The Master, Restored

The British Film Institute has restored nine silent and early sound films from the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

The films are:

The Pleasure Garden
Blackmail
The Ring
The Lodger: A Tale of the London Fog
Downhill
Easy Virtue
The Farmer's Wife
Champagne
The Manxman

An additional treat can be found in the restorations; an extra twenty minutes of footage from The Pleasure Garden were discovered, allowing the BFI not only to restore the film, but lengthen it, too. Blackmail is being released with a score by Neil Brand - and he's amazing; I've heard his impromptu piano accompaniment to several silent films at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone.  

Hats off to Martin Scorsese and his Film Foundation, which raised most of the money for the restoration! The BFI will hold a festival of all Hitchcock's films during the London Olympiad, and two actors from his films - Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie) and Bruce Dern (Marnie, Family Plot) will speak at the event.

Ray Bradbury

What is a post about Ray Bradbury doing on a silent-film blog?

It's a tribute. As most, if not all, of you know, Mr. Bradbury has passed away. I began to read his stories and books at an early age, and I've been hooked ever since. He wrote of one of his early influences, Lon Chaney, especially in his most famous role, that of Eric in The Phantom of the Opera. I own The Lon Chaney Collection, in which Bradbury speaks of Chaney's characters - that he typified the things in us we felt could never be loved; the fear that nobody, ever, could love us.

Spread a little stardust upon us, Mr. Bradbury.