Pomona, Queensland, Australia: Silent Film Festival

[silentfilm]

http://www.themajestictheatre.com.au/ht ... tival.html

The Majestic Theatre
Pomona, Queensland (Est 1921)
Where silent film lives on among today’s entertainment choices
Presented by Ron West
September 3rd-5th, 2010
Pipe organ accompaniment for all films
Admission prices: Single films $15 (concessions $12), season ticket $60, school-age children half price, under fives free, all seating general admission. Dinner available on the Saturday night (bookings essential)

PROGRAM
FRIDAY Sept 3rd
7.30pm
The Scarlet Car (1917)
Franklyn Farnum, Lon Chaney, Sam De Grasse, William Lloyd
Directed by Joseph De Grasse
Paul Revere Forbes (Chaney) is a bank cashier who discovers the bank president has lost $35,000 in speculation. He confronts the Peabodys, the bank’s owners, and is apparently killed in the ensuing fight. His body is dumped in a wrecked car, but next morning it has disappeared. Eventually Forbes is found by his daughter, living in a cabin, almost completely insane, and waiting for the time when he can get back at the Peabodys.This rare look at the early work of Lon Chaney does end happily, and Forbes’ mind begins to clear. (51 minutes)
When The Clouds Roll By (1919)
Douglas Fairbanks, Kathleen Clifford and Frank Campeau
Directed by Victor Fleming & Theodore Reed
This is one of the forgotten gems of the silent era. Fairbanks’ second film for the new United Artists company, it is funny, fast-paced, action-packed and highly original. Fairbanks plays a good-natured young man harshly victimised by a sinister psychologist, whose manipulations play havoc with the patient’s romantic pursuit of Greenwich Village artist Katherine Williams. Much of the film is a satiric broadside aimed at the then innovational field of psychiatry.The highlight is Fairbanks' therapy-induced dream, a triumph of special effects which still amazes audiences. (83 minutes)

SATURDAY Sept 4th
2pm
The Cheaters (Australia, 1929)
Marie Lorraine (Isobel McDonagh), Arthur Greenaway, John Faulkner, Josef Bambach
Directed by Paulette McDonagh
From its opening intertitles and images of the Three Fates spinning the threads of life, The Cheaters develops a plot of vengeance, mystery and romance. Paula Marsh (Marie Lorraine) struggles against her upbringing to break free of being a thief and a cheater to find her true heritage and happiness. A careful eye to detail and a sense of the drama and mood of the piece are the outstanding qualities of The Cheaters, together with a sensitive performance by Lorraine in the central role, written for her by her sister. Photographed on location in Sydney and at the McDonagh family mansion, Drummoyne House. (94 minutes)
7.30pm
The Clinging Vine (1926)
Leatrice Joy, Tom Moore, Robert Edeson, Snitz Edwards
Directed by Paul Sloan
A.B. is the brains and the power in the Bancroft paint company, an efficient and entirely sexless young woman with flat-heeled shoes who longs for a more feminine role. She overhears the boss’s grandson Jimmie’s unflattering opinion of her charms. Jimmie’s grandmother does a major makeover on her, and the comic situations fly thick and fast. Snitz Edwards turns in his usual sterling performance. An enjoyable film chronicling one more skirmish in the war of the sexes. (71 minutes)

SUNDAY, Sept 5th
11am
Comedy shorts
Two hours of silent laughter with some of the great comedians of Twenties cinema.
2pm
The Cruise of the Jasper B (1926)
Ron La Roque, Mildred Harris, Jack Ackroyd, Snitz Edwards
Directed by James W Horne
This hilarious romantic comedy has Jerry Cleggett (La Roque) as the descendent of a seafaring buccaneer seeking a wife. He must marry before noon on his 25th birthday or lose his inheritance. He meets Agatha Fairhaven (Harris) who is trying to save a fortune of her own from an unscrupulous lawyer who is chasing her with a sponge, wanting to remove the last copy of a will that has been unwittingly transferred to her back! Don’t miss this one.
The opening title tells us: “To those who believe in Santa Claus, thirty miles to the gallon and other fairy stories, this gentle tale is dedicated”. (60 minutes)

[Brooksie]

I've got a good mind to make a weekend out of `The Clinging Vine' and `The Cheaters'!

I do hope it's a good print of `The Cheaters' - most people (if they see it at all) only have access to the Australian Film and Sound Archive video from ten or so years ago. The picture's good enough, but it's been transferred at the wrong frame rate, which really takes the pace out of it and makes it drag. A rotten shame, as it's a movie that deserves to be much better known.