Monthly Archives: December 2022

New Year’s Eve and More Book Events

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone! I hope that 2022 saw good things for everyone, and a return to something of a normal life. Though we’re all still trying to keep COVID at bay, I was able to attend so many more events this year, and realized how much I had missed them.

Tonight, I’ll be doing one of those in-person events at the Niles Essanay Film Museum in the Niles district of Fremont, CA. We’ll be showing Zander the Great, a very exciting, genre-defying film from 1925 and Marion Davies’s first film to be made solely in California. It’s a film that is quite rarely seen–but thanks to some stellar preservation work in the past year and a DVD release from the great Ben Model at Undercrank Productions, we now have it publicly available.

I’ll be signing books afterward. The activities start at 7:30–seeing a movie at Niles really is the best deal in town, because for a measly $8, you get vintage cartoons, a movie with an intermission, and almost always an informative talk beforehand. If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, come and join us.

GIVEAWAY ANNOUNCEMENT!

Also, I wanted to tell you about Marion Davies as Star of the Month on TCM next month. Unfortunately, we couldn’t make it work for me to come on and introduce the movies, but I’m doing a big giveaway of Captain of Her Soul next month to coincide with TCM’s Star of the Month programming! Here’s how to enter this week:

Let me know in the comments section what Marion Davies movie you’re looking forward to on TCM next month. It can be an old favorite, or one you’ve never seen. Just something you’d like to see, and I’ll enter you into the drawing! Here are the movies being shown in January:

January 3 (Marion Davies’s birthday, by the way)

THE BRIDE’S PLAY (1921)

BEAUTY’S WORTH (1922)

WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER (1922)

LITTLE OLD NEW YORK (1923)

BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK (1926)

THE RED MILL (1927)

January 10

THE PATSY (1928)

SHOW PEOPLE (1928)

MARIANNE (1929)

THE FLORODORA GIRL (1930)

NOT SO DUMB (1930)

HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929 (1929)

January 17

THE BACHELOR FATHER (1931)

FIVE AND TEN (1931)

BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES (1932)

POLLY OF THE CIRCUS (1932)

GOING HOLLYWOOD (1933)

OPERATOR 13 (1934)

January 24

PEG O’ MY HEART (1933)

PAGE MISS GLORY (1935)

HEARTS DIVIDED (1936)

CAIN AND MABEL (1936)

EVER SINCE EVE (1937)

There is only 1 book to give away, but I will do 4 weeks of different questions. If you answer the question every week for all 4 weeks, you get 4 entries. I’m conducting this giveaway here, and on my social media platforms.

Any questions? Just ask!

Thank you all for continuing to bear with me in these busy times with the book. I wish you all the happiest of new years, and more to come in 2023!

Some updates

Readers, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on Backlots! I’ve been very busy with activities related to Captain of Her Soul, which is now out as of September 27. I wanted to share a few things I’ve been up to, and some upcoming events, so you might have some context as to why Backlots has been inactive for a while.

-Captain of Her Soul has been profiled in a beautiful article in Alta Journal

-I’ve been on Alta Live, discussing the book with William Randolph Hearst III

Show People was at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s Day of Silents–I presented the film at the Castro Theatre and signed books afterward.

Photo by Dave Sikula

-I wrote a piece for The Wall Street Journal

-Mrs. Dalloway’s and Larry Edmunds, two premier bookshops in Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA respectively, have had me in for presentations on Marion Davies. You can order signed copies of the books from them!

https://www.larryedmunds.com/product-page/captain-of-her-soul-the-life-of-marion-davies

https://www.mrsdalloways.com/book/9780520384200

-I presented at the Annenberg Community Beach House on the book

-I traveled to Silver Spring, MD to present Show People and The Cardboard Lover at the AFI Silver

-The book was featured at the Mechanic’s Institute CinemaLit series in San Francisco, where I presented on Show People, The Red Mill, and even The Cat’s Meow, where we discussed what really happened to Thomas Ince.

-There have been lots of podcasts and virtual events that I have enjoyed immensely. Here is one, with Kendahl Cruhver of Watching Classic Films

Here are some upcoming events:

-Marion Davies will be the Star of the Month on TCM in January. Stay tuned here for some fun things I have planned!

-January 13: I’m going back to Washington, DC to present at Lost City Books.

January 19: Presentation at the Hollywood Heritage Museum.

-February 4-12: I will be presenting at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater for a Marion Davies retrospective. Check the calendar here.

-February 25-26: The Kansas Silent Film Festival! I will present on Marion Davies at the cinema dinner and introduce Little Old New York.

So there you see why I’ve been inactive here for so long! If you haven’t gotten the book yet, you can order from the links above, or here. It makes a great holiday gift.

I’ll be back with more updates soon. See you then!