PRINCE POPPYCOCK

Update: The number of bloggers pitching in to help raise money just keeps growing and growing; look below for the latest. Roger Ebert, for forty years one of this country's most visible, honored and well-loved critics, has alerted his many Twitter followers to the blogathon. Anyone who has read Ebert's columns or books or watched his television show knows he has spent his career urging people to watch great films from every era, and his support for us means a great deal.

It's time to remind our contributors of the rules of the blogathon. They are few, but important:

1. Post on any topic related to film preservation, at any time during the week of Feb. 14 through Feb. 21.

2. Include the donation link for the National Film Preservation Foundation.

The National Film Preservation Foundation is the independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. They work directly with archives to rescue endangered films that will not survive without public support. The link is right here:

https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId=1001883&code=Blogathon

The NFPF will give away 4 DVD sets as thank-you gifts to blogathon donors chosen in a random drawing: Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 and Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film, 1947-1986.

3. Send your link to Marilyn Ferdinand of Ferdy on Films (http://www.ferdyonfilms.com) and to me here(http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/). We will be keeping track of the submissions and linking to them on our respective blogs.

4. Follow the links here and at Marilyn's site to read the contributions of your felllow writers; remember too that nothing gladdens a blogger's heart like a nice comment.

And, most important of all,

5. DONATE GENEROUSLY to the NFPF, and urge your readers to do the same. Film preservation is an expensive process, and our aim is to raise as much money as possible to support the NFPF's work.

In about one week forty-eight hours, on Sunday Feb. 14, the Film Preservation Blogathon, For the Love of Film, will be upon us. The Facebook page is being continually updated so please, keep checking things out. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Marilyn Ferdinand of the most excellent Ferdy on Film and Stylin' Greg Ferrara of Cinema Styles, we have 642 766 fans and more than twenty thirty forty fifty bloggers who have committed to posting something that week.

The fine folks at the National Film Preservation Foundation have really gotten into the spirit, lending us photos and clips from films that their efforts have saved. Do have a look.

Because of course, the important part is to contribute to the NFPF. If everyone who visits these blogs the week of February 14th kicks something, anything, into the kitty, we could be responsible for saving even more films. And wouldn't that be much, much better than the usual run of sad bonbons and wilted bouquets this time of year?

Like I told Marilyn...


This Valentine's Day, Give Her What She Really Wants: Nitrate.

The lineup so far, in addition to Marilyn, Greg and me, includes:

Peter Nelhaus of Coffee Coffee Coffee and More Coffee will review The Penalty, starring Lon Chaney.

Dwight Swanson of Home and Amateur will blog about the restoration of Think of Me First as a Person.

Louie Despres at El Brendel will be writing about El's Mr. Lemon of Orange.

Bucky Grimm will be coming out of blogging semi-retirement at "Mindless Meanderings"

Tony Dayoub at Cinema Viewfinder will be blogging about the 1922 Sherlock Holmes.

Justin Muschong of Brilliant in Context

David Cairns of Shadowplay

Operator 99 of Allure will look at the films listed in a 1931 edition of Photoplay and tally the survivors and the lost.

MaryAnn Johansen of Flick Filosopher will review Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver.

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post will be writing about To the Last Man and how it fell into public-domain hell.

Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running

Kendra of Viv and Larry

Vince of Carole & Co.

Ryan Kelly of Medfly Quarantine

Ivan G. Shreve of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear will be pulling out the stops with at least two pieces, one on Fred Allen's IT'S IN THE BAG! (1945) and UCLA's restoration of its "alternate" version and the other I've titled "The Singular Case of the Magazine Magnate," which will discuss Hugh Hefner's role in funding the restoration of some of the Universal Sherlock Holmes films.

Jacqueline T. Lynch of Another Old Movie Blog plans to write on Vertigo.

Flickhead knows how to make the Siren happy; he's writing about nitrate.

JC Loophole (still one of my favorite noms de blog--a W.C. Fields ref?) of The Shelf plans a post called "Restoring Film, Preserving Art and Curating Culture."

Rob Gonsalves of Rob's Movie Vault will be blogging about the documentary The Race to Save 100 Years.

Director Jeffrey Campbell of The Last Lullaby (and) Peril

The one and only David Ehrenstein of FaBlog will post about Max Reinhardt's great filming of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Meredith of Or Maybe Eisenstein Should Just Relax will write on The Red Shoes.

