Decades before the Pacific Northwest had any kind of film industry, a young, self-taught director named Richard Lyford was making silent horror and sci-fi shorts in 1930s Seattle with a 16mm camera. Lyford’s work was forgotten for years before being recovered by Seattle composer and musician Ed Hartman, who’s become something of a steward of Lyford’s legacy.
Hartman started restoring and scoring Lyford’s films in 2017 after being shown some old footage by a surviving member of the director’s family. Hartman went about restoring the films, tracking down missing footage, editing them back into something theatrically presentable, and promoting them. The finished shorts have since screened at film festivals and aired on Turner Classic Movies. On May 30, they’ll screen at Movie Madness’ miniplex for The Early Films of Richard H. Lyford.
“What made them extraordinary was his ability to work with special effects,” says Hartman. “The Scalpel has a transition sequence that’s almost identical to [cinematographer] Karl Struss’ sequence from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a few years earlier in 1931… he pretty much nailed it. This is a 19-year-old kid duplicating an award-winning cinematographer.”
The Scalpel is a nasty little short that will delight anyone who enjoys black-and-white horror. As the Earth Turns, a sci-fi adventure, features plenty of 1930s special effects. Double exposures, an animated credits sequence, and miniatures all feature prominently in the story of a reporter tracking down a supervillain. Neither films are hidden masterpieces, but they’re both fun, propulsive, and technically impressive. Especially when you keep in mind that they were made by an independent filmmaker almost a century ago.
Two unfinished shorts, Ritual of the Dead and Let’s All Go to the Kitchen are also screening at The Early Films of Richard H. Lyford, but we were unable to view them by press time. Hartman is also screening It Gets in Your Blood, a short documentary about Lyford.
Lyford’s filmmaking skills would eventually land him a job with Disney as an animator and director, though his career with Disney was interrupted after getting drafted in World War II. He would go on to co-direct The Titan: The Story of Michelangelo, which would win the 1950 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. He also directed and worked on multiple episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney. Lyford died in 1985 at the age of 68.
“For whatever reason, he never made those narrative films that would have put him in the A-squad,” says Hartman. He later adds: “But I don’t think he was any kind of a failure.”
Hartman is still trying to track down more of Lyford’s work.“Somebody might have them in their basement,” he says, “You never know.”
The Early Films of Richard H. Lyford, Movie Madness, 4320 SE Belmont, May 30, 2 pm, $10, more info.
