This must be my lucky day! I awoke to discover that BAMcinématek would be presenting all nine of Alfred Hitchcock’s surviving silent films. These are rumored to display the autuer’s genius from the first still.
The British Film Institute took on the monumental task of bringing nine of ten films Hitchcock direct in 1920s back to life—missing footage restored, decades of damage and dirt removed, and new scores commissioned for each—these are key works in the development of one of the world’s most famous directors. Among the nine black-and-white silent films, are Hitchcock’s first film The Pleasure Garden (1926) and what he called his first “true Hitchcock picture” The Lodger (1926). A the restorations will truly be an invaluable addition to British silent cinema and a huge win for film preservation everywhere. – MD
Source: Bam.org
The Ring
The most visually sophisticated of Hitchcock’s silent films, and his only film based on an original screenplay, The Ringfollows a love triangle against the backdrop of a traveling carnival.
+ Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
Blackmail
In Hitchcock’s last silent film, a woman kills her would-be attacker, only to find herself the victim of a shady blackmailer. This masterful thriller culminates in a breathless chase through the British Museum.
+ Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
In “the first true Hitchcock movie,” as the Master himself dubbed it, matinee idol Ivor Novello was cast against type as a Jack the Ripper-type serial killer who stalks London for blonde victims.
+ Live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra
The Manxman
A stormy love triangle wrenches apart two boyhood friends in this romantic drama, one of the best films of Hitchcock’s early career.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Stephen Horne
Downhill
In this “wrong man” drama, a star rugby player goes from golden boy to public disgrace when he takes the blame for a school chum who’s gotten a girl pregnant.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Stephen Horne
The Farmer’s Wife
Filled with subtle slapstick and inventive camerawork, this breezy bucolic comedy chronicles a widowed middle-aged farmer’s search for a new wife among the local womenfolk.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Stephen Horne
Easy Virtue
Falsely accused of infidelity by her husband, a society woman is dragged through the courts in this quintessentially Hitchcockian adaptation of a Noël Coward play.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Stephen Horne
The Pleasure Garden
Hitchcock’s directorial debut is a delirious melodrama about the romantic ups and downs of a showgirl and her provincial friend. This restoration brings to light 20 minutes of footage not seen since 1926.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Steve Sterner
Champagne
This stylishly frothy comedy chronicles a bratty flapper’s descent into working-class subsistence. Among its stylistic innovations: cinema history’s first freeze-frame.
+ Live musical accompaniment by pianist Steve Sterner
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