Gardens to light shows at the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair

More from the 1915 San Francisco World Fair, with gardens, Japanese Exhibit, parades, temples, electric light show, auto races and crashes.

San Francisco 1915 World's Fair

Today's film features dances from around the world...

More of the World's Fair of 1915

As I continue to write Edna's book, more film of the San Francisco World's Fair of 1915.

More of the 1915 San Francisco World Fair

More of the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915...

Latest Edna Purviance Family Bio on Edna's home site

Starting today, I will be keeping a regular update on the progress of Edna Purviance's family bio on ednapurviance.org main home page. Check there under the Latest Edna News!

Part Four of the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair

Continuing with the San Francisco International Exhibition from 1915...
(Many of Edna's close family members visited this fair, as did Edna.)

Part Two of the San Francisco 1915 World Fair

San Francisco International Exhibition 1915 (World Fair) - Part Two

1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition

Edna Purviance and her sister, Myrtle, were living in San Francisco, when the San Francisco World Fair opened  in 1915. Originally proposal in 1904, but delayed by the 1906 earthquake, it became a major world event, as it celebrated the rebirth of San Francisco and the opening of the Panama Canal.

Many of Edna's family members attended, as did Edna's new employer, Charles Chaplin. Edna started working for Chaplin just a few weeks before the official fair opening.

The following silent films post are a peek at that fair, beginning with the opening:

Working on Edna Purviance's family biography

Sorry for the lack of new post, again, as I am busy in my free time working on Edna's family biography. So far, I have 145 pages written for the first draft. Also, doing new research as I go along. Takes a lot of time, but getting along with it. So, if quiet here, it's just because I like to get this book completed.

Thanks for visiting, and continue to stop by!

L. W.

Happy Birthday, Charlie Chaplin!

Happy Birthday to Charlie Chaplin!

Born in London - April 16, 1889
(died, Christmas Day, 1977)

Charlie Chaplin celebrated until 7PM today, on TCM!

'Charlie Chaplin' in 1920 Benjamin Rabier animation

French comic book artist and film animator, Benjamin Rabier, created a 'tip of the hat' to Charlie Chaplin, in this 1920 silent animated film. Rabier is said to have inspired others, like George Remi (Hergé - the creator of Tintin) to get into the field as a comic book illustrator.

 Here's a 9.5MM version of the Pathé film:

Harold Lloyd, Safety Last, re-released

Harold Lloyd's Safety Last has been restored and will be release on Blu-ray and DVD this June. The collection will have David Gill and Kevin Brownlow's excellent documentary called The Third Genius.

To celebrate the new release, digital and 35MM copies of the film will be shown in theaters across the county starting in April. Check this list to see if at a theatre near you.

Here is the new trailer by Janus Films for the theater release.

2013 Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival

August 22 - 25th, 2013

Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival 2013

Everyman Palace Theatre
Cork, Ireland

More at Chaplin Film Festival home website

CINETECA DI BOLOGNA 2013

Allan Dawn, the Noble Primitive

Photo: Allan Dwan on the set of Stage Struck (1925)

After von Sternberg, Capra, Ford, Hawks and Walsh, this year’s tribute will be dedicated to Allan Dwan. His career spans from 1911 – the days of Griffith and Ince – to 1961 – when the new waves set in – and produced 400 films (some claim 1400), covering every genre and technical novelty: from his early films (finally restored) to the more mature ones, a fine star vehicle for Douglas Fairbanks (Robin Hood, The Iron Mask) and Gloria Swanson alike (Manhandled). In the 30s and 40s Dwan is able to combine a spectacular with a more intimate cinema, to make one of the best anti-McCarthyist works ever made (Silver Lode) and even shoot a number of films in Cinemascope, a format which greatly inspired this ‘poet of the filmic space’. Finally, Most Dangerous Man Alive: an extraordinary end of career.

Silent Hitch

Photo: Alfred Hitchcock in Blackmail (1929)

The restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's nine surviving silent films is definitely one of the most complex and important restoration project undertaken by the BFI National Archive to date. It is now an immense pleasure for us to be the first festival to screen them all, for the first time, in 35mm (despite being also available on DCP) the original format in which they were created by Hitchcock. The collection starts with the sensational The Pleasure Garden, a newly born film which was believed to be lost for many years, and ends with the evergreen Blackmail. Between the two The Lodger, The Ring, Easy Virtue, The Manxman and more, nine works which go well beyond the ‘crime scene’ to reveal Hitchcock’s remarkable inspiration and creative power which made him, while still in his 20s, the leading British director of his times.

Bigger than Life:
a journey through European CinemaScope

Photo: The Round-Up by Miklós Jancsó (1966)

Over the last decade or so, the magnificent screen at the Arlecchino theatre has allowed us to celebrate the marvels of CinemaScope, particularly American CinemaScope at its best, before the format somewhat lost its inspiration and motives. We will now look at the magic of the ‘European Scope’ – so defined to take into account all of the variations the widescreen systems adopted in our continent. This section will include the best achivements from both Eastern and Western Europe, such as Marlen Khutsiyev’s works (July Rain, one of the greatest Russian films from the New Wave); Vasiliy Shukshin (perhaps his greatest, Happy Go Lucky); Miklós Jancsó (with The Round-Up a legendary study on the machinery of terror); Jean-Pierre Melville (with a too little known gem by Simenon, L'Ainé des Ferchaux), Mario Monicelli (La grande guerra) as well as Alexander MacKendrick’s journey through a child’s soul with Sammy Going South.

