Silent London
A place for people who love silent film
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Silent bulletin: news for summer 2026
Bonn | Queen Kelly | Rudolph Valentino | Metropolis | Pordenone | Faust | & more… It’s a long hot summer of silent cinema, my friends. The temperatures are stuck in the roaring twenties and so are we. Here’s a quick roundup of the silent film news you need to know – and some of … Continue reading Silent bulletin: news for summer 2026 →
So this is Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato XL 2026
What is Il Cinema Ritrovato? A few years back at a Bologna dinner, an important person with far more right to speak on these matters than I have, announced that for them, Il Cinéma Ritrovato was not a festival, but a museum. They spoke eloquently, and sincerely, but honestly I think that is a nonsense. … Continue reading So this is Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato XL 2026 →
Cinema Rediscovered: Queen Kelly in Bristol this July
Royals like to take international tours, don’t they? Now Queen Kelly has played Venice, Lyon, Sao Paulo and many, many cities in the US, the royal entourage is finally en route to the UK. Where better for the British premiere of Milestone’s stunning new restoration of Erich von Stroheim famously unfinished, notoriously excessive, beautiful and … Continue reading Cinema Rediscovered: Queen Kelly in…
Publication day: The Curse of Queen Kelly
“Tonight I want to welcome you to a showing of a naughty little number I made with my own money – $800,000 of it.” – Gloria Swanson introducing Queen Kelly in 1967 Silent cinema icon Gloria Swanson was born on this day in 1899. Today, 127 years later, is the publication day for my new … Continue reading Publication day: The Curse of Queen Kelly →
Instant Expert: Queen Kelly
Name: Queen Kelly Age: Somewhere from 92 to 96 years old. Or brand new, maybe? Appearance: Decadent visions of dissipated European royalty in palatial grandeur, and seedy expat iniquity in East Africa. Erich von Stroheim directed this film, so every frame bursts with expensive vices, exposed flesh, outlandish costumes, drifts of spring blossom or swags … Continue reading Instant Expert: Queen…
Experience the last days of Pompeii
A short note from friend of Silent London, Maria Wyke, professor of Latin at University College London. A one-off screening of the rarely seen silent epic film Jone o Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (Jone or The Last Days of Pompeii, 1913, dir. Giovanni Enrico Vidali) will be held in the 500-seat Bloomsbury Theatre from 6 to … Continue reading Experience the last days of Pompeii →
Book news: The Curse of Queen Kelly
People, I have been busy. Book news, and a cat picture, below… But first… has anyone here seen Queen Kelly? This is the legendary collaboration between Erich von Stroheim, Gloria Swanson and Joseph P. Kennedy: an epic film set in two continents, an illicit romance, a story of innocence and experience. Notoriously, the film was … Continue reading Book news: The Curse of Queen Kelly →
The Silent London Poll of 2025 – the winners!
Would love to say that any delay in posting these results was merely a tactic to increase anticipation… but that would be a fib. Thanks so much to everyone who voted and congratulations to the winners of this year’s vote 1. Best orchestral silent film screening of 2025 Your winner: Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton and John … Continue reading The Silent London Poll of 2025 – the winners! →
Hippfest’s Sweet 16: Check out the lineup
Great news from the north, as Hippfest today launches the lineup for its 16th festival, taking place next month: five days of silent film, live music, workshops, talks and a chance to do the Charleston. All in the vintage splendour of the beautiful Bo’ness Hippodrome. You can read and explore the full lineup here, but … Continue reading Hippfest’s Sweet 16: Check out the lineup →
Looking back…
A belated Happy New Year to all Silent Londoners! This is just a short post to remind you to indulge in a little nostalgia. As is now more or less traditional, I have written my annual piece for the BFI looking back to the cinema of a century ago, choosing 10 great films from 1926 … Continue reading Looking back… →
Season’s greetings 2025!
