Digitisations, Restorations & Revivals (38) - Il Cinema Ritrovato - Bologna revives John M Stahl

One of the new management team at Il Cinema Ritrovato, Ehsan Khoshbakht, is programming one of the two Hollywood strands at Bologna this year. 

John Stahl

You can watch a film a day by neglected master John M Stahl. The webpage devoted to it lists the following films and announces that it is presented in collaboration with the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. 

The silent The Woman Under Oath (1919) will be screened in Bologna as a preview for the large retrospective in Pordenone, which will include the majority of Stahl’s surviving silents (1917-27). 

Other titles at Bologna will be

• Seed (1931) 

• Imitation of Life (1934) 

• When Tomorrow Comes (1939) 

• Holy Matrimony (1943) 

• Immortal Sergeant (1943) 

• Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Editor's Note: After the above info was posted veteran cinephile David Donaldson sent an email to advise the following: 

I have never heard Immortal Sergeant since I left the cinema in Orange NSW, floating a little. In those war years, it was powerful stuff. We knew about Libya and all that. Did it seem incongruous that Fonda and co wore Brit-style tin hats, no.

Another film that fitted the mood of the time: Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (1944, Dir:Lloyd Bacon, Joe MacDonald cinematographer).