Silent Film’s Thieves, Jewel Robberies and Cases of the Lost Glove

Introduced by Christel Tsilibaris, festival’s Associate Curator and an independent curator specialising in the film and media arts. With live musical accompaniment.

Sunday 18 May, 17.00
Ciné lumière

Thefts, disguises, investigations, chases and returns to order play an important part in silent film and film serials. Christel Tsilibaris will provide guidance through this selection of charismatic films in which garments and jewels are placed at the centre of the narrative, either as objects of desire or forensic clues. This programme promises private detectives, gangs of thieves, and a mondain conman successfully removing a necklace from a wealthy society woman. A glove will be left behind on the scene of the crime and, in Henri d’Ursel’s “surrealist film,” homage will be paid to Musidora’s body suit.

A Man With White Gloves (L’homme aux gants blancs)
France 1908. Dir Albert Capellani.
With Henri Desfontaines, Marguerite Brésil. 35mm.

The Gentleman Thief (aka Max Leads Them a Novel Chase ; Le voleur mondain)
France 1909. Dir Louis Gasnier.
With Max Linder. 16mm.

Nick Winter and the Case of the Famous Hotel (Nick Winter et l'affaire du Célébric Hôtel )
France 1911, Dir Gérard Bourgeois.
With Georges Vinter. 35mm.

The Pearl (La Perle)
Belgium 1929. Dir Henri d’Ursel.
With Georges Hugnet, Kissa Kouprine. 35mm.

Run time: c. 60 min.

See also: The Colour of Nothingness: costumes of invisibility and transformation in early detective films and literature, illustrated lecture by Tom Gunning

The Pearl, dir. Henri D'Ursel, 1929. Courtesy BFI.

The Kidnapping of Fux Banker (Únos bankére Fuxe)
Czech Republic 1923. Dir Karl Anton.
With Anny Ondra, Karel Lamac. 75 min. 35mm.

UK PREMIERE

Sunday 25 May, 18.20
BFI Southbank NFT1

New musical accompaniment by DJ Charles Kriel and “funny face”.

Introduced by Marketa Uhlirova, Fashion in Film Festival’s Director and Curator.

Made during the time of Czech cinema’s deepening crisis, the country’s film industry had big expectations from t his American-style comedy, which did prove an instant box office hit. Depicting a wicked fantasy of a luxurious middle-class lifestyle, The Kidnapping has an excellent cast including Karel Lamac and Anny Ondra (star of Hitchcock’s Blackmail [1929] and The Manxman [1929]), and also features a unique cameo appearance by the fêted Parisian couturier Paul Poiret (as himself) who toured to Prague with his six mannequins, staging several bombastic fashion shows there in early December 1923.

Charles Kriel is a London-based artist, producer and DVJ. Previously at BBC Radio 1 and featured in Ars Electronica, Venice Biennale and the Royal Opera House, he has been dubbed "The godfather of DVJing." In this new musical piece Kriel will be drawing on his residence in Prague between 1993-1995, where he was an artist, journalist and a fan of Czech experimental music.

Kidnap of Fux Banker, dir. Karl Anton, 1923. Courtesy Czech National Film Archive.

The Rat
UK 1925. Dir Graham Cutts.
With Ivor Novello, Isabel Jeans. 80min. 35mm.

Saturday 24 May 17:45
BFI Southbank NFT1

In a special presentation featuring live music and performance, the BFI invites you to enter the world of "the Rat". Party like it's 1925 with the reprobates of the White Coffin Club after the film in Benugo's. Please dress appropriately!

Guest-curated by Bryony Dixon; event concept by Rhidian Davis, Claire Geddie and The Willow Partnership.

Ivor Novello plays Pierre Boucheron, “the Rat,” in this tale of the Paris underworld. A jewel thief who commands the allegiance of the denizens of the White Coffin Club, he meets his match in Zelie de Chaumet, the dazzling demi-mondaine who is also accustomed to dog-like obedience. With style written right through it, from the opulent string of pearls that she dangles before him, to the flick knife with which he slits his partner’s skirt in the brutal apache dance, The Rat is quintessentially Twenties.

for other exquisite male crooks and troublemakers, look no further than:
Purple Noon
The Boys

Asphalt (Der Polizeiwachtmeister und die Diamantenelse)
Germany 1929. Dir Joe May.
With Betty Amann, Gustav Fröhlich. 94 min. 35mm.

Sunday 25 May, 15.30
BFI Southbank NFT1

With live piano accompaniment.

A pre-talkie release, Asphalt is a stunning gem of expressionist cinema, and a prime example of German “Strassenfilm”. It’s shadowy scenes, the overt eroticism of the fatal woman and diamond thief Else, and the plot itself, in which an orderly traffic cop is caught in the web of crime and uncontrollable passion, all prefigure film noir. Yet it is in the way the story unfolds where director May shines, able to shift effortlessly from social realism to romantic melodrama and comedy. The film’s opening featuring the witty and dextrous thievery of “Diamantenelse,” as she was called in the German original, is not to be missed!

Desire
USA 1936. Dir Frank Borzage.
With Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper. 89 min. 35mm.

OASIS Gala screening:
Saturday 17 May, 20:30
Ciné lumière

Dietrich’s foxy siren Madeleine makes for a supremely aristocratic crook in this Hollywood story set in France and Spain. Dressed for success in magnificent gowns by Travis Banton, Paramount’s star costume designer of the ‘20s and ‘30s, Madeleine uses her “European” elegance and glamour to fool and seduce everyone, only to get closer to that rare string of pearls. But who can hold that against the girl? Reminiscent of the 1932 comedy Trouble in Paradise by Ernst Lubitsch, who also co-produced this film, Desire is a witty comedy applauding Madeleine’s lusting for a precious commodity (especially as her sin is later excused, eventually giving way to romantic love…). Desire was one of Dietrich’s favourite roles, and a great commercial success.

The Red Shoes (Bunhongsin)
South Korea 2005. Dir Kim Yong-gyun.
With Hye-su Kim, Seong-su Kim, Yeon-ah Park. 103 min. 35mm.

LONDON PREMIERE

Wednesday 14 May, 20.45
ICA Cinema 1

Korean director Kim Yong-gyun delivers a gripping and darkly haunting horror film in his 2005 adaptation of the 1948 Michael Powel and Emeric Pressburger classic of the same title, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. In Yong-gyun’s version, an elegant pair of shocking pink (not red, as the title suggests) shoes is found on a platform of a subway station. Very soon the abandoned pair of heels reveals to its wearers its bewitching magnetism and destructive power, turning female fantasies of glamour into bloody nightmares – quite literally.