Just a little note to wish all the readers of Silent London happy holidays and great things for 2026. That’s from me and from Bebe Daniels, pictured emerging out of a chimney while playing Santa’s little helper during Christmas 1923. I expect to have some really fun things to announce soon, but they can wait … Continue reading Season’s greetings 2025! →
The Silent London Poll of 2025: vote for your winners now
Happy holiday Silent Londoners! They say that if you remember 2025, then you weren’t watching enough silent movies. How much do you recall? For myself I sure watched a lot of silent films, clocking up several festivals and individual screenings. Pordenone and Bologna, Zurich, Hippfest, Slapstick, Cinema Rediscovered, Women and the Silent Screen in Belgium, … Continue reading The Silent London Poll…
Focus on Louise Brooks: a Lulu of a Blu-ray from Flicker Alley and San Francisco Film Preserve
Call me Hedda Hopper*, because I have been keeping this one under my hat for quite some time. Coming on 13 January and available to pre-order now, Focus on Louise Brooks (Flicker Alley) is the perfect way to start your 2026 with a bang, or a pair of bangs, as the case may be. It’s … Continue reading Focus on Louise Brooks: a Lulu of a Blu-ray from Flicker Alley and San Francisco Film Preserve →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 8
I awoke with good intentions but encountered even better conversations. And thus, my film viewing on this, the final day of the 44th Giornate del Cinema Muto, began at midday, with Koko the Clown. Which is a wonderful way to begin. This cartoon, Ko-Ko at the Circus (Dave Fleischer, 1926), with our inky friend squaring … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 8 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 7
I have been a little slow to start up some mornings. But one thing you can guarantee that I will get out of bed for is Victor Sjöström. Victor Sjöström’s 1912 debut film no less, banned outright in Sweden, but available for us lucky degenerates on the capacious Verdi screen, with a truly wonderful accompaniment … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 7 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 6
Feature films? What a concept. They don’t always seem to be the dominant form here at Pordenone. But this afternoon was an exception to that rule, with a triple-bill of four-to-six-reelers back to back. Welcome to a world of truly immersive narrative entertainment, It’s the future. The day began in the shortform world, but in … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 6…
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 5
It may seem that the Giornate is in its own bubble, a hundred years or more removed from the real world, wrapped up in the fashions and the fads of the past. But we’re still looking out at the world every day, and no matter how the text on screen tries to guide us, we … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 5 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 4
Last night I dreamt I went to East Lynne again… Ellen Wood is directing my subconscious now. I love this mini melodrama strand and I really enjoyed today’s instalment, which was the lavish 1925 Fox adaptation, East Lynne (Emmett Flynn), scripted by Lenore Coffee and starring Edmund Lowe as Carlyle and Alma Rubens as Lady … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 4 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 3
Monday finished with a zinger. I mean a Zingari. Italia Almirante Manzini wowed the Verdi as Wilejka, a heavy-lidded beauty with great hair, but in this case as a heavy-lidded beautiful Gypsy shepherdess with great hair. In Zingari (Mario Almirante, 1920) Wilejka falls in love with a man, Abaldo (Amleto Novelli, no less) that her … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post…
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 2
Is it still a pathetic fallacy even if the weather is true but the drama is not? As I set out to begin my day with some major melodrama, there was heavy weather in the skies above Pordenone also. We shook off the rain in the Verdi foyer, while we prepared to dampen our faces … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 2 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 1
The Giornate dawned with grey skies but good times, a respite from Storm Amy and all the rest of the week’s turbulence, a day of pretty views and outbreaks of mild escapism. Many of us were just grateful to be get here, let alone arrive on time, after the transport situation was especially complex this … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2025: Pordenone Post No 1 →
Iris Barry on Radio 4
Where would we be without Iris Barry? Where would all the films be, more to the point? Iris Barry was a pioneering film critic and film preservationist whose life is every bit as interesting as the plots of the movies that she championed and saved. I am pleased to say that I have presented a … Continue reading Iris Barry on Radio 4 →
A Taste of Silents, and more, by HippFest
Is it a little hot in here… or is it just me? Outside the weather is turning autumnal, inside here I am contemplating the sizzling lineup for HippFest’s Taste of Silents season, which opens next month. Complete with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert sharing a cigarette, and much more, in Flesh and the Devil (Clarence … Continue reading A Taste of Silents, and more, by HippFest →
Silent reading: Summer 2025 book reviews
