News

African-American film 'Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day.' With Williams and Odessa Warren Grey.* Rare, early 20th-century African-American film among San Francisco Silent Film Festival highlights Directed by Edwin Middleton and T. Hayes Hunter, the Biograph Company's Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) was the film I most looked forward to at the 2015 edition of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. One hundred years old, unfinished, and destined to be scrapped and tossed into the dust bin, it rose from the ashes. Starring entertainer Bert Williams – whose film appearances have virtually disappeared, but whose legacy lives on – Lime Kiln Club Field Day has become a rare example of African-American life in the first years of the 20th century. In the introduction to the film, the audience was treated to a treasure trove of Black memorabilia: sheet music, stills, promotional material, and newspaper clippings that survive. Details of the...

'Sherlock Holmes' movie found at Cinémathèque Française (image: William Gillette in 'Sherlock Holmes') Sherlock Holmes, a long-thought-lost 1916 feature starring stage performer and playwright William Gillette in the title role, has been discovered in the vaults of the Cinémathèque Française. Directed by the all-but-forgotten Arthur Berthelet for the Chicago-based Essanay production company, the approximately 90-minute movie is supposed to be not only the sole record of William Gillette's celebrated performance as Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, but also the only surviving Gillette film.* In the late 19th century, William Gillette himself wrote the play Sherlock Holmes, which turned out to be a mash-up of various stories and novels featuring the detective, chiefly the short stories "A Scandal in Bohemia" and "The Final Problem." ("May I marry Holmes?" Gillette, while vying for the role, telegraphed Conan Doyle. The latter replied, "You may marry or murder or do What you like with him.

Some good news for silent film fans. The Cinémathèque Française film archive/museum in Paris, France announced this week that they've "rediscovered" and will be restoring a print of a 1916 silent film directed by Arthur Berthelet, starring William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes. The newly restored print will premiere at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in May 2015 next year, and this news was released jointly between these two organizations (via Variety). Gillette is a classic British actor known for playing Sherlock Holmes on stage, and this is his one and only film role as the detective in one of the first film adaptations. The report states that a "nitrate dupe negative" was discovered in Cinémathèque Française's vaults just last week and will be digitally restored, with the very first premiere at the Toute la Mémoire du Monde, before going on to play at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The film,...

Before Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr., Jeremy Brett, or Basil Rathbone donned the deerstalker, the world’s first film version of Sherlock Holmes was performed by an actor named William Gillette. Never heard of him? That is hardly surprising, as Gillette was primarily a stage actor and made only one film: Sherlock Holmes, from 1916. Long thought lost, Sherlock Holmes was recently discovered by the Cinematheque Francaise, and is currently in the process of a digital restoration with the help of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

Directed by Arthur Berthelet and produced by Essanay Studios in Chicago, the 1916 film version of Sherlock Holmes features Gillette in the titular role as he comes into conflict with his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty. The film contains a number of set pieces that were part of Gillette’s original play, and apparently illustrates how Gillette brought a number of elements from various Sherlock Holmes stories into the plot.

A 1916 silent movie about Sherlock Holmes, long thought to be lost, has been discovered by the Cinematheque Francaise, which has joined with the San Francisco Film Festival to create a digital restoration. The restored film will be unveiled in Europe at the Cinematheque Francais' festival of film restoration in Paris in January, and its American premiere will take place at the San Francisco Silent Film festival in May, the Sfsff announced Wednesday. Sherlock Holmes, directed by Arthur Berthelet and produced by the Essanay Studios in Chicago, starred William Gillette, an American actor and playwright popular in the late 19th

read more...