Event Overview:
This screening accompanies "Silent Movie Week 2025" film series.

The Museum of Modern Art presents the third annual Silent Movie Week, featuring seven recent silent film restorations screened over seven consecutive evenings.

Street Angel. 1928. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. Screenplay by Philip Klein, Marion Orth, Henry Roberts Symonds, based on the play by Monckton Hoffe. With Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Alberto Rabagliati, Natalie Kingston. Preserved and restored by The Museum of Modern Art. 102 min.

In this sublime melodrama, the second of their 11 screen collaborations, Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell rekindle the transcendent chemistry that captivated audiences in Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven. Gaynor plays Angela, a destitute Neapolitan girl who flees after being arrested for prostitution and finds refuge among circus performers. There she meets and falls in love with a struggling painter (Farrell) who immortalizes her as the Madonna while unaware of her troubled past. Working with cinematographer Ernest Palmer, Borzage transforms the Fox backlot into a dreamlike vision of Naples, where fog-shrouded streets and expressionist shadows create an otherworldly backdrop for Borzage’s deeply felt humanism and Christian faith. Gaynor’s performance, continuing the emotional transparency that won her the first Academy Award for Best Actress, affirms Borzage’s central belief that love transcends social stigma and material circumstance.