Let Me Dream Again: Essays on the Moving Image, by Luke McKernan Sticking Place Books, September 2025, In case there could be anyone reading this site who doesn’t know, Luke McKernan is a media historian, formerly Lead Curator, News and Moving Image at the British Library. Also a formidably erudite and trailblazing blogger on moving … Continue reading Silent reading: Summer 2025 book reviews →
Silent films go pop
As so often, I am going to have to ask a certain purist contingent to do their breathing exercises and locate the nearest fainting couch. Everyone else, buckle up! I have not one but two cases of pop silents to report. And as ever, I remain optimistic for both. First up is one that may … Continue reading Silent films go pop →
C.A. Lejeune and British film criticism: book and lecture news
You may or may not know this, but when I started Silent London I was working at the Guardian newspaper. So, it was at this time, when I was reading and writing about the silent era, and sitting in the Guardian office (rarely at the same time, I hasten to add) that I first became … Continue reading C.A. Lejeune and British film criticism: book and lecture news →
Anna May Wong: the Art of Reinvention
On Sunday I had the very great pleasure of introducing a double-bill of Anna May Wong silents: the UK premieres of new restorations of Song (Richard Eichberg, 1928, restored by Filmmuseum Düsseldorf) and Pavement Butterfly (Richard Eichberg, 1929, restored by DFF) at Cinema Rediscovered in Bristol. Beautiful films, a beautiful audience and simply gorgeous musical … Continue reading Anna May Wong:…
Catching trains, raising riots and trashing the kitchen: travels in feminist cinema
“Is this really what you want to learn from the past?” – Breaking Plates (Karen Pearlman, 2025) Let the train take the strain they say, and so I did, curating my own idiosyncratic, mostly silent, tour of female film history this week – and all by rail. Please rest assured that no leading ladies were … Continue reading Catching trains, raising riots and trashing the kitchen: travels in feminist…
Silent reading: Spring 2025 book reviews
This is a long overdue post, but perhaps I was simply enjoying the research too much. Picking up an occasional series on this site, here are some short reviews of new books on silent film that have passed across my desk recently. Yes, I am a lucky duck. Silent to Sound: British Cinema in Transition, … Continue reading Silent reading: Spring 2025 book reviews →
A Woman of Paris (1923): Criterion releases Charlie Chaplin’s ‘drama of fate’
Bonjour mes amis. Aimez-vous les films de Charlie Chaplin ? Are you wearing your pearls? Supping on truffle soup? Tooting your toy saxophone? Bien, alors nous pouvons commencer. I bring some excellent news from the Criterion Collection and from the realm of Chaplinland. Charlie Chaplin’s game-changing melodrama A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate … Continue reading A Woman of Paris (1923): Criterion…
Weimar Berlin in silence and song with South West Silents
I may live in the 21st century on the south coast of England, but here on my desk it often looks like I am somewhere else entirely. Weimar-era Berlin, to be precise. It is the epicentre of some truly great silent filmmaking, such as the works I often share on this blog, it is the … Continue reading Weimar Berlin in silence and song with South West Silents →
An Oscar for Flow: The dialogue-free animation of Gints Zilbalodis
Last night, the fantasy adventure Flow (Gints Zilbalodis, 2024) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. This dialogue-free drama follows a cat, forced to travel far from home in unfamiliar company when an ecological disaster submerges the earth in flood waters. At the start of the film it appears that the cat lives with … Continue reading An Oscar for Flow: The dialogue-free animation of…
The Silent London Poll of 2024: And the winners are …
Thank you for bearing wth me during a few several technical glitches related to this year’s poll. Relax, enjoy your glass of wine-flavoured carbonated beverage, and welcome to our glittering award ceremony. I have counted the votes, and I am ready to announce the winners of the Silent London Poll of 2024! Congratulations to all … Continue reading The Silent London Poll of 2024: And the winners are…
Season’s greetings 2024
Wishing all the readers of Silent London happy holidays and great things for 2025! Have yourselves some fabulous festivities and don’t forget to vote in the Silent London Poll of 2024. xx
The new Nosferatu: silent-style horror in 2025
Robert Eggers has remade Nosferatu. Finally, after long promising to do so. His new take on the FW Murnau classic from 1922 is in UK cinemas on 1 January 2025. To be completely honest with you, I haven’t seen it yet, but I have some very good, and some slightly more mixed reports. To tide … Continue reading The new Nosferatu: silent-style horror in 2025 →
The Silent London Poll of 2024: vote for your winners now
Season’s greetings Silent Londoners. It has been a whirlwind of a year. How much do you remember? Personally, I watched silent movies on three different continents this year, so I have some great cinema memories from 2024. Pordenone and Bologna, San Francisco, Istanbul, Locarno… and back home, Hippfest, Bristol, Sherlock Holmes at Alexandra Palace, Dorothy … Continue reading The Silent London Poll…
Beyond Gladiator: the ancient world on the silent screen
