About cinemagoing in the past
The BSFFS started as a sort of spin-off from the British Silent Film Festival which had run at Nottingham and then Leicester since around 1998. The festival was once a mixture of films and academic papers, but the organisers asked me to run a separate event which emphasised the academic papers, enabling the festival itself Continue reading ARCHIVE of British Silent Film Festival Symposium…
We went to see Wicked: For Good in the Majestic in King’s Lynn last week. The Majestic is a glorious survival from what I guess you might call the ‘golden age’ of cinema going. It was built in 1927 and is still running as an independent. There have been changes of course, the original auditorium Continue reading Wicked: For Good at the Majestic King’s Lynn and the ancient art of foyer promotion
The British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026 will take place on Friday 10th April at the Cinema Museum in Kennington. As usual, this one day event will feature a range of papers of original research on all areas of film culture in Britain and areas affected by British colonialism before 1930. We invite proposals for Continue reading British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2026 (Call for Papers)
For reasons which may or may not become clear, I have recently become interested in the Newcastle Corporation Tramways Band. Here they are in 1910 in the rather fetching double breasted uniforms of the Tramways Undertaking. We tend to think of collieries as the main sponsors of brass bands, but in the late Victorian and Continue reading An Edwardian Meme Goes Viral
This popular annual event returns to KCL on 17th May 2024. This one day event features a range of papers of original research in all areas of film culture in Britain and areas affected by British colonialism before 1930. It will take place at the Lucas Theatre, King s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS Please Continue reading British Silent Film Festival Symposium 2024
‘It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees.’ Do you know that Joni Mitchell song? ‘I wish I had a river I could skate away on?’ It’s such a sad song, and not really about Christmas at all, but I was thinking about it tonight as I was decorating my Christmas tree and unwrapping funky Continue reading Grief in the Cinema
I lived with Mark since 2006. This time last year he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and a little more than a month ago he died. His funeral was on 13th December 2022 at Honor Oak Crematorium. This post is intended for those who were unable to be there, to give a flavour of Continue reading Mark Jeanes 1962-2022
Recalling the early days of cinema in Newcastle, Kinematograph Weekly noted that in 1906 there was only one film renter in the city, and that was George Henderson.[1] As I discussed in an earlier post, Henderson was already almost 50 when he entered the film business, showing animated pictures as part of his temperance lantern Continue reading Henderson s North of England Film Bureau
Here is George Henderson. See how he stands triumphantly atop the Red Lion pub sign, which has been dashed to the ground and lies shattered beneath his feet? In its place he has erected the sign of an alternative recreational pleasure – sober, rational and aspirational – the Picture Theatre. His mortar board and academic Continue reading Here is George Henderson: The North East’s Film Pioneer
‘Whilst many persons are railing against the cinema as a disseminator of disease, there is, I am glad to find, one gentleman who is putting theatre to good account as an influenza combatant.’[1] Previously I reported on some of the debates that the influenza epidemic of 1918 precipitated within the cinema trade. In the Continue reading ‘Dr. Wise on Influenza’: Public information films and the flu…