April an Eclectic Month at Niles Essanay

April is set to be an eclectic month at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont. In addition to two more installments of the famous serial, The Perils of Pauline, a silent classic by the one and only Alfred Hitchcock, and Harold Lloyd's first big hit, Niles is hosting its annual San Francisco-themed earthquake anniversary show as well as a rarely shown Robert Flaherty  talkie and plenty of Laurel and Hardy. It all adds up to another exceptional month of early cinema in the East Bay. Here's the schedule for the April.

"Saturday Night at the Movies," with Greg Pane at the piano
Saturday, April 7 at 7:30 pm (suggested donation $5.00)

With Grandma’s Boy (1922, Hal Roach), Harold Lloyd advanced into feature films with this production and, with its big success, he never looked back. Mildred Davis co-stars. The Lloyd feature will be preceded by two shorts, Her Torpedoed Love (1917, Mack Sennett) with Louise Fazenda and Ford Sterling, and The Perils of Pauline, Episode 5, A Watery Doom (1914, Pathe) with Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, and Paul Panzer.

"Laurel & Hardy Talkie Matinee"
Sunday, April 8 at 4:00 pm (suggested donation $5.00)

This month's Laurel & Hardy Talkie Matinee includes a classic feature and three shorts. In Beau Hunks (1931), Oliver Hardy joins the Foreign Legion after being jilted by his girlfriend, and brings Stan Laurel along with him. Not surprisingly, they wilt under the scorching desert sun and harsh discipline of the Commandant. Also on the bill are the short films Hog Wild (1930) with Laurel and Hardy, and two Our Gang films, Wild Poses (1933) and Came the Brawn (1938).

"San Francisco & the Earthquake" with Judy Rosenberg at the piano
Saturday, April 14 at 7:30 pm (suggested donation $5.00)

In The Shock (1923, Universal), a gang of blackmailers sends a "cripple" (played by Lon Chaney) to San Francisco to expose a banker they have been blackmailing. However, the cripple meets and falls in love with the banker's daughter (played by Virginia Valli). The feature film will be preceded by two other San Francisco set films, A Trip Down Market Street (1906, Miles Bros.) and The Destruction of San Francisco (1906, Edison, Biograph, Pathe).

"Comedy Short Subject Night," with Frederick Hodges at the piano
Saturday, April 21  at 7:30 pm (Suggested Donation $5.00)

This laugh-packed comedy night features some of the most famous comedians of the silent era. On the bill are The Count (1916, Lone Star) with Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance, The Boat (1921, Comique) with Buster Keaton, Looking for Sally (1925, Hal Roach) with Charley Chase, and We Faw Down (1928, Hal Roach) with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

"Saturday Night at the Movies," with Jon Mirsalis at the Kurzweil Keyboard
Saturday, April 28 at 7:30 pm (suggested donation $5.00)

With Blackmail (1929, British International Pictures), Alfred Hitchcock’s last silent film was refashioned into his first talkie. Although Hitchcock made innovative use of sound and the film is considered a minor masterpiece, the silent version is considered by some to be superior in its display of visual storytelling. Blackmail stars the lovely Anny Ondra, a Polish-Czech-Austrian-German-French singer, film and stage actress. The evening's entertainment includes Felix Flirts with Fate (1926, Sullivan) starring Felix the Cat, and The Perils of Pauline, Episode 6, The Shattered Plane (1914, Pathe) with Pearl White, Crane Wilbur, and Paul Panzer.

"Special Talkie Matinee"
Sunday, April 29 at 4:00 pm (suggested donation $5.00)

Robert Flaherty made Man of Aran (1934, Gainsborough Pictures), his third “film of the spirit of man,” on a rocky island off Galway County, Ireland between 1931 and 1933. A poetic triumph and a world success, it helped established a powerful romantic mystique around the island that has endured for eighty years. Also set to be screened at this special event is How the Myth Was Made: A Study of Robert Flaherty’s Man of Aran (1978, George C. Stoney Associates). In this documentary, George C. Stoney returned forty years after Flaherty to examine how Man of Aran affected the island and its people. Both films will be introduced and discussed by W. Jack Coogan, since 1972 the Director of the Robert and Frances Flaherty Study Center of the School of Theology at Claremont, California.

For more info: The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located at 37417 Niles Blvd. in Fremont, California. For further information, call (510) 494-1411 or visit the Museum's website at www.nilesfilmmuseum.org/.

Thomas Gladysz is a Bay Area arts journalist and early film buff, and the Director of the Louise Brooks Society, an internet-based archive and international fan club devoted to the silent film star.