This is a guest blog for Silent London by Maria Wyke, professor of Latin at University College London. Worn out from watching Paul Mescal battle with CGI baboons, rhinos and sharks in the Roman arena? Or trying to avoid the Marvel-style struggle for the future of the Roman empire playing out in a cinema near you? Then you … Continue reading Beyond Gladiator: the ancient world on the silent screen…
Silent Sherlock at the London Film Festival: the game is afoot
Stand outside Alexandra Palace on a clear evening with a full moon, as I did last night, and you can take in the whole city. London may be as silent as it gets from this vantage point, but the landscape is loud in its own way. The glittering towers that dominate the skyline were all … Continue reading Silent Sherlock at the London Film Festival: the game is afoot →
Women and the Silent Screen XII: Call for papers
Just a short note to share some information about a conference I am looking forward to, so that you can also save the dates, and so that I can pass on the call for papers. The twelfth Women and the Silent Screen conference will take place in Brussels and Antwerp next June. It will be … Continue reading Women and the Silent Screen XII: Call for papers →
Slapstick 2025: for the love of silent comedy
It’s supposed to be big mystery: what do women want from a romantic partner? But there is no mystery at all. GSOH every time. That’s good sense of humour, of course. So if you’re in anyway romantically inclined, you’ll already be asking yourself: what is the FUNNIEST way I can celebrate Valentine’s Day next year. … Continue reading Slapstick 2025: for the love of silent comedy →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 8
A confession. I was conspiring over breakfast, and reader, this was a two-cappuccino problem. The upshot? I was a little late in getting started with the screenings today. But I certainly knew that I was going to be up late, with the gala… and the end-of-festival celebrations! My sunny morning stroll to Cinemazero was rewarded … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No…
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 7
Blood, sweat and tears on the screen today. And to cap it all off, prizes! That’s Friday in Pordenone, folks. Read all about it. Your scribe is a little squeamish, I must confess, so this morning I had to resort to an old trick, and pop my glasses off during some of Arabi (Nadezhda … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 7 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 6
Wouldn’t you like to go Behind the Scenes with DW Griffith and Florence Lawrence? I sure would, that’s why I was bright and early at the Verdi this morning for the 1980 Biograph package. Behind the Scenes, per the catalogue is the “happy exception” among the 1908 output. Well it certainly had punch. A distraught … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 6 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 5
Sometimes the old songs are the best, right? Familiarity can breed contentment. And nowhere will you find more consensus on that than here in Pordenone. So today I was happy to rewatch a couple of silent films I love, spend a little time with one of my all-time favourite silent stars. And then see something … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 5 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 4
And verily, on Tuesday, the fourth day of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the rains came down upon us. And things got quite soggy inside the theatre too, what with Mary Pickford nearly drowning in the hold of her own houseboat in Pride of the Clan, a parcel of wonderful underwater films in the early … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 4 →
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 3
I promise you, I really am in Pordenone, not in Paris. But honestly, the geography is becoming a little subjective. We seem unable to escape the Rive Gauche for long. This morning, a really quite exceptionally taut melodrama from Louiis Feuillade, with sets,of course, by Ben Carré, illustrated how the Latin Quarter exerts its own … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post…
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 2
“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats.” Proof, if proof were needed, that the American people saw through such anti-immigrant propaganda more than 100 years ago, comes in Dee-Dubya’s 1908 New York comedy Deceived Slumming Party – our first film of Sunday morning. Fraudulent tour guides promise show rich tourists the gritty realness of … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto…
Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 1
Grey skies clung to the Verdi this afternoon but you can’t put a dampener on a homecoming like this one. I’ve been to several festivals this year, but nothing really compares to the Giornate. And our hearts were warmed by festival director Jay Weissberg’s words of welcome, in which we pointed out how vital it … Continue reading Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2024: Pordenone Post No 1 →
Sine Nomine: Unseen and unidentified silent films at Pordenone 2024
Can YOU help put names to 14 unidentified films screening at this year’s Giornate del Cinema Muto? The festival is asking for your contribution to a very exciting project. Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi explains more. The story goes that in the early days of the Giornate del Cinema Muto, a small group of film historians sat in … Continue reading Sine Nomine: Unseen and unidentified silent films at Pordenone…