El Brendel's "Help Yourself" gets a West Cost premiere!

[Louie Despres]

Yes indeed, folks. The long lost El Brendel 2 reeler "Help Yourself" will have it's West Coast premiere at the Los Angeles Silent Film Festival on Saturday, September 12th at 1:00pm. It will be opening for the newly discovered feature "The Slanderers". This is the film El made in between leaving Paramount and returning to vaudeville before getting signed to Fox. What makes this film even more interesting is it was financed by Billy Willkerson who went on to found "The Hollywood Reporter" and was directed by Joe Pasternak, who later found fame as a producer at Universal. Film archivest Dino Everett will be introducing both films as he worked on restoring them:

https://www.americancinematheque.com/no ... 9-12-2026/

This will be shown as part of the larger festival with screenings at the Los Feliz Theatre, 1822 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles. Full schedule is here:

https://www.americancinematheque.com/se ... ival-2026/