Dozens of film lovers gathered at the Newhall Family Theatre for the Performing Arts on Saturday evening to watch the 1922 “Robin Hood” film directed by Douglas Fairbanks, one of the many silent films in the Newhallywood Film Festival lineup occurring all weekend long.
Those in attendance were silent film preservationists, film hobbyists, and individuals who just wanted to relive parts of their childhood with films that were familiar to them growing up decades before.
The film festival was held in Newhall, where many silent films were made, paying homage to the silent film era and giving attendees an appreciation of the Santa Clarita Valley and its importance in film history.
Tracey Goessel, founder of the Film Preservation Society, was excited to not only watch the film with Santa Clarita residents but to also share some of her work with old films. Since 2014, she has aimed at saving and preserving old films before they are lost forever, she said.
She also shared the importance of celebrating films in a theater setting.
“Things were meant to be seen, not in isolation in a small editing table or even on a TV by yourself, but they were meant to be seen with people with live music, if possible, in a communal experience,” said Goessel. “Any time you’re laughing with an audience, or gasping, it’s a richer experience than when you’re by yourself.”
John Bengston was another movie attendee and has had a deep appreciation of old films and their filming locations. Fascinated by vintage photographs for a very long time, he began to observe the background of silent films and with time he began to recognize famous streets and intersections such as Hollywood and Vine. When observing the films he recognized the location but he described it as “a foreign world” to him.
With the different fashion, technology, automobiles and other details in the films, he began to enjoy witnessing how different and unrecognizable certain locations were years ago.
“I just found it fascinating,” Bengston said. “I’ve probably found, you know, 5,000 locations now. When you find five or six scenes of a film nearby, it’s like the tiles of a mosaic. You start to get to this big grand picture of what Hollywood looked like.”
Linda, a local resident who declined to provide her last name, was ready to watch a new film for the first time.
She grew up watching the 1940 film “Rebecca” directed by Alfred Hitchcock. At 8 years old, Linda’s mother gifted her film books. She then became a film lover whose mother “couldn’t get me to go to bed so she needed to let me stay up late when they showed a lot of old movies on television,” she said.
The Newhallywood Film Festival also inducted two new individuals into its hall of fame one person in front of the camera, and one person behind it, said E.J Stephens, film festival consultant for the city. This year Douglas Fairbanks and Thomas Ince were honored for their contributions to film history, he said.
The festival came to fruition four years ago right before the pandemic, and ever since it has faced some challenges bringing it back in its entirety. Stephens’ goal this year is to try building the festival into something big, he said.
