This blog has been plugging film festivals for quite a few years now - and our favorites (after the extravaganzas we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are personally involved in) are those curated by the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, and the Noir City festival at San Francisco's Castro Theatre.
Alas, thanks to a pandemic which is raging and out of control in much of the United States, there are no in-person events. We're heading into the fifth month of watching events and TV shows via YouTube and Zoom.
Enjoyed the online Charlie Chaplin Days that the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum presented last month - and am thrilled and delighted to see that the museum shall be hosting the 2020 Broncho Billy & Friends Online Silent Film Festival all weekend!
Rena Kiehn of the museum elaborates:
"Hello Everyone, we hope you're all staying well. First we'd like to thank all of you who took part in our Charlie Chaplin Days Online celebration. It was quite an adventure to put on and we feel it was a big success. The links for each day will go ACTIVE at 12:01am that day! We hope you enjoy it all. The gang at Niles Essanay."
This year's festival shall be titled Broncho Billy and Friends. The Friends shall include the actor and director of movies, television and radio Francis X. Bushman, who began his career with Essanay, plus a few silent film luminaries who did not make movies for Essanay: Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle and the Keystone Kops. There shall be a documentary on film preservation, Saving Brinton by Iowa-based filmmakers Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne of Northland Films.
As always, the festival will screen a few classic westerns featuring our own Broncho Billy Anderson. In addition, museum historian and author Sam Gill tells the tale of the Essanay Snakeville Comedies, produced and sometimes both directed and written by G.M. Anderson.
This is the 23rd tribute in Niles to pioneering producer, filmmaker and cowboy star Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson. While Broncho Billy's crew and Allan Dwan's "Flying A" company were producing westerns as early as 1911, the Anderson approach incorporated nuance and characterization into the silent oater. Broncho Billy was not just the first movie cowboy, but the first thinking man's cowboy, establishing a format which William S. Hart would later ride to feature film success with Thomas Ince.
The "A" of the Chicago-based Essanay (S & A) Film Manufacturing Company, Anderson established the Essanay company in Chicago with George Spoor (the "S"), but having found few locations within "that toddlin' town" suitable for making westerns, set up shop in Niles, CA on April 1, 1912. Anderson starred in 140 films under the moniker of "Broncho Billy." More than 350 one and two-reel silent films were made in a four year period in Niles, which is now a historic district of Fremont, CA, USA.
The museum's own David Kiehn has penned the comprehensive history of filmmaking in Niles and the career of Broncho Billy. It is an outstanding book.
The Essanay Company's greatest claim to fame, along with its importance among the early film producers that put western movies on the map, remains the signing of Charlie Chaplin by Anderson in 1915.
The Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival has been an annual event in Niles since 1998 and has called the museum its home since 2005.
Here is the schedule at a glance.
Friday, July 24th
Welcome to the Broncho Billy & Friends Online Silent Film Festival - Michael Bonham. Music by Janet Klein.
3:00 pm PDT / 5:00 pm CDT / 6:00 pm EDT
ZOOM Webinar on Rediscovering Roscoe: The films of "Fatty" Arbuckle hosted by Steve Massa, with Dave Glass and Robert Arkus, spotlights both the onscreen and behind-the-camera work of Keystone star Roscoe Arbuckle. Here's the Zoom meeting link.
This program shall include a screening of Dave Glass' restored version of the 1916 Keystone "slapstick ballet" starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Al St. John, The Waiter's Ball, featuring rare footage not seen in the previous Blackhawk Films and Paul Killiam versions.
Saturday, July 25
Welcome and intro to Day 2 of the Broncho Billy & Friends Online festival by Michael Bonham and silent film accompanist Frederick Hodges.
