The Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival is three days of films, lectures, and fun named in honor of the man who, as co-founder of Essanay Studios with George K. Spoor, brought the movies to Niles: "Broncho Billy" Anderson. Get festival passes or advance tickets for individual shows here.
This year's Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival includes extremely rare Essanay Studio Films, tributes to Women in Film who starred for Essanay in the early days of movies, ultra-wacky comedies featuring Mack Sennett Productions headliner (and, later, an excellent and most prolific character actor) Billy Bevan, Lenticular Kodacolor home movies, a film about Greta Garbo made for Turner Classic Movies by Kevin Brownlow and Patrick Stansbury among several documentaries on classic movies (The Love Goddesses, The Movies Go West, The Western Costume Company), a presentation by Bison Studios historian and author Marc Wanamaker and a Focus on Film Collectors noting their contributions to preservation of our cinematic heritage.
Friday, July 26 7:30 p.m.
The Love Goddesses
(1965, Walter Reade-Sterling Presentation)
Director Saul J. Turrell’s exploration of sex in the movies. From the silent era and Clara Bow to Cinemascope and Marilyn Monroe, see how the movie industry’s depiction of sex has changed through the decades. Here's an excerpt from it.
Preceded by the documentary, The Western Costume Company (1951)
From the NESFM website: This noteworthy business has been a landmark in Hollywood for decades. Not only has it been supplying “Western" costumes to movie producers, but costumes, armor, weapons, medals, furniture, and props of all kinds from all periods of history. We are shown through the various department of this huge facility, and follow a beautiful and fancy costume from its inception on a designer's drawing-board through its assembly end eventual clothing of a model, along with a number of other unusual and beautiful costumes used not only by motion picture studios, but by theatrical and television producers as well.
Saturday, July 27
11:00 a.m. Walking Tour of Niles
11:00 a.m. movies (FREE program) - Broncho Billy: The First Reel Cowboy (1998, Arkansas Educational Television Network)
This short film details the career of Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, the very first cowboy movie star. Featured in more than 200 westerns, he preceded the likes of William S. Hart and Tom Mix as the silver screen's cowboy headliner.
G. M. Anderson, as star, producer and director, was instrumental in the formation and development of the western movie genre.
The influence of Broncho Billy is still seen today in films depicting the Old West.
The museum thanks the creators of this documentary for allowing us to screen it.
The Movies Go West (1974, Bell) This film is one of the first visual explorations of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company as it existed in Niles 100 years ago. Filmmaker Geoffrey Bell was at the helm for this project, which was narrated by Hal Angus, one of the players at the old studio and husband to the head of the scenario department, Josephine Rector. The Niles Museum's Rena Kiehn elaborates:
The Movies Go West includes invaluable images of Niles in the 1970's, including film taken of the original barn that Broncho Billy settled in when first arriving in town, before building a then state-of-the-art studio a block
away.
1:00 p.m. The Women of Essanay
A selection of Essanay Film Manufacturing Company films made in Chicago and Niles, featuring top movie actresses of the day, including Ethel Clayton, Martha Russell, Dolores Cassinelli, Ruth Stonehouse, Eleanor Blevins, Marguerite Clayton, Evelyn Selbie, Bessie Sankey and Margaret Joslin. The program also includes stories about those who were instrumental behind the scenes and involved with getting the productions completed.
A special screening of Garbo, the Photoplay Productions (Kevin Brownlow, Christopher Bird and Patrick Stansbury) documentary celebrating the centenary of the birth of the iconic movie star of iconic movie stars. It covers the early years of Greta Garbo in Sweden, her movie career, early retirement from showbiz and subsequent life in NYC. It features interviews with Greta's friends from later life, friends and such filmmakers who worked with her as Clarence Brown.
7:30 p.m. Flesh And The Devil
(1927, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) In Greta Garbo’s breakthrough picture she delivers a luminous performance as a new type of vamp: less consistently cruel and more subtle than earlier styles. Director Clarence Brown recalled, “Flesh And The Devil was my first picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and it really made Garbo.” Her name was listed under the title, which would change after the film’s phenomenal success. She became the most famous woman in the world and the leading film actress. Starring Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, and Lars Hanson. Directed by Clarence Brown.
Opening the Saturday night show, two Mack Sennett comedy shorts featuring goofball du jour Billy Bevan, leader of The Charge Of The Mustached Brigade!
The Golf Nut (1927, Mack Sennett Comedies) Co-starring Vernon Dent. Billy plays a wacky photographer and terrible golfer who brings unmitigated disaster to the links.
Ice Cold Cocos (1926, Mack Sennett Comedies) Billy and his pal Andy Clyde impersonate two ice-delivery men in a suburban town. Mayhem ensues.
Jon Mirsalis, Kurzweil Keyboard Accompaniment
Sunday, July 28
10:45 a.m.
