When the Earth Trembled

Special Event
Friday, December 6, 7 PM
FREE

When the Earth Trembled, or The Strength of Love
(Barry O’Neil, 1913, USA, 35mm, 48 min)

The first long film by the Lubin Manufacturing Company, an early cinema rival to Thomas Edison, When the Earth Trembled is both a family melodrama—about a father who interferes in his son’s marriage—and an early spectacle, with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as a central focus. The film incorporates some of Lubin’s own newsreel footage of the quake’s aftermath, and features specially-built break-away sets. Many of Lubin’s films were destroyed in a vault fire a few years later; Trembled will be accompanied by a selection of related films that survive purely by chance or only as fragments. Restored print courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

Preceded by:

[San Francisco After the Earthquake] 
(Miles Brothers, 1906, USA, 35mm, 9 min)
A composite of three short films, recently found in a California flea market, documenting the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Restored print courtesy of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.

[Unidentified silent shorts. Paper prints. Vitagraph films. No. 5]
(Various/Unidentified Directors, 1908, USA, 35mm, 10 min)
A reel of fragments of Vitagraph Company of America shorts, submitted as paper prints to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes. Restored print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. 

The Sale of a Heart
(Maurice Costello, 1913, USA, 35mm, 15 min)
Produced by the Vitagraph Company of America, this short, directed by and starring noted stage and film actor Maurice Costello, tells the story of an impoverished count who tries to arrange a marriage between his daughter and a wealthy man. Restored print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. 

Live accompaniment by David Drazin