Brian of Stinky Lulu will be writing about Who Killed Teddy Bear?

Filmmaker Max Sacker will be contributing from Berlin.

Tom K. of Motion Picture Gems will be writing about the message in Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon.

Donna at Strictly Vintage Hollywood will be posting on Valentino's lost film Uncharted Seas and a second post to be announced.

Michael Guillen of The Evening Class has tentative plans to write on the Lola Montes restoration (and as far as the Siren is concerned, every blogathon needs some Ophuls) and indices to San Francisco's Noir City and Silent Film Festivals.

Catherine Grant of Film Studies for Free plans to post a set of links to online material about film restoration, preservation and archiving.

Arthur S. of This Pig's Alley plans to post on two neglected Raoul Walsh films, including Me and My Gal.

Plum of Don't Be a Plum plans to post.

Anne Richardson of Oregon Movies A to Z will be interviewing Dennis Nyback about his nitrate stories, as a projectionist.

Gareth of Gareth's Movie Diary plans to write about a vital component of preservation: access to what's preserved.

Brent Walker of the fine Mack Sennett Blog is on board.

Bill Ryan of The Kind of Face You Hate plans to post.

Sarah Baker, author of "Lucky Stars: Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell," will blog about Charlie and Janet's rediscovered films such as The River (1928) and Lucky Star (1929), as well as about helping to release Olive Thomas' 1920 film, The Flapper to DVD; she will post at Flapper Jane.

Paula of Paula's Movie Page, a collection of great movie pics at Shutterfly, is already showing us some link love.

M.K. Rath of Ehmkay is planning a post on preservation's relevance for young people.

The King of Noir, Steve-O, will post about noir and preservation at Noir of the Week.

Gordon Dymoski of Blog This Pal has "a slightly more pop-culture oriented post in mind."

Tinky Weisblat will be writing about Iris Barry of MoMA and "including a recipe of some sort" at Our Grandma's Kitchen.

Betty Jo Tucker of ReelTalk Movie Reviews has publicized the blogathon and plans to participate with a post about the great Martin Scorsese's preservation efforts.

Elizabeth Hansen of the Texas Archive of the Moving Image has pledged to promote the blogathon.

Joe Thompson of The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion is posting on "Why Do We Need to Preserve Films? A Brief History of Nitrate."

Buttermilk Sky gladdens the Siren's heart by pledging to write about the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business.

Eddie Muller of The Film Noir Foundation, another excellent nonprofit film-preservation outfit, will be contributing an article.

Melissa Dollman, audiovisual cataloguer at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, will be contributing at her Highlights from the Archive Blog.

Adam Zanzie of Icebox Movies will be posting.

Maggie of Silver Screen Dream will post about some favorite movies that need attention, like Love Affair (the Siren loves that one, too) as well as future solutions to classic film distribution.

Dennis Cozzalio of the must-read Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule will be joing us.

Hind Mezaina will be posting from Dubai on her blog The Culturist.

Trisha Lendo and her fellow students in the moving-image archive program at UCLA will be posting from their group blog.

Jenny the Nipper will be posting on CinemaOCD--about "DIY Preservation." (!! Do we have to wear gloves?)

Erik Loomis of Alterdestiny is getting into the spirit in a big, ambitious way, by reviewing one of the NFPF-preserved films each night for seven nights.

Librarian Leo Lo plans to post about the role of libraries in preservation.

Kenji Fujishima of My Life, at 24 Frames Per Second, will post about the greatest of all silent movies (sez me), The Crowd.

Want a reminder of what's at stake? Here's Marilyn's piece on a film badly in need of restoration, from one of the Siren's most revered directors, Douglas Sirk. Michael Guillen of The Evening Class posted a while ago about the restoration of Bardelys the Magnificent from another Siren favorite, King Vidor.

And our banner this week is from another film with a checkered release history that left it in badly in need of restoration, which the magnificent Lola Montes has finally received.

If you need ideas on what to write about, check here on the Facebook Discussions page.

There is no obnoxious door policy at the For the Love of Film Blogathon; all are welcome and you may come as you are. There is no limit to the number of bloggers who can participate and you may post any time next week. Drop me or Marilyn a line at email or comments, or on the Facebook page, and you're in, and most welcome. If you alerted me to your participation, and I somehow haven't added you, prod me again, please. You don't have to know what you are writing about yet, the promise to post that week about restoration is more than enough.