They need to raise $70,000 by August 15, or face significant cuts to core programs and their small staff.

They are asking for donations of any size.  You can use this secure online donation form (there’s an “Other Amount” box at the bottom of the membership options), send in a check via snail mail, or drop by the place personally and hand them a 10-spot.

In a July 30 message sent to 10,000 email subscribers and posted online (here, here, and here), NWFF Executive Director Lyall Bush said that income for the year was down by 30%.  “While we remain scrappy and imaginative in tough spots, this time is different,” he wrote.  “We are looking at real changes…programs such as Soul Nite and ByDesign could go. It means fewer masterpieces such as “Silent Light” showing up on our screens. It means maybe no more camera rentals. Jobs and programs are on the line.”

Curator of special programs Peter Lucas was furloughed indefinitely earlier this summer.  Several other key positions are now said to be in immediate risk of furloughing or even elimination.

The Northwest Film Forum is an invaluable part of Seattle’s arts community, providing 2 theaters filled year-round with films and events, financing and production support for regional filmmakers, workshops and training, very inexpensive film and video equipment rentals, editing facilities, a collaborative space for artists of all disciplines, it sponsors the Seattle Children’s Film Festival, rents office space to filmmakers and festivals, does some film distribution, has a film vault and even a lending library.  They have working relationships with other local organizations, colleges and universities, embassies and consulates, PBS, and film institutions around the world.

Any city would be lucky to have an arts organization like that, and precious few do — especially one devoted to film arts.

The NWFF has been very supportive of the Sprocket Society, and many many others.  Please consider supporting them now, when they need it most.  All it’ll take is 3 minutes of your time and two clicks.

We’ll post details as it gets closer to the series, so stay tuned…

Update: subscribe to http://twitter.com/SecretMatinee

Additions and corrections are welcome in the original post’s comments.

Music, maestros, please
The Bioscope
Dec. 27, 2008

Stephen Horne, one of the UK’s premier silent film pianists, has just published his website, www.stephenhorne.co.uk. To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to produce a round-up of silent film musicians’ websites, where you can find out what industrious lives they lead, listen to sound samples, and maybe purchase a DVD or two.

Alloy Orchestra
The three-man Alloy Orchestra (Terry Donahue, Ken Winokur, Roger Miller) are among the best-known of silent film accompanists, though their ‘aural onslaught’ of electronica and found percussion is controversial for some. Their site includes details of the films they have accompanied, touring shedule, CD and DVD store, reviews, information about the instruments they use, and video clips with their scores from Blip.tv (One Week, The Lost World, The Unknown, Manslaughter etc) so you may judge for yourselves.

Elizabeth-Jane Baldry
Elizabeth-Jane Baldry is a harpist, particularly expert in Victorian fairy harp music. She has recently branched out into accompanying silent films, and there is a section of her site devoted to her silent film work, alongside other professional information, including her own filmmaking work.

Neil Brand
Probably the best-known improvising silent film pianist working today, Neil Brand is also a playwright, actor, composer, scholar and eloquent advocate for the art of silent film in general. His website covers his musical and writing biographies, with news, reviews, and events calendar. There is a radio interview with Neil available (from 2000) and audio extracts from some of his scores (including Diary of a Lost Girl, The Ring and his recent orchestral score for Hitchcock’s Blackmail).

Timothy Brock
Timonthy Brock is a conductor and composer specialising in concert works of early 20th-century music and silent films. His site gives details of his original silent film scores (Nosferatu, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Sherlock Jr. etc.) and restored scores (The Gold Rush, A Woman of Paris, City Lights etc.), images, news, articles and events calendar.

Günter Buchwald
Günter Buchwald is a pianist and violinist as renowned for his accompaniments alongside other silent film musicians as he is for his solo accompaniments. He often works as a duo with percussionist Frank Bockius or pianist Neil Brand, or with the Silent Movie Music Company as a trio or quartet. His site (in German) gives repetoire, reviews and events calendar.

Philip Carli
Phil Carli is a silent film accompanist, musicologist and film archivist. He has made special study of film, music and culture of the late 19th/early 20th centuries, and conducts the Flower City Society Orchestra of Rochester, New York, which is modeled on the ’society orchestras’ that entertained guests in upper-class restaurants and resorts at the turn of the last century. His website covers this and his silent film work, including a list of broadcasts and DVD releases with his scores (including Regeneration, Sally of the Sawdust, Stella Maris etc.).

