A VERY SPECIAL SILENT FILM NIGHT...
Friday March 4th 2016
/ When the Earth Trembled;
or, The Strength of Love
Director: Barry O'Neil
Harry Myers, Ethel Clayton, Richard Morris
Pianist: Stephen Horne
Introduced by: Rob Byrne /
BACKGROUND TO THE SCREENING:
On March 4th 1914, The Swan Cinema on Hosey Hill in Westerham opened its doors for the first time and treated its audience to When the Earth Trembled, a spectacular 1913 American silent feature-film about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake centred on the desperate efforts of a mother and her two young children to survive the .event. Around 100 years later Rob Byrne, President of The San Francisco Silent Film Festival and a leading film restorer, embarked on a project to return the film to its former glory. Knowing of the Westerham connection, Rob contacted The Fleapit and we agreed to help fund the project. The coincidences did not end there - Rob then commissioned Stephen Horne to compose and record the score for the restored film. Stephen has played at every one of The Fleapit’s annualSilent Nights since 2002.
And on March 4th 2016 all parties involved will be reunited for a Gala Screening at Westerham Hall - 102 years to the day Westerham first saw the film. Rob is flying in from San Francisco to introduce it and Stephen will be joining us to play his score live.
LOCATION:
Address: Westerham Hall,Quebec Avenue, Westerham. Kent, TN16 1BG
Website for directions & parking details:
Doors and Bar: Open at 7:30PM
Curtain: 8:00PM
TICKETS:
Non-Members: £4 at the door
Members: No charge
TECHNICAL:
We will be screening on Blu-ray at full HD onto our 24’ electric screen.
The restored film includes the original colour tints featured in the original.
NB: There is a 35mm print of the restored film held in the Library of Congress. This was offered to us, but our projection box does not have sufficient space to house the matched pair of projectors required to screen the unique print. Not surprisingly, splicing is not permitted!
ROB BYRNE:
Rob is an independent film restorer and preservationist and President of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. He holds a MA in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam and was the 2011 recipient of the Haghefilm Foundation Fellowship. Specialising in silent era film restoration, Rob has completed projects in conjunction with the EYE Film Institute Netherlands, Cinémathèque Française, British Film Institute, Photoplay Productions, Library of Congress, and the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.
STEPHEN HORNE:
Stephen is considered one of the leading silent film accompanists and is based at the BFI on the Southbank. He plays regularly at the Barbican Centre, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and other major venues. He has composed and recorded music for silent films on DVD and TV. Principally a pianist, he also incorporates flute, accordion and keyboards into his performances - sometimes simultaneously.
He has performed at film festivals in Pordenone, Telluride, San Francisco, Cannes, Bologna, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Rabat and Berlin – and, of course,at The Fleapit’s annualSilent Night.
In addition to working in silent film, Stephen occasionally collaborates with a small group that recreates magic lantern shows. He plays regularly at the London dance academies, writes screenplays and his short film Fatherspace was shown on Channel 4 and at the London Film Festival.
THECAST:
Harry Myers (Paul Girard Jr.);Ethel Clayton (DoraSims);Richard Morris (Richard);Mrs. George W. Walters (CoffeeMary);Bartley McCullum (PaulGirardSr.);Mary Powers (Dora’slittlegirl);Lathan Miegzler (Dora’slittleboy);Peter Lang (John Pearce)
Harry Myers, (the wealthy drunk in Chaplin’s 1931City Lights, left the stage and joined Lubin in 1909.He was soon one of the company’s most popular leading men. In 1913, Myers also began directing films at Lubin.
Ethel Claytonalso started as a stage actress and trod the boards for 10 years before joining the Chicago-based Essanay Film Company in 1909. She moved to Lubin’s company in 1912 and was soon a star, often paired with Harry Myers in both comedies and dramas. She never forgot When the Earth Trembled – during the earthquake scene, a wall collapsed ahead of schedule and as she moved dazedly away, a chandelier fell, hitting her face. Ever the professional, she staggered out of shot before fainting.
CREW & PRODUCTION:
Director: Barry O'Neil; ProducerSiegmund Lubin; Scenario: Edwin Barbour;Production company: Lubin Manufacturing Company; Distributor: The General Film CompanyInc.
The film was shot in a standard 35mm spherical 1.37:1 format.
Barry O'Neilstarted his career as a stage actor and director before entering films in 1909 for the Thanhouser Film Company, directing the studio’s first release. He joined Lubin in 1912 who considered him his pre-eminent director.
SIEGMUND LUBIN & WHEN THE EARTH TREMBLED:
Siegmund Lubszynski was born in Silesia, then in Germany, now in Wrocław, Poland, on April 20th 1851. His parents were German Jews and his father a successful ophthalmologist. Siegmund emigrated to Philadelphia in 1876, changed his name to Lubin and carried on in his father’s footsteps as an optometrist.
But his interests went beyond spectacles and he soon had a sideline producing magic lantern slides. In 1896 he saw a demonstration of a new projection system, the Jenkins/Armat Phantoscope, bought one and then built his own. His Cineograph Projector was born. Later that year he started distributing films for Thomas Edison and within a year was making his own. In 1902 sales of theCineograph were on a decided up and he launched the Lubin Manufacturing Company, expanded his studio and opened a chain of Cineograph ‘cinemas’.
In 1905 nickelodeons hit America – pleasure palaces dedicated to non-stop screenings, day and night. The demand for films had never been greater but the logistics of distribution and rights were originally beyond Lubin and the other major producers and they had no choice but to use unprofessional and unreliable middle-men. Chaos prevailed and the producers realised that their industry needed proper control andso they buried the hatchet and came together to form the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). Part of the deal was to regularise the production and release of films. Lubin, for example, was slated to release two new one-reel (15 minute) films every week – on Mondays and Thursdays. By this time Lubin’s back catalogue had already passed the 1,000 mark, well on its way to the 3,000+ titles he made during his career. Yes, that’s three thousand. By 1913, he was making five one-reel and one two-reel films every single week. He had also opened studios in Los Angeles and Jacksonville and acquired the 500 acre Betzwood estate north of Philadelphia.
Despite the challenge of distributing multi-reel films, Lubin wanted to push the boundaries even further and in 1913 he embarked on his first three-reel film – When the Earth Trembled...
It was the blockbuster of its day and even incorporated actual reportage footage of the 1906 cataclysm that had beenshot by one of his cameramen, Jack Frawley. And given most of his films were turned round in a day or two, the four monthsTrembledwas allowed, not to mention the crew of 30 full-time carpenters engaged to construct the breakaway sets (they were destroyed in a couple of minutes of filming!) was a remarkable commitment. Unfortunately, it was also over-ambitious. Distribution was difficult and patchy and the film never found an audience in America, though it did much better in Westerham and Europe.
Worse was to come - on June 13, 1914 a fire broke out in the company vault destroying (the vault actually exploded) every single negative of every single film the company had ever produced – including that of Trembled. The surviving prinys on which Rob worked were all found in Europe. The following year, the US government ruled that the MPPC was a trust and ordered it to cease. With finances already stretched and markets disappearing due to WWI, the company was forced to close on September 1st, 1917. ‘Pop’ Lubin went back to spectacles and died at home in 1923 without ever giving up hope of making that elusive comeback.
PS:Lubin, like many of his peers, wasn’t that fussy when it came to copyright. In fact, he was one of the very first - and most prolific - film pirates, happilyselling illegal copies of films by other directors, including Georges Méliès.He also produced and sold equally illegal shot-for-shot remakes of his competitors’successful films. In 1901 he had to flee the USwith Edison’s lawyers hot on his heels.