SF Screening of "The Night of the Hunter" and new book with "The Eyes of Lillian Gish."

Attention San Francisco Bay Area fans, the historic Castro Theater will screen “The Night of the Hunter” on July 11, 2013. Check their website for details.

About the film, Lillian, in “The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me,” wrote: “Parts of the film were excellent, but it was not fully sustained because Mr. [director Charles] Laughton did not want to ‘ruin’ Mr. Mitchum’s image by having him play a thoroughly wicked man. In the earlier days, it would have been considered a triumph to play evil convincingly.”  This was the only film directed by Laughton.

Miss Gish wrote only two paragraphs on “The Night of the Hunter.” Many fans consider it to be her best film. The film went on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry in 1992.

New Book: Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography by David S. Shields (University of Chicago Press.) 401 pages.

“The Eyes of Lillian Gish” is chapter 8 in the book with 10 black and white photos of Lillian including photos from “The Wind” (1928), “The Scarlet Letter (1926), “La Boheme (1926), “Romola” (1924),  “The White Sister” (1923),  “Orphans of the Storm (1921), and “Broken Blossoms (1919). The photos of Lillian with leadning men Ronald Coleman and John Gilbert are especially good. Additionally there are two portraits of Lillian from the 1920s.

“[Lillian Gish] was the driving force in the general adoption of panchromatic film for cinematography and still photography, pioneering its employment in her projects from 1924-24, and forcing MGM to employ it in 1925.”

“How did Gish develop the acutest eye for camera talent of any cinematic performer of the era? How one learns to see in the absence of any obvious instructor is hard to ascertain.”

July 7, 2013
James Patterson
Adviser, Gish Theater BGSU

James Patterson

JamesPatterson705@gmail.com