Preview
SILENT MOVIE MONDAYS
February 3 to 24
Uptown Screen
With the spooky thrills of Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and the slapstick antics of Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925), Silent Movie Mondays return to the Uptown Screen this February.
As we have come to expect, organist Dennis James will provide musical accompaniment for these pictures – as well as the romance Blood and Sand (1922), starring Rudolph Valentino, and the western Tumbleweeds (1925), starring William S. Hart – making the winter a little more bearable for Calgary cinephiles. Given that a Laurel and Hardy short film will precede each feature, it’s going to be a great month for fans of classic movies.
James’s fascinating and thoroughly entertaining silent film revival has been packing audiences into the Uptown annually since 1998. Most recently, last summer’s presentation of a newly restored print of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction classic Metropolis had moviegoers abuzz. As much a performer as a film historian, James presents cinema history with an emphasis on audience enjoyment. Not only does he have an encyclopedic knowledge of silent cinema, he’s also an accomplished musician and composer who improvises the scores for the films he accompanies if their original scores are no longer available.
Since the Uptown adapted its projection equipment last year to accommodate the frame-speed of Metropolis, Silent Movie Mondays now has a much broader range of programming possibilities – and we’re seeing the results already. The Phantom of the Opera is widely regarded to be Chaney’s masterpiece, and it will indeed be a treat to see the legendary "man of a thousand faces" on the big screen. Similarly, Chaplin’s The Gold Rush is one of the Little Tramp’s most celebrated films, if only for the scene in which he chows down on his own shoe. Granted, Blood and Sand and Tumbleweeds may seem pedestrian in comparison, but as long as the flamboyant James is playing the keys along with them, they’ll certainly be worth a look. |
