Varieté (Variety). 1925. Directed by Ewald André Dupont
Maids and Muslin. 1920. Directed by Noel M. Smith

Both films silent; with piano accompaniment by Ben Model

Varieté (Variety). 1925. Germany. Directed by Ewald André Dupont. Silent; with piano accompaniment. 95 min.

Screenplay by Dupont, Leo Birinski, based on a novel by Felix Hollaender. With Emil Jannings, Lya de Putti, Warwick Ward. Often cited but seldom seen, this Weimar classic has been digitally restored by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung Foundation and the Filmarchiv Austria using material from around the world (including The Library of Congress and MoMA). Emil Jannings (The Blue Angel) stars in one of his most spectacularly masochistic roles as a small-time trapeze artist who hits the big time in Berlin thanks to a new partner—his sultry mistress, Lya de Putti. Unknown to Jannings, she’s having an affair with the third member of the act (Warwick Ward), and grips have been known to slip—a possibility made vivid by Karl Freund’s vertiginous camera work. Courtesy of the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung Foundation. English intertitles.

Maids and Muslin. 1920. USA. Directed by Noel M. Smith. Silent; with piano accompaniment. 17 min.

Screenplay by Anthony Coldeway. With Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy. A pre–Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy appears behind a heavy moustache and opposite the comic Jimmy Aubrey in this comedy about partners in a retail business who are also rivals for the hand of a pretty clerk. Long thought lost, what survives of the original two-reel film has been scanned in 4K, restored digitally, and printed on 35mm in its original Desmetcolor tinting by the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna. Restoration undertaken by the CSC–Cineteca Nazionale. (See also the Stan Laurel short Monsieur Don’t Care, screening with Pan on November 24 and 25.)