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The Hitchcock Nine (1925–1929) assembles Alfred Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films in one definitive collection from Imprint Films—including The Lodger (1927), Blackmail (1929), and The Pleasure Garden (1925) — which makes its worldwide Blu-ray debut. These early masterworks, created 35 years before Psycho and 29 before Rear Window, offer a fascinating look at Hitchcock’s formative years in British silent cinema. Presented across 10 Blu-ray discs and limited to 1,000 individually numbered copies, this hardbox release features 1080p high-definition presentations, sourced from restorations by the BFI National Archives - with original aspect ratios preserved (primarily 1.33:1 and 1.37:1). The set includes a wealth of music options, with newly commissioned solo piano and orchestral scores by Neil Brand,...

The Cat and the Canary (1927), directed by Paul Leni, starring Laura La Plante and Creighton Hale, arrives on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, October 28, 2025. This silent comedy‑horror is set in a dishevelled mansion where a group of greedy relatives gather for a will reading. Before one of them can claim the fortune they will have to survive the night, which proves difficult as there is as an escaped lunatic known as "the Cat", loose in the house. The film has a new 4K Sdr restoration by Photoplay from Original Nitrate Prints. With Neil Brand's music score conducted by Timothy Brock, offered in 5.1 surround and lossless 2.0 audio.

Australia’s Imprint Films will release four limited edition Alfred Hitchcock Blu-ray collections — totaling 16 films plus a season of television — on August 27.

The Hitchcock Nine (1925-1929) collects the filmmaker’s nine surviving silent movies: The Pleasure Garden, The Lodger, The Ring, Downhill, The Farmer’s Wife, Easy Virtue, Champagne, The Manxman, and Blackmail.

Each film has been restored by the BFI National Archives. The feature documentary I Am Alfred Hitchcock is also included.

The 10-disc set is housed in hardbox packaging. Limited to 1,500, it costs $150.30.

Disc 1 – The Pleasure Garden (1925):

A selfish London chorus girl’s relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to a point where it nearly causes her death.

1080p High-definition presentation on Blu-ray Solo Piano Score by composer Neil Brand (new) Theater Organ Score by Lee Erwin Audio Commentary by editor of the Hitchcock Annual, Sidney Gottlieb (new) Introduction by film historian Charles Barr Interview with BFI silent film...

Studiocanal launched a brand new official podcast – and the host might just be familiar to Film Stories listeners.

This is a bit of an odd story for me to write. Basically, well, because I’m in it. I’ll see how I get on.

The rather fine folks at Studiocanal have launched an official podcast, digging into the huge archive of movies under its stewardship. It’s arriving regularly, and as well as focusing on a movie of the month, there’s a broader exploration of other bits and bobs too.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s Jamie McHale, the head of theatrical marketing at the studio: “We’re thrilled to be launching an official podcast to celebrate our incredible library of titles and upcoming theatrical releases. The in-depth analysis and regular features such as “Dream Double Bills” and “Hidden Gems” from Simon and his guests are...

The most enjoyable additional extras on this disc, aside from Becoming Hitchcock, are interviews with Neil Brand about the scores. Even on The Ring, which is presented here with a score he didn't write, he proves an excellent guide to the mood of the film. Melodrama à la Manx: Stephen Horne on scoring Hitchcock is less detailed in terms of the film itself, but offers an insight into Horne's working on the score.

Davina Quinliven's conversation on Hitch's Leading Ladies - which can be found on The Manxman - is an excellent and accessible dive into the stars of the films on this set and their thematic connections to Hitchcock's later work. From Silent Film Idol to Superman: John Stuart by Jonathan Croall also gets down to specifics about John Stuart, whose long career would extend to Richard Donner's superhero film of 1978.

Charles Barr provides excellent additional insight.

Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

by James Cameron-wilson

It’s funny, you think you’ve seen everything that the golden age of Hollywood has to offer, and then along comes a gift-packaged treasure trove of fresh material from over a hundred years ago. Laurel & Hardy: The Silent Years is the culmination of painstaking research, detective work and artistry to bring us fifteen shorts from the Anglo-American comic duo made up of the Lancashire-born Stan Laurel and the Georgia-raised Oliver Hardy who, under the canny hand of the producer Hal Roach, became the most enduring comedy duo of all time. The least likely of partnerships, Laurel was the wimpish cry-baby who got into no end of scrapes alongside Hardy, the fastidious, overweight buffoon with the tight-fitting jackets, both of whom more often than not wore matching bowler hats. Having watched countless documentaries on the silent era, particularly the era of silent comedy,...

Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes Photo: Courtesy BFI National Archive The 68th BFI London Film Festival has announced its archive special presentation this year will be the world premiere of the restored version of Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases. It will screen on October 16 in the heart of the festival, which runs from October 9 to 20.

The Lff presentation is the inaugural programme from the BFI National Archive’s major new project, funded by Iron Mountain's Living Legacy Initiative, to fully restore Stoll’s epic Sherlock Holmes film series, starring Eille Norwood, Conan-Doyle’s favourite screen Sherlock.

A Scandal In Bohemia Photo: Courtesy BFI National Archive The films will be shown at Alexandra Palace Theatre with a live score that celebrates a new partnership between the BFI and the Royal Academy of Music, with Joanna MacGregor conducting an ensemble of ten young Academy players performing three newly commissioned scores composed by MacGregor,...

The year before she became internationally acclaimed as the original “It Girl” for starring in the film It, Clara Bow made this peppy silent comedy directed by the Wizard Of Oz’s Victor Fleming, which had a gala screening at HippFest with live accompaniment from Neil Brand.

Bow doesn’t actually turn up until part way through the film that begins firmly with the perspective of men. Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont) is a divorce lawyer, tired of both life and the flirtations of his clients who decides to head up country to the delightfully named Mantrap for some R&r. Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), meanwhile is a backwoods trader lured by the bright lights and finely turned ankles of Minneapolis.

It is there that Joe crosses the path of the flirtatious Alverna (Bow), a manicurist who gives plenty of flutter with her polish. As is often the way with silent films,...

IFFKJonny’s presence at the screening of 1922 German Expressionist vampire film ‘Nosferatu’, to which he gave accompanying music, was received with a huge applause at the International Film Festival of Kerala.CrisWhen a hundred-year-old German expressionist film called Nosferatu ended after a screening in Kerala, all of the audience, packed across two floors of a large building, stood up and clapped for several minutes. Standing in front of the screen, beside his prettily lit piano, was Jonny Best, who had for the past one-and-a-half hours tirelessly performed live music to Fw Murnau’s silent film. It was the first of his five scheduled sessions at the International Film Festival of Kerala (Iffk), playing live music for silent films from around a century ago. The morning after his first show, Jonny Best, the musician who came down from the UK for the fest, is quite happy with the reception. “The audience is great,...

Durban, March 27 (Ians) Sarel Erwee scored his ninth century to help the Hollywoodbets Dolphins share honours with the Momentum Multiply Titans on what was effectively the first day of the four-day Domestic Series final here on Saturday.

Only 10 overs had been possible on the first two days as rain, poor light, and a wet outfield took its toll. However, 77 overs were sent down on the third day -- a period in which the home side managed to reach 258 for seven at Hollywoodbets Kingsmead Stadium.

That was thanks to Erwee, who struck exactly 100, and 74 from captain Marques Ackerman. The pair put on 135 together, but after they departed, there was not much else to speak of for the hosts.

Debutant Kyle Simmonds (2/95) and fellow spinner Neil Brand (2/18) were the main threat for the Titans, with seamers Okuhle Cele (1/40) and Dayyaan Galiem (1/50) also excellent.

The performance of the bowlers, especially with the older ball late on,...

In his latest interview/podcast host Stuart Wright talks 5 Great British Musicals with TV producer/director Ian Macmillian. His new music doc tv series: Neil Brand presents The Sound of Movie Musicals starts on December 14th 2018. Check BBC Four schedules for dates and times.

Composer and musician Neil Brand presents a series on the movie musical – from Hollywood to China and the Ussr, and from Snow White and Gene Kelly to Grease and La La Land.

One thing that distinguished this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato festival of rare, rediscovered or restored cinema from around the world was the air-conditioning. In previous years, the "cinephile's heaven" had seen people falling asleep at films they'd waited their whole lives to see, struck down by stifling midsummer heat. Now, even that beloved cinematic sweatbox the Jolly can cool its customers enough to mostly stave off somnolence, and if a hardboiled cinephage does pass out, it's more likely to be due to the unforgiving schedule of nine-to-midnight viewings.The doughty traveler can concentrate on seeing everything in one or two strands—retrospectives on the cinema of 1898 and 1918, the work of directors John M. Stahl, Marcello Pagliero, Luciano Emmer and Ylmaz Guney, the studio Fox, the countries China and Russia in the early thirties, and so on... or they can do as I did, sampling almost randomly from across the goodies on offer.

