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.
Sipping on excellent iced tea in Kingston, New York, thinking of the residents of Santa Cruz County in Northern California (some of whom have been evacuated from their homes due to the still raging wildfires), as well as the friends and family in the Bay Area I cannot see because of the incompetent, ignorant, catastrophic and lethal non-response to COVID-19, I am very much missing the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. Glad to hear the museum is hosting Zoom events on Saturday and Sunday. The links will be available at 12:01am daily.
Saturday, August 22 A Silent Cinema Cover Cavalcade
Tim Lussier presents various artists, some famous and some not, painted portraits of silent film stars that graced the covers of all the major fan magazines during the silent era. This slideshow features dozens of covers from his collection of magazines spanning the 1916-1928 years of silent cinema. Enjoy!
Talk to the Silent Movie Musicians
ZOOM 1:00 pm PDT / 4:00 pm EDT
The museum website adds: As regular Niles attendees know, silent films were never silent and always had music, and we continue to honor that tradition today. But how do the musicians do it? How do they come up with scores for films? How did they learn to do this? How did they get started? Who inspires them? Learn the answers to these questions and more as Jon Mirsalis moderates a panel of internationally recognized silent film accompanists, Frederick Hodges, Makia Matsumura, Ben Model, Philip Carli, and Andrew Earle Simpson. A lively discussion will be followed by Q&A with the audience.
Sunday August 23rd
All About Thanhouser Studios includes the documentary The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema (2014, Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc.) – as seen on TCM and numerous film festivals.
There will also be streaming films from the Thanhouser Company, the New Rochelle-based production company,.
The Thanhouser Studio was one of the earliest independents and among those who invented American cinema in the early 20th century, sophisticated in approach and concept. They were making films quite advanced in filmmaking technique for the early teens and stylistically closest to those Alice Guy Blaché at Solax. Edwin S. Porter, D.W. Griffith and Alice Guy Blaché were not the only ones inventing and developing cinema technique in the first decade of the 20th century.
The museum press release elaborates: This multi-award winning documentary recounts the untold story of the rise and fall of this remarkable pioneering motion picture studio during the first decade of the twentieth century. It traces the evolution of one family’s career as it transitioned from producing live theater to establishing one of the most successful independent silent motion picture studios in early cinema. Set against a backdrop of Thomas A. Edison and his Motion Picture Patents Trust companies dominating the industry, the story plays out in New York, Florida and California. It is a compelling story of fame and fortune, twisted by the vagaries of fate and ending on a bittersweet note.
Sunday ZOOM EVENT - 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT
• Q & A with the keeper of the films, Ned Thanhouser himself!
The Thanhouser Studio made 1000 films and was among the cutting edge production companies before the outbreak of World War I. Thanhouser's principal star was Florence La Badie
Sadly, the silver screen career of Florence La Badie was cut short by her passing in an automobile accident in 1917.
Finding a Location for The Great Train Robbery
Sunday August 23 (Links available at 12:01am daily)
Historian and author David Kiehn explains how he used modern technology in his research and detective work to identify one of the locations for this iconic classic shot by Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Studios in the “wilds” of New Jersey.
Gilbert “Broncho Billy” Anderson was featured in three roles in this 12-minute film which gives an extra connection for us as the Edison theater, the home of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA. Highway 80 in New Jersey continues all the way to California and the East Bay near the city of Fremont and the historic district of Niles.
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!
This is a stellar weekend for movie buffs on both coasts, with Rome, New York's Capitolfest in full swing and the Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum starting tonight.
The Friday night program will pay tribute to the one, the only Max Linder, the first bonafide comedy star of the silver screen.
The always dapper Max, star of 238 films, was one of the greatest movie comedians who ever lived and among the very few who preceded Chaplin as a star of his own series, beginning in 1905. Before John Bunny and Mack Sennett, there was Max Linder.
Tonight's program, with accompaniment by pianist David Drazin, shall include the following Max Linder comedies. TROUBLES OF A GRASSWIDOWER will be presented in a 35mm print.
One of these days, this writer and silent comedy buff would love to see a restoration and screening of Max Linder's hilarious sendup of The 3 Musketeers, Douglas Fairbanks and swashbucklers in general, The Three Must-Get-There's.
San Francisco Silent Film Festival? Pordenone? TCM Classic Film Fest? MoMA NY? Throwing down the gauntlet!
The Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival is in the Niles Historic District (of Fremont) where the early cowboy star Broncho Billy Anderson and comic Charlie Chaplin made movies for the Essanay Studios. There will be very rare screenings of drama, comedy, action, silent serial stars and travelogues to exotic lands, as well as the recently discovered A TRIP DOWN MARKET STREET filmed shortly after the 1906 earthquake.
In addition to tonight's Max Linder program, Robert Bloomberg and Eric Kurland will be presenting early 3D films on Saturday, including Bob's 3-D doc on the 1906 and 1989 bay area earthquakes. A Sunday panel discussion, "Heroes and Villains- Film Collectors and Movie Pirates" will feature a panel of collectors/film detectives/archivists/restoration experts Jon Mirsalis, Peter Conheim and Kathy Rose O'Regan. The program concludes with screenings the spoof CAPTAIN CELLULOID VS. THE FILM PIRATES and THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY in a unique surprise presentation, both with musical accompaniment by Jon Mirsalis.
Go here to check out the Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival schedule, as well as buy advance tickets and festival passes.
The 18th Broncho Billy Silent Film Festival starts tonight. The event includes a walking tour of Niles, as well as the customary lineup of vintage films shot in and around the area for the Essanay company.
The Essanay productions shall include Broncho Billy westerns and comedies from the Snakeville series starring Harry Todd, Margaret Joslin, Victor Potel and Ben Turpin (who boxes future director Lloyd Bacon in Snakeville’s Champion).
Author and film historian David Kiehn has been the curator and prime mover behind the festival, now in its 18th year.
David arrived in Niles in 1995 to conduct research for a screenplay on the western division of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company and ended up writing the book on filmmaking at Niles, Broncho Billy and the Essanay Film Company, as well as discovering the historic "walk down Market Street" footage shot just before the 1906 earthquake.
The three-day event starts with a reception at 5:30 p.m. For more info, see Mary Mallory's article on the festival, posted earlier this week as the June entry of her Hollywood Heights column in the LA Daily Mirror.
