San Francisco 2013 Silent Film Festival - The Hitchcock 9

[Chris Knipp]

The BFI-initiated restorations of the extant nine Hitchcock silent films were shown June 14-16, 2013 at the venerable Castro Theater as the highlight of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival -- the US premiere of this ambitious project. I will comment on them here.

Hitchcock 9 Forums thread.


MILES MANDER AND NITA NALDI IN THE PLEASURE GARDEN - LEVETT AND HIS
NATIVE MISTRESS

1925 The Pleasure Garden
1927 The Lodger
1927 Downhill
1927 Easy Virtue
1927 The Ring
1928 The Farmer's Wife
1928 Champagne
1929 The Manxman
1929 Blackmail



Two are lost from this period: 1922 Number 13 and the 1926 The Mountain Eagle, putatively released in the US as Fear o' God. Downhill's US release title is When Boys Leave Home. Blackmail was made in a sound version which is available on DVD. From the silent Blackmail on, Hitchcock worked on talkies. Other than the silent Blackmail, all these are available on DVD. However I am watching the BFI-initiated restorations, which are not yet available. In addition, The Pleasure Garden is reportedly a major restoration, being a collation of many different copies leading to restored segments. "Major narrative strands and twists have been re-integrated" -BFI note[?] from press kit. The new restorations also preserve the alternating color tints of the films' segments, said to be particularly complex in the case of The Pleasure Garden.

Hitchcock 9 in US tour

The following introduction to this release is from the Indiewire blog Thompson on Hollywood:

BFI's 'Hitchcock 9,' the Master of Suspense's Earliest Surviving Works, Kicks Off Its Stateside Tour UPDATED

BY BETH HANNA AND RYAN LATTANZIO
JUNE 14, 2013 12:10 PM


Alma Reville, Patricia and Alfred Hitchcock

Hitchcock fans rejoice. The BFI has kicked off its stateside national tour of "The Hitchcock 9," a program of Alfred Hitchcock's nine earliest surviving works, all in newly restored 35mm prints. It launches at the Castro Theatre (June 14-16 [2013]) for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and will make its way to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (June 18), then to LACMA (June 27 - July 13) and BAMcinématek in Brooklyn (June 29- July 5).
According to the Institute, this is the largest restoration project they have ever undertaken.

Cinephiles across the country will eventually have access to screenings in Washington D.C., Berkeley, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, Boston and other American cities. Live musical accompaniment will be featured at several screenings, including, of course, the SF Silent Film Festival.

Made between 1925 and 1929, these little-seen early entries in Hitchcock’s British oeuvre represent early incubations of the auteur’s motifs and obsessions. Films include: “The Pleasure Garden” (1925); “Downhill” (1927); “The Lodger” (1927); “The Ring” (1927); “Easy Virtue” (1928”); “Champagne” (1928); “The Farmer’s Wife” (1928); “The Manxman” (1929); “Blackmail” (1929).

Unfortunately,1926's “The Mountain Eagle” remains lost, but a collection of stills went up for auction last fall confirming the existence of the film.

Individual performances of the films have so far been seen in France, New Zealand, Brazil, Ukraine, USA, India, China, Armenia, Sweden and Spain. Further screenings are planned for 2013/14 in the Czech Republic, Mexico, Germany and Australia with more to be announced.

Hitchcock has been enjoying a renaissance over the past 18 months, from the director's Universal titles in a stunning Blu-ray collection to Fox's "Alfred Hitchcock: The Classic Collection," which includes "Rebecca," "Spellbound" and "Notorious." Our TOH! "Now and Then" column looks at the relationship between Hitch's 40s bad-ass brunettes and those icy 50s blondes.

NEW RUN-TIMES, FORMATS, FPS SPEEDS. The new run-times, formats, and frames-per-second speeds of the BFI-restored versions are as follows:

BLACKMAIL 75 mins. DCP 24 fps BAM says 78 mins.
CHAMPAGNE 105 mins. DCP 20 fps
DOWNHILL 105 mins. 35 mm. 20 fps
EASY VIRTUE 69 mins. 35 mm. (BAM says 70, and 21 fps) The "most challenging" to restore: 25 mins. still missing.
THE FARMER'S WIFE 107 mins. DCP 20 fps
THE LODGER 90 mins. 35mm. 20 fps
THE MANXMAN 100 mins. DCP 20 fps
THE PLEASURE GARDEN 90 mins. 35 mm. 20 fps
THE RING 108 mins. DCP 20 fps