Four projects on company’s debut slate.

Cassian Elwes, the Us producer behind Mudbound, Elvis & Nixon and Lee Daniels’s The Butler, is launching a UK-based crowdfunding film and TV venture that will allow investors to buy equity in a slate of upcoming film projects.

Run through a new company dubbed Movie Collective, the venture is kicking off its activities with the drama Utopia Road, starring Garrett Hedlund, Rebecca Hall and Anjelica Huston, which is being lined up for a summer shoot.

Also on the debut slate are Cohen & Cohan, a six-part television series from writers Neil Brand and Michael Eaton,...

Hitchcock’s first self-professed ‘Hitch’ picture is still a winner. Many of his recurring themes are present, and some of his visual fluidity – in this finely tuned commercial ‘shock’ movie with witty visual tricks from Hitchcock’s own background as an art director. And hey, he secured a real box office name to star as the mysterious maybe-slayer, ‘The Avenger.’

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 885

1927 / B&W + Color tints / 1:33 Silent Ap / 91 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 27, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Ivor Novello, June Tripp, Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, Malcolm Keen.

Cinematography: Gaetano di Ventimiglia

Film Editor + titles: Ivor Montagu

Assistant director: Alma Reville

Written by Eliot Stannard from the book by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Produced by Michael Balcon and Carlyle Blackwell

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock became the most notable English film director for all the right reasons — he was talented and creative,...

All hail Buster Keaton! The Great Stone Face's pre-feature output is a comedic treasure trove that allows us to watch a performing genius perfect his filmic persona. Lobster's all-new restorations debut some alternate scenes and fix a number of broken jump cuts. It's the whole shebang -- the earlier Fatty Arbuckle shorts and Buster's later solo efforts. Buster Keaton The Shorts Collection 1917-1923 Blu-ray Kino Classics 1917-1923 / B&W / 1:37 flat Silent Ap / 738 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95 Starring Buster Keaton, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. . Original Music Robert Israel, Donald Sosin, Stephen Horne, Timothy Brock, Neil Brand, The Mont Alto Orchestra, Sandra Wong, Günther Buchwald, Dennis Scott Directed by Roscoe Arbuckle & Buster Keaton

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

What's this, a full compilation of Buster Keaton Shorts? Kino has released sets of these before, including a 3-disc Blu-ray package from back in the summer of 2011 and overseen by Kino's Bret Wood.

Guns! Bombs! Assassinations! Blackmail! Fritz Lang invents the escapist super-spy thriller! To seize a set of political documents the evil Haghi dispatches the seductive agents Kitty and Sonya to neutralize a Japanese security man and our own top spy No. 236. (that's 007 x 33,714.2857!) It's a top-rank silent winner from the maker of Metropolis. Spies (Spione) Blu-ray Kino Classics 1928 / B&W /1:33 Silent Aperture / 150 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers, Willy Fritsch, Lupu Pick, Hertha von Walther, Fritz Rasp, Craighall Sherry, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Gustl Gstettenbaur. Cinematography Fritz Arno Wagner Art Directors Otto Hunte, Karl Vollbrecht Set Designer Edgar G. Ulmer (reported) Original Music Werner R. Heymann (original) Neil Brand piano score on this disc. Written by Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou from her novel Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did Fritz Lang...

Live dance with Strictly Ballroom screening and Paul Merton show among first events.

The 11th edition of the Glasgow Film Festival will include comedy and live dance shows and new space-takeovers.

The festival returns to venues Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery for a live dance show and Strictly Ballroom screening, and it will take over the Gothic surroundings of Pollokshaws Burgh Hall, as composer Irene Buckley premieres a new soundtrack to 1928 classic The Fall of the House of Usher on the Hall’s original Wurlitzer Cinema Organ.

Paul Merton and award-winning silent film pianist Neil Brand will team up and pay tribute to comedy legend Buster Keaton with a live show and Gff will also host the Scottish premiere of British Sea Power’s film/live score project From The Sea To The Land Beyond.

French bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons and his live band will create an East-West fusion score to Lotte Reiniger’s 1926 animation The Adventures of Prince...

UK director Stephen Frears has been awarded the Golden Duke Lifetime Achievement Award during the opening ceremony of the fifth edition of the Odessa International Film Festival (Oiff, July 11-19).

The festival is dedicating an homage to British director Frears, who gave a master class at the parallel Summer School and attended an open-air screening of his latest film Philomena on the city’s Lanzheron Descent steps

Speaking at a press conference at the weekend, Frears said that when he received the invitation to come to Odessa, he recalled a piece by writer Isaac Babel describing the Black Sea port as ¨a gangster town¨. “And then I wanted to come!¨

¨I’ve never been to a city so beautiful,¨ Frears said about his first impressions of Odessa.

Remembering Sentsov

During the opening event at Odessa’s Musical Comedy Theatre, the audience was asked to remember the Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov who is currently in detention in Russia...

"Nobody's really captured the quality of a film festival," observed musician/composer Neil Brand, "You're doing something that's pleasurable, but then the fatigue sets in..." It's true—a celluloid feast like Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna is a particular case, too, since so many of the films are rarities. It's like being a cake specialist and suddenly somebody offers you fifty magnificent cakes of unique recipe but says "You have to eat them all in an hour or I'll take them away and you'll never see them again." You plunge in, and even when nausea starts to replace pleasure you can't bring yourself to stop...

Cinephiles like to grumble, and the venues of Bologna attract a certain amount of criticism (one has a bar which runs between the front row and the screen, cutting the subtitles in half; air conditioning is switched on and off at random; and then there's...

Film scores aren't just for playing in the background any more. Ivan looks at how they're taking centre stage...

Feature

Film soundtracks have always been a strange medium. The music relies on movies for their full meaning. They're so integral to a film and its mood that to listen to them away from the big screen can seem strange to many. Others, meanwhile, take the chance outside of the cinema to pore over them in detail, or use them for background music while running or working (How to Train Your Dragon's on now, if you're wondering). It's only in recent years that another way of listening to them has become popular again: with your eyes.

Do a quick Google for "film with live score" and you'll discover a whole heap of events currently happening around the UK in which orchestras accompany a screening. Why the sudden trend? Is it...

Scotland's only silent film festival was born of the determination of a Bo'ness local to bring the big screen to his doorstep

Festival name: Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema

Location: Bo'ness, Falkirk

Website: www.hippfest.co.uk

Dates: Annually, mid-March

About: With the best will in the world, Bo'ness seems an unlikely venue for a film festival, even something as quaint-sounding as a silent movie festival. But Bo'ness, a town with a population of about 14,500, perched on the banks of the Firth of Forth between Edinburgh and Falkiri, is the home of Scotland's only silent film festival. And it's all in honour of a local hero.

Louis Dickson, an electrical engineer turned cameraman, was a big noise in the early Scottish film business, grandly named the official "Kinematographer" of the Scottish National Exhibition in 1908. While he went on to take other official positions within the national film industry, Dickson's heart...

Lucky Star is the Friday night gala. The Hippodrome Festival of Silent Film has begun in Bo'ness, West Lothian, and celebrates its fourth edition with a gala screening of Frank Borzage's Lucky Star tonight, featuring live accompaniment by Neil Brand.

Other highlights include a Jeely Jar Saturday morning screening (March 15) featuring Buster Keaton’s The Blacksmith (showing for the first time with half a reel of lost footage) alongside two unsung comedy heroes of the silent screen- the anarchic and inventive Charley Bowers and master of the comedy-of-embarrassment Charley Chase.

They will also host the first ever Scottish performance by The Aljoscha Zimmermann Ensemble with Nosferatu director F.W Murnau’s influential masterpiece of German cinema Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) (March 15)

Plus Jane Gardner has created and will perform an exclusive new score for Yasujirô Ozu’s take on the American gangster genre Dragnet Girl (Hijôsen No Onna) (March 15). Featuring good-time gals,...

As BBC4 launches a new series on the sound of cinema, we'd like to hear from you about the film soundtracks that mean the most to you

• Read more: Neil Brand on the secret art of the film soundtrack

Writing in the Guardian this week, Neil Brand, presenter of BBC4's Sound of Cinema, says: "Most memorable movie music announces itself, whether with the blast of trumpets that begins Star Wars or the low, febrile string notes that usher in Jaws; whether the electronic hammer blows of Blade Runner or the unexpectedly lyrical solo piano that opens the Coen brothers' True Grit. These are the pieces we remember, the stuff we can hum along to, so engrained in us that it seems to have existed for ever."