Club Foot Orchestra
Radical San Francisco ensemble which has come to specialise in silent film accompaniments. The site covers the films it has scored (Nosferatu, Pandora’s Box, The Hands of Orlac etc.) with links to CDs/DVDs where available.

Antonio Coppola
Italian pianist Coppola is a silent film accompanist of long-standing and high repuation. His site (in Italian, English and French) has a short biography and a long list of film directors (surname only) whose work he has played to.

Carl Davis
Composer and conductor Carl Davis is the best-known of all silent film musicians, for his work with Kevin Brownlow and Photoplay Productions, which did so much from the 1980s onwards to revive interest in silent films with live orchestral accompaniment, most notably his epic score for Abel Gance’s Napoleon. His site, however, does not dwell much on the past and is mostly interested in upcoming events, which continue to include silent films accompaniments with orchestra (notably Chaplin).

Devil Music Ensemble
Boston trio comprising Brendon Wood (guitars, lap steel, synthesizer), Jonah Rapino (electric violin, vibraphone, synthesizer) and Tim Nylander (drums, percussion, synthesizer). The group’s many forms of music performance include silent film accompaniments (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Nosferatu etc.), for which they provide video clips.

David Drazin
David Drazin is among the most prolific and praised of American silent film accompanists. His web page lists the main films he has accompanied, plus some information on his jazz, ballet and modern dance music work.

Arthur Dulay
Arthur Dulay (1891-1971) is perhaps the only silent film accompanist of an earlier generation to have website dedicated to him. Dulay played for silents from 1908, and late in his career as a musician in the 1950s he became resident pianist for the accompaniment of silent films at London’s National Film Theatre. The site includes sound samples of his work and a radio interview, as well as samples of his other musical work.

Gerhard Gruber
Composer and pianist Gerhard Gruber is Austria’s leading silent film pianist. His site includes testimonials, a repertoire list, links to festivals where he has played and to sound and video excerpts (including A Page of Madness). Much the same material also appears in a blog, silentfilm.wordpress.com, and on another site, www.silentmovie.eu.

Hesperus
Hesperus is a five-member ensemble with overlapping membership which performs a fusion of early and traditional styles from a variety of cultures. Its silent film work has included Robin Hood with English Renaissance music, The General with American Civil War music, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame with French medieval music. Its website is under construction, but there is information on its work at Class Acts on Tour.

Frederick Hodges
Pianist Frederick Hodges specialises in American songbook material from the 1920s and 1930s. His extensive silent film work incldes DVD recordings for Image Entertainment, Flicker Alley and Unknown Video, and his site has an informative page on silent film music and musical sources.

Stephen Horne
Stephen Horne has come to prominence recently, in particular for his scores for A Cottage in Dartmoor and The Battle of the Somme. His stylish site includes a short biography (he is a regular dance accompanist and has written screenplays), list of live dates, gallery and reviews. He can also boast a Facebook fan group, We’re in love with Stephen Horne.

In the Nursery
Rock band In the Nursery (ITN), headed by the twins Klive and Nigel Humberstone, have branched out into silent film scores for live performance and as DVD and CD releases. Their work includes Man with a Movie Camera, Hindle Wakes, the Electric Edwardians compilation and most recently The Passion of Joan of Arc. Their site includes discography, biography, reviews, films details, and MP3 downloads for purchase.

Dennis James
American Dennis James has accompanied silent films with piano, chamber ensemble and full symphony orchestra, but is probably best known for his theatre organ accompaniments, for which is perhaps the world’s leading exponent. His web page has a biography and list of engagements.

Jan Kopinski
British saxophonist Jan Kopinski is best-known for his radical jazz ensemble Pinski Zoo. With pianist Steve Iliffe he performs original compsitions to silent films, including Earth, Berlin: Symphony of a Great City and The Seashell and the Clergyman. His site covers his various muscial outputs, with audio samples and video clips (including Earth and Nosferatu in performance).

