You’re gonna look at this list after the cut and go “girl you watched how many movies???” and I’ll be like “so many movies!” Mostly silent movies because it’s that time of year:Pordenone Silent Film Festival! This year I watched a little over 200 films at Pordenone Silent counting films I’d seen before (with exactly 200 of them were new-to-me!). I also peppered in a few highly anticipated 2017 releases and a few more silents on FilmStruck (because they’re addicting!) As always, you can see all the films I saw in October, plus a breakdown of years (spoiler alert: about a third of them were from the 1910s!), after the cut.

1. Three Days To Live (1924)
2. Calino veut être cow-boy
3. Pendaison à Jefferson City
4. La prairie en feu
5. Cent dollars mor ou vif
6. Le revolver matrimonial
7. The Scapegrace
8. La Baronne Raymonde de LaRoche, aviatrice
9. L’aviatrice mademoiselle Marvingt, décolle de mourmelon
10. Madame Hélène Dutrieu, aviatrice vers 1915
11. La vie aérienne sur l’aérodrome d’Orly, mademoiselle Adrienne Bolland a battu son
12. propre record en exécutant 212 fois le looping
13. L’autre aile
14. The World And The Women (1916)
15. Synnöve Solbakken (A Norway Lass) (1919)
16. How Bridget Served The Salad Undressed
17. How Bridget Made The Fire
18. The Finish of Bridget McKeen
19. La course à la saucisse
20. Victoire à ses nerfs
21. Le rêve des marmitons
22. Her First Biscuits
23. Lucky Jim (1909)
24. Het Onwillige Dienstmeisje (The Reluctant Housemaid)
25. Le signe de Pétronille
26. Een Dierenvriend (Animal Lover)
27. Are Waitresses Safe?
28. Shima No Musume (The Island Girl)
29. Call Of The Cuckoo
30. Don’t Tell Everything
31. Le contremaître incendaire
32. L’emigrante (1915)
33. Fauno
34. Feeding The Pigeons In St. Mark’s Square
35. Grand Canal, Venice
36. Panoramic View of the Vegetable Market, Venice
37. Neapolitan Dance At The Ancient Forum of Pompeii
38. Panoramic View of the Frere Camp Taken The Front of an Armored Train
39. Menai Bridge: The Irish Daily Mail From Euston Entering The Tubular Bridge
40. Warships At Sunset
41. Amann The Great Impersonator
42. Prestwych Platform Scene
43. Fat Ox 1897. Car of the ‘She-Cats’ – The Hats
44. Vienna Street Scene
45. Panorama of Pompeii
46. Fun On A Clothesline
47. Kavirondongrene Paa Fisk (Kavirondo Tribe Members Fishing)
48. Der Gelbe Schein (The Yellow Ticket)
49. Lesniye Liudi (Forest People)
50. Tungusi (Tungus)
51. Le bateau de Léontine
52. Les ficelle de Léontine
53. Léontine en apprentissage
54. Ventilateur breveté
55. Les malices de Léontine
56. Amour et musique
57. Un ravalement précipité
58. Rosalie et son phonographe
59. Rosalie et Léontine vont au théâtre
60. Rosalie emménage
61. Léontine garde la maison
62. Fiore Selvaggio
63. Tvä Hungrande Städer Vid Donau (Two Starving Cities on the Danube)
64. 1917 Val Duchesse
65. La Paura Degli Aeromobili Nemici
66. Les ruines des ville d’armentières lens et la bassée
67. La vie reprend dans les régions libérées
68. Massaiernes Menn Og Kvinner (Maasai Men and Women)
69. Fante-Anne (Gypsy Anne)
70. Mieux valait la nuit
71. Amma, le voyeur aveugle
72. Le coeur et les yeux
73. [Messter-Woche:] Modeschau Im Zoo
74. Water Lilies (1911)
75. Mr. Myope chasse
76. Le mensonge de Jean le Manchot
77. Blindeninstituut En Ooglijdersgasthuis Te Bandoeng (Insitute For the Blind Home in Bandung)
78. A Flash of Light
79. Trappola
80. Now We’re In The Air
81. The Reckless Age
82. Schatten: Eine Nächtliche Halluzination (Warning Shadows)
83. Die Bergkatze (The Wildcat)
84. Le railway de la morte
85. Face au taureau
86. Nel Paese dell’Oro
87. Onésime sur le sentier de la guerre
88. Kikujunegrene Danser (Kikuyu Tribe Members Dancing)
89. Captain F.E. Kleinschmidt’s Artic Hunt
90. Il Baco Da Seta
91. La Guerra Italo-Turca
92. La Gloriosa Battaglia Del 12 Marzo A Begasi Nell’Oasi Delle Due Palme
93. The Victorious Battle For the Conquest of Mergheb, Africa
94. La Vita Dei Nostri Ascari Eritrei In Libia
95. Plotoni Nuotatori Della 3 Divisione Cavalleria Comandata Da S.A.R. IL Conte Di Torino
    Sixième Bataille De L’Insonzo
96. Kaffeplantasje I Afrika/Kenya (Coffee Plantation In Kenya)
97. Aelita
98. Vem Dömer? (Love’s Crucible)
99. Ménilmontant
100. Fièvre
101. Il Fiacre N. 13 (1917)
102. Viaggio In Caucaso E Persia
103. Daleko Na Sever (Far In The North)
104. The Right To Happiness
105. Mediolanum
106. 24e chasseurs alpins: sauts d’obstacles
107. Danse au bivouac
108. Fête au village
109. Pompiers: alerte
110. Salut dans les vergues
111. Fête du palais-royal #1
112. Fête du palais-royal #2
113. Fête du palais-royal #3: re-enactment of scene from Notre-Dame de Paris
114. Panoramic Painting of the Battlefield
115. Military Parade at the Cour d’Honneur in Versailles
116. Panorama on the Creuse river #1
117. Dam on the Creuse river
118. Panorama on the Creuse river #2
119. Paper Manufacture
120. Journalists and Typographers In Editorial Office
121. Men Unloading A Train
122. Train Pulling Into A Factory
123. Carmen (1918)
124. Nebuvalyi Pokhid (An Unprecedented Campaign)
125. Tokyo No Yado (An Inn In Tokyo)
126. The Taming of Jane
127. An Up-To-Date Squaw
128. The Corporal’s Daughter
129. The Night Rider
130. Patouillard a une femme jalouse
131. Lea Bambola
132. The Circus Imps
133. The Pouting Model
134. Living Pictures Production
135. Birth of the Pearl
136. Un duel après le bal
     