The BBC, as part of it's Sounds of Cinema season, is currently polling listeners to find the greatest ever soundtrack, with a shortlist...

Neil Brand, whose BBC4 series on the sound of cinema begins tonight, shares some of the most effective film scores – some of which contain no music at all

How far are we supposed to notice soundtrack music? The received wisdom is that the best score is the one you don't notice – the cri de coeur of those deafened by sweeping romantic strings and overly heavenly choirs, for whom soundtrack music lacks subtlety and therefore commits the most grievous sin of all, that of drawing attention to itself.

To be fair, music does enter our consciousness by other doors than our rational senses; it can creep in below the radar of thought and get to work on our emotions before we know it. Take the opening, wordless 20 minutes of Disney/Pixar's Wall-e, which uses a wicked mix of Jerry Herman's Put on Your Sunday Clothes and Thomas Newman's bleakest,...

The BBC has launched a poll across its TV and radio stations to find the greatest ever movie soundtrack.

BBC Radio 1's Rhianna Dillon, BBC Radio 2's Simon Mayo, BBC Radio 3's Matthew Sweet, Francine Stock from BBC Radio 4, Mary Anne Hobbs from BBC Radio 6music, Tommy Sandhu from Asian Network and film music conductor Robert Ziegler have joined forces to choose the 20-strong shortlist.

Voting is open now on the BBC website and closes at midnight on Friday, September 20.

The results will be announced and played live by the BBC Concert Orchestra on Friday, September 27 at 2pm and will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

The poll is part of the BBC's Sound of Cinema season, which starts today with the broadcast of the first of a three-part BBC Four series Sound of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies.

It is presented by Neil Brand and airs at 9pm.

Feature 13 Sep 2013 - 07:20

Gonzo guitars in Rush, chip tune nostalgia in The Kings Of Summer, and clapping in Ain't Them Bodies Saints. It's Music in Film time...

As autumn draws in, film music fans are set for a dream couple of months. Danny Elfman has a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Michael Nyman is set to perform at the London Film Festival and Neil Brand is leading a BBC4 series starting Thursday 12th September called Sound Of Cinema, which looks fantastic.

To top it all off, September also sees the release of some diverse, decent and downright unique soundtracks. Here are three that have wormed their way into my earholes.

Rush

When watching Ron Howard’s F1 drama, the first thing you notice, before you even see a car, is the sound: the roar of an engine as the vehicles scream round the bend and burn tire tracks in your ears.

Scores of films such as Chariots of Fire and King Kong will be examined in programmes on radio and BBC4

Film music – whether Max Steiner's groundbreaking score for King Kong in 1933 or Bernard Herrmann's brilliant four chords and five notes which went into the music for Citizen Kane – will be examined in a major BBC autumn season.

The broadcaster on Thursday announced details of programmes on BBC4 and its radio stations celebrating composers, songs and film scores that can sometimes be just as important as the images audiences are watching.

Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of radio, said there would be "an incredible breadth" of programming. "We want to give our audiences a deep understanding of what music does for film. How it works – which I think most will find fascinating – and the people involved in that relationship. And of course we want to give pleasurable programming, simple enjoyment.

BBC radio and television have announced a season of programming dedicated to the composers, songs and film scores that form the soundtrack to the big screen.

The autumn season of programming includes three-part series Sound Of Cinema: The Music That Made The Movies, presented by silent film composer Neil Brand and featuring directors ranging from Quentin Tarantino to Scorsese. It will air on BBC4.

BBC Radio 3 will air three weeks of programming including director Ken Loach and composer George Fenton discussing their 20-year partnership, and a live programme with the spookiest scores in cinema from the BFI.

BBC Radio 6 Music will broadcast a five-part series in which big names from cinema including actor Cillian Murphy and Bond film composer David Arnold will discuss their favourite film music moments.

The Story Of Hip Hop In The Movies will air on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra, revealing how Hip Hop and films collaborate, featuring [link=nm...

