Screening 35mm & 16mm film prints from studio vaults, film archives, and private collections.
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The Ship of Lost Men
Saturday, May 11 @ 11:30 AM / Music Box Theatre — 3733 N Southport Ave
Tickets: $12 at the door or purchase in advanceTHE SHIP OF LOST MEN
Directed by Maurice Tourneur • 1929
A Frenchman who established his directorial renown in New Jersey in 1914 when the infant industry was still working out the grammar of feature-length filmmaking, Maurice Tourneur carved out a niche for himself as a patient, painterly filmmaker with an idiosyncratic aesthetic. His methods were a poor fit for the ascendant studio system, and his short-lived but disastrous tenure at the helm of M-G-M’s production of The Mysterious Island ended Tourneur’s American career in 1926. Returning to Europe, Tourneur poured all his taste and skill into The Ship of Lost Men, a million-dollar German super-production that would be his last silent picture. With a roster of British, French, Russian, and German actors (including Marlene Dietrich as an American aviatrix, just before her Blue Angel breakthrough) calculated to appeal to markets that were already fragmenting with the coming of sound, Tourneur’s atmospheric drama plays like the valedictory voyage of cosmopolitan silent cinema. This tale of a barge of scoundrels who rise in mutiny against their tyrannical captain (Fritz Kortner) during an expedition to Brazil was largely ignored when it was new, a ghost ship drifting away in the fog. TheShip of Lost Men came ashore belatedly in the early 1970s, when silent film collector and distributor Paul Killiam donated a 35mm print to the American Film Institute. Although rarely revived, The Ship of Lost Men has been praised by historian William K. Everson for its “remarkable pictorial quality” and for Tourneur treating Dietrich “as though she had already established a screen mystique, cagily withholding her introductory closeup for as long as he can.” (KW)
122 min • Max Glass Film Produktion GmbH • 35mm from Library of Congress
Preceded by: “Felix Braves the Briny” (Otto Mesmer, 1926) – 7 min – 16mm
Live musical accompaniment by Jay Warren!NEXT UP: Frankenstein on Wednesday, May 15 at NEIU
Upcoming screenings:
View all upcoming screenings & venue info →
Thur 5/2 at 6:45 PM @ Music Box
Master and Commander • Advance Tickets
Sat 5/11 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
The Ship of Lost Men • Advance Tickets
Wed 5/15 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Frankenstein
Wed 5/22 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Spirit of the Beehive
Wed 6/5 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Children of the Beehive
Sat 6/22 at 11:30 AM @ Music Box
Japanese Girls at the Harbor • Advance Tickets
Wed 6/26 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Trouble in Paradise
Wed 7/3 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Day I Became a Woman
Sun 7/14 at 7:00 PM @ Music Box
Mantrap
Wed 7/17 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Minnie & Moskowitz
Wed 7/24 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
The Jackie Robinson Story
Mon 7/29 at 7:00 PM @ Music Box
Medium Cool
Wed 8/7 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
Beauty and the Beast
Wed 8/14 at 7:30 PM @ NEIU
There’s Always Tomorrow
Wed 8/28 at 7:30 PM
The Coca-Cola Kid
The Chicago Film Society works to promote the exhibition of analog film prints, to preserve the equipment and skills used to create and exhibit them, and to encourage an approach to film history that positions cinema as part of the broader history of technology and society.
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