San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2009

The Fall of the House of Usher (top); John Gilbert, Eleanor Boardman in Bardelys the Magnificent (middle); Douglas Fairbanks, Lupe Velez in The Gaucho (bottom)

Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, and Lillian Gish are only a few of the superstars to be found at the 14th San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which will take place July 10-12 at the Castro Theatre. Among those scheduled to provide musical accompaniment to the on-screen action are the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Philip Carli, Stephen Horne, Dennis James, and Donald Sosin.
Among the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s highlights are:
The Gaucho (1927), an adventure tale involving faith and redemption, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Lupe Velez in her first important film role.
"A daring departure," is how [...]

Latino Images in Film: Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Warner Baxter on TCM

Turner Classic Movies‘ series "Race in Hollywood: Latino Images in Film" kicks off this evening.
So what if "Latino" isn’t a race? So what if it isn’t even an ethnic or a cultural group, but merely a US-made sociopolitical construct? I’d say that what matters here are the films themselves — all Hollywood productions. And hopefully some of the introductions, provided by Robert Osborne and UCLA professor of film and media studies Chon A. Noriega, will be illuminating.
Tonight, TCM watchers will be able to catch Hollywood’s foremost couple of the 1920s, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, playing Spanish-speaking characters (by way of English-language intertitles) in, respectively, the D. W. Griffith-directed early short Ramona [...]

Best Films – 1924

Erich von Stroheim’s masterpiece and one of the best silent films ever made, Greed remains a powerful indictment against the deadly sin of the title. Based on Frank Norris‘ McTeague, the film revolves around the misdeeds of a California dentist (Gibson Gowland, center), his miserly wife (ZaSu Pitts, left), and her former lover (Jean Hersholt, not in the above picture), all of whom sacrifice their selves to the all-powerful God of Dollar Bills. Stroheim’s initial cut had 47 reels, though eventually Greed was pared down to 10 reels (approximately 2h15m). That is all that is known to survive from the original film. But in spite of the drastic cuts, many of Stroheim’s magnificently perverted excesses are very much [...]

Best Films – 1920

Though no masterpiece, The Mollycoddle is a surprisingly enjoyable romp starring Douglas Fairbanks as an effete, upper-class nonentity who discovers both his manhood and his red-white-and-blue Americanness before the final fadeout. His leading lady is a minor actress named Ruth Renick, but one barely notices her. The director is Victor Fleming, best known for Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, but The Mollycoddle is truly all Fairbanks’.
 
FILM
The Last of the Mohicans
d: Maurice Tourneur, Clarence Brown; scr: Robert Dillon
The Mollycoddle
d: Victor Fleming; scr: Douglas Fairbanks, Thomas J. Geraghty
What Happened to Rosa?
d: Victor Schertzinger; scr: Gerald C. Duffy
 
CHECK THESE OUT
Conrad in Quest of His Youth
d: William C. de Mille; scr: Olga Printzlau
Outside the Law
d: Tod Browning; scr: Lucien Hubbard; [...]

Douglas Fairbanks: The First King of Hollywood

Douglas Fairbanks in Wild and Woolly (top) and Don Q. Son of Zorro (bottom). Below right, Fairbanks can be seen in The Matrimaniac.

The exhibition "Douglas Fairbanks: The First King of Hollywood" will premiere on Saturday, January 24, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fourth Floor Gallery in Beverly Hills. Admission is free.
As per the Academy’s press release, the exhibition will focus on superstar Douglas Fairbanks’ "multifaceted life as a movie star, studio [co-]founder [that's United Artists], philanthropist and civic leader through film clips, movie posters, props, costumes, original documents and stunning photographic imagery. The exhibition spans from his earliest days in silent films through his transition into talkies, delves into [...]

Douglas Fairbanks in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD Screening

A fully restored print of the 1924 silent-film version of The Thief of Bagdad, starring Douglas Fairbanks, will be screened as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Fairbanks celebration in a special “Monday Nights with Oscar” presentation on Monday, December 15, at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
The Thief of Bagdad will be presented in conjunction with the publication of the Academy’s latest book, Douglas Fairbanks, by Jeffrey Vance, with Tony Maietta and photographic editor Robert Cushman. Vance and Maietta will take part in a book signing following the screening.
Directed by Raoul Walsh [...]