Classic movie aficionados lucky enough to both be within a close distance of San Francisco and have some dough-re-me on hand to spend will get quite the treat when the San Francisco Silent Film Festival hits the Castro Theatre from May 6-10.
Returning to the big screen from 100+ years ago ready to rock the house - silent movies at their operatic best, accompanied quite literally by a symphony orchestra. San Francisco's 29th Silent Film Festival will return to the hallowed "movie palace" aisles of the Castro Theatre after presenting at the Orinda Theatre in 2025.
This Wednesday evening the San Francisco Silent Film Festival returns in high style with Erich von Stroheim's wonderfully indulgent epic QUEEN KELLY (1929), starring Gloria Swanson at her unapologetically over-the-top best, with musical accompaniment by composer Eli Denson conducting the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Orchestra.
Among the international lineup of cool classic movies at the 29th San Francisco Silent Film Festival: King Vidor's innovative THE CROWD
The last film of F.W. Murnau, his collaboration with documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, TABU: A STORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS
Also on the 29th SFSFF bill: William Wyler's western BLAZING DAYS, Abram Room's time capsule tale of life in 1927 Russia BED AND SOFA, the 1926 "Lubitsch touch" charmer and Roaring Twenties piece SO THIS IS PARIS
And. . . William de Mille's MISS LULU BETT, the British sci-fi flick HIGH TREASON, Carl Dreyer's 1922 film LOVE ONE ANOTHER and two "city symphony" pieces from Nice and Paris, Á PROPOS DE NICE (co-directed by Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman) and RIEN QUE LES HEURES, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.
Matinee idol star power will be provided by the aforementioned Gloria Swanson, director/actor Harry Piel, a pre-Josef Von Sternberg Marlene Dietrich, megawatt It Girl Clara Bow in HULA, an early appearance by the great Myrna Loy and THE CAVEMAN, a witty farce featuring the tragic albeit wonderful comic character actress Marie Prevost.
Our pals Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy will headline the Saturday morning show.
Animation, this blog's favorite cinematic genre, will be represented by the Japanese Paper Film Project. The Bucknell University-based initiative worked with Japanese museums, film archives, and individual collectors to digitize and preserve more than 200 films, in this program early animated works made on paper, not celluloid.
Chicago film preservationist Kyle Westphal adds, “the project has successfully recovered the world of lost paper print movies made expressly to be exhibited on home projectors manufactured by Osaka’s Katei Toki and Tokyo’s REFCY and Tsukiboshi firms from 1932 to 1938. With the Japanese animation industry facing hard times, these firms bypassed theaters and took their wares directly to consumers."
The free AMAZING TALES FROM THE ARCHIVES program will be back to highlight film preservationists and the great work of film archives around the world. Presenting: Kyle Westphal of the Chicago Film Society, the
Danish Film Institute’s Thomas Christensen, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf's Andreas Thein and Carlo Chatrian of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin.
Spectacular silent movies in big screen glory are never (in 1926 or 2026) actually silent, so the San Francisco Silent Film Festival presentations feature a wide array of terrific accompanists, including the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Duo Yumeno, Stephen Horne, Mas Koga, Guenter Buchwald, Frank Bockius and Wayne Barker.
The official San Francisco Silent Film Festival press release adds:
Germany’s Weimar period was one of the most vibrant and influential moments in cinema history. Stretching from the end of WWI until the Nazi takeover, Weimar films were at the forefront of stylistic and technical innovations and created narratives that underpin film genres like horror, film noir, and sci-fi to this day.
Our friends at WeimarCinema.org write, “[Weimar] is also shorthand for all things modern, not only in its promotion of gender equality and sexual emancipation, but also in its spirit of experimentation in the arts.
Weimar is still associated with urban modernity and the ever-present dangers of a backlash. Whatever the final verdict, Weimar's tumultuous 14-year period is one of the richest and most consequential in modern history."
We are excited to present four very different, very rare, Weimar titles at this year’s festival, all in beautiful new restorations, all with live musical accompaniment!
Deutsches Filminstitut’s restoration of SENSATION IM WINTERGARTEN demonstrates Max Green’s gorgeous camerawork featuring Berlin’s fabulous Wintergarten (it didn’t survive WWII) and other Berlin locations. This rousing melodrama about a world-famous trapeze artist stars Austrian actor Paul Richter who played Siegfried in Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen.
Proof that film restoration can be as exciting, with as much down-to-the-wire pacing as modern film production, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf just found additional material to add to their superb restoration of HIS GREATEST BLUFF and archivist Andreas Thein is working round the clock to prepare the film for its closeup at the festival.
