A Fistful of Horror Westerns from the 1940s to Today: Cowboys, Cannibals, Cults, and More

I've been involved with the Seattle edition of Crypticon, a convention for fans of the macabre, for eight years now.

In 2018, Tony Kay encouraged me to participate. Since then, I've served as a panelist and moderator, and I've also suggested topics. Favorites have included French and Spanish horror--two separate panels presented with Jason Weiss, who definitely knows his stuff--Canadian horror, the filmography of Ti West, and bold new takes on the Frankenstein myth.

This year, I suggested a panel on the horror western, so I put together a list of films I've seen, like Michael Crichton's Westworld, and films I've been meaning to see, like Craig Zahler's Bone Tomahawk, which I found on Netflix. Then I turned to social media, and got so many suggestions, I created this post for those who would also like to explore the subgenre.

Unlike years past, I forgot to come up with a colorful title for the panel, so I hope "Horror Western" is sufficiently compelling. For Spanish horror, I proposed "Slicing Up Eyeballs with Spanish-Language Horror from Luis Buñuel to Guillermo del Toro and Beyond" since, as you can probably guess, we began with the 1929 Buñuel/Salvador Dalí short Un Chien Andalou.

Many would probably consider the B&W short closer to surrealism than horror, and yet it sets the scene for the unsettling visions to come. 

Arguably, it did the same for Italian horror, since that eyeball-slicing sequence predicts similar moves from Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci (in case you missed it, Tony wrote a terrific review of Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling on the occasion of the Arrow Video release).

As for the horror western, I'm not certain when it began. The earliest examples I could find were from the 1940s, but since horror and western films date back to the silent era, I would imagine there are qualifying titles from the 1920s and 1930s, though they're probably harder to find, so consider this list a work in progress. As I come across more, I'll add them.

Some of these films barely qualify, while others may not qualify at all, but I would need to watch or re-watch them to be certain. One friend, for example, has already suggested that John Carpenter's The Thing doesn't belong, and she may be right, but I'm leaving it on for now. For what it's worth, I've seen it twice so far, but a third watch wouldn't be out of order. 

I've also gotten suggestions for Gordon Douglas's The Fiend Who Walked the West and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff. 

Though I hadn't heard of the former before, I gave it a try, and I'm glad I did, not least because future producer Robert Evans plays a sniveling psycho killer, but I don't feel it fits, so I removed it. Though I get why others have suggested the latter, I disagree, so I've left it off. It's possible, however, that both may find their way back to the list in future. None of this is set in stone, and it's almost as fun to talk about these movies as to watch them.

If I watched the film online, I've noted the streaming service in brackets.  

1940s-1970s
The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur, writer Edward Dein, 1943) [YouTube]
Curse of the Undead (Edward Dein, 1959) [Tubi]
El Pueblo Fantasma (Alfredo B. Crevenna, 1965)
Billy the Kid vs Dracula (William Beaudine, 1966)
Django Kill... If You Live, Shoot! (Giulio Questi, 1967)
Django the Bastard (Sergio Garrone, 1969)
The Valley of Gwangi (Jim O'Connolly, 1969)
And God Said to Cain… (Antonio Margheriti, 1970)
El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
Cut-Throats Nine (Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent, 1972)
Godmonster of Indian Flats (Fredric Hobbs, 1973)
Hex (Leo Garen, 1973)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
Westworld (Michael Crichton, 1973)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf (Leonardo Favio, 1975)
The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977) [YouTube]
Welcome to Blood City (Peter Sasdy, 1977)
The White Buffalo (J. Lee Thompson, 1977)

