’s KSFF highlight is the American premiere of the restored 1926 swashbuckler Bardelys the Magnificent, which until recently was thought to be a lost film. Based on a novel by Rafael Sabatini, and starring John Gilbert and Eleanor Boardman, Bardelys the Magnificent is set in 17th-century France, where a local Don Juan steals female hearts but is unable to conquer the one woman he truly loves. Directed by King Vidor, Bardelys was a major hit for MGM (formed a mere two years earlier), and helped to catapult John Gilbert into the realm of superstardom. Boardman also did quite well for herself, later marrying her director and starring for him in the classic The Crowd.
Film restoration expert David Shepard (who worked on Bardelys the Magnificent) will be present to introduce the film. Musical accompaniment will be provided by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra of Boulder, Colorado, on the Concert Hall stage.
Also of particular interest: a screening of Nicholas Eliopoulos‘ 2008 documentary Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies, which uses narration — some of which is Pickford’s own, by way of old recordings — images from her films, photos, and interviews to paint a portrait of the movies’ first international superstar, and whose first film appearance took place 100 years ago.
I’d also recommend Sidney Franklin’s Lubitsch-esque Her Sister from Paris, a sophisticated 1925 comedy written by frequent Ernst Lubitsch collaborator Hans Kräly, and starring the delightful Constance Talmadge as a woman who pretends to be her worldly sister so as to win back the affections of her blasé husband, played by Ronald Colman.
Colman, who’d become one of the greatest film actors of the 1930s and 1940s is just okay here, but Talmadge proves herself a wonderful comedienne. It’s really too bad she opted to bow out of films right at the dawn of the talkie era; had she kept on going, she might have become a top screwball-comedy star. By the way, if the Her Sister from Paris plot sounds vaguely familiar it’s because Hans Kräly’s screenplay was the basis for Greta Garbo’s cinematic swan song, Two-Faced Woman in 1941.
Cobra and Go West will bring great pleasure to Rudolph Valentino and Buster Keaton fans, I’m sure. Cobra, for instance, is Alternative Film Guide contributor Danny Fortune’s favorite Valentino film. (Now, as far as I’m concerned the only good moment in Go West comes courtesy of a whole bunch of cows running amok through the streets of a Western town.)
And finally, The Great K & A Train Robbery, starring cowboy legend Tom Mix, sounds like a hoot, while The Poor Little Rich Girl is a must so you can check out the young Mary Pickford — then in her mid-20s — at work.
Schedule and synopses from the Kansas Silent Film Festival website:
Introductions by Denise Morrison
Music provided by Marvin Faulwell, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Greg Foreman, Kathy Combs and Jeff Rapsis
Special guests: Film preservationist David Shepard,
Documentary filmmaker Nicholas Eliopoulos
The event is free and open to the public. The KSFF is underwritten by donations
Friday, Feb. 27, 2009
Begins: 7:00 p.m.
Short: Rowdy Ann (1919) Fay Tincher (20 min.)
This brash short film is one of the few silent movies to depict a heroic, rough-hewn leading character who is also a woman. She lassoes steers and men with equal ease and is just as handy with a six-gun as the guys. Her name is Rowdy Ann and she’s sent off to a boarding school where she rescues just about everyone she meets.
Organ music by Greg Foreman
WESTERN DOUBLE Feature:
Short: Go West (1925) Buster Keaton (70 min.)
Kansas-born Buster Keaton is the unlikely hero of this impressive feature film in which he takes Horatio Alger’s famous saying (‘Go West, Young Man’) to heart. He heads out west to work at a dude ranch and (as often happens) everything there is given the Keaton-esque twist. There are procedures for milking cows, riding mules and playing cards. Keaton must even save the day when a shipment of cattle heads into downtown Los Angeles. He dons a red devil suit to attract them and succeeds… way more than he expected.
Organ music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
–Brief Break
Intermission Slides from the Dave Stevenson Collection featuring Jeff Rapsis (of New Hampshire’s Wilton Town Hall Silent Film series) on piano
Feature: The Great K & A Train Robbery (1926) Tom Mix (54 min.)
A surprisingly short, but astounding silent western featureone of the best (if not THE best) silent film Tom Mix ever made. Tom and his wonder horse (Tony) do some awesome stunts and many scenes in the film were actually filmed on location in Glenwood Springs, Colorado back in the 1920’s. If you have never seen a Tom Mix western, this is the one you should see! The plot is rather old hat. The hero wears a mask to hide his identity, but this was before the Lone Ranger and several other masked heroes. It was all new in 1926.
Organ music by Marvin Faulwell & percussion by Kathy Combs
Rudolph Valentino at the Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009
BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT at the Kansas Silent Film Festival 2009
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Tags: Bardelys the Magnificent, Classic Movies, Constance Talmadge, David Shepard, Eleanor Boardman, Film Festivals, Her Sister from Paris, John Gilbert, King Vidor, Mont Alto Orchestra, Silent Films
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