We’re pleased to introduce San Francisco audiences to a major star of the Weimar period who is virtually unknown today, actor/director Harry Piel. Piel’s action films were huge box office draws—this one involves priceless jewels, slick-haired crooks, and Piel in dual roles as twin brothers! And a star turn by Marlene Dietrich in one of her earliest screen appearances.
Danish director Carl Th. Dreyer, known for his silent-era masterpieces The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr among others, travelled to Germany to make LOVE ONE ANOTHER in 1922. Based on a best-selling Danish novel, the film is set during the Russian revolution of 1905, a time of massive anti-Jewish violence. We are grateful to the Danish Film Institute for restoring this rarity and returning Dreyer’s moving depiction of anti-Semitism’s sinister harms to the world.
BOOKKEEPER KREMKE is the story of vainglorious payroll clerk (Hermann Vallentin) who loses his job to automation in a Germany plagued by inflation and unemployment. Ukrainian-born Anna Sten has her German film debut as his daughter Lene. This was director Marie Harder’s only narrative film, and it is a vivid portrait of its time. Harder, who was a Social Democrat went to Mexico after the Nazis banned the party and died in a plane crash near Popocatépetl in 1936. Thanks to the Deutsche Kinemathek for this dazzling restoration.
Imogen Sara Smith writes in our program book, “Watching films from the late Weimar era is both poignant and suspenseful, like watching people skate on thin ice in the last rays of sun before an approaching storm front.” There are parallels to our own time.
The favorite film festival that the writer of this blog didn't personally schlep reels to is back. That would be Noir City, which shall bring big screen fun to Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre starting on Friday.
Which has been the product of unending hard work from the preservationists, authors, historians and event maestros of the Film Noir Foundation.
The press release notes: The joint will be jumping when the venerable NOIR CITY film festival kicks out the jams at the Grand Lake Theatre, January 16–25, 2026, with an exciting 10-day program of crime and mystery films featuring . . . musicians!
From early examples of Hollywood noir like Blues in the Night (1941) to jazz-fueled sixties’ gems like All Night Long (1962) and A Man Called Adam (1966), the movies feature genuine musical legends performing alongside film noir favorites including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Kirk Douglas, Ann Sheridan, and Robert Mitchum.
Among the real-life musicians appearing onscreen at NOIR CITY 23: Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Keely Smith, Dexter Gordon, Ella Fitzgerald, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peggy Lee, Oscar Levant, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Mingus, and many more.
“Back in the 1940s, nightclubs and jazz played a significant role in creating the noir vibe,” explains festival founder and host Eddie Muller. “So, it was fun to craft a program in which music plays a role in every story, either through the setting or because the characters are musicians.”
As he usually does, Muller balances the roster between established classics (To Have and Have Not (1944), Gilda (1946), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), and seldom-screened titles like The Strip (1951), The Crimson Canary (1945), and Face the Music (aka The Black Glove), a 1954 British rarity that provided the “kicker” for this year’s festival.
Muller acknowledges that some of this year’s offerings veer outside the proscribed boundaries of noir, but he offers no apologies: “Jazz is America’s greatest contribution to the twentieth century,” he declares, “and mixing it up with film noir is a perfect way to showcase the music for a younger generation. The stories may be dark and depressing, but the music always soars.”
Many of the films on the schedule are fictions in which music plays a major part; others are based on actual performers, like the 1955 Doris Day vehicle Love Me or Leave Me in which Day gives a scintillating performance as 1920s singing and dancing sensation Ruth Etting.
Kirk Douglas’ Young Man with a Horn from 1950 (also starring Day) is based on the life of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke (with Harry James providing the actual horn work).
Similarly, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dexter Gordon give memorable portrayals in, respectively, A Man Called Adam and Round Midnight (1986), playing composites of real-life jazz artists.
“Jazz may dominate the program,” Muller notes, “but we’ve also got samplings of classical (1946’s Humoresque), country (1958’s Thunder Road), and rock ‘n’ roll (1958’s King Creole) — I finally hit on a theme that accommodates my favorite Elvis movie.”
The classic film and noir-lovin' gang here strongly recommend that all film buffs who can get their derrieres and popcorn to the Grand Lake Theatre do so.
The Noir City festival will help get people together, have a chance to hang out, "face the music" and provide some entertainment during a year that thus far has been unrelentingly horrendous.
No doubt outraged texts from offended dumpster fires seeking an apology are forthcoming.
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival shall ring in the holiday season at Room 5015 on Foothill College in the Los Altos Hills.
The Psychotronix gang - my friends/co-producers Robert Emmett, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon, KFJC sound board aces Austin Space and Grawer - did our first Foothill College show back in December 1992. You gotta be there to see the continuity, flow, rhythm, audience response and sounds of a beautiful Kodak Pageant 250S - and the cool display of 1950's 1-sheets courtesy of Gary Hascall, movie poster king and devotee of 1960's muscle cars, especially Ford Mustangs.
