Best laugh is the first intertitle, which introduces us to Frederick Vroom (Canadian! Born in Stephen Cooke's province!) as “the most famous insurance broker in the world”, as if there is a single insurance broker in existence who was ever famous for it. I’ve got to assume it was an intentional jok...

I shouldn't have to remind you that what you're watching there has been compressed for internet viewing and is not the final result. It was sent to us early in the restoration process to get started on the music before they had done all of the work, but all that mattered to me was the timing, so it ...

Try this link.

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival has announced this on their Facebook feed, so there are some details there. I have been working with a preliminary version to get a performance score put together, which should have premiered last May. Now it is scheduled for next May. Universal will also be re...

Any objection to some one converting these into MIDI files? No, go right ahead. Most (thought not all) of these are in the public domain, so they're yours as much as mine. (There's a section in my write-up about copyright, if you want to be squeaky clean.) If you just want to know what they sound l...

During the pandemic shutdown, I've been working on a project I've been wanting to do for years. The Photoplay Music Starter Kit , by Rodney Sauer. This is a curated collection of over 90 orchestrated pieces that come from the libraries of silent film theaters. These are the building blocks of creati...

Thanks for posting. If there are no plans to commercially release all of the Griffith Biographs that exist, I wish they would put them online at least. There are a number of the ones Lillian Gish was in that I would like to see. There are plans. Tracey Goessel and the Film Preservation Society are ...

I don't normally take issue with such things, but was anybody else surprised that the film got a TV G rating and not TV PG? I'm thinking specifically of the massacre scene. It wasn't overly graphic, but was pretty intense. I won't include specifics here out of consideration for those who haven't se...

..."Shepherd of the Hills", and "Hondo" are my favorite John Wayne films.... Okay, some coincidences, almost certainly pointless and meaningless... Shepherd of the Hills and Ramona , which we just discussed earlier in the thread, are both long-popular stories. Both also gave birth to long-running o...

Excellent background info, Rodney, but when your group was compensated for the new score -- were you given any details on future DVD-release plans (with or without royalties for Mount Alto)? We charged an up-front recording fee, and Timeline Films has the rights to release it however they like, and...

I watched a little bit of "Ramona" last night and learned it has a recently recorded score. I haven't watched the whole movie yet. Does the original synchronized music soundtrack from 1928 exist? And if so, why not use it for the restoration? If you're going to restore the film as closely to how it...

I refuse to watch it until they fix the video artifact at 23:16. Is that on Ramona or The Trail of'98? What is it , are you sure the "artifact" isn't because of issues with solo source material, & why is it a big problem? I am not being argumentative, I just don't know what it is or if it is fixabl...

Mitch Farish wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 16, 2020 8:55 am

Could Disney be the problem? Ramona is a Fox film still in copyright and Disney owns the Fox catalog.

My understanding is that copyright was not renewed, so it has never had copyright issues whenever we've shown it.

The racially inflammatory content is such a small part of the overall film that focuses much more on romance, Lincoln, and the Civil War. It's a shame that some people can't see its virtues, and they are many. The racist content is no worse than the reverse racially inflammatory content in most Bla...

I think Mabel flees the theatre because Ford Sterling comes out in tights, which are very form fitting. It's a burlesque show, which were considered risque and not for women. Mabel's getting to to see it since she's dressed as a man - if she had come as herself she probably wouldn't have been allow...

Hugh Monroe Neely restored the film several years ago. Hopefully this is the version that they are airing. Technically, it was the Library of Congress that restored the film. And that's the only restoration of which I'm aware. They first did the Czech version, and repeated the work on the Moscow pr...

The film suffers a bit from being adapted from a play, but not really adapted enough towards cinema. It's a series of play scenes without cinematic transitions, and the cinema would have allowed more expansion, for instance, showing Elsie on a ship rather than just an insert of the Taj Mahal to rep...

I received my copy of The Witness for the Defense and wasted little time in watching it last night. It was an interesting picture, albeit a bit rushed. Characters never seem to have time to breathe and there's a lot of "Some time passes" title cards. Still, the actors are all doing fairly well with...

I received my copy of The Witness for the Defense and wasted little time in watching it last night. It was an interesting picture, albeit a bit rushed. Characters never seem to have time to breathe and there's a lot of "Some time passes" title cards. Still, the actors are all doing fairly well with...

Mine arrived on Monday, which was surprisingly fast.

This is foolproof material. Every film version of it has been wonderful. Jim When preparing the score for Chicago , I watched a bunch of versions and read the original play. It's very telling to see the changes made in the story, decade by decade, to appeal to then-current tastes. The original play...

Given how much work has gone into the restoration of the theatre, I do hope the current situation doesn't jeopardise its chances of success ... One advantage to vintage theaters in small-town America is that no one needs that space for a parking lot or a new office tower. So as long as they can kee...

jacksparrow900 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 08, 2020 4:10 pm

The college score was released on the Lobster restoration from Kino.

Actually, I now have done two scores for College: the Mont Alto score for Lobster, and a consciously quite different one for Cohen. It was interesting to try to score the same film twice and see how it came out each time.

The Whirl of Life (1915), an independent feature with Vernon and Irene Castle, which purports to tell about their meeting, their courtship and marriage, and their early struggles in show biz. There are of course some dance scenes. I'm a bit hazy on the Castles, but I think they became a sensation e...

I've recorded scores for Go West and College , but I'm not sure if these releases will use them or whether they're just for the US release. Go West is the last score Mont Alto recorded before the pandemic made recording problematic, but I really think it's one of our best. College is not Mont Alto: ...

A lovely sample of the score. I find it remarkable how people can do this work, separated by time and space. THe next donation will put this at double finding! Bob It's not easy, but so far, it's manageable. Fortunately, we've been working together as a quintet for over ten years, so we're pretty g...

Every summer the Boulder Chautauqua Auditorium has screened silent films. Built in the 1890s, the auditorium was likely the second place in Colorado to show movies. https://www.chautauqua.com/happenings/calendar/

It's a good film if you want to see an Italian Diva in action- Otherwise, yes, a bit of a slog, though well mounted. I think that Italian audience of the time liked a slower pace. I think the most excitement were the lion fountains. Otherwise a lot of it was just tedium. Gee, Rapsodia Satanica is o...

I don’t think there’s any argument whether he was named after that senator. But if we believe the story on Roscoe Arbuckle’s Wikipedia entry (and their source for it looks a little questionable), it wasn’t because his father respected Roscoe Conkling. But I have hijacked this thread way too far away...

I seem to remember that the name was an act of aggression on the part of his father towards his mother, but the book I got that from had other dubious claims. Curious what the modern thinking on this is.