A true holiday for cinephiles

THE 41st edition of Cinecon, the Labor Day weekend convention of the Society of Cinephiles, showcases vintage cinema today through Monday at the Egyptian. As always, the schedule is studded with rarities and rediscoveries -- there will be 23 features plus numerous shorts -- many of them restored and preserved by the society. This year's guests, each of whom will appear with one of their films, are Patricia Neal, Diane Baker, Nanette Fabray and director Delbert Mann. A collectors' show will take place at the nearby Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

Herbert Brenon's 1927 film of the Warwick Deeping bestseller "Sorrell & Son," which was recently restored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Film Archive, screens tonight. Although a box-office disappointment, it has stood the test of time and emerges as a testament to a father's unswerving love for his son that transcends some melodramatic conventions of the silent era.

A decorated English World War I captain (H.B. Warner) returns after the Armistice to London to discover his gold-digging wife (Anna Q. Nilsson) walking out on him for a richer husband. Meanwhile, his employer, a banker, refuses to give him his old job. Warner is soon reduced to being a porter in a small-town wayside inn, where he works for a sadistic floozy (Carmel Myers) eager to lure him into her bed. Another former soldier, a colonel (Norman Trevor), rescues him with a job at a hotel he manages, and despite setbacks, Warner manages to raise his young son (Mickey McBan), who grows up to be an eminent neurosurgeon (Nils Asther).

A handsome production that has been exceptionally well cast, "Sorrell & Son" succeeds largely because of the understatement of Warner, who brought that same quality to his portrayal of Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's "King of Kings" the same year. Myers, who liked to play villains and vamps because "good girls fade into the background like wallpaper," gives the genteel film a shot in the arm with her nasty innkeeper.

For pure escape there is nothing like a classic MGM musical, and "The Band Wagon" (1953), screening Friday, is one of the best. Vincente Minnelli directs Betty Comden and Adolph Green's satirical backstage musical with verve, and Fred Astaire was never more affable as a faded Hollywood musical star whom writer-performers Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant hope to rescue with their new Broadway show. Unfortunately, they've lined up a pretentious Brit (Jack Buchanan) to produce and direct, and he threatens to torpedo the production with his zeal for "significance."