Eunice Martins
German composer and improvising pianist Eunice Martins has played at numerous silent film events. Her site includes her extensive repertoire, photographs and upcoming schedule.

Jon Mirsalis
Jon Mirsalis is a film buff extraordinaire, a silent film pianist, and a leading bioscientist. This web page, which provides biographical details, is modestly tucked away as part of his Lon Chaney website.

Ben Model
The proud possessor of www.silentfilmmusic.com is the resident silent film accompanist for The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Model plays piano, theatre organ and a virtual theatre organ called the Miditzer. His site includes performance schedule, scores on DVD, and details of his orchestral scores. Model has also pioneered the idea of producing alternative scores to DVD releases of silent films as MP3 downloads, from his altscore.com site, and has a blog, Silent Film Music.

The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Mont Alto, led by Rodney Sauer, is an American five to seven piece chamber ensemble that recreates the small local orchestras popular in America from 1890 through to 1930. The ensemble has become well known for its many silent film scores for video and DVD releases, particularly for Film Preservation Associates and Milestone Video. Its site provides detailed information on the films for which it has provided scores (with some audio files), a schedule of its forthcoming silent film accompaniments and dances, and useful information for the general enquirer about silent film music of the period and today.

Michael Mortilla
Michael D. Mortilla is a composer, orchestrator and performer, who has produced hundreds of scores for film, television, dance, theatre, silent film, magic, mime, industrials, commercials, special events and the concert stage. The silents work has included Harry Houdini’s The Master Mystery serial and Chaplin Mutuals, and he has performed at many American silent film festivals. His site documents his many different activities.

Maud Nelissen
Dutch composer and pianist Maud Nelissen has performed for the Nederlands Filmmuseum, the Film in Concert Foundation and various festivals. She leads the six-member group The Sprockets, which has specialised in accompanying silent comedies (Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy). Her scores for The Patsy and The Merry Widow (a combination of Léhar’s music and her own) are performed by the Orchestra da Camera Oscura, and the Asta Harmonists play her music for Asta Nielsen films. Her impressive website covers all facets of her musical career and includes silent film video clips.

Maria Newman
Daughter of the renowned Hollywood composer Alfred Newman, Maria Newman has produced scores for silents for the Mary Pickford Foundation and Turner Classic Movies. Information on her work can also be found in her entry on GarageBand.com.

The Panoptikon Orchestra
Panoptikon is a Swedish ensemble (trio), led by Matti Bye, that plays music for silent films, both precomposed scores and improvised music, using both traditional and modern instruments. Its site provides background information on the ensemble, a list of records and videos,with some audio samples (Joyless Street, The Phantom Carriage) and general news.

Judy Rosenberg
Judy Rosenberg is a silent film pianist and composer,as well as being (like others in the profession) a dance accompanist. She plays regularly to silents for the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California and at the Niles Silent Film Museum in Fremont, VA. Her lists the films she has accompanied, gives upcoming screenings, and has a thoughtful statement on her art, comparing silent film and dance accompaniment.

Silentones
German five-piece ensemble, led by Susanne Peusquens. Their site is in German, English and Italian, and has information on their scores for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, The Golem, the films of Max Davidson, and others, with audio samples.

The Silent Orchestra
American duo Carlos Garza (keyboards) and Rich O’Meara (percussion) make up the Silent Orchestra who accompany silent films with both improvised and composed scores. Their site lists the films they have accompanied, including Nosferatu and Salomé which are Image Entertainment DVD releases, and there is news of past shows and reviews.

Donald Sosin
The proud possessors of www.silent-film-music.com are pianist Donald Sosin and his singer/actress wife Joanna Seaton. Sosin keeps up a prodigious work rate through live performances, DVD releases and workshops, as documented on the website. Also to be found there are audio and video clips (Foolish Wives, Manhatta, King of Kings etc.) and a listing of recordings Sosin has made of his own performances which are available for purchase from Farmhouse Window Productions. Sosin also maintains a blog, Silent Film Music and other Sounding Off.

Gabriel Thibaudeau
Thibaudeau is composer, conductor, and pianist for the Cinémathèque québécoise, and has been composing silent film scores since 1990. He performs composed and improvised scores the world over, including at many festivals and major arts institutions. His bi-lingual (English / French) site lists the many films for which he has produced composed scores, some with audio or video clips, plus biographical information and news.

