Douglas Fairbanks and Benjamin Christensen Films Play at This Year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival

STILL: THE BLACK PIRATE (1926). SOURCE: SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL.

At this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival — described by eminent critic Leonard Maltin as “a feast for lovers of classic film and live music that is as elaborate, ambitious, and masterfully mounted as any I've seen” — THE BLACK PIRATE (1926) starring silent-era superstar Douglas Fairbanks, will screen, in addition to HAXAN, directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen. This year’s festival begins on April 10th and runs through April 14th, with Fairbanks’ film playing on opening night. GME is proud to distribute, to the North American university market, 11 Fairbanks films in the DVD collection DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS: A MODERN MUSKETEER. GME also distributes two Christensen titles on DVD in the collection BENJAMIN CHRISTENSEN: SEALED ORDERS / BLIND JUSTICE.

THE BLACK PIRATE, recently restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation in Cooperation with the British Film Institute, is credited with setting the standard for the modern Hollywood pirate adventure film. It follows a nobleman (played by Fairbanks) “disguised as a buccaneer who out-connives the most nefarious of high-seas villains in pursuit of justice.” The film plays at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, with live musical accompaniment by the Donald Sosin Ensemble, on the 10th, at 7:30pm.

HAXAN, Christensen’s “spectacle-laden masterwork,” traces “the evolution of witchcraft from its pagan roots to the psychoanalyst’s couch. Ultimately a denunciation of witch-hunt hysteria, [the film] is a technical marvel, rife with lurid images of satanic orgies, sadomasochistic priests, and possessed nuns.” HAXAN plays at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, with live musical accompaniment by the Matti Bye Ensemble, on the 12th, at 8:15pm.

STILL: HAXAN (1922). SOURCE: SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL.

GME’s publication DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS: A MODERN MUSKETEER is a five-disc collection that “includes eleven of the delightful modern-dress comedies, westerns, satires, dream-fantasies and romances which made Douglas Fairbanks a popular hero, before he launched into the costume spectacles for which he is best remembered today.” Bonus features include a facsimile of Fairbanks’ contract with Triangle-Fine Arts, optional audio commentary by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta on A MODERN MUSKETEER (1918), a 32-page booklet with chapters on each film in the set, and galleries of rare stills from Fairbanks’ personal collection, courtesy of the Douglas Fairbanks Collection, the Margaret Herrick Library, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

BENJAMIN CHRISTENSEN: SEALED ORDERS / BLIND JUSTICE showcases the innovative Danish director’s first two films: 1914’s SEALED ORDERS and 1916’s BLIND JUSTICE. New music by composer Neil Brand accompanies the films.

To learn more about how to acquire DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS: A MODERN MUSKETEER and BENJAMIN CHRISTENSEN: SEALED ORDERS / BLIND JUSTICE from GME for institutional use, please visit the ordering info page on our website.