BFI London Film Festival Archive Gala

The First Born, Miles Mander, 1928

Gala Screening

Thu 20 October | 19:30 | Queen Elizabeth Hall

A live performance of Stephen Horne’s new score accompanies this screening

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The sex lives of the upper classes come under scrutiny in this tour de force of late silent British cinema.

A philandering politician, the double standards of the upper classes, jealousy, miscegenation and a generation torn between centuries of tradition and a more modern morality... the plot of The First Born feels not unlike a lost episode of Downton Abbey. However, the film was expertly co-scripted by Alma Reville (Mrs Alfred Hitchcock) and it's hard not to see her influence in raising it beyond old-school melodrama to be a tour de force of late silent British cinema. Sir Hugo Boycott (Miles Mander) and his young bride (a pre-blonde Madeleine Carroll) have a passionate relationship, but it founders when she fails to produce an heir. This is a surprisingly 'adult' film and made with both elegance and invention. Particularly surprising among Mander's sometimes Hitchcockian box of visual tricks is a handheld camera sequence that allows the audience to become voyeur as Boycott stalks the marital bedroom to find his wife in the bath. The story is oddly reflected in reality: the 'first born' is played by Mander's own son and it was well known that the leads were involved romantically - well enough known to bring Mander's wife to the set to demand an explanation. This major new restoration by the BFI National Archive includes reinstated missing footage and the reintroduction of a beautiful range of tints.

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http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/1686

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BFI London Film Festival

Les Enfants du paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945

New Restoration by Pathé

Sun 16 Oct | 12:00 | BFI Southbank

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In the Parisian theatre world of the early nineteenth century, the fates of four men - a brilliant mime artist, a great romantic actor, an aristocrat and a ruthless master criminal - are intertwined. All four love and are loved - at least for a time - by the beautiful, free-spirited Garance. Shot during the German Occupation, Les Enfants du paradis triumphantly overcame the constraints of wartime and was premiered in the recently liberated France of 1945. Widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, its spectacular magic can be fully appreciated only on the big screen. Now at last, Pathé's new 4K restoration will enable audiences to experience Marcel Carné's masterpiece in its full glory.

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http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/node/1677

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We will be running a poster competition on our facebook page in a couple of weeks to coincide with the release of 'Les Enfants...' on the 11th Nov 2011.