War is near: 1938-1939

Photo: Erich von Stroheim in Menaces by Edmond Gréville (1940)

If, following our planet’s destruction, an alien was to visit a film archive and watch the films that were made in 1938-39, he would get a clear glimpse of the madness to come. Nonetheless, we have decided not to program the most obvious anticipations, but rather earlier films which captivate fear and frail hopes, random shadows, inconclusive dialogues, everything that the greatest films around that period, such as Renoir's La Règle du jeu, did so miraculously. Our round trip to these troubled times will include Menaces (Edmond T. Gréville), Paradis perdu (Abel Gance), White Illness (Hugo Haas), Sans lendemain (Max Ophuls), Engineer Kochin’s Error (Alexandr Macheret), Three Comrades (Frank Borzage), Pour la mérite (Karl Ritter).

Letters from Chris Marker

Photo: Chris Marker

Chris Marker was a unique soul. His essay film came to light after a gestation period which happened to be a very special one, the golden age of the French short film in the 1950s. André Bazin defined Lettre de Sibérie, the most legendary of Marker's early films: "I would say, an essay documented by film. The important word is 'essay', understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well”. Our tribute to Marker will focus on his early works, some of which have been very hard to see lately: Un Dimanche à Pekin, Description d'un combat (which has disappeared from the face of the earth for almost 50 years), La Jetée, Le Joli mai, La Sixième face du pentagone, together with ...A Valparaiso by Joris Ivens with a commentary &nd ash; nobody surpassed him in commentaries – by Chris Marker.

Japan Speaks Out, Part 2!
Song and Social Realism

Photo: Enoken Seishun Suikoden (Enoken’s Youthful Water Margin) by Kajiro Yamamoto (1934) (From National Film Centre of Tokyo)

By the mid-1930s, sound technology had become more widely disseminated in Japan as both studios and theatres invested in the new medium. By 1933, the Tokyo-based P.C.L. (Photo Chemical Laboratory) and the Kyoto-based Studio J.O. had begun production with the remit of producing sound films exclusively. But the transition was still a slow one, and it was not until 1936 that the majority of films produced in Japan were made with sound. The period thus marks an almost unique instance in which sound films were made alongside silents, and in which the aesthetic potential of new sound technologies were gradually assimilated and developed.

This second part of an ongoing retrospective of Japanese sound films from this transitional period focuses on three studios active in this key period. The work of P.C.L., with its stress on musicality, urban life and its at times trenchant so cial commentary, highlights the troubled modernity of 1930s Japan. Studio J.O., with which P.C.L. would ultimately merge into Toho, shared these concerns, but its base in Kyoto allowed it in addition to produce numerous jidai-geki (period films), most sadly lost. The jidai-geki was also the speciality of Nikkatsu, a studio that stretched back to 1912 but which now sought to fuse traditional narratives with the new sound technology, creating a distinctive style of realist period drama. Programme curated by Alexander Jacoby e Johan Nordström, in collaboration with Tokyo National Film Center.

And also… Recovered & Restored Charlie Chaplin at Mutual One Hundred Years Ago: Glorious 1913 Preobrazhenskaya and Pravov Théâtre Morieux, le Cinématographe Ritrovato Tenderly Ironic: Vittorio De Sica, actor and director Homage to Xie Jin Autour du Monde Emulsion matters: Orwo and Nova Vlna (1963-1968) Italia Taglia, 100 Years of italian censorship Film Restoration Roundtables Cinema masterclasses Il Cinema Ritrovato DVD Awards (10th edition) As in previous years, the Renzo Renzi Library will host the Film Publishing Fair (Books, DVD, antique and vintage goods) and the Schermi e Lavagne Project with many educational activities for young cinéphiles. MORE TO COME ABOUT CINETECA DI BOLOGNA HERE

Bologna Welcome – the official tourism website of Bologna – offers a useful, updated and easy information service to all Il Cinema Ritrovato participants or to all people in town for business or tourism purposes. Participants are advised to book their accommodation in advance in order to take advantage of the dedicated rates. Discover the Bologna Welcome offers here!

HULU - CHAPLIN's CLASSICS, FREE for three days!

Spend this weekend watching
CHAPLIN and PURVIANCE
on HULU (USA)!

LAST FEW HOURS! 
ONLY THREE DAYS LEFT!
To see the Criterion Collection of Chaplin's films
that includes the full films of all his First National,
United Artist and two British productions

Which includes Edna Purviance's starring role in A Woman of Paris!

There is also a sampling of the documentaries made for the collection

1) Chaplin's never made Napoléon film
2) John Bengston essay on film location for Modern Times
3) Documentary on the special effects for Modern Times
4) Behind the scenes of the making of Modern Times with Jeffrey Vance

ALSO, a link to VIKI.COM, where you will find 55 Chaplin films available to see
from the Mutual, Essanay and Keystone era!

Again, only three days left! To see the Criterion Chaplin films on HULU!
All for FREE!