1980s-1990s
The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
Eyes of Fire (Avery Crounse, 1983)
Pale Rider (Clint Eastwood, 1985)
The Aurora Encounter (Jim McCullough Sr., 1986)
Hitcher (Robert Harmon, 1986)
Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)
Ghost Town (Richard McCarthy, 1988)
Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (Anthony Hickox, 1989)
Grim Prairie Tales (Wayne Coe, 1990)
The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990)
Tremors (Ron Underwood, 1990)
Clearcut (Ryszard Bugajski, 1991)
Into the Badlands (Sam Pillsbury, 1991)
Dust Devil (Richard Stanley, 1992)
Mad at the Moon (Martin Donovan, 1992)
Cannibal! The Musical (Trey Parker, 1993)
Ghost Brigade (George Hickenlooper, 1993)
Silent Tongue (Sam Shepard, 1993)
Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996)
Vampires (John Carpenter, 1998)
Purgatory (Uli Edel, 1999)
Ravenous (Antonia Bird, 1999)

2000s-2020s
Dead Birds (Alex Turner, 2004)
Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (Grant Harvey, 2004)
Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (S.S. Wilson, 2004)
The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005)
No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
The Burrowers (J.T. Petty, 2008) [Plex]
Legion (Scott Stewart, 2010)
Gallowwalkers (Andrew Goth, 2012)
Chowboys: An American Folktale (Adam Brooks, Jeremy Gillespie, Matthew Kennedy, Steven Kostanski, Conor Sweeney, 2018) [short]
Bone Tomahawk (Craig Zahler, 2015) [Netflix]
Southbound (Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Chad Villella, Patrick Horvath, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Justin Martinez, Tyler Gillett, 2015)
Brimstone (Martin Koolhoven, 2016)
Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, 2017)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2018) [Netflix]
The Wind (Emma Tammi, 2018)
Nope (Jordan Peele, 2022)
They Call Her Death (Austin Snell, 2024)
Blood in Them Hills (Kellen Garner, Christopher Sheffield, 2025)
Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)
40 Acres (J. T. Thorne)
Abraham's Boys (Natasha Kermani)

The Horror Western panel takes place on Sat, May 3, at 3pm with co-panelists Jeff Dean and Eric Li. Find more Crypticon information here. 

Images from RLJ Entertainment / Slash Film (Kurt Russell and Matthew Fox), La Cinémathèque Française, the IMDb (Robert Evans and Dolores Michaels), and Las Furias Magazine (Robert Carlyle and Guy Pearce).

Stranger Flashback: Paul Williams at the Egyptian with Director Stephen Kessler

This is a revived version of a 2012 Line Out post (these posts were purged from the internet some time after The Stranger pulled the plug on their music blog).

FILM/TV May 29, 2012 at 10:32 am 

Paul Williams at the Egyptian 

KATHY FENNESSY

I'm sure Oscar-winning singer, songwriter, and actor Paul Williams has a few young fans scattered here and there, but if you're a person of a certain age, like me, he's an icon. Not "kind of an icon" or "sort of an icon," but an icon. Full stop. And the reason is simple: he ruled the 1970s. His songs, like the Carpenters' "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "We've Only Just Begun" were all over the radio, and every time you turned on the television, there he was: guesting on Baretta, Police Woman, and The Tonight Show. Johnny Carson was such an ardent admirer he had Williams on 50 times.

But then, as the '70s gave way to the '80s, the ubiquitous entertainer's drug use got the best of him, and he disappeared. Director Stephen Kessler, who appears to be around my age, decided to find out what happened to his childhood hero--as the title indicates, he thought Williams had died. That inquiry led to the documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, which premiered at the Egyptian on Friday as part of SIFF's Face the Music series.

I was interested in the film from the start, but once I found that Williams would be at the screenings, it became a can't-miss event, and it was definitely worth my while, for both the documentary and the revealing Q&A.

During the brisk, 87-minute movie, Kessler concentrates on the '70s and the present, skipping over the '80s and the '90s. 

It's a wise move, since most addiction stories play out in a similar manner. As it is, we get enough footage of Williams rubbing his nose during a variety of talk-show appearances—The Mike Douglas Show, The Merv Griffin Show, etc.—to get the point: he had a problem with cocaine.

In the Q&A, Williams describes the cynical, self-pitying person he became as a "prick." Sober now for 20 years, he's back on the road with his band. 

