THE LAST DAY ALSO INCLUDES MA L’AMOR MIO NON MUORE!
BY MARIO CASERINI, WITH LYDA BORELLI AND MARIO BONNARD
 
THE BIG BLUFF CONCLUDES THE HARRY PIEL RETROSPECTIVE:
THE DIRECTOR-ACTOR ALONGSIDE MARLENE DIETRICH

It’s impossible to think about silent cinema without associating it with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Thus the final evening of the Pordenone festival – Saturday 14 October at 9pm at the Teatro Verdi – sees the two champs in a programme pairing two almost contemporary masterpieces, with Chaplin’s film celebrating its centenary, while Keaton’s is from 1924.
The Pilgrim, Chaplin’s last film for First National (which wanted to take advantage of its contract with him after the success of The Kid) was also his last with Edna Purviance, until then Chaplin’s screen partner, and with whom he remained friends throughout his life. The plot revolves around an escaped convict who exchanges his prison uniform for that of a clergyman who had gone bathing. The various comic situations that ensue prompted much indignation from the Evangelical Church, but fortunately The Pilgrim escaped censorship and any attempt to boycott its screening. Chaplin’s original score, arranged by Timothy Brock, is directed by Ben Palmer and performed by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone.
Sherlock Jr. is not only unanimously regarded as one of Keaton’s greatest films, but one of the best in the history of the medium. In a period in which special effects were certainly not as evolved as they are today, one wonders how Keaton managed to produce certain scenes, and the answer can only come by considering the athletic and acrobatic skills he developed on the theatre stage in his early years. Here Keaton plays a projectionist and aspiring detective who dreams of entering and exiting the screen in a series of surreal, irresistible comic turns. The music for Sherlock Jr. has been composed by Daan van den Hurk and will be directed by Ben Palmer and performed by the Orchestra da Camera di Pordenone.
 
The afternoon programme at 2 pm at the Teatro Verdi features two new restorations, the first by the Cinémathèque française and the second by the Library of Congress: Vent Debout (FR 1923) by René Leprince, one of Pathé’s most prolific directors in the 1910s; and Conrad in Quest of His Youth (US 1920) by William de Mille, the older brother of the better-known Cecil. Drawn from the novel by Leonard Merrick, it tells the story of a man engaged in the impossible search for the joy and spontaneity of his youth.
 
Saturday’s programme – 10 am at Cinemazero, the venue for that morning – opens with a title from the Canon Revisited section, Ma l’amor mio non muore!, directed by Mario Caserini, and starring Italy’s most celebrated theatre actress of the period, Lyda Borelli, and the young Mario Bonnard, who was to have a long career as actor and director.

This year’s edition of the Giornate can certainly claim the merit of having rediscovered Harry Piel,  screening a selection of eight of his films. The German actor and director was famous for adventure and detective movies, packed with chases, daredevil feats and explosions. Piel bids us goodbye this year at 3:45pm with Sein Grösster Bluff (The Big Bluff, 1927) in which he plays one of his double roles. The cast includes Marlene Dietrich, already a well-known actress and close to becoming the ultimate star.