NFPF News

When Buster Keaton Met Samuel Beckett: FILM and NOTFILM

Buster Keaton caught by the camera in FILM (1965).

Sometimes preservation can give a film a second life, or even inspire a movie about it. A case in point is FILM (1965), an avant-garde short that united two great 20th-century artists: Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton.

Producer Barney Rosset, founder of Grove Press and Beckett’s publisher, envisioned producing a trilogy of short films written by his most famous clients, but only Beckett’s script made it to the big screen. It remains the only movie written by the Nobel Prize–winning author/playwright, who closely supervised the Brooklyn-set production during his only trip to America. Director Alan Schneider was a longtime Beckett collaborator who had staged the first American production of Waiting for Godot, while the cinematographer was Oscar-winner Boris Kaufman (On the Waterfront).

The star, in one of his last major roles, was … Read more

NFPF Preserved Film Screenings

The title card of Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921).

The NFPF blog awakens from its winter hibernation to bring you news of two NFPF-related screenings. This Wednesday, February 24, Executive Director Jeff Lambert will present “NFPF Preservation Highlights,” consisting of films saved through our grant programs (or appearing on our Treasures DVDs) at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California. Jeff will provide an overview of the NFPF’s activities and will introduce eight movies representing the wide range of our projects, with highlights such as Notes on the Port of St. Francis (1951), Frank Stauffacher’s poetic portrait of San Francisco, narrated by Vincent Price, and Lyman H. Howe’s Famous Ride on a Runaway Train (1921), a thrill-packed novelty short filmed from the train that inspired America’s first roller coasters. The film, … Read more

NFPF Preserved Films at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

Anna May Wong in Drifting (1923).

Held annually in Pordenone, northern Italy, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is the biggest and most prestigious silent film festival in the world. The 34th edition, beginning October 3, will showcase five films preserved through the NFPF’s grant programs.

From George Eastman House come two premieres of recently completed restorations. Thirty Years of Motion Pictures (1927) is a film adaptation of pioneering producer and publicist Terry Ramsaye's history book on the early movie industry, A Million and One Nights (1926). The documentary includes scenes from lost films such as D.W. Griffith’s 1914 version of The Battle of the Sexes.

Drifting (1923) is Todd Browning’s underworld saga about opium smuggling in China, starring Priscilla Dean, Wallace Beery, and Anna May Wong. GEH has restored the film by drawing on a nitrate print … Read more

The National Film Preservation Foundation at the Exploratorium

33 Yo-Yo Tricks (1976)

On Thursday, September 17th, the Exploratorium in San Francisco will present “Scintillating 16mm: Newly Preserved Gems from American Archives,” a program of eight films from all corners of America. From Faces and Fortunes (1960), a sponsored film that uses animation and collage to extoll the benefits of brand recognition through the ages, to the appropriately titled 33 Yo-Yo Tricks (1976), the screening celebrates a love of cinematic technique and exploration.

Also on the program are short documentaries such as Tom Palazzolo’s Jerry’s (1976), a breakneck portrait of a Chicago deli owner; avant-garde films from Ian Hugo and Stuart Sherman; and Stop Cloning Around (1980) from amateur filmmaking legend Sid Laverents.

Please visit the Exploratorium’s website for a full program and details on how to attend.

NFPF Preserved Films at Cinecon

Douglas Fairbanks in Wild and Woolly (1917).

From September 3-7 an eclectic roster of classic films will be screened at Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, thanks to the Cinecon Classic Film Festival, a Labor Day-weekend tradition that turns 51 years old this year. Cinecon’s mission is to showcase movies that have been rarely given public screenings, and we’re happy to report that seven of this year’s films were preserved through NFPF programs.

Three will grace the big screen for the first time in over nine decades. These shorts are recent highlights of our ongoing repatriation project with EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and the American archival community. The titles are: The Darling of the CSA (1912), the tale of a daring crossdressing spy, played by Anna Q. Nilsson, who defies capture to secure explosives for the Confederate army; Red Saunders' Sacrifice (1912), a Western in which a … Read more