We mark 100 years since silent cinema reached its extraordinary peak as an international art form – distinct and different from the sound cinema that dominated screens from the 1930s, and, in some respects, superior.
This season, entitled MASTERWORKS OF SILENT CINEMA, 1924–1926: Classics & Rediscoveries celebrates both acknowledged masterpieces and bold rediscoveries from across the world, offering a rich cross-section of styles, from realism and psychological drama to avant-garde experimentation.
Hitchcock’s third feature, made for Michael Balcon’s new Gainsborough studios, The Lodger established Hitchcock as a name director. But the film was almost not released at all. After a private industry screening, distributor C.M. Woolf told the director: “Your picture is so dreadful, that we're just going to put it on the shelf and forget about it”. The film was saved by Balcon and a young film enthusiast (later director, theorist and friend of Eisenstein), Ivor Montagu: Hitchcock re-shot a few rough sequences, while Montagu reduced the number of title cards by three-quarters (!), and added designs by artist E. McKnight Kauffer. When this second version which was shown to the press in September 1926, the trade journal Bioscope pronounced: “It is possible that this film is the finest British production ever made”. (Info: BFI.)
📽️ Doors open 5.30, for drinks & nibbles. Films start 6.30 with a brief introduction from the curators.
📽️ Entry is free with a yearly ticket, although we suggest a small donation of £5 per head to help us keep the lights on! Yearly tickets giving full access to the museum can be purchased on the door (£7.50 adult / £6.00 concessions).
📽️ If you buy tickets and are subsequently unable to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can give your seat(s) to someone else.