The Salvation Hunters
No upcoming showtimes scheduled.
Director: Josef Von Sternberg
1925 / 65min / 35mm
The directorial debut of Vienna-born, Queens-raised von Sternberg—shot on a shoestring in Los Angeles locations including San Pedro’s grim quays, overseen by a monstrous dredger—The Salvation Hunters is a grubby slice of American poetic realism about “humans who crawl close to the earth”—a young couple, the orphaned child who lands in their care, and a succession of hardened heels who conspire to rob the trio of their innocence. A succès d’estime thanks to the enthusiastic endorsement of Charlie Chaplin, who would recruit leading lady Georgia Hale to play opposite him in the same year’s The Gold Rush, and a film whose blunt presentation of life on the margins in the cocksure, booming 1920s remains singularly bracing.
35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Live piano accompaniment by Makia Matsamura on Sunday, December 14th
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