So the Silent Film Festival at Pordenone is well under way. For some of us this is a welcome return after a break of a couple of years; and the sun has shone on nus every day. And all is well inside the New Verdi Theatre as well.

Fans of westerns have enjoyed several films by Harry Carey. The Fox (1921) was one screened in a 35mm print. Carey as Santa Fe seems  like a hobo. And early in the film he fails at several jobs. But at the climax he is a leading figure in an  assault on the hideout of the The Painted Cliffs gang. Shot in the Mojave Desert there are great locations on desert terrain and rocky cliffs. The action is spectacular and we have a surprise revelation regarding Santa Fe by the end. This was a Universal Jewel production with a story by Carey himself.

The opening night event was a French maritime drama directed by Julien Duvivier. Set in Brittany, in the first part a crew of a decrepit sailing ship suffer shipwreck. In the latter part of this drama a rescue ship searches for the lost sailors. This had both slightly implausible coincidence and an even larger amount of religion. But visually the movie was inventive and stylish. The screening used a DCP holding a restoration of the film in 2021, And the musical accompaniment was composed by Antonia Coppola and performed by the Octuor de France.

The Canon Revisited offered not just a revisiting of a fine western but also a memorable event of an earlier Giornate, Back in 1994 William Wyler’s Hell’s Heroes (1929) was screened in the silent version on 35mm; this year we had a DCP. The film ends after three ‘bad guys’ redeem themselves, appropriately enough at the Christmas festival. The townspeople of New Jerusalem assemble in  their wooden church and sing Silent Night as the last bad guy collapses at the end of his rescue mission. This was rendered by a choir secretly invested in the cinema; in 2023 on the ground floor, and the first and second balconies. You have not really experienced this version of Three Godfathers unless you have enjoyed the union of vision and sound.

The Slapstick programme included Walter Forde’s Would You Believe it? from 1929. The screening was delayed for two days thanks to custom controls; another victim of ‘brexit’, Still the final and inventive chase was worth waiting for.

There are several more days to go and a number of tempting treats awaiting guests here.

Silent Cinema is alive and well.