Articles tagged silent film
"The Oath of the Sword" Screens at the Academy Museum
On Sunday, May 28 the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will screen The Oath of the Sword (1914), a three-reel silent drama preserved with National Film Preservation Foundation support. Made by the Japanese Film Company and featuring an all-Japanese leading cast, The Oath of the Sword is the earliest known Asian American film production. It is an important and rare surviving exemplar of an under-explored part of early Asian American film history: movies made by and for Japanese Americans.
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| The Oath of the Sword (1914) preserved by the Japanese American National Museum and George Eastman Museum with NFPF support. |
The Oath of the Sword tells the tragic story of lovers separated when an ambitious young man leaves his beloved in Japan to study abroad at the University of California, Berkeley. It contrasts the morals of traditional Japanese society with the forces of … Read more
Go “Below the Surface” at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival!
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| Below the Surface (1920). |
After a two-year break the San Francisco Silent Film Festival roars back to life on May 5th. This 25th anniversary edition lasts until May 11 and is jam-packed with films. Among these treasures is Below the Surface (1920), preserved by the Festival through the support of the National Film Preservation Foundation. The premiere of the restoration occurs on Friday, May 6, at 2pm, and we hope you can make it.
Below the Surface was the follow-up to the notorious revenge melodrama Behind the Door (1919). It reunites producer Thomas Ince, director Irvin Willat, star Hobart Bosworth, and cinematographer J.O. Taylor (later to film King Kong). Both films have action aboard submarines and a macabre shipboard denouement. In Below the Surface Bosworth plays a diver in small-town Maine who’s assisted by his loyal son (Lloyd Hughes). Their relationship is … Read more
“Amazing Tales from the Archives” at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
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| Vice takes its toll in Opium (1919). |
On Thursday, May 2, the National Film Preservation Foundation will co-present “Amazing Tales from the Archives” at the San Francisco Silent Festival. This free lecture program, begun in 2006, features archivists from around the world presenting field reports on new and exciting preservation projects. This year audiences will enjoy four presentations from leading film preservationists and scholars.
Starting from the formative years of cinema, researcher Thierry Lecointe and SFSFF President Robert Byrne will reveal cinematic discoveries from turn-of-the-century flipbooks. Next, Munich Filmmuseum director Stefan Drössler will guide the audience through the restoration of Opium (1919). Directed by Robert Reinert and starring Werner Krauss and Conrad Veidt, this exotic, hallucinatory tale of addiction and betrayal among doctors … Read more
Now Online: Harry Carey, Christopher Walken, and Code Blue
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| Christopher Walken knows many secrets as The Boy Who Saw Through (1958). |
The National Film Preservation Foundation wishes you a festive holiday season! Should you wish to celebrate with some eclectic home viewing, take a look at three additions to our Online Screening Room: the urban western Soft Shoes (1925), starring Harry Carey; The Boy Who Saw Through (1958), produced by the legendary animator Mary Ellen Bute and starring a 14-year-old Christopher Walken; and Code Blue (1972), an inspiring recruitment film for minorities in the medical profession, produced by Blackside Inc., the company behind Eyes on the Prize. Taken as a set, these titles testify to the variety of films preserved through our grant program.
Recently rediscovered at the Czech National Film Archive, Soft Shoes is a charming short feature starring Harry Carey as a small-town sheriff who visits San … Read more
"Soft Shoes" at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
Starting May 30th the San Francisco Silent Film Festival will celebrate its 20th anniversary with five days of programs showcasing silent classics from around the world. The NFPF is honored to have played a part in the celebration by supporting the preservation of Soft Shoes (1925), which screens May 31 with live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin.
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| "Harry Carey is willing to risk an eye as Lillian Rich adjusts her stocking" in Soft Shoes (1925). Photo and text from Exhibitor’s Trade Review, March 14, 1925. |
Directed by Lloyd Ingraham and photographed by Sol Polito, Soft Shoes was part of a series of Westerns produced by Hunt Stromberg and starring Harry Carey. Set in 1925, the semi-comedic story involves small-town western sheriff Pat Halahan (Carey) visiting San Francisco and apprehending the alluring burglar Faith O’Day (Lillian Rich), who had attempted to rob his hotel room. … Read more