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| Silent Serial Chapters at this year's Cinecon | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 24 2014, 02:49 PM (233 Views) | |
| riddlerider | Aug 24 2014, 02:49 PM Post #1 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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The 2014 Cinecon — the 50th annual gathering of the Society for Cinephiles, the original group of film buffs that mounted national conventions to show and celebrate vintage movies — will be running some great silent-serial footage in 35mm this coming weekend at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Ye olde Riddle Rider will be there to introduce a tribute to Ruth Roland, which will include a five-minute promo film assembled to promote Hands Up! (1918) and the complete, restored Chapter One of The Timber Queen (1922), which climaxes with the famous runaway-boxcar sequence. We're also screening Chapter Three of The Adventures of Tarzan (1921), which was painstakingly restored and copied by UCLA from a multi-tinted 35mm nitrate print. There aren't many folks around who've seen silent serial chapters presented on the big screen of a bonafide movie palace with live musical accompaniment, so if you Balconeers from Southern California don't already have holiday-weekend plans, why not stop by? Here's a link with the entire Cinecon schedule: http://www.cinecon.org/cinecon_schedule.html I'll also find time to sell copies of Distressed Damsels and Masked Marauders and my recently published Centennial Edition of the novelized Perils of Pauline. But it's hard to stay away from the Egyptian for long when so many obscure films are being screened in 35mm. That's what makes Cinecon special. |
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| Pa Stark | Aug 24 2014, 03:31 PM Post #2 |
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Charter Member
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Do you know how much of TIMBER QUEEN exists, and are there any plans to restore more of it? The big question is there any way to make it available to us fans? |
| Honest and Lovable Pa Stark | |
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| riddlerider | Aug 24 2014, 04:26 PM Post #3 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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UCLA has (or had) four episodes, but thus far only Chapter One has been preserved. At least, that I know of. Russia has a significant chunk of the serial, maybe half of it. I saw this footage many years ago at the Museum of Modern Art and am pretty sure it had been copied to safety film, although MoMA at that time did run nitrate. As I've said many times, the archival community doesn't give a damn about serial fans. I don't know how many more times I've got to say it. If we're lucky, the occasional odd chapter or odd reel will be included in DVD collections like Treasures from the American Film Archives. (The Hands Up! promo reel is in one of those.) But nobody at AFI, UCLA, Eastman House, et al has the slightest interest in producing DVDs of serials that will sell maybe a hundred copies. If that many. It's just not going to happen. Years ago I was involved in efforts to get some public-domain silent serials — including The Chinatown Mystery, The Range Fighter, and Perils of the Jungle — released on DVD. It would have meant the investment of considerable sums of money. But after the Perils of Pauline fiasco I swore never to attempt such projects again. That's also why I backed away from doing Pirate Treasure, a pristine 35mm fine grain of which was mine for the taking. |
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| Pa Stark | Aug 24 2014, 05:41 PM Post #4 |
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Charter Member
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Riddle Rider, I don't really expect these serials to be made available, it is just wishful thinking. Do you know which silent serials Eastman House has, and is it possible for a group of us to arrange a screening there? |
| Honest and Lovable Pa Stark | |
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| Barcroft | Aug 25 2014, 07:04 AM Post #5 |
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Charter Member
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RR, Pirate Treasure is one serial I'd love to see released. All we've had to view over the years is the Super 8 copy which is watchable but would love to see a nice clean print. Thanks for letting us know that a good copy exists. Barcroft |
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| Laughing Gravy | Aug 25 2014, 11:56 AM Post #6 |
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Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
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Good luck and congrats! |
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6:51 AM Jul 11