During the documentary, Kessler travels with the artist to engagements in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Winnipeg, and the Philippines. If he's no longer at the top of his game—his singing voice has taken a few hits—nor is he at the bottom. Most recently, he's been working on a Happy Days musical and a top-secret project with Daft Punk (this turned out to be the song "Touch" off their final album, 2013's Random Access Memories -KF).

And Kessler doesn't skimp on his adventures in movieland, like the compositions he wrote for A Star Is Born, Ishtar, and The Muppet Movie. If he won the Oscar for the former, he admits that "The Rainbow Connection" ranks among his favorite self-penned creations—and I'm right there with him. While he describes Kermit as an "everyfrog," much like Jimmy Stewart's everyman in all those Frank Capra classics, he proclaimed a special fondness for Gonzo. He also gave a shout-out to the late William Finley, his co-star in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (and a regular presence in De Palma's output from the '60s through the '00s).

I should note that Kessler inserts himself into most of the modern-day material, which can be problematic when a filmmaker steals the spotlight from his star, but in this case it works, because Kessler, a commercial director, makes a few rookie mistakes—like interrupting his subject a time or two—and he allows Williams to upbraid him on camera. 

In every case, Williams is right, so they start out as antagonists, and end up as friends. Or at least friendly collaborators. It's actually kind of sweet, though I suspect some viewers may find Kessler's outspoken Queens persona a little boorish--I didn't, but then, I've got New York roots, too.

After the screening, Paul Williams joined singer/writer Sean Nelson at the Sorrento Hotel for a set of cover songs, a fit that makes perfect sense when you consider how much '70s-era Williams, at times, sounded like Harry Nilsson, another favored Nelson singer and composer. Not too surprisingly, Williams also appears in John Scheinfeld's fine documentary portrait, Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?)

Paul Williams Still Alive played the Uptown the next day with Kessler and Williams in attendance. If you missed out, it opens at SIFF Film Center on July 13. Fantastically blurry photos of the director and subject by me.

Stranger Flashback: The Music and Movies of the L.A. Rebellion at Northwest Film Forum

This is a revived version of a Line Out post (The Stranger purged them from the internet some time after they pulled the plug on their music blog in 2014).

FILM/TV Mar 13, 2013 at 12:44 pm 

The Music and Movies of the L.A. Rebellion 

KATHY FENNESSY

The L.A. Rebellion, which Stranger staffer Charles Mudede wrote about here, was an African American film movement that took place primarily in the 1970s and 1980s (Mudede will also be participating in the Cinema Salon that takes place this Saturday at the Northwest Film Forum at 6pm).

It wasn't about music, but music was part of it. Unlike the funk-powered blaxploitation films of the era, these filmmakers turned to blues, jazz, and gospel to ground narratives about community and work—or lack thereof.

To describe funk as a more commercial genre wouldn't be quite fair, but the L.A. Rebellion directors weren't thinking about radio airplay, drive-ins, and soundtrack recordings in the same way. Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack, for instance, still remains better known than the 1972 drama for which he did some of his finest work (or maybe that's just me; I have the record—my Dad had the record—but I still haven't seen photographer-turned-filmmaker Gordon Parks, Jr.'s movie).

The L.A. Rebellion series, which runs March 1-24, began at the Northwest Film Forum with screenings of films I'd seen before, like Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust and Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding, and films I couldn't work into my schedule, like Haile Gerima's Bush Mama, but I found time for Saturday's Cinema Salon and Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts, for which Burnett was in attendance (he was also at Friday's screening of My Brother's Wedding).

When an audience member asked about the music in 1984's Bless Their Little Hearts, on which he served as writer and cinematographer, Burnett admitted that he didn't know the details (I heard what sounded like a Nina Simone song at one point, but didn't recognize the rest of the uncredited material).

Burnett then recounted his experience with his first film, 1977's Killer of Sheep, which was held up for 30 years due to music rights issues. For Seattle Film Blog, I wrote, "The use of Paul Robeson songs on the soundtrack, including 'The House I Live In' provides a link with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux." Once the film cleared those hurdles—after six years and $150,000—Milestone made it available for home-video and theatrical screenings (the DVD includes My Brother’s Wedding).

