San Francisco Silent Film Festival

July 11 - July 13

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival returns to the historic Castro Theatre, presenting beautiful 35mm prints projected onto the Castro's enormous screen, with live musical accompaniment and talks by film preservation experts, archivists, and historians who shine a light on the silent era. Step back in time as the Castro relives its early days, screening these silent gems as it did when it opened in 1922.

Kicking off the 2008 festival is "The Kid Brother" (1927), Harold Lloyd's next-to-last silent comedy, and the film he considered to be his best performance. Also playing is the fast-paced, wise-cracking romantic comedy, "Her Wild Oat" (1927), about a lunchwagon owner who tries life as a lady of wealth for a weekend. Starring almost-forgotten silent star Colleen Moore, the film was lost until 2006, when it was found in Prague and restored by the Academy Film Archive.

Batman fans won't want to miss the centerpiece screening of "The Man Who Laughs" (1928), a macabre tale of one man's tortuous struggle for love, brought to life with nightmarish verisimilitude by German expressionist Paul Leni. Actor Conrad Veidt plays an English nobleman's son disfigured by a Gypsy doctor so that his face is fixed in the rictus of a grotesque grin. Batman creator Bob Kane credited Veidt's hideous make-up as his visual inspiration for The Joker.

Other festival highlights include "Mikael" (1924), an emotionally charged drama considered to be a landmark in gay cinema, the bizarre "The Unknown" (1927) starring Lon Chaney and Joan Crawford, the Japanese avant-garde tragedy "Jujiro" (1928), and the "Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1926), which is not only the earliest surviving animated feature but the first made by a woman.