Rick Schmidlin (born October 22, 1954) is a

film preservation Film preservation, or film restoration, describes a series of ongoing efforts among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images they contain. In the wid ...

ist and

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

scholar, and a producer-director whose work has focused on restorations, reconstructions and

documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

. Until 2010, he taught for the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

in the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies as an adjunct faculty member. In 2018 Schmidlin was the house manager and programmer of the restored Queen Theatre in Bryan, Texas.

Films

Schmidlin produced the films '' The Doors: Live at the Hollywood Bowl'' and '' The Doors:The Soft Parade - A Retrospective (1991)''. In 1986 he was an assistant producer on

David Cronenberg David Paul Cronenberg (born March 15, 1943) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation ...

's '' The Fly''. He also re-edited the

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...

concert film '' Elvis: That's the Way It Is''. Schmidlin produced the re-edit of the

Erich von Stroheim Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim (born Erich Oswald Stroheim; September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, actor and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. H ...

film '' Greed'', to give a sense of what the original lost version of the film might have been like, and produced the re-edited Orson Welles' film '' Touch of Evil''. Schmidlin restored (from stills and shooting continuity scripts) the famous lost horror film '' London After Midnight'' starring

Lon Chaney Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and affli ...

and directed by

Tod Browning Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of vari ...

. and produced the restoration in 2000 of

The Dickson Experimental Sound Film ''The Dickson Experimental Sound Film'' is a film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto- sound-film sy ...

and was selected for inclusion in the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

. In 2015 Schmidlin produced and restored the lost

Houdini Harry Houdini (, born Erik Weisz; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-American escape artist, magic man, and stunt performer, noted for his escape acts. His pseudonym is a reference to his spiritual master, French magician ...

film from 1919—'' The Grim Game''— that premiered as the closing film March 29, 2015, at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

Awards

Schmidlin has received the Special Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, a Special Citation from the

National Society of Film Critics The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) is an American film critic organization. The organization is known for its highbrow tastes, and its annual awards are one of the most prestigious film critics awards in the United States. In January 2014, ...

, and a Special Citation from

Los Angeles Film Critics Association The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is an American film critic organization founded in 1975. Background Its membership comprises film critics from Los Angeles-based print and electronic media. In December of each year, the organiza ...

for his work on ''Touch of Evil''. For his work reconstructing ''Greed'' he, along with Roger Mayer and

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

, received a special citation from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In 2001 he received the Rondo Award from the Classic Horror Film Board for '' London After Midnight'' that he produced for TCM.

References

External links

* 1954 births Living people American film producers Academic staff of the University of British Columbia {{US-film-producer-stub