Vox Lumiere
Vox Lumiere combines rock music, live theatre and silent film. It brings together musicians, dancers, singers, multi-media and light shows to retells such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Metropolis and The Phantom of the Opera as rock musical experiences. The multi-lingual site includes audio and video clips, image gallery, calendar and shop.

Clark Wilson
Organist Clark Wilson has played at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, Cinequest, and plays a silent picture annually at LA’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. His site lists his many silent film scores, including Broken Blossoms, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Camille. He also runs his own pipe organ business.

For other silent film musicians, not all of whom have sites of web pages of their own (Robert Israel, Neal Kurz, Eric Beheim etc.), see the Silent Era’s page of weblinks for composers and musicians. Others, such as Britain’s John Sweeney, a Pordenone regular, at least have a Wikipedia page.

First up is this Monday, Jan. 5 with Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) at the aptly spectacular Paramount Theater, where Dennis James will be accompanying on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ.  It kicks off the new Silent Film Mondays series, featuring horror films.

Tues. March 4, 2008 at 8:00 PM
At the Northwest Film Forum – 1515 12th Ave. (on Capital Hill between Pike and Pine)
Free for NWFF members. $8.50/general admission. $6.00/children under 12 and seniors.

Event Details | Program Notes | Original Posters | Critical Reception | Survivial of Film and Sound Elements | Related Links | Further Reading

Don’t miss this rare screening on 16mm of a lost sci-fi epic and a rare cartoon from the dawn of sound film! Presented as part of NWFF’s Search and Rescue series.

An original colored lobby card for The Mysterious Island (1929)

The Mysterious Island (MGM, 1929) stars Lionel Barrymore and Lloyd Hughes (of The Lost World), and was directed by Lucien Hubbard (with uncredited co-direction by Maurice Tourneur and Benjamin (Häxan) Christensen. We will be showing the Vitaphone sound version, including scenes with dialog as well as a synchronous score with music and sound effects.

Meant to be MGM’s million-dollar answer to Metropolis, it premiered just days before the great stock market crash and failed at the box office. With spectacular art direction by Cedric (Wizard of Oz) Gibbons, the film features some of the most striking images of the genre, including armies of undersea “gill men” and diving suits that look like something from Alien. Originally shot in two-strip Technicolor, only a few b/w prints survive today and the film has never been released to home video.

Plays with Noah’s Lark (Paramount, 1929), the first “Talkartoon” produced by the legendary Fleischer brothers (Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman), which premiered the very same month as The Mysterious Island. Directed by Dave Fleischer, animated by Al Eugster, music supervision by Max M. Manne.

Program Notes

• Search and Rescue: Sound Found program notes – 2 pp., illus. (PDF, 664 kb)

Original Posters

US poster for The Mysterious Island (1929)

French poster for The Mysterious Island (1929)

Contemporary Critical Reception

New York Times, 1929

“[J]ust the sort of thing that will fill children with mingled feelings of awe and delight. A fantastic undersea melodrama.”

Variety, 1929

“[A] wealth of special sets, costumes, mechanical devices and elaborate miniatures. Its impressiveness and unusualness are unquestioned, and therein rest its box office possibilities.”

Survivial of Film and Sound Elements of The Mysterious Island (1929)

No complete prints of The Mysterious Island (1929) with the original tinting and two-color Technicolor sequences are known to survive in any format. However, a single 35mm nitrate reel from the original release is in the non-circulating collection of the UCLA Film and Television Archive. According to the available catalog information, it is from a Dutch release print (with Dutch intertitles), and consists of a mixture of amber-tinted and two-color Technicolor footage.

Sea creatures from The Mysterious Island (1929)

The UCLA archives also hold a complete set of original Vitaphone record discs. These may be the same set of discs discovered in 1995, as reported by The Vitaphone Project in their newsletter Vitaphone News (vol. 3, no. 1; Summer/Fall 1995).

At some point, reportedly in the 1950s, 16mm black-and-white sound reduction prints were made by MGM for television distribution. 16mm prints were also made for the home and educational markets apparently well into the 1970s; tonight’s print is believed to have been struck in 1977.

