Screenings Pay Tribute to Vitaphone

The following paragraphs inadvertently were omitted from Kevin Thomas’ “Special Screenings” column Monday. The column concerned “The Dawn of Sound: A Tribute to Vitaphone,” a series being offered this weekend at UCLA’s Melnitz Theater.

It’s back to Warner Bros. for the Sunday evening silent double feature, Alan Crosland’s “Old San Francisco” (1927) and Roy Del Ruth’s “The First Auto” (1927). In the first, Darryl F. Zanuck, then a 25-year-old screenwriter, would have us believe that the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 occurred because Dolores Costello, the virginal daughter of a decayed Spanish land grant family, invoked the wrath of God to protect her from a fate worse than death in an underground Chinatown harem.

The strongest element in the film is Ben Carre’s splendid re-creation of Chinatown and the Barbary Coast, which he then reduced to shambles; the synchronized score is by Hugo Riesenfeld. The rural comedy, subtitled “A Romance of the Last Horse and the First Horseless Carriage,” also stars Russell Simpson (best remembered as Pa Joad in “The Grapes of Wrath”) and features elaborate sound effects and a nostalgic Herman Heller synchronized score.

The series--which will include “The Jazz Singer” and the first “100% All Talking Picture,” “Lights of New York”--runs through Feb. 18. Information: (213) 206-FILM or (213) 206-8013.

The sumptuous “Princess Yang Kwei Fei” (1955), a story of the Cinderella-like rise of a scullery maid (Machiko Kyo) to the gilded court of a Chinese emperor (Masayuki Mori), commences a Kenji Mizoguchi series Friday at the Little Tokyo Cinemas. Second feature is “My Love Is Burning” (1949). Information: (213) 687-7077.