October 2, 2021 @ 1:30pm (Pacific) An epic set in the early twentieth century, with a plotline based around the vast desert irrigation projects of that period and the unscrupulous developers who supported them. Based on a 1911 best-selling novel of the same name and featuring the first credited appearance of Academy Award winning actor Gary Cooper.   

Directed by Henry King | Starring Ronald Colman, Vilma Banky, and Gary Cooper  
Screened in 35mm with live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick. 

The Silent Treatment Film Series   

Watch silent movies the way they were meant to be seen—on the big screen with live musical accompaniment! Showcasing a wide variety of early cinema in the best available formats, “The Silent Treatment” is a long-running silent movie film series curated by film archivists Brandee Cox and Steven Hill.  

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 @ 10:00pm (Pacific)
$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Celebrating International Silent Film Day

1920 | 79 MINUTES | DIRECTED BY: OSCAR MICHEAUX

WITHIN OUR GATES is the earliest surviving feature film by an African-American director. It was Oscar Micheaux’s second film (after 1919’s THE HOMESTEADER, now lost), and involves an idealistic young woman named Sylvia Landry (Evelyn Preer, one of the first great stars of the race film) who attempts to raise money for an elementary school to serve the black community. The film touches upon themes that would recur throughout the controversial filmmaker’s career, such as the promise of rural life vs. the corruptive influence of the city, and the use of religion as a means of misleading the black community.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Kino Lorber

Tickets: https://americancinematheque.com/now-showing/within-our-gates/

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 @ 7:00pm (Pacific)

“Dziga Vertov’s experimental silent documentary upends reality in ways that are still dizzying, thrilling and strangely sexy.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

The Man with a Movie Camera
(Chelovek s kinoapparatom)
Dziga Vertov
USSR, 1929
Judith Rosenburg on piano

Witty, sassy, and with an infectious joie de vivre, The Man with a Movie Camera demonstrates Dziga Vertov’s “kino-eye” theory, endowing the camera with the flexibility of the human eye and the associative powers of a poet’s brain. An ecstatic portrait of a city and its inhabitants (really three cities—Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa merged), it is a compendium of extravagant camera and editing techniques, forever commenting on itself and our own watching. Appropriately, the camera-hero takes a bow at the end.

“At once a Whitman-esque documentary-portrait of the Soviet people, a self-reflexive essay on cinematic representation, and an ode to the transformative power of human labor, this fantastically cross-referenced, cubo-kaleidoscopic city symphony took parallel action to the third—or fourth—dimension.” —J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Tickets at https://bampfa.org/event/man-movie-camera.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 @ 7:00pm (Pacific)
$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission)

Part of the “Night Train to the Cinema” series

1926 | 80 MINUTES | DIRECTED BY: BUSTER KEATON

During the Civil War, train engineer Johnny Grey (Keaton, at his most fearless and funny) has his beloved locomotive stolen by Union spies. He boards and mans another massive train, appropriately named Texas, and sets out to pursue and catch up to his kidnapped steam engine. This classic film is not only an inimitable comedy but also a feat of physical daring, and is not to be missed! Includes Keaton riding the front of a moving train, running along the roof and jumping from car to car, and the filming of a locomotive careening off a collapsing bridge!

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Cohen Media

Tickets: https://americancinematheque.com/now-showing/the-general/

SEPTEMBER 29, 2021 @ 1:00pm / 4:00pm / 7:00pm (Pacific)

2021 marks the 107th anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's first appearance as "The Little Tramp," his chaos-prone but balletically nimble underdog everyman, often unlucky, always plucky and, eventually, iconic the world over.

To celebrate National Silent Movie Day on Wednesday, September 29th, Rialto Cinemas presents a selection of Chaplin’s most beloved films featuring his Tramp persona in gorgeous new restorations. Our program features six short films Chaplin made for the Mutual Film Corporation in 1916 after signing a then-unprecedented contract for $670,000 and being given complete creative control as writer, director, producer and star. Hailed as the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin set the standard for silent screen comedy as a performer, writer and director. The iconic Little Tramp, his signature screen persona of the silent era, remains such an enduring figure that even today he is recognizable by just his silhouette. This brilliant comedian was, for a time, the single most popular entertainer on the planet, celebrated the world over, connecting with audiences in the universal language of silent screen comedy.