There will be four hours of movie fun, all projected on 16mm film, "The Vinyl Of Visuals."
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival means there shall be SOUNDIES!
And SCOPITONES! The sprightly singing-dancing Kessler Sisters passed recently, so we MUST show their Scopitone. The Kessler Sisters always look and sound great - R.I.P.
AND. . . of course, there shall be B-movie TRAILERS!
And classic commercials!
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, without a doubt, means classic cartoons!
That means animation from Fleischer Studios, Warner Brothers Animation and Walter Lantz.
As always, the gang at the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival love instructionals from Coronet films!
Our cornucopia of clips will rock Room 5015!
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival
When: Saturday, December 6, 2025 - 7:00 PM to 11:30 PM
Where: Room 5015, Foothill College campus 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills (El Monte exit off 280) Why: We like cheesy movies.
How Much? $5 Donation Benefits KFJC.
Parking: Lot #5
Public Transit: Cal Train and VTA Info:
Foothill College Transportation & Parking.
Arrive early, as the shows often sell out. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
SFSFF's Festival 2025 begins with Chaplin's The Gold Rush on Wednesday evening and closes with Buster Keaton in Go West.
In between, there will be, among numerous cool classic movies, the 1926 version of Beau Geste, starring Ronald Colman and (as a bad guy) William Powell, three Sherlock Holmes adaptations, The Unknown (1927), co-starring the ridiculously talented "man of 1000 faces" Lon Chaney Sr. with a very young Joan Crawford (that's right, Joanie was young once, way back in the halcyon days of silent pictures and her 1928 box-office smash OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS) and the always excellent Amazing Tales From The Archives.
There will also be a morning Fleischer Studio cartoon show featuring Ko-Ko the Clown in Jumping Beans, It’s the Cats, KoKo at the Circus, KoKo in 1999, KoKo’s Kane, KoKo’s Klock, KoKo’s Kink and KoKo’s Earth Control.
While it will be more than a bit odd to not go to San Francisco's Castro Theatre to see silent movies on the big screen, the Orinda Theater is a very cool venue. Shows by both the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Psychotronix Film Festival have been presented there.
This shall be
the 33rd anniversary KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival and grace the hallowed halls of Room 5015 of Foothill College in the lovely Los Altos Hills.
No doubt the show shall feature the great Joi Lansing and Scopitones will be ready to roll to entertain audiences once again!
Will have more about the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival when December begins and hope hope hope there will be NO problems forthcoming with my passport or the NY-SF flight that will get yours truly to his former stomping grounds, the San Francisco Bay Area.
No doubt my pals and longtime colleagues/collaborators across the country in the San Francisco Bay Area presented a splendid KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival last night at Foothill College.
For today's blog post, here are films I would have LOVED to acquired on 16mm film, "The Vinyl Of Visuals," and presented as part of a KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival at Foothill College's Room 5015. A.K.A. hours of movie fun, all projected using the intrepid Kodak Pageant 250 series machines by equally intrepid Psychotronix Film Festival projectionist and co-producer Sci Fi Bob Ekman.
Granted, this is without the continuity, flow, rhythm, audience response and sounds of a beautiful Kodak Pageant 250S - and my friends Robert Emmett, Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Scott Moon, KFJC sound board aces Austin Space and Grawer, and a display of cool movie posters courtesy of Gary Hascall, the movie poster and 1964 Ford Mustang king. That said, have never shown any of the following celluloid in this post at a KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival.
First and foremost, here's Joi Lansing!
Have I wanted wanted wanted to acquire 16mm theatrical trailers for the following film and Las Vegas Hillbillys?" Yes.
It wouldn't be a Psychotronix Film Festival without a Z-movie trailer featuring Sonny Tufts!
Or coming detractions from a science fiction epic missing one important thing: a budget.
There's at least one early 1930's Fleischer Studios cartoon never shown at the Psychotronix Film Festival. . . this one!
Am a fan of seeing cigarette commercials and car ads go over with a modern-day audience. Since I can watch vintage 1950's ads for hours on end and be entertained, must be reminded to not put 15 of them in a row and lose the entire audience!
Scopitones, anyone? C'est le Mashed Potatoes?
Hoped to buy Neil Sedaka's Scopitone, but nobody ever sells their 16mm prints.
Not surprisingly, this catchy hit by the always-upbeat Sedaka, assisted by The Scopitone Dancers, easily exemplifies the 1960's style swing of the Scopitone brand: silly and sexy!
Been seeking this Soundie starring The International Sweethearts of Rhythm.
Have run a few Coronet films in these shows, but not this one, What To Do On A Date (1950).