(Anthony Asquith, 1929; BFI, PG)

Educated at Winchester and Oxford, lifelong socialist, closet gay, son of a Liberal prime minister, Anthony Asquith (1902-1968) is a currently undervalued film-maker whose career began in the silent era when he studied American cinema in Hollywood and German expressionism in Berlin. The British character in its various forms fascinated him, especially the middle classes, and he found an important collaborator in Terence Rattigan. Their association lasted from 1937 to the mid-1960s, resulting in numerous crucial works, including the wartime morale-booster The Way to the Stars and that masterpiece of stiff-upper-lip repression, The Browning Version.

Just before the coming of sound Asquith made two silent classics, A Cottage on Dartmoor and Underground that put his rival Hitchcock into the shade in the way it absorbed foreign influences and experimented with new styles. Underground is an exhilarating celebration of modern city life as embodied by the London underground system,...

★★★★☆ In 1928, at the tender age of just 28 years, British director Anthony Asquith was already a driven and passionate filmmaker - exactly what he brought to his early silent, Underground (1928). This tale, whilst saturated in its own time, carries a modern note, as underground carriages bustle with nosey travellers leaning over each others shoulders to read their neighbour's newspaper, or young men eye up the ladies. Amidst the hustle of daily commutes we find a pair of lovebirds in the form of mild-mannered Bill (Brian Aherne) who works as an underground porter and shop worker Nell (Elissa Landi).

The pair's fledgling love is thrown into disarray by the brash Burt (Cyril McLaglen), who also has eyes for the working class blonde bombshell. Power station worker Burt, with his rough manners and penchant for drink, hatches a plan with former lover Kate (Norah Baring), that climaxes in a tremendous, Bond-style chase sequence.

The Bradford International Film Festival is typically an underground-friendly fest. This year appears to be no exception with two very special experimental film retrospectives, as well as a few modern underground-type flicks.

The 19th annual Biff will roll on April 11-21 at several locations around Bradford and Leeds in England, including the National Media Museum, Hebden Bridge Picture House, Hyde Park Picture House and other venues.

Biff is hosting a tribute to Stan Brakhage this year by screening the prolific filmmaker’s magnum opus, Dog Star Man, as well as a selection of his short films, from 1963′s legendary Mothlight to 1994′s Black Ice. There’s also going to be an epic-sized tribute/retrospective of experimental films from Austria, a country with a proud avant-garde filmmaking tradition that’s typically overlooked.

From Austria, Biff is, of course, screening two works from one of the experimental film world’s biggest masters,...

Superbly restored and equipped with an admirable new score by Neil Brand, Anthony Asquith's 1929 movie is a minor masterpiece. It provides us with a fascinating picture of the London underground system (everyone wearing hats, everyone smoking) while telling the simple tale of a womanising power station employee and a shy, gentlemanly tube official, both pursuing a department stores salesgirl played by the beautiful Italian-born Elissa Landi.

Much influenced by French and German movie-makers, Underground is a witty, highly imaginative piece of film-making by a director now largely regarded as an efficient craftsman, his best-known films being collaborations with Terence Rattigan. But in her 1931 book Cinema, my Observer predecessor, CA Lejeune, regarded Asquith and Hitchcock as the only two British directors of any consequence, and Asquith the more distinguished of the two. "Asquith lags behind Hitchcock in craftsmanship, comes very close to him in picture sense and passes him in fervency and conviction of thought,...

This restored silent from 1928 is terrific – and the exotic and futurist London locations are a treat

Anthony Asquith's 1928 black-and-white silent, Underground, restored three years ago with a great new score by Neil Brand, is now on general release, and it's terrific: an elegantly crafted melodrama with exotic and futurist London locations, and echoes of Lang and Hitchcock. Norah Baring is fascinating as the wronged woman, Kate, given to strange Ocd mannerisms and sightless staring: a performance to compare with Kathleen Byron in Powell's Black Narcissus. Two men fall in love with the same woman – demure shopworker Nell (Elissa Landi) – whom they see on the London Underground. Bill (Brian Aherne) is a decent chap who works on the Tube, but Bert (Cyril McLaglen) is a rougher, moodier sort, who is prepared to exploit his ex-girlfriend Kate in a plot to destroy Bill's chances. This love triangle evolves into a quadrangle,...

Above: Max Ophüls' Komedie om geld. Image courtesy of Cineteca di Bologna.