The Turner Library has a complete print of unknown format, but probably a 16mm TV print released circa the late 1950s or early ’60s — probably the same version shown tonight. On rare occasions the film is shown on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel.

It seems probable that other film archives might have prints in one format or another, but exhaustive Internet searches have produced no information to that effect. The sole known exception to this is Swank, a non-theatrical distributor which offers a 16mm print for rent.

Home Video

Closer view of a sea creature from The Mysterious Island (1929)

To the best of our knowledge, the 1929 version of The Mysterious Island was never officially released to home video. The IMDB.com records for the film indicate a LaserDisc version was released, but no other information is provided — no distributor, no year(s): it’s literally a empty page. Given that IMDB is prone to error (for example, J. Ernest Williamson is listed as Producer when he only did special second-unit underwater photography), and in the absence of any other confirmation, we believe this not to be true.

DVD-R copies occasionally appear on the collectors’ grey market, and copies are known to circulate on the BitTorrent file-sharing network. But given the rarity of physical prints, these are probably video captures of a cable-cast by Turner Classic Movies made by enterprising aficionados. Even these are fairly rare.

Related Links

• The Mysterious Island (1929) — extensive plot summary and commentary by “Lyzard” from the web site, And You Call Yourself a Scientist
• UCLA Film & Television Archive catalog entry: The Mysterious Island (1929) — details about the single nitrate film reel (Dutch version) and the complete set of original Vitaphone sound discs in their collection.
• J. Ernest Williamson — Williamson was the first filmmaker to actually shoot underwater, using a kind of special diving bell he called the “photosphere.” He was engaged by MGM to shoot what were intended to be positively epic scenes for The Mysterious Island. However, extended production complications and consecutive hurricanes hitting his Bahamanian location resulted in the destruction of the huge underwater sets and ultimately only a couple of his shots made it into the final release. Learn more about his pioneering work below.
  • “With Williamson Beneath the Sea” by Brian Taves (Journal of Film Preservation, Volume XXV No. 52, April 1996)
  • Williamson’s ‘Photosphere’ by Gidi Raanan

Further Reading

Sadly, there is precious little information to be found about The Mysterious Island (1929). Some of the better science fiction film encyclopedias and a handful of web sites include capsule descriptions of it.

Following are recommended books relevant to early sound films, early animation and the Fleischer brothers, and related topics.

• The Coming of Sound by Douglas Gomery (NY: Routledge, 2005) — The best place to start for those interested in the subject. A short, scholarly-yet-approachable, and absolutely outstanding book on the advent of sound film, capably and convincingly (albeit somewhat bitterly) challenging core assumptions by Crafton. Includes a chapter on non-US sound innovations.
• The Talkies: American Cinema’s Transition to Sound 1926-1931 by Donald Crafton (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997) — Widely acknowledged as the best (if Amero-centric) history of the conversion from silent to sound film.
• The Shattered Silents: How The Talkies Came to Stay by Alexander Walker (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1979) — A shorter, more approachable history of the early talkie era, though some of its facts have since been superceded by research by Gomery, Crafton and others.
• Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928 by Donald Crafton (University of Chicago Press, 1982; 1993 ed.) — The authoritative work on silent-era animation, with extensive discussion of the vital role played by Max and Dave Fleischer. The 1993 edition includes a new afterword with with chapter-by-chapter updates.
• How Motion Pictures Are Made by Homer Croy (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1918) — Includes a lengthy discussion of the underwater photography innovations by J. Ernest Williamson. Extremely rare, but it can be found in the non-circulating reference collection of the Seattle Public Library, and on the Google Books web site (where it can also be downloaded as a PDF).
• Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin (NY: Plume, 1987 rev. ed.) — An excellent and profusely-illustrated historical survey, which devotes an entire chapter to the career of the Fleischer brothers.
• Out of the Inkwell: Max Fleischer and the Animation Revolution by Richard Fleischer (University Press of Kentucky, 2005).
• Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of Häxan, the World’s Strangest Film, and the Man Who Made It by Jack Stevenson (Godalming, England: FAB Press, 2006) — Includes a relatively brief section about Benjamin Christensen’s tenure at MGM, including his stint as director of The Mysterious Island. Also a highly recommended (if slim) book about the titular film and the director.