The special effects include facial expressions, body language and an inventive visual style that was a must when there was no dialogue to aid the story, to show character or to express emotion.
The Newhallywood Silent Film Festival celebrated the cinema of the silents, screening almost a dozen films — feature films, short films and a documentary film — last weekend at the Newhall Family Theatre and The Main in Newhall.
According to E.J. Stephens, co-founder of the festival, Santa Clarita is an obvious home for such an event.
“I don’t think there’s a better place in the world to be known for silent films than in Santa Clarita, because so many of them were done right here,” he said in an interview during the festival on Saturday at the Newhall Family Theatre. “We have the facilities, and we have the history.”
Stephens spoke about the silent film production that had taken place in the Santa Clarita Valley. Western silent film star William S. Hart lived in Newhall and shot films there. Slapstick stars Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton shot films in the SCV. For example, Keaton used Beale’s Cut as a location in his 1925 film “Seven Chances,” and Chaplin shot the end of his 1936 film “Modern Times” on Sierra Highway.
This year’s Newhallywood Silent Film Festival highlighted silent stars like Keaton, known as “the great stone face,” and Lon Chaney Sr., known as “the man of a million faces.”
Films included 1927’s “The Unknown” from Tod Browning — the director who’d go on to make 1931’s “Dracula” and 1932’s “Freaks” — and 1925’s “The Big Parade” from King Vidor — the director who’d go on to direct the Kansas scenes in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” and 1946’s “Duel in the Sun.”
A documentary about the life and work of silent horror-movie star Chaney Sr. showed how the man truly wore multiple masks. The festival also screened three of the man’s most popular films.
Just before the 100th anniversary screening of 1925’s “Phantom of the Opera,” Ron Chaney — great-grandson of Chaney Sr. — accepted his great-grandfather’s induction into the Newhallywood Silent Film Hall of Fame on the silent film legend’s behalf.
According to Stephens, the hall of fame is currently online only, but he hopes it’ll become a physical location one day.
A Q&A between Stephens and Chaney gave the audience a glimpse into Chaney Sr.’s life and work with Chaney’s personal stories about his great-grandfather. One piece of information he shared was how Chaney Sr. learned to communicate using his physicality, which was ideal for silent cinema.
“He was a keen observer of people,” Chaney said. “Because of his deaf parents, he learned to communicate different. He learned to interpret different. And that played a role throughout his entire life.”
On Sunday, the Newhallywood Silent Film Festival dedicated its programming to Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet film director who was instrumental in creating the grammar of cinema through his theories of montage film editing. He, too, was inducted into the Newhallywood Silent Film Hall of Fame.
According to Stephens, each year the festival likes to honor one silent film legend who worked in front of the camera (Chaney Sr.), and another who worked behind the camera (Eisenstein).
Stephens said this year’s festival was the biggest since it began in 2020. Friday’s turnout alone was bigger than any of the previous screenings, he said. He’s hoping that with the city of Santa Clarita’s acquisition of William S. Hart Park, the festival can expand onto that property with more events and more special guests.