Facebook Live: Saving Brinton
3:00 pm PDT / 5:00 pm CDT / 6:00 pm EDT
Co-presented by the Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival and FilmScene. Join historian Michael Zahs (the subject of Saving Brinton) for a Q&A about the documentary film and, as a Virtual Event, a live presentation of the 24th Annual Brinton Silent Film Festival. Zahs will narrate a selection of silent films from the W. Frank Brinton film collection including films by Thomas Edison, Georges Méliès and more streaming live on Facebook for free. Donations are welcome in support of The Ainsworth Opera House.
Michael will be joined by John Richard and Andrew Sherburne from the Saving Brinton film team. Directed by the aforementioned Mr. Sherburne and Tommy Haines, Saving Brinton is available to stream on Vimeo for a small fee - or on Amazon Prime for free.
Essanay westerns by Broncho Billy Anderson
Why Broncho Billy Left Bear Country (1913)
Broncho Billy and the Western Girls (1913)
Broncho Billy's Sentence (1915)
The making of the Broncho Billy DVD by Larry Telles
Writing Music for Silent Films by Rodney Sauer, Mont Alto Orchestra Symphony Conductor
FILM PREMIERE of newly discovered split reel:
Mabel's Adventures and Useful Sheep (1912) Accompaniment by Rodney Sauer with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Introducing this newly-discovered split reel featuring the great silent movie comedienne "Madcap Mabel" Normand: Nigel Dreiner, with assistance from John Bengtson, Brent Walker and David Kiehn.
Keystone Studio Locations by John Bengston
In this series of blog posts, the author of Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin and Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd presents a tour of the various places where Mack Sennett's Keystone Studio filmed its comedies in Los Angeles.
Sunday, July 26th
Welcome and intro to Day 3 of the festival by Michael Bonham, with music by Janet Klein.
ZOOM Webinar 5:00pm PDT / 8:00 pm EDT
Chase: A Tribute to the Keystone Kops by Lon Davis, Debra Davis and Sam Gill (Foreword)
Hosted by Chris Seguin with panel of historians: Rob Farr, Paul E. Gierucki, Sam Gill, Michael J. Hayde, Robert King, Brent Walker, Marc Wanamaker and others. Here's the zoom link.
Short subjects by Mack Sennett's Keystone mixed in with the discussion:
Keystone Cops highlight reel by David Glass
The recently discovered "lost" Chaplin-as-a-Keystone-Cop film, A Thief Catcher (1914)
Fatty Joins the Force (1913)
Beyond Keystone: The film work of Al St. John and Buster Keaton. Lea Stans of Silent-ology explores the career of acrobatic slapstick comedian Al St. John, focusing especially on his overlooked work with Buster Keaton in the Comique comedy series of the late 1910s.
All About Mabel: Timothy Lefler, author of Mabel Normand, the Life and Career of a Hollywood Madcap, discusses the highs and lows of the preeminent silent movie comedienne's illustrious career, with a Highlight Reel and Cinema Chat Podcast.
The Movies Go West. Geoffrey Bell's 1974 documentary explores the movies made in Niles and is narrated by Hal Angus, one of the Essanay cowboys. Bell wrote one of the first books to explore the Bay Area film history, The Golden Gate and the Silver Screen (1984). After the screening, Rena Kiehn will be doing an informative outro, not to be missed.
For the Love of Mrs. Emmons -
Author Mary Mallory (Hollywood at Play, Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays, Living With Grace: Life Lessons From America's Princess) looks at the life and career of the talented, prolific and little known silent film character actress Mrs. Louise Emmons - the movies' perennial octogenarian (in addition to Margaret Mann - and remembered here at Way To Damn Lazy To Write A Blog for her role in the Our Gang comedy Mush & Milk) - through the eyes of two devoted fans, Michael Hawks and Jennifer Lerew. The two sought information on the unforgettable actress for years, finally purchasing a tombstone for her grave at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2014.
Classic movie buffs and fans of silent era filmmaking who have seen every pre-1930 film ever shown on TCM, as the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog has, check the 2020 Broncho Billy festival out and enjoy!
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