Given the chance to do it again, Burnett says he would've cleared the rights first, except both Killer of Sheep and Bless Their Little Hearts were student films, even if their quality belies those origins. It's not too surprising that young directors in the 1970s, even two associated with UCLA's prestigious film program, wouldn't know all the ins and outs of music licensing (or have the means to pay someone to sort it out for them). One way or the other: Burnett refused to remove even a single song.

At the Q&A on Saturday, Fantagraphics co-founder Gary Groth declared Killer of Sheep's living room scene, in which Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) and his wife (Kaycee Moore from Bless Their Little Hearts and Daughters of the Dust) dance to Dinah Washington, as one of his favorites. He also praised the (more volatile) kitchen scene in Hearts, in which Moore proves she should've been a bigger star. Burnett acknowledged that he didn't know why some actors hit it big, while others didn't, concluding somewhat enigmatically, "She was an interesting woman..."

I haven't seen the other films in the series, so I can't speak to their use of music, but Larry Clark's Passing Through revolves around an ex-con saxophone player portrayed by Nathaniel Taylor (fresh off a run as as "Rollo" on Sanford and Son). The 1977 film, which screens this Friday in a new 35mm print, features a Horace Tapscott score, a performance from the Pan African People's Arkestra, and musical selections from Eric Dolphy, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Sun Ra.

Not to be confused with the Larry Clark who made Kids and Wassup Rockers, this Clark has another estimable music credit to his name: he helped to shoot Mel Stuart's utterly amazing Wattstax, which captured Richard Pryor, Isaac Hayes, and the Staple Singers at the height of their musical and comedic powers.

The music continues when author, musician, and A&R guy Pat Thomas (Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975) returns to Seattle for the final Cinema Salon on March 23. Pat is a friend who always has something of interest to say, and in this case, he'll be exploring the connections between the Black Power movement and the L.A. Rebellion. He's also been living in Los Angeles for the past year while working on a book project for Fantagraphics. Pat will be joined by Black Panther member Ron Johnson and Seattle University professor Gary Perry.

For more information about the series, please see the NWFF site. Images from Charles Burnett's Facebook account (early portrait), Establishing Shot (My Brother's Wedding), and Movie Poster Shop (Killer of Sheep).

San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2015: A Trip Back in Time with Jacques Tourneur and More

San Francisco Silent Film Festival
May 28-June 1, 2015
Castro Theatre

There's something for everyone, from the silent film novice to the die-hard fan, at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, celebrating its 20^th Anniversary May 28 through Monday, June 1, 2015. Beyond the careful programming and outstanding selection of accompanists, what makes the festival special is its focus on film preservation and restoration. Friday morning’s programming opens with a free event that provides a unique insight to that world, Amazing Tales of the Archives. Tales serves as a marvelous jumping off point for the festival. It’s a chance to learn of the effort and hard work behind preserving the world’s cinematic history and to sample the diversity of that history. The always entertaining Serge Bromberg is first on the bill. The preservationist, and founder of Lobster Films, will present Jacques Tourneur’s 1914 short Figures de cire (House of Wax) and share the 15 year saga of finding the film.

The following afternoon, Bromberg will receive the 2015 SFSFF Award after a screening of Visages de enfants (1925). The award is given to “organizations and individuals for to honor distinguished contributions to the preservation and restoration of silent-era movies.” Bromberg will also appear on stage in conversation with the legendary silent film historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow prior to a screening of the newly restored Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925, Dir. Fred Niblo) which closes the festival. Previous SFSFF Award recipient Photoplay (Brownlow is one of its directors) and TCM restored the film. The film will be presented with a soundtrack scored by Carl Davis, probably the highest regarded silent film composer working today.