Special Behind-the-Scenes REAL vs. REEL program (FREE program)
Vintage Los Angeles film studios expert and special guest Marc Wanamaker will share some behind-the-scenes images and amazing tales of REAL California history intertwined with motion picture history, the REEL kind. He will share images from two recent books he co-authored: Hollywood: Behind the Lens - Treasures from the Bison Archives (with Steven Bingen) and Hollywood’s Trains and Trolleys (with Josef Lesser).
12:30 p.m.
Hidden Colors of the California Nursery and Beyond: Lenticular Kodacolor Home Movies (FREE program) Back for its second year, with different films! See rare home movies of the Niles Nursery and beyond in color for the first time in 90 years! Local horticultural historian Janet Barton and our museum's own Zack Sutherland walk you through this long-defunct technique of color film processing, and the resulting footage taken in Niles and elsewhere in California. Piano Accompaniment by David Drazin. (High-definition Digital presentation)
2:30 pm - Focus On Film Collectors featuring The Isle of Hope (1925, Richard Talmadge Productions)
Film collector Michael Aus was scrolling through eBay one night when he found a print of The Isle of Hope, a formerly-lost film for sale. After acquiring the only print, Aus deposited the film here at our museum – thus giving us an opportunity at this year's festival to demonstrate how film collectors have been essential
over the decades to making rare or lost material visible to the public.
The Isle of Hope is a stunt-filled adventure feature film starring Richard Talmadge, a former circus tumbling performer turned movie actor and producer, later turned Hollywood stuntman. Also featured are Helen Ferguson (a former player at the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in Chicago), James A. Marcus,mand George Reed. (High-definition digital presentation)
Silent Oddities on our big screen
We have searched our archives for hidden and forgotten gems, and we’ve put together a show of some of the best. We’ll start with An Animated Luncheon, filmed in 1900 at Edison’s Laboratory, and another “trick film”, Enchanted Glasses (Pathé 1905). Next we’ll show a rare cartoon from the Essanay Studio, Dreamy Dud, He Resolves Not To Smoke (1915). Moving on into the 1920’s, we’ll show several human interest stories from a Hearst newsreel, and close out the session with Dog Comedy: Train Wreck which has an all-animal cast, and is both as cute and as exciting as it sounds. Piano accompaniment by Bruce Loeb and David Drazin.
4:30 pm Film Is Dead, Long Live Film! (2024, Cold Eye Films)
This award-winning documentary explores the vanishing world of private film collecting: an obsessive, secretive, often illicit realm of basement film vaults, piled high with forgotten reels. Condemned as pirates and hounded by the FBI, film collectors have long lurked in the shadows. Yet their efforts have resulted in the survival of countless films that would otherwise have been lost to history. Journeying to film festivals, dealer rooms, archives, film storage and workspaces, and ad-hoc screening rooms, a trove of interviews is amassed which
profiles the people involved with collecting and preserving film, underscoring their motivations and legacies. Produced and directed by Peter Flynn.
Preceded by short subjects from the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's archive:
Ringling Brothers Circus Parade (1902) A visiting circus and onlookers in a street scene.
Suzie Loses Her First Tooth (early 1920s) This early example of an infomercial is an animated tale of heroes and villains in a battle over dental hygiene.
Piano Accompaniment for shorts by Bruce Loeb.
The Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival shall hold forth at the Edison Theater and the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum at 37417 Niles Boulevard, Fremont, CA 94536. 510-494-1411.
There will be Special Festival Hours for the museum and store.
Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog plugs the museum's programs regularly. We're happy to do so again.
The 2021 edition is titled Theatres & Theaters: Nickelodeons to Movie Palaces and begins on July 23 with movies about and Russell Merritt's presentation on nickelodeons. The official press release elaborates:
Tens of thousands of films have been shot in locations all around the planet, thousands of movie stars have been celebrated, careers of many professionals have risen and fallen over the past 130+ years, the equivalence of empire's entire fortunes have been made and lost all in order to tell a story and entertain people and, of course, to make the almighty buck. This weekend we wanted to pay respect to the movie-going experience - from the basic to the fantastic. So sit back in your armchair and enjoy our second Broncho Billy & Friends Silent Film Festival online.
Live Zoom: San Francisco in the Nickelodeon Age.
5:00pm PT / 8:00pm ET - Link will be available July 23rd at 12:01am, while the Zoom will start at time posted.
From the start, San Francisco had its own way of selling movies, finding its audiences, and promoting its live acts. In tonight’s illustrated talk, Russell Merritt shows how the city’s nickelodeon scene arose Phoenix-like from the 1906 earthquake to create its remarkable film scene. Here is a fun presentation by Mr. Merritt earlier this year about the early days of movies
Joining Mr. Merritt in conversation about how the San Francisco nickelodeon morphed and grew into a golden age of movie palaces and classic neighborhood theaters: piano wizard, silent film accompanist, film historian and expert on the works of George & Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin, Frederick Hodges
Next up: a 1916 Keystone production featuring Mack "Ambrose" Swain, frequent co-star of Charlie Chaplin.
In A Movie Star, the ever-blustery and befuddled Ambrose watches himself on the nickelodeon screen while the audience eagerly watches his every move.