The 26th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato is over—like the end of a dream. If you are lucky enough, and not so fond of sleeping and eating, and also have little social bonds that allow you the minimum of lingering with fellow cinephiles, then you would be able to see only 10 percent of the films shown at the festival. As much as it's a festival of discovery and cinephilia, it’s also a festival of guilt and regrets since you ineluctably miss many things.

Il Cinema Ritrovato is a miniature of life that among all the beautiful things you have to choose, and every decision grants you a piece of the truth. But all the images, all the pieces of this broken mirror in which we see ourselves is as valid as what the person next to me,...

From Batman to Spider-Man, Wireless to Green Man and Carousel to Götterdämmerung, the Observer's critics pick the season's highlights. What are you most looking forward to? Post your comments below

Download a pdf of this calendar here

July

1 Pop The Stone Roses

The third resurrection of the Roses has already swung from thrill to farce. Fans gibbered with joy at their surprise Warrington gig in May, but by Amsterdam Ian Brown and Reni were at loggerheads. This last of three homecoming gigs at Manchester's Heaton Park will not be uneventful.

3 Film The Amazing Spider-Man

Marvel Comics' flagship superhero, the red-and-blue clad "web-slinger" Spider-Man, gets a Hollywood reboot not 10 years after the character was last blockbuster-ised. Impressive Brit Andrew Garfield plays Spidey this time; Marc (500 Days of Summer) Webb directs. Early reviews: amazing.

4 Dance Dance Gb

English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and National Dance Company Wales join forces in a high-velocity...

The problem with writing daily updates for a film festival such as Il Cinema Ritrovato is that you never find time to do it! The screenings start from 9 in the morning and continue ceaselessly till the evening, and then you can go for the outdoor projection which starts at 10 pm, and if it is something like the restored version of Roman Polanski's Tess, then the end of screening would be on the following day.

To begin, let’s start with a cinephile, rather than the films: Olaf Möller is a hard-to-miss cinephile who dresses in black (but his beard distinguished him from Johnny Cash), and when he talks about Mosfilm director, Ivan Pyr’ev whose retrospective Möller curated, it looks as if he discovered Solomon's mines. Olaf’s aim is to go beyond the officially acknowledged names in the Soviet Union cinema. In the technical mastery of Pyr’ev,...

Continuing their great work the BFI are basically fulfilling a lifetime’s wish of mine and showing all surviving works of Alfred Hitchcock on the big screen over a three month Hitchapolooza in London and around the UK.

Things kick off in June and among the various events someone, in a moment of mad genius, has decided to show a newly restored print of Blackmail in the British Museum, and if you’ve seen it then you’ll know why, with a live score from Neil Brand as well as numerous other cinematic accoutrements. For me though it’s the chance to see Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt and dozens of other classics on the big screen. Yes, friends. I am excited.

Taking cues from a number of Hitchcock’s greatest (or, at least, the most well known) films the BFI have just released this short trailer which has...

London's sprawling arts centre houses a much-loved cinema

• Check out our Google map and flickr group

Every week we invite our readers to tell us about where they go to watch films. This week it's the turn of Joe Walsh, who regularly writes about film at Little White Lies, CineVue and New Empress. Follow Joe on Twitter here.

The building

Located in east London, not far from London's banking district, the Barbican is a sprawling complex that houses the largest, and perhaps finest, arts centre in Europe. It also boasts a fantastic cinema.

The complex maze of concrete buildings, constructed in the brutalist architectural style, may not appeal to everyone's taste, but there is an undeniable warmth and beauty to the cinema and centre.

The clientele

Despite its somewhat awkward location and maze-like construction, the cinema appears to thrive, drawing an eclectic mix of young and old to special events...

Mark Kermode's polemic is both endearing and informative

Mark Kermode, history will relate, is a man with an appropriately cinematic origin: his name, look, and place in cultural life are clearly the result of a failed experiment with a matter transporter in which the genomes of Frank Kermode and Mark Lamarr were accidentally spliced. Here is an erudite critic with a proper appreciation of schlock; a celluloid-loving fogey who candidly prefers Breathless to À Bout de Souffle; and a man with the vanity to sport a quiff, yet who identifies himself as a jowly doppelgänger for Richard Nixon. This is the book of his mid-life crisis. If he's been a film critic for a quarter of a century (and, what's more, the "most trusted" in the UK according to a 2010 YouGov poll), what's the point of his existence when Sex and the City 2 is a smash hit?

