Tweet 2018 Silent Film Benefit Calendar

Next year's calendar is now available for mail order!



This beautiful wall calendar features photographs and artwork from silent films and the film industry, provided to me by generous collectors.

This year, the theme is "Music is half the picture." Particular thanks to Robert Arkus, the George Eastman Museum, and Bruce Calvert for an intriguing collection of publicity stills and behind-the-scenes photos of musicians at work in the movie business.

All proceeds of the calendar sales will go to silent film restoration. More details at the web page.

Follow this link, or click on the picture above, to purchase your copy of the 2018 Silent Film Benefit Calendar.

Ordered!

[Mike Gebert]

Wouldn't be Christmas without it!

Ordered!

I ordered two!

You had me at the cover image, Rodney. I have never seen that great still from Sherlock, Jr. before.

I ordered two!

You had me at the cover image, Rodney. I have never seen that great still from Sherlock, Jr. before.

Ooh! Then I can guarantee you that you also haven't seen the (somewhat overlapping) shot for January, from the same film, but showing more musicians. Tease, tease. Thanks to the George Eastman Museum for both of these.

The January photo, like the cover photo, doesn't appear in the released film.

In fact, with this photo of Buster in Sherlock Jr. costume playing piano with Kathryn McGuire, plus one of him in the same costume lounging on a tiger-skin rug, plus one of Buster in projectionist costume sitting in a pile of jumbled film, plus one of Buster at the ticket booth trying to buy a ticket, I'm not aware of any other silent film with more publicity stills that are NOT from the actual film as released. I suppose that's a lesson for people trying to reconstruct lost films from the surviving stills...

Thanks Rodney!

Many years ago I bought another still from the film from a memorabilia store in New York with Keaton and Kathryn McGuire on a staircase, which isn't in the film either. It was gorgeous.

Good timing, I was actually wondering when it would be available. Just ordered. Thank you for doing this, Rodney!

CORRECTION: The supplier of the Phantom of the Opera (April) and Napoleon (July) photos was misidentified in the captions. Both of those photos were supplied by David Welling. I greatly regret the error.

Due to a request for a bulk purchase, I've added a button to buy 8 calendars for $80 plus postage. I tried to see if I could set up an automatic price drop at a certain quantity, but that proved too much for the Paypal button codes (or for my ability to figure out how they work...).

If you want eight, buy ONE set of eight calendars and you'll get the discount. (Don't say you want eight, or you'll be ordering 64 calendars.) If you want a different large quantity, send me an email and I'll change the bulk button so that you can place the order your want.

Thanks for you support! I've already sold 59, so the printing costs are covered.

My calendar arrived yesterday, great job, as always Rodney!

Ordered. Looking forward to it.

Matthew

Ordered! Looking forward to it.

I need to remember to order this!

I need to remember to order this!

On the other hand, if you order it right now, you don't need to remember any more!

(It's pretty painless, especially if you have a Paypal account.)

I need to remember to order this!

On the other hand, if you order it right now, you don't need to remember any more!

(It's pretty painless, especially if you have a Paypal account.)

Yeah, everything fun is blocked here at work, so this will be my reminder to order it tonight or tomorrow from home.

Another splendid job, Rodney -- Many thanks! My cubicle would not be complete without it.

[Mike Gebert]

It looks great! I mean, it would look great. If I had bought one as a gift for my wife. Which I'm not saying I have. Just because I have for like 10 years or more now. And because there's a suspiciously flat package already out there.

Alright, I finally joined the party!

Thanks for producing the calendar each year!

I placed my annual order, and I also posted a mention with a link on my website: https://bottomshelfmovies.com

Okay, folks. Just a heads up that I have about 30 calendars left, and when they're gone I won't be printing more.

Also, I'll be out of town (playing for a silent film in Vancouver Washington) for a few days, so if you want it soon, order it tonight. I'll ship all the orders I get as soon as I'm back on Tuesday.

Thanks! We've raised around $2000 this year so far, and I expect to sell a few more.

[silentfilm]

Rodney, do you know where the funds raised will go this year?

I should decide that, shouldn't I? I'm thinking of UCLA Film and Television Archive, since they've ben doing good work and it's about their turn.

Just a note that I wrapped up the Silent Film Benefit Calendar for 2018.

The project raised $2024.68 this year.

I sent it to the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which has an ambitious Laurel and Hardy restoration effort underway (inlcuding the silent shorts), and they applied our funds towards that.

I was gratified to see today that they've reached their goal.

Thanks to all who bought calendars!

Some interesting footage on that page. Note on the Queen mary 1952 Hearst Newsreel L&H both have ciggies between their fingers thru'out.

With Perfect Day(1929), I wonder how the Blackhawk 16mm prints compared to the surviving footage such as the rest of Edgar Kennedy on the couch? I had or still have a Blackhawk 16mm buried here but not possible to locate and I thought at the time i the 1970s it was a fine print. I also had 16mm copies of Two Tars and Big Business(L&H, not Our Gang) and these were excellent copies from memory. I recall that some of the Blackhawk Our Gang had blank spaces to keep the films in sync because, they said, many had not been restored to Westrex soundtracks and only discs tracks survived and prints or negs missing frames caused them to use the blank spaces. Maybe. If I had to name the most popular team overall they are it. L&H were staples of one of our local TV stations here in Melbourne/Australia and they played around 6 or 6.30pm on a Saturday nights around the end of the 1950s. If your kid was missing at that time you could find him or her sitting in front of a TV at a home who had a TV watching those L&H shorts. TV was new in Australia's two main cities in 1956 in time for the Olympics in Nov 1956. I remember the time well. I was 7 in the previous March. They had The Three Stooges but they were edited to fit two into a 30mins slot with ads(about 26 mins program and 4 mins ads or station promos then).