137. Spirit of ’76
138. Combat sur la voie ferrée (1898)
139. Combat sur la voie ferrée (1899)
140. Mort de marat
141. Charlotte Corday (1908)
142. Death of Nelson
143. Les dernières cartouches (1897)
144. Les dernières cartouches (1899)
145. Les dernières cartouches / Bombardment d’une Miason
146. La fiancée du volontaire
147. Flagrant délit d’adultère
148. Le jugement de Phryné
149. Akt-Skulpturen
150. La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (1902)
151. Vie et passion de N.S. Jésus-Christ
152. La vie et la passion de Jésus-Christ (1897)
153. La nativité
154. Les cloches du soir
155. Rouget de lisle chantant la Marseillaise
156. What Are the Wild Waves Saying, Sister?
157. Waiting For Santa Claus
158. Le réveil de Chrysis
159. Le bain des dame de la cour
160. An Affair of Honor
161. The Spirit of His Forefathers
162. The Whisky of His Ancestors
163. Der Golem (1915)
164. Der Gang In Die Nacht
165. Il Carnevale Di Nizza
166. La Campana Dei Caduti Rovereto 24 Maggio 1925
167. Le femme rêvée
168. Glomdalsbruden (The Bride of Glomdal)
169. Sulla Vie Dell’Oro
170. Manden Uden Fremtid (The Man Without A Future)
171. Dawn (1928)
172. Lea In Ufficio
173. Lea Sui Pattini
174. Tilly’s Party
175. Cunégonde trop curieuse
176. Cunégonde femme cochère
177. Onésime et la toilette de mademoiselle Badinois
     
178. Everybody’s Doing It
     
179. She’s A Prince
     
180. Thora Van Deken (A Mother’s Fight)
     
181. La chasse aux signes
     
182. The World and Its Women
     
183. Antologia Filmati Neuropatologici Realizzati Dal Prof. Camillo Negro Con Robert
184. Omegna
     
185. Med Bærerkaravene Gjennem Østrafika (By Caravan Through East Africa)
     
186. A Fool There Was (1915)
     
187. Mania. Die Geschichte Einer Zigarettenarbeiterin (Mania. The Story of a Cigarette Factory Worker)
     
188. Kara-Dag Zhemchuzhina Vostochnogo Kryma (Kara-Dag. The Pearl of Eastern Crimea)
     
189. Podvig Vo L’Dakh (Feat in the Ice)
     
190. Anna-Liisa
     
191. Seven Footprints To Satan
     
192. Après L’Incendie De Salonique, Août 1917
     
193. La croix rouge suisse accueille des réfugiés française en gare de bäle
     
194. La femme française pendant la guerre (1918)
     
195. Noël de guerre (1916)
     
196. Morænen (The House of Shadows)
     
197. The Deadlier Sex
     
198. le rosier miraculeux
     
199. The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
     
200. Careers (1929)
     
201. Dolores (2017)
     
202. Bardelys the Magnificent
     
203. Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
     
204. Battle of the Sexes
     
205. Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)
     
206. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages
     
207. Madam Satan
     
208. Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton
     
209. Fright Night (2011)
     
210. The Florida Project
     
211. 2 Guns
     
212. Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
     
213. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
214. Poltergeist (1982)

1880s: 0
1890s: 40
1900s: 33
1910s: 78
1920s: 42
1930s: 6
1940s: 0
1950s: 0
1960s: 0
1970s: 1
1980s: 1
1990s: 0
2000s: 0
2010s: 9

For my “favorites” section this month I am just going to write about the films I saw at Pordenone. I think a few of the 2017 releases I watched this month will make it to my end of the year round up, so I’ll touch on them eventually.

The Wild Cat, 1921 (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

I don’t think I’d ever seen a Pola Negri film until this year’s Pordenone Silent. Every festival they have several running themes throughout the week and this year a spotlight on Negri was one of them. While I enjoyed all of the films they showed featuring her, this was my absolute favorite. It’s a romantic comedy about a woman who lives with a band of outlaws in Siberia (or some snowy part of Russia/Europe), who falls in love with a lothario and causes chaos all around her. There is a dream sequence where Negri eats his heart. It is fantastic.

Ménilmontant, 1926 (dir. Dimitri Kirsanoff)

The faces on the actresses in this film are so modern! This film has one of the most jarring opening scenes I have ever seen – and it feels like it could have been shot yesterday! After being orphaned at a young age twin sisters try to make a life for themselves in Paris – only to be taken advantage of by the same man. Director Dimitri Kirsanoff use new techniques like double exposure, soviet-style montage, and no inter-titles makes this film a truly unique experience. Pauline Kael often called it her favorite film.

Nebuvalyi Pokhid, 1931 (dir. Mikhail Kaufman)

This is Soviet film that Mikhail Kaufman made after his split with his brother Dziga Vertov, celebrating the Five Year Plan. Kaufman had a lot more authorship of Man With A Movie Camera than he is given credit and this film really shows that a lot of the lyricism of that film came from him. Imagine that film, but set in the countryside and you get an idea of what this is like. Kaufman captures the joy of human experience like few filmmakers before or after him.

Der Gang in Die Nacht, 1921 (dir. F. W. Murnau)

This is F.W. Murnau’s oldest extant feature film and it simply blew me away. What they presented at Pordenone was a new restoration (this image is not from that restoration) that is absolutely beautiful. It does justice to Conrad Veidt’s stunning features. Veidt plays a blind painter, who finds himself in the middle of a married couple. Disaster ensues, obviously.

A Fool There Was, 1915 (dir. Frank Powell)

Of the 40 films made featuring Theda Bera, only 6 complete films are extant. This amazing tawdry film is one of them. Theda Bera’s character is known as “the vampire” – this is where “vamp” meaning a seductress comes from. She seduces rich men and sucks them dry – of their money, of their love, of their time, and ultimately of their lives.

The Deadlier Sex, 1920 (dir. Robert Thornby)

When a woman inherits her father’s railroad, she finds the business practices of her rival so unsavory she has him kidnapped and set in a secluded forest where his money cannot help him. The two fall in love, obviously. This film also features a drop dead gorgeous, young Boris Karloff as a shifty fur trapper. I cannot find a single picture of him and it is a crying shame!

The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg, 1927 (dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

I did not know anything about this film going into it and I thought that it was going to be a romantic comedy. After the film ended I was drained of my will to live. Yes, it is a sad one. But it is wonderfully romantic and features great performances from Ramón Novarro, Norma Shearer, and Jean Hersholt. Beautiful, devastating, and completely unforgettable.

So that was October. I hope I get to go to Pordenone again next year. It is just so much fun (plus the town has the best gelato I have EVER eaten). But now we’re in #Noirvember! This is Noirvember 8 and there is so much happening around the globe it is fantastic! Let me know on Twitter (@oldfilmsflicker) all the great noir and neo-noir films you are watching this month!