You might not think about attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, unless you’re a film buff. But all musicians know what makes silent film sound. The 1920s were the great era of movie-house orchestras. Even Louis Armstrong played in one for a time. While most of the musical scores for silent films are missing or otherwise inaccessible, bands of dedicated musicians are creating music to fill the gaps. So if you’re intrigued by this merging of old and new, the Castro Theater is the place to be from July 14 to 17.
The Silent Film Festival has actually commissioned scores to some of these movies, and all movies are accompanied by live music. The headline discovery is Upstream (1929), a long-lostfilm by a young John Ford, with new music by Donald Sosin, a 30-year vet of the silent-film scoring biz, whose music has appeared on DVD releases of several classics, including Nosferatu.
Sweden’s Matti Bye and his ensemble were commissioned, through Barbro Osher’s Pro Suecia Foundation, to provide the music for three of the Festival films, including the very first Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release He Who Gets Slapped (1924), starring Lon Chaney. Also intriguing is a rare Marlene Dietrich feature, The Woman Men Yearn For (1929) with music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. This Colorado-based quintet (OK, not an orchestra), plays scores that they compile out of hundreds of actual preserved arrangements, which were mostly owned by movie house orchestra leaders. Sounds cool, right?