Film restorer Robert Byrne will also take the stage during Tales to describe the technical, historical, and curatorial aspects of reconstructing and restoring Sherlock Holmes (1916), starring William Gillette. The SFSFF and the Cinémathèque Française joined forces to restore the film, presumed lost until a complete dupe negative was identified in the vaults of the Cinémathèque last year. The restored film will play on Sunday night. Gillette originated the role of Sherlock Holmes on stage and many of the traits we associate with Holmes today were created by the actor and not by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For example, Gillette originated the deer-stalker hat as Holmes’ preferred chapeau, so iconic that even Benedict Cumberbatch’s modern day Sherlock still feels compelled to wear at press conferences. Holmes fans should be ecstatic at the prospect of seeing what has been considered the definitive performance of the role for the first time in 100 years. The closest they’ve been able to come to it before, was Orson Welles’ recreation of Gillette’s play and performance on his anthology radio drama, The Mercury Theatre on the Air.

The British Film Institute’s senior curator of silent film, Bryony Dixon will also present at Tales. He will screen the BFI’s collection of footage documenting the 1915 torpedoing of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat. The sinking of the passenger ship immediately caused an international outcry and the incident was invoked repeatedly in ongoing effort to enlist the United Sates in the alliance against Germany during World War I. Cecil B. De Mille exploited the incident two years later, for both commercial and propaganda purposes, in his film The Little American (1917) starring Mary Pickford.

The festival recently announced an addition to the Tales line-up, “2015 marks 100 years since the birth of the Technicolor Corporation. In recognition of this centennial, Movette Film Transfer's Jennifer Miko will offer a rare glimpse of a unique home movie shot on the grounds of La Cuesta Encantada, more commonly known as Hearst Castle. We will feast our eyes on a stunning tour--filmed in two-strip Tech--with the architect, Julia Morgan, and the Chief himself, W.R. Hearst.” Donald Sosin will provide the accompaniment for the entire program. Actor Paul McGann, best known for either Dr. Who or Withnail and I depending on the audience, will provide narration for the Lusitania footage. The program is co-presented by Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive and the National Film Preservation Foundation

Attending the SFSFF is like traveling back in time.  Attendees see silent film the way they were meant to be seen, on the big screen of a movie palace with live accompaniment and a companionable audience. Some of the festival goers even wear clothes from the 20s which adds to the period feeling. Learn more about this year’s festival and buy tickets at www.SilentFilm.org

San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2014: A Silent Sampler with Buster Keaton and More

San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents

Silent Autumn

Saturday, September 2014

The Castro Theatre

San Francisco

Buster Keaton in The General (1927) playing at SFSFF's Silent Autumn

This Saturday, The San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents Silent Autumn, a single day sampler of their epic four-day festival that runs each summer at the Castro Theater. This carefully curated day of programming is the perfect introduction to the silent period for the uninitiated, or those with just a few silent film experiences.  It will also delight seasoned fans of the Festival, a little something to keep them going till next year’s main event. The event distills what makes the Festival’s four-day event so remarkable: inclusive programming, the best accompanists in the world, and a chance to travel in time by presenting these films the way they were meant to be seen on the big screen of a movie palace like the Castro surrounded by an enthusiastic audience.

One of the highlights of the main festival each year is the traditional Sunday morning program of comedic shorts; Saturday’s event kicks off with a collection of Silent Laurel and Hardy shorts. The lads still remain the finest team in comedy and a wonderful introduction to silents for children as well as adults. Pianist Donald Sosin will accompany the lineup of miniatures. Sosin has composed over a thousand scores for both live performances for film festivals across the world like Italy’s annual Pordenone Silent Film Festival and for DVD releases such as his scores for the Criterion Collection’s release of Three Silent Classics by Josef Von Sternberg and Silent Ozu: Three Family Comedies.

