A Silent Film Rarity Returns to the Screen!
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 | 7:30 p.m. | Billy Wilder Theater | FREE ADMISSION
The Los Angeles Silent Film Festival is proud to serve as a Community Partner for a special presentation by the UCLA Film & Television Archive featuring the North American premiere of its new restoration of The Man Who Came Back(1924), starring George O’Brien and Dorothy Mackaill.
One of the relatively few surviving silent features produced by the Fox Film Corporation, this rarely seen melodrama follows a wealthy young wastrel and a cabaret dancer whose troubled lives become intertwined. The film has been painstakingly restored using surviving domestic and foreign 35mm nitrate prints, bringing a remarkable piece of Hollywood history back to the screen more than a century after its original release.
The evening is a Dorothy Mackaill double feature, beginning with the newly restored Man Trouble (1930), a gangster talkie starring Mackaill and Milton Sills, followed by The Man Who Came Back, accompanied live by Los Angeles Silent Film Festival Musical Director Cliff Retallick. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. Admission is free, with no advance reservations required. Seating is first come, first served, and the box office opens at 6:30 p.m.
The Los Angeles Silent Film Festival is proud to serve as a Community Partner for a special presentation by the UCLA Film & Television Archive featuring the North American premiere of its new restoration of The Man Who Came Back(1924), starring George O’Brien and Dorothy Mackaill.
One of the relatively few surviving silent features produced by the Fox Film Corporation, this rarely seen melodrama follows a wealthy young wastrel and a cabaret dancer whose troubled lives become intertwined. The film has been painstakingly restored using surviving domestic and foreign 35mm nitrate prints, bringing a remarkable piece of Hollywood history back to the screen more than a century after its original release.
The evening is a Dorothy Mackaill double feature, beginning with the newly restored Man Trouble (1930), a gangster talkie starring Mackaill and Milton Sills, followed by The Man Who Came Back, accompanied live by Los Angeles Silent Film Festival Musical Director Cliff Retallick. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. Admission is free, with no advance reservations required. Seating is first come, first served, and the box office opens at 6:30 p.m.
Photo by Iain Kennedy/Los Angeles Silent Film Festival
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Thank you to everyone who joined us Sunday, September 27 at the historic Alex Theatre for Hula (1927) and One Week (1920)! It was wonderful to see such an enthusiastic audience turn out for Clara Bow and Buster Keaton, accompanied live by LASFF Musical Director Cliff Retallick. Our thanks as well to the Alex Theatre, EVNSONG, and the volunteers who helped make the afternoon possible. |
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A Lifetime of Bringing Early Cinema Back to the Screen
Here’s Randy Haberkamp introducing Hula and One Week at our recent screening at the Alex Theatre. A member of our Board of Directors and our Short Subject Programmer, Randy recently retired after 23 years as Executive Vice President of Library, Archive and Sci-Tech at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he created A Century Ago, an annual series launched in 2003 that presented films made 100 years earlier with live music. His dedication to silent cinema goes back to 1986, when he helped found the Silent Society, beginning nearly four decades of presenting and preserving silent films in Los Angeles. His remarkable knowledge of early cinema makes him an invaluable contributor to our festival's programming. |
Photo by Iain Kennedy/Los Angeles Silent Film Festival
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What a Weekend!
The 2026 Los Angeles Silent Film Festival came to a close on Sunday, September 13, and we could not be more grateful to everyone who made it such an extraordinary three days, with packed houses, standby lines and lively, enthusiastic audiences eager to experience silent cinema on the big screen.
When the show is over, but nobody wants to leave. Photo courtesy of the American Cinematheque.
One of the most gratifying moments of the Los Angeles Silent Film Festival came after Beyond Silence: Sound Effects, Animation and 3D in the Silent Era, when guest performer Nicholas White found himself surrounded by audience members eager to talk with him about what they had just experienced. Nicholas brought a fascinating piece of silent-film exhibition history back to life, performing sound effects on authentic 1920s devices during a program of short comedies and animated films curated by Short Subject Programmer Randy Haberkamp, while Musical Director Cliff Retallick accompanied the films on piano.
One of the most gratifying moments of the Los Angeles Silent Film Festival came after Beyond Silence: Sound Effects, Animation and 3D in the Silent Era, when guest performer Nicholas White found himself surrounded by audience members eager to talk with him about what they had just experienced. Nicholas brought a fascinating piece of silent-film exhibition history back to life, performing sound effects on authentic 1920s devices during a program of short comedies and animated films curated by Short Subject Programmer Randy Haberkamp, while Musical Director Cliff Retallick accompanied the films on piano.
Photo courtesy of the American Cinematheque.
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Program Director Steven K. Hill greets LASFF 2026 Silent Film Advocacy Award recipient Leonard Maltin. Photo by Iain Kennedy/Los Angeles Silent Film Festival.
Short Subject Programmer Randy Haberkamp, 2025 LASFF Silent Film Preservation Award recipient Suzanne Lloyd and Musical Director Cliff Retallick. Photo by Iain Kennedy/Los Angeles Silent Film Festival.
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Throughout the weekend, Musical Director Cliff Retallick and guest artist Dean Mora demonstrated the transformative power of live music, accompanying films curated by Program Director Steven K. Hill and Short Subject Programmer Randy Haberkamp.
Here are just a few more of the highlights:
- We opened the festival with Douglas Fairbanks’ The Black Pirate (1926), the dazzling swashbuckling adventure originally photographed in two-color Technicolor, seen in a beautiful restoration that brings its remarkable color photography back to life. The restoration was undertaken by the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation, after LASFF Board member Alexander Payne helped set the project in motion by selecting The Black Pirate for restoration.
- We honored beloved film historian and critic Leonard Maltin with our Silent Film Advocacy Award.
- We experienced the second public screening anywhere of a stunning new restoration of Raoul Walsh’s What Price Glory? (1926), revealing one of the great war films of any era: horrifying, hilarious, profane and profoundly moving.
- We celebrated the centennial of Harold Lloyd’s For Heaven’s Sake (1926) with his granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd joining us in person.
- We saw the World Premiere of the new restoration of The Slanderers (1924), made from the only known surviving copy of a film still described as “lost” on Wikipedia and IMDb, presented by LASFF Board member and USC HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive curator Dino Everett.
The Los Angeles Silent Film Festival is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to the preservation, exhibition, and appreciation of silent-era motion pictures. To help support The Los Angeles Silent Film Festival, click on the "Donate Now" link below.