Castle Films sold 16mm blue track I.B. Technicolor prints of Walter Lantz Studio cartoons. Could only find a B&W print of this Swing Symphony, directed by Shamus Culhane and featuring the outstanding animation of Pat Matthews. Still holding out for a blue track Technicolor print!
We've shown lots of extra-cheesy TV ads, but none of the following commercials.
Hear there was a Wildroot Cream Oil ad in last night's program, but don't know WHICH of the hundreds of 1950's Wildroot commercials was on the bill. Still can't believe 1950's women actually liked those awful men's hairdos, invariably slicked down with Wildroot, Brylcreem, Vitalis or something else.
Scott Moon and Sci Fi Bob Ekman carry on the Psychotronix tradition with their shows at the Orinda Theatre. This curator/DIY programmer and co-founder of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, Paul F. Etcheverry a.k.a. Psychotronic Paul, left the Bay Area and moved to upstate New York in 2016.
This Saturday, June 28, 2025, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, in room 5015 on the Foothill College campus in the lovely Los Altos Hills, the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival will be back.
The fellas who have made this extravaganza happen since the last century will be on KFJC tomorrow night, Monday June 23, with host with the most Robert Emmett on Thoughtline on KFJC from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m, Pacific Standard Time.
"Psychotronix" is a variation on Michael Weldon's "Psychotronic History Of Cinema", the encyclopedia of all varieties of under-the-radar B-films: monster movies, horror films, science fiction, oddball comedies, rock 'n' roll clips, etc.
Our shows delve much more into the comedy, animation, musicals and vintage commercials end of 20th century entertainment than Weldon does, and has been closer to the sensibility of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Yet another hallucinatory excursion through the always-irritated bowels of 20th century popular culture awaits the unsuspecting audience!
That means trailers from wretched movies, well-meaning 50's educational films, clips from schlocky drive-in movies with guys in stupid-looking robot and gorilla suits, vintage TV commercials and theatre ads, Scopitones, Soundies and other even more obscure musical shorts, surreal cartoon rarities and more.
The three amigos who founded this extravaganza back in 1992 are Sci Fi Bob Ekman, Robert Emmett of KFJC and yours truly, Paul F. Etcheverry. Fellow curator/showman/film buff/expert Scott Moon joined us in 1997.
The festival is also something of a reaction against all standard rules of film programming, none of which have any appeal whatsoever to all of us involved in presenting these shows.
Instead of devoting a screening to one director, one genre or one series, we throw a wide variety of films from different places, genres, techniques and time periods together.
The more obscure, the lower the budget, the more under-the-radar, the better.
If we can establish a subject link or a Monty Python-esque visual or verbal link between the segments, great, but this is not absolutely necessary.
Or to make a further Monty Python reference, this could be called the "And Now For Something Completely Different" approach to film programming.
The KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival Saturday, June 28, 2025 Room 5015, A.K.A. Forum Classroom Foothill College campus 12345 El Monte Road
Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 (El Monte exit off of Highway 280)
Admission: $5 donation benefits KFJC.
Showtime is 7:00 p.m.
Arrive early, as the shows often sell out. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Now, for a not especially entertaining finish to today's post - bear with me, readers, the following rant is admittedly more than a bit self-indulgent - must note that, after 32+ years of involvement in the KFJC Psychotronix Film Festival, this grizzled DIY programmer/curator will not be able to be there for the first time ever and has been acting A LOT like Debbie Downer since that became apparent.
Too bad Batman is not presently available to slap me and my passport-less self to just show up at JFK airport and hope hope hope TSA and the airline will let me board a flight.
The travel from where I live in upstate New York to the San Francisco Bay Area necessary to get to Foothill College will not happen. Hesitated to get the ball rolling on getting a new U.S. passport and passport card that would have enabled me to do air travel again. And, while a cross-country train travel itinerary each way would have been fun, for various reasons, that presented a non-option this time around.
Why the delay? Frankly, am, for the first time in my life, nervous about flying, due to the Department Of Grift & Exploitation's reckless, mindless and Draconian cuts to an already alarmingly understaffed FAA, followed by airline disasters in late January and February. Very much not eager to travel and both furious and outraged by the utter idiocy of firing air traffic controllers and other key FAA staff, opted not to fly to the Bay Area for family birthdays in April.
RE: the post-May 7 rules for boarding flights, e-mailed TSA a question about boarding with a non-certified copy of my birth certificate, driver's license (featuring a non-current address) and original social security card. The answer was NO, NO, and in case one even thinks of boarding a flight without Passport/Real ID, NO!
Does this member of the KFJC Psychotronix Film Fest crew desperately need a working Star Trek teleportation device so he can join his pals at Foothill College Room 5015 bearing boxes of 16mm reels on Saturday?
Yes! Where are Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhuru, Sulu and Chekov when you need them?
