Highlight of the official final night of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2026 was the screening in the Piazza Maggiore of one of the ten greatest films ever made Charles Chaplin's A Dog's Life (USA, 1918) in a double bill with Charlie's Shoulder Arms (1918), accompanied by a full orchestra conducted by Neil Brand. Dave Kehr of MoMA in New York, which did the restoration, succinctly explained how they had gone back and found the original material and thus were able to supersede the version long circulating that Chaplin himself had put together from out-takes and other sources. Dave's intro was then followed by some interminably long and totally already known thoughts offered by Arnold Lozano of the Association Chaplin/Roy Export, the price you probably have to pay to keep in good with the zealous protectors of the great man's legacy.
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| Ginger Rogers PR shot for Ladyin the Dark |
Before that happened there had been a screening of one of Mitchell Leisen's failures, Lady in the Dark (1944). The main problem was that some idiot at Paramount, not named by Wikipedia in its succinct description, decided to remove most of the Kurt Weill & Ira Gershwin songs that thrilled Broadway audiences in 1941. Wikipedia says: "The film version cut most of the Weill/Gershwin songs from the score. .. Part of "My Ship" was hummed by Ginger Rogers, but the song itself was never sung." If you want to know about the song here's Julie Andrew singing it in Star. The Technicolor archive 35mm print on display was sensational. In its day the film was a 'success".
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| Josephine Baker, The Siren of the Tropics |
The afternoon was taken up with the final apparitions of Josephine Baker. Her Fausse Alerte/False Alarm from 1942 has her as part of a big ensemble cast as the population of Paris is being called on to respond to German bombing and her silent La Sirene des Tropiques/ The Siren of the Tropics has her as a local who saves the hero, a young man sent out to some colony as a way of breaking up his relationship. His boss is under instructions to ensure he never comes back. Neither of them are up to the magnificent Zouzou.
...and here's a bunch of people eating at La Pirata del Porto on the final night...five of them are from the Cinema Reborn Organising Committee... silent film accompanist Maud Nelissen was at the table but has managed to keep herself hidden!
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| Final night before most head off (Photo Ross Barnard) |
Film | Geoff Gardner | Spiro Economopoulos | Ross Barnard |
L’Innocente (Luchino Visconti) |
| **** |
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Kuroi Junin No Onna/Ten Black Women (Kon Ichikawa) | * | *** |
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Ten Seconds to Hell (Robert Aldrich) |
| ***
| *** |
Osho /The Chess Master(Daisuke Ito) | * |
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Amma Ariyan (John Abraham) | * |
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Geru No Kobi/The Servant’s Neck (Daisuke Ito | *** |
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Oborokago/The Inner Palace Conspiracy (Daisuke Ito) | *** |
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Ladies of Leisure (Frank Capra) |
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| *** |
Sunrise (F W Murnau) |
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| **** |
Night Nurse (William A Wellman) |
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| *** |
The Overcoat (Grigory Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg) |
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| * |
La Bugiarda (Luigi Comencini) |
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| *** |
Putney Swope (Robert Downey) |
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| *** |
Eight Girls in a Boat (Richard Wallace) | * |
| *** |
The Devils (Ken Russell) |
| *** | **** |
Mirages de Paris (Feodor Ocep) | ** |
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The Cycle (Darish Mehrjui) | **** |
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Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher) |
| *** | *** |
La Derive (Paule Delsol) | *** |
| ** |
Perfume of the Lady in Black (Francisco Barilli) |
| *** |
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Accident (Joseph Losey ) |
| ** | *** |
The Damned (Luchino Visconti) |
| *** |
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Die Fremde Vogel (Urban Gad) | *** |
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Senso (Luchino Visconti) |
| **** |
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Lenny (Bob Fosse) |
| *** |
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Zouzou (Marc Allegret) | ** |
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Meren Kasvojen Edessa/By the Edge of the Sea (Teuvo Puro) |
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| ** |
What Price Glory (Raoul Walsh) |
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| *** |
L’Image Originelle – Wim Wenders (Pierre Henri Gibert) |
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| ***
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Drakula in Istanbul (Mehmet Mutar) |
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| ** |
Sa Dam Ying/Big Boss Sis (Chung Sun) |
| ** | ** |
Clash By Night (Fritz Lang) |
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| *** |
Tales of Manhattan (Julien Duvivier) | ** |
| ** |
Young Man with Ideas (Mitchell Leisen) | *** |
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Darling, How Could You! (Mitchell Leisen) | *** |
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Nagarik (Ritwik Ghatak) | ** |
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A Man on the Beach (Joseph Losey) | *** |
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House of Usher (Roger Corman) |
| *** |
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Death in Venice (Luchino Visconti) |
| *** |
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The Pornographers (Shoehei Imamura) |
| ** |
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Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark) |
| *** |
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A Dog’s Life (Charles Chaplin | **** |
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Lady in the Dark (Mitchell Leisen) | * |
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False Alarm/Fausse Alerte (Jean de Baroncelli) | ** |
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Ossessione (Luchino Visconti) |
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| ** |
Princesse Tam Tam (Edmond T Greville) |
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| *** |
The Bartered Bride (Max Ophuls) |
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| ** |
