Susan Orlean will be at the San Francisco Film Society’s new theatrical home to celebrate the publication of her new book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, to introduce a screening of the action-packed silent Western Clash of the Wolves (USA 1925) and to answer questions from the audience following the film.

Orlean’s story of Hollywood’s most famous canine and his journey from his birth on a WWI battlefield through his career in film and television illuminates the history of the movies as well as ideas about war, heroism, success and the roles that animals play in our society. Orlean’s in-person illustrated introduction to Rin Tin Tin’s career will be followed by what she believes to be his greatest silent film, Clash of the Wolves. In this 1925 Western directed by Noel M.Smith, Rinty plays the half-breed leader of a wolf pack who helps a kind prospector defend his land from an unscrupulous claim jumper. This film was preserved by the Library of Congress and made available in the National Film Preservation Foundation's DVD set More Treasures from American Film Archives, 1894-1931. New score by Martin Marks.

Tickets are $12 Film Society members/$15 general public. Tickets go on sale Monday, October 3.

Copies of Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend will be available for purchase and Orlean will be available to sign books at the end of the program.  


Written by Charles A. Logue. Photographed by E.B. Dupar, Alan Thompson, Joseph Walker. With Rin Tin Tin, Nanette, Charles Farrell, June Marlowe, Heinie Conklin, William Walling. 74 min. DVD.