Mobile Navigation
Access every screening in the UCLA Festival of Preservation with a $50 pass.
Live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick.
The Frame-up on Dad (1915)
Preservation funding provided by Beth Wallis.
A father’s plan to arrange a marriage for his son goes awry when the son marries another woman, then brings her back to meet the family disguised as man. What could go wrong?
35mm, b/w, 16 min. Production: Nestor Film Company. Distribution: Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Director: Horace Davey. Scenario: Al Christie. Cast: Harry L. Rattenberry, Billie Rhodes, Ray Gallagher, Jean Hathaway.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Archive Film Agency. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory.
Across the Hall (1916)
Preservation funded provided by The Packard Humanities Institute.
When the Greens move into a new apartment, Mrs. Green is concerned that Mr. Green is a bit too interested in the comely Mrs. Smith living in the apartment across the hall. Returning home drunk later that evening, Mr. Green accidently enters the Smiths’ apartment, setting off a humorous chain of events.
35mm, b/w, 13 min. Production: Nestor Film Company. Distribution: Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Director: Horace Davey. Scenario: Al E. Christie. Cast: Neal Burns, Ethel Lynne, Ray Gallagher, Billie Rhodes.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Archive Film Agency. Preserved from two incomplete nitrate prints. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Title House Digital.
Brotherhood of Man (1912)
Preservation funding provided by Beth Wallis.
In this moving drama, a young man discovers his old athletic instructor panhandling on the street, and becomes determined to find a way to earn the money necessary to secure the older man’s survival.
35mm, b/w, tinted, 13 min. Production: Selig Polyscope Company, Inc. Distribution: General Film Company, Inc. Producer: William Nicholas Selig. Director: Frank Beal. Writer: William Duncan. Cast: William Duncan, Kathlyn Williams, Myrtle Stedman, Frank Weed.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Archive Film Agency. Laboratory services by YCM, The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory.
The Time-Lock Safe (1910)
Restoration funding provided by “The Time-Lock Safe” Restoration Fund, The Silent Movie Benefit Calendar and the Silent Film Society of Chicago.
Early movie star Florence Lawrence appears in this dramatic farce, in which the police pay a famous burglar to save the life of a child thought to be trapped inside a bank’s time-lock safe. Also stars King Baggot and Owen Moore (Mary Pickford’s first husband).
35mm, b/w, 12 min. Production: IMP (Independent Moving Picture Co.). Distribution: IMP. Producer: Carl Laemmle. Director: Harry Solter. Cast: King Baggott, Florence Lawrence, Owen Moore.
Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive from a nitrate print. Laboratory services by Film Technology Company, Inc., The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Pacific Title & Art Studio. Special thanks to Sally Dumaux, Rodney Sauer.
The Hobble Skirt (1910)
Restoration funding provided by The Society for Cinephiles/Cinecon, Inc., Rodney Sauer and the Silent Film Society of Chicago.
Ben Turpin stars as Happy Mike, a tramp hired by an actress to deliver her hobble skirt to the Baby Fund Bazaar. Instead, the tramp dons the skirt himself and impersonates the actress, igniting chaos and an epic chase.
35mm, b/w, 8 min. Production: IMP (Independent Moving Picture Co.). Distribution: Motion Picture Distribution and Sales Co. Producer: Carl Laemmle. Cast: Ben Turpin.
Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive from a nitrate print. Laboratory services by Film Technology Company, Inc., The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Title House Digital.
The Sale of a Heart (1913)
Preservation funding provided by Beth Wallis.
To avoid ruin, an impoverished count arranges a marriage between his daughter and a wealthy man she does not love. After an accident, she is taken in by a gifted artist (Maurice Costello) who saves her from an unseemly fate.
35mm, b/w, tinted, 15 min. Production: Vitagraph Company of America. Distribution: General Film Company, Inc. Director: Maurice Costello, Robert Gaillard. Writer: W. A. Tremayne. Cast: Maurice Costello, Mary Charleson, Tefft Johnson, Brinsley Shaw.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Archive Film Agency. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory.
Captain Jinks' Evolution (1916)
Preservation funding provided by Beth Wallis.
Mrs. Jinks dreams that her milquetoast husband was more of a manly brute—at least until a life-saving blood transfusion changes him into her worst nightmare.
35mm, b/w, 14 min. Production: Vitagraph Company of America. Distribution: Greater Viagraph (V-L-S-E). Director: Lawrence Semon. Writer: C. Graham Baker. Cast: Frank Daniels.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Archive Film Agency. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory.
Beware of Married Men (1928)
Preservation funding provided by the Academy Film Archive.
A press sheet printed in Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World in 1928 put forth the suggestion that “people in the need of a good hearty laugh should take this opportunity of getting it” by seeing a newly released comedy by Warner Bros., suggestively entitled Beware of Married Men. Since director Archie Mayo (The Petrified Forest) helmed this feature during the dying days of the silent era, the studio sought to enhance its commercial viability by embellishing the shot-silent picture with a synchronized music and effects soundtrack using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Ultimately, these efforts went for naught, as the picture failed at the box office and quickly disappeared from theaters.
Irene Rich stars as Myra Martin, who—while harboring unrequited feelings for her divorce attorney boss (Richard Tucker)—is attempting to save her younger sister Helene (Audrey Ferris) from the unscrupulous clutches of dastardly married man Huntley Sheldon (Stuart Holmes). When her sister unexpectedly elopes with someone else, Myra suddenly finds herself the object of Huntley’s unseemly affections, and must find a way to avoid both him and the wrath of his jealous wife (Myrna Loy).
While critics of the day were not kind to the picture (one reviewer summed up his thoughts by simply stating “It’s all very unfortunate”), many expressed praise for actress Irene Rich and her performance in the film. Rich, who became an actress at the ripe old age of 27, found cinematic fame portraying long-suffering wives in domestic dramas long before evolving into a radio star in the 1930s. The film is also notable for the pre-fame appearance of Myrna Loy during her “vamps, tramps, and exotics” period, just one of eight feature roles that the studio cast her in that year.
This screening presents the surviving portions of this long-lost film thanks to the co-preservation efforts of the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Academy Film Archive. Both archives teamed up to copy the surviving reels in their collections (everything that is known to exist on this title), totaling roughly half of the movie’s original footage.—Steven K. Hill
35mm, b/w, silent, 28 min. (fragment). Production: Warner Brothers. Distribution: Warner Brothers. Director: Archie L. Mayo. Screenwriter: E. T. Lowe, Jr. Cinematographer: Frank Kesson. Cast: Irene Rich, Clyde Cook, Audrey Ferris, Stuart Holmes, Myrna Loy.
Preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with the Academy Film Archive. Laboratory services by YCM Laboratories.
Total program running time: 119 min.