The piano player, a one-man-band played by Keystone regular Harry McCoy, contributes some nice bits to the proceedings. Thanks to The Blackhawk Collection, this Keystone Comedy will be available until 8/20/2021. The piano player accompanying this and other silent films on the program will be Greg Pane.
Film Presentation: When The Movies Came From Niles
Here's an excellent 1964 KPIX documentary, written and produced by Ray Hubbard and narrated by Don Brice, Gilbert M. Anderson and Bill Cato.
Ray Hubbard's documentary delves into the early film career of Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson (b. Max Aronson 1880-1971) and the Essanay Film Company in Niles, a prolific producer of westerns, comedies and other features between 1912-16 - and also features a substantial chunk of Anderson's 1915 melodrama NAKED HANDS.
When The Movies Came From Niles includes extensive scenes of numerous silent films produced by Essanay (including those of Charlie Chaplin), recollections of life on the studio lot in Niles, reflections on Anderson's contribution to the western movie genre and footage of the first movie comedy star accepting an honorary Oscar for his work in 1958.
Post Presentation: New information has surfaced on Essanay Film Co. history since When The Movies Came From Niles was produced in 1964. NESFM board member Michael Bonham catches you up on the latest developments.
SATURDAY JULY 24th
DRIVE-INS to PALACES Links will be available on July 24th at 12:01am.
Live Zoom: 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET
Keeping the Movie-Going Experience Alive
Representatives from cinemas in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond will weigh in with their thoughts about what it took to bring in audiences when it was a new thing and the pivot needed in the aftermath of a pandemic.
Émile Reynaud launched the idea of bringing people together to experience projected images with his Théâtre Optique in 1892. It caught on and cinema has survived challenges from the last world-wide pandemic, radio, television, and numerous forms of home video.We will discuss the kind of passion, creativity, programming, and showmanship that are needed as we embark on the next chapter of the movie going experience.
Panelists: Adam Bergeron (CinemaSF: Balboa and Vogue Theaters, San Francisco), Emelyn Stuart (Stuart Cinema, Brooklyn), Lex Sloan (Roxie, San Francisco), Suki Van Arsdale (San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Elmwood Theatre, Berkeley) and Moderator- Gary Meyer. While the link will be available July 24th at 12:01am, the Zoom will start at time posted.
Film: Broncho Billy's Adventure (1911, Western Division, Essanay Film Company)
Fairfax, California, is the location used for this film, one of the earliest Broncho Billy films starring G. M. Anderson. Anderson includes his usual mix of comedy and drama as his character gets caught in the middle of a family dispute between hotel owner Arthur Mackley and his daughter Edna Fisher when she welcomes her boyfriend Fred Church, a cowboy her father dislikes.
The Temptress (1911, Essanay Film Company, Chicago) Detective Curtis Cooksey investigates the disappearance of a young man, whisked away by the scheming title character whose ultra-devious designs include poisoning him. Lottie Briscoe stars.
SUNDAY JUNE 25: ARTISTRY AND SHOWMANSHIP Links will be available July 25 at 12:01am
Billy McGrath on Broadway (1913, Essanay Film Company, Chicago) Music by Frederick Hodges. The museum found a gorgeous print of this super-rare 1913 Essanay film, which sat (thankfully, in the dark) for over a century.
Alkali Ike Bests Broncho Billy
(1912, Western Division, Essanay Film Company)
Special Film Presentation:
Alhambra: Sacramento's Palace of Fantasy
It's true. There was a major movie palace in Sacramento, CA. Remember the Alhambra? The legendary Sacramento movie theater was the focus of a major battle in the city of Sacramento and the preservationists lost. Opened in 1927, the Alhambra Theatre was the preeminent movie house in town for years. It was demolished in 1973 to make way for a Safeway, but its memory lives on in a documentary screening this weekend. Directed and researched by Matías Bombal and co-produced and edited by Chad E. Williams, “Alhambra: Sacramento’s Palace of Fantasy” pieces together the historical puzzle of Sacramento's pride and later, shame. Link will be available July 25 at 12:01am.
The American Movie Palace: A look at its decorative evolution - Gary Parks
Gary Parks, with Jack Tillmany, is the preminent expert on movie palaces of California and beyond. The press release adds: "In this presentation, we will be looking at the aesthetic evolution of the facades and public spaces in movie theatres, showing their decorative evolution out of the nickelodeon era, into the movie palaces of large and mid-sized cities. We will focus on several key theatres across the United States which figure prominently in this evolution, and then—when spotlighting theatres of the movie palace era’s later years—we will include several in, or close to, the Bay Area."
Live Zoom:
5:00pm PT 8:00pm ET
Follow-up Q & A with Gary Parks
Gary will be available to answer any questions you may have. He may be able to tell you all about that long-gone movie palace which was a cornerstone of your neighborhood msny moons ago.
6:30pm PT 9:30pm ET
Live Zoom: Follow-Up Q & A with Matias Bombal
The man who knows all about pageantry and showmanship will share insights and be available for questions on “Alhambra: Sacramento’s Palace of Fantasy.”
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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:
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!