Rudolph Valentino overpowers co-star Vilma Bánky in Son of the Sheik (1926) 

The Saturday event continues with a late morning screening of a lush romantic adventure film epitomizing the apex of Hollywood’s golden age of silents, when their technicians and artists brought visual storytelling to an astonishing level of sophistication.  Son of the Sheik, starring the charismatic and unbelievably handsome screen idol Rudolph Valentino, perfectly fits the bill. Valentino plays the title character, having portrayed his father in the wildly popular precursor The Sheik. To convey Valentino’s star power is difficult; fittingly for a Silent film icon there are no words to describe him. The Alloy Orchestra, a trio with a distinctly modern but effective approach to Silent film accompaniment, will play their original score for the film. One of the trio Ken Winokur along with Jane Gillooly restored the film from excellent 35mm negative material.

A Night at the Cinema in 1914 recreates the British movie goer’s experience from the year that The Great War broke out and changed their country forever. The BritishFilm Institute curated this selection comprising travelogues, newsreels, animated, narrative and documentary shorts, and an episode of the legendary serial The Perils of Pauline. A comedic short by Charlie Chaplin, the biggest star of the time, tops it all off. This program serves both as diverting entertainment as well as giving an insight into the times from a historical and social context. Donald Sosin will provide the accompaniment.

Buster Keaton’s The General similarly combines the historic with absorbing entertainment. Keaton tells the true tale of a railroad conductor who ventured into enemy territory during the Civil War to recover his beloved train The General. The story is told with, of course, brilliant comedic embellishments. Interestingly, Keaton changed the engineer’s allegiance from the Union to the Confederacy, claiming “You can always make villains out of the Northerners, but you cannot make a villain out of the South.”  The resulting film provides the laughs and breathtaking stunts expected from Keaton as well an accurate and detailed recreation of the period, including the use of The General’s actual engine. Keaton’s underplayed wry style and stunning action direction make his films some of the most accessible silent films for novice viewers including children.

Expresionism as well as evil abounds in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The dreamlike German horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari caps off the day’s programming. This screening combines two beloved features of the SFSFF, a dedication to showing foreign films and a late night psychotronic screening. In this eerie masterpiece a carnival hypnotist puts a young man under his control and sends him out each night to commit a series of murders in his sleep.  Both the film’s pioneering use of Expressionism and the flashback structure became staples of Hollywood’s film noirs in the late 40s and 50s. This will be the U.S premier of the 4K restoration from the original camera negative. Accompaniment by the unfailing Donald Sosin.

There truly is something for everyone at Silent Autumn regardless of their degree of familiarity with silents, preference in genres or age. For show times, ticket information and more on the festival visit the SFSFF’s official website wwww.SilentFilm.org

San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2014: Noir's Murky Antecedents Surface in Silence

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2014
May 29-June 2
The Castro Theatre

Two thirds of Undergroound's  Tube set love triangle

Film noir is a fluid genre, unlike the Western or the science fiction film, not everyone agrees on what a film noir is. Traditionally, noir has been defined as an exclusively American crime genre with certain stylistic and story elements: black and white high contrast cinematography, the femme fatale and the protagonist led to an inevitable doom.  However, many include Technicolor films like Leave Her to Heaven in the noir canon, and there has been a critical awakening to the fact that countries other the U.S. in the 40s and 50s produced film noirs. Similarly, noirs antecedents have been posited and reevaluated. Typically noir’s roots are traced back to the German Expressionism, the Hollywood gangster films of the 30s and the Hardboiled school of pulp fiction. The Film Noir Foundation has been trying to explore the question of what noir is with the international bent of this year’s NOIRCITY film festivals and expanded editorial outlook of its NOIR CITY e-magazine which includes a regular feature entitled “Silent Noir”.

Will the good guy finish last?

The FNF will be co-presenting two silent era proto-noirs at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, running May 29–June 1 at the historic Castro Theatre. Renowned British director Anthony Asquith's second feature Underground (1928) is a working-class love story and thriller set in and around the London Underground (subway system). The romantic triangle pits nice-guy Brian Aherne against sinister Cyril McLaglen for the affections of beautiful shopgirl Elissa Landi. The film's climax is a chase at a power station that rivals Hitchcock's chase scene at the British Museum in Blackmail. The incomparable Stephen Horne will accompany the film on piano. Horne is the house accompanist for the British Film Institute and has previously accompanied Asquith's A Cottage on Dartmoor for the SFSFF, as well as recording his own score for the BFI's DVD and Blu-ray release of the silent thriller. Underground will screen on Saturday, May 31 at 4:30PM.

