Gloria Swanson and Baby Peggy to feature in Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema
The silent film stars are part of a programme that includes music from Minima and The Dodge Brothers
Gloria Swanson is for many people the epitome of the silent film star. She is remembered not just for her many roles in early cinema (Male and Female, Why Change Your Wife) but also as ageing silent screen actress Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder’s sublime Sunset Boulevard (‘We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!’ she exclaims at one point). Swanson is just one of the stars celebrated in the Festival of Silent Cinema which returns to the Bo’ness Hippodrome in March.
Extended to five days, the programme includes silent film accompanist Neil Brand performing to Stage Struck, a comedy with Gloria Swanson playing a waitress aspiring to become a star. Still on the star-theme, Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room is a documentary about the oldest surviving silent film actor whose career began at 18 months and finished suddenly when she was four. UK electronic ensemble Minima are also on the bill, accompanying Japanese avant garde feature Jujiro (Crossways) with a new score. And last but not least the festival will host the first Scottish performance by The Dodge Brothers – a skiffle band which includes film critic Mark Kermode. They’ll be providing a live score to rare Soviet flick The Ghost That Never Returns.
The Bo’ness Hippodrome Festival of Silent Cinema, Hippodrome, Bo’ness, Wed 13–Sun 17 Mar.