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Knox County Public Library is pleased to announce the Clarence Brown Film Festival, set for August 16-20, 2023, in various locations in downtown Knoxville. The Festival will take place alongside the annual History Hootenany held at the East Tennessee History Center (601 S. Gay Street). All events are free and open to the public.

Clarence Brown is a revered director of the classic Hollywood era who hailed from Old North Knoxville and was a graduate of Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee in the early 1900s. His 52 feature-length films, spanning the silent era into the classic Hollywood period of the 1930s-50s, were nominated for 38 Academy Awards and received eight. He was a favorite director of Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, and even helped launch a young Elizabeth Taylor to stardom. His impact was more than in the realm of glamour, however, as his films subtly addressed social issues from women’s roles to racism. In 1970, he donated the largest gift at the time to the University of Tennessee, endowing the Clarence Brown Theatre.

Today, most people know the theatre, but few people know the man behind the name. The Festival aims to re-introduce Clarence Brown and his work to modern audiences with screenings of Brown’s most iconic films and with talks, tours, and more.

The Festival features a rare screening of “The Signal Tower” (1924) with live musical accompaniment by Roger Miller of the Anvil Orchestra. The restored 35 mm silent film has been screened only two other times — at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The “The Signal Tower” was originally shown in Knoxville on October 2-4, 1924, at the long-gone movie house, The Strand. This will be the film’s debut in the Historic Tennessee Theatre at 7:30 on Saturday, August 19.

Claude Jarman Jr., star of “The Yearling” and “Intruder in the Dust,” will be on hand to discuss his experiences as a child actor in some of Clarence Brown’s most successful films. Gwenda Young, author of “Clarence Brown: Hollywood’s Forgotten Master,” will deliver the keynote address and introduce several films.

Lights! Camera! East Tennessee! is an exhibition at the Museum of East Tennessee History developed in conjunction with the Film Festival that explores Knoxville’s participation and representation in moving images, from the early days of film to today.