Kermode's...

About 500 scores – including a theme tune used in Charlie Chaplin films – found in council's music library

Hundreds of musical scores used to accompany silent films in cinemas more than 80 years ago have been discovered in the collection of Birmingham city council's music library, including a theme tune used in early Charlie Chaplin films.

About 500 scores have been uncovered, many including the full parts for small orchestras of between seven and 11 players, not just a pianist. Judging by the titles, the often-fragmentary pieces were selected thematically to accompany similar plotlines. They are frequently self-explanatory: the mysterious manor house, exciting-dramatic, harrowing, creepy-creeps, wild chase, supreme peril, the poisoned cup and mounted police gallop.

"We don't actually know where they came from as they were in separate collections," explained Ali Joyce, the head of the music library. "They seem to have been in our basement for 30 to 40 years.

"We think groups of musicians...

Musical accompaniment enhanced the mood of silent films, as this year's British Silent Film festival made loud and clear

Harpo Marx lasted just two weeks as a silent film pianist – and it's no wonder. The poor bloke only knew two songs (Waltz Me Around Again, Willie and Love Me and the World is Mine), which he would rotate, speeding up or slowing down his fingers in hopes of fitting the music to the action on the screen. Luckily, not all players had such limited repertoires, and the 14th British Silent Film festival (held over the weekend, at the Barbican, BFI Southbank and Cinema Museum in London) explored the forgotten quirks and grand achievements of silent film accompaniment.

Whether gathering testimony from filmgoers, or unearthing old scores in archives, the project to discover what cinemas in the silent era really sounded like is a vast one. Evidence is hard to find,...

After seeing the 2007 remake, one of the stars of the original St Trinian's films decided to track down her fellow schoolgirls – and now they're getting together for a special screening

Annabelle Heath is a church steward from Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. "I had to torture Jill Evans. That's me turning the mangle," she boasts proudly. She is talking about events long ago, when she played "Maudie the bookie" in 1954's The Belles of St Trinian's. "I was only about 11. I wasn't one of the ones with stockings and suspender belts." Heath – who appeared on screen under the name Annabelle Covey – describes her costume with just a touch of regret in her voice.

Fifty-seven years on, Heath has assembled a small army of St Trinian's old girls (her torture victim Jill Evans among them) to attend a special screening of the film at the Barbican next week. No, they won't be...

Over 4,000 Londoners showed up at Trafalgar Square last night for the London Film Festival’s special outdoor screening “London Moves Me,” a celebration of London’s transport through over 20 films from the BFI National Archive and London’s Screen Archives. With live piano accompaniment by Neil Brand, Londoners braved some somewhat chilly weather to cheer through films that toured London’s transport - trains, buses and bicycles, skateboard, airship and canoe - from 1896 to 2009.

Above: Rigoberto Pérezcano’s border town film Northless.

With the programmers of the Middle Eastern Film Festival tasked with bringing cinema to Abu Dhabi—which has no alternative theaters beyond multiplexes—the lineup has taken several ways to introduce and encourage a cinema culture.

Masters are an obvious route; new films by Claire Denis, Alain Resnais, Steven Soderbergh, Tian Zhuangzhaung, and an omnibus of Romanian shorts as representative A-list world cinema is, I’m sure, welcome in the area, at least in theory.

Far more adventurous is Meiff’s attempt to bring silent cinema to the Arabian Peninsula. Backed by the bold statement that silent films with live musical accompaniment have never played there, Meiff has generously brought in renowned silent film pianist Neil Brand to give a master class on his background in accompanying silent film and brief but delightful examples of the pleasures and challenges of the work.

Last night, the programme for the 53rd British Film Institute London Film Festival was released which runs from the 14th - 29th October. The line-up looks fantastic.... with 'Fantastic' being the operative word as Fantastic Mr. Fox will be having it's world premiere at the event along with 14 others.

Here's the opening statement on the press release and head over to BFI's website for more info. You can also join their Facebook group here.

"Opening Night film, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox, is one of the Festival's 15 world premieres and will be presented by the director and cast members including Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman and Helen McCrory. Other films celebrating their world premieres include Sam Taylor-Wood's Closing Night Gala Nowhere Boy and the Festival's first ever Archive Gala, the BFI's new restoration of Anthony Asquith's Underground, with live music accompaniment by the Prima Vista Social Club,...