Director Ozu proves a  deft hand with the gangster genre

The name Yasujiro Ozu brings to mind the graceful, self-contained family drama or comedy depicting everyday life in Japan. However, Ozu worked in a variety of genres early in his career as a studio director. In his 1933 gangster film Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna), a tough gangster (Joji Oka) finds himself embroiled in an unexpected love triangle with an innocent shop girl (Sumiko Mizukubo) and his own tough as nails moll (Kinuyo Tanaka) that causes him to reevaluate his criminal lifestyle. FNF president Eddie Muller will introduce this program, playing at noon on Sunday, June 1. The versatile Guenter Buchwald will accompany the film on piano. Buchwald is the director of the Silent Movie Music Company and conducts the Freiburg Filmharmonic Orchestra, which he founded in 1992.

Urban despair in 1929 Berlin

Also for the lovers of ‘the dark side of the screen’, the Goethe-Institut/Berlin & Beyond will co-present Leo Mittler's Harbor Drift (1929), an eloquent German film that prefigures film noir in its depiction of fated souls, with exquisite camerawork by Friedl Behn-Grund of the shadowy harbor, bridges, canals and alleyways of Hamburg. The German title Jenseits der Strasse’s subtitle: Eine Tragödie des Alltags—a tragedy of everyday life—is an apt description of Germany’s unemployment and destitution as personified in the film by an old beggar (Paul Rehkopf), a jobless young man (Fritz Genschow), and a prostitute (Lissy Arna). The film plays Sunday, June 1 at 7:00PM. Stephen Horne will accompany the film on piano with Frank Bockius joining him on percussion. Bockius’ musical background includes founding both a percussionist band and a jazz quintet. He also performs with the Silent Movie Music Company.

To buy tickets or find out more about the festival, visit SilentFilm.org

I Wake Up Dreaming 2014: Dreaming of a Noir World with Pre-Code Classics

I Wake Up Dreaming 2014

May 16- 25, 2014
Roxie Theatre, San Francisco

The Warner Archive has joined forces with programmer Elliot Lavine to present this year's I Wake Up Dreaming film noir festival. The ten day festival runs the gamut from Pre-Code crime classics like Barbara Stanwyck's outing in the women in prison genre, Ladies They Talk About (1933) to late era noirs such as Brainstorm (1965) featuring Jeffery Hunter as a murderer who fakes insanity in an attempt to beat the justice system with disastrous results. There will be plenty of classic era noirs for the purists too, including the one often considered the first true film noir, The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) featuring a frightening but humane performance by film noir icon Peter Lorre. 

Ann Sheridan and Lew Ayres on the set of 'The Unfaithful'

 

 

 

Other highlights include a double bill of 1947 noirs featuring outstanding performances by Ann Sheridan, Nora Prentiss and The Unfaithful and a pair of Fritz Lang helmed films starring Dana Andrews from 1956, the all-star newspaper noir While the City Sleeps and the suspenseful courtroom noir Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt. Both sets of double features prove the depth of their respective stars, as well as the willingness of Hollywood to take on controversial topics in a sensitive manner: adultery in Nora and Unfaithful, journalistic ethics in City, and the death penalty in Beyond.

George Sanders and Ida Lupino,  two of the all star cast from 'While the City Sleeps'

 

All 30 selections in this year's festival hail from the Warner Archive, but will also include films produced by RKO and MGM now owned by Warners. In a significant change for the festival, all the films will be presented digitally.  In previous years, rarer films were often presented in 16mm prints in varying condition supplied from private collectors. The Roxie's digital projection and the digital source materials will provide a consistent picture and sound quality to this year's screenings.

For the complete schedule of films and ticket information, visit the Roxie's official website.