This evening (Tuesday, Aug. 12) I have the privilege of accompanying 'Phantom of the Opera' (1925) at the Moultonborough (N.H.) Public Library.
I just read in the local news that Moultonborough, perched on the northern end of Lake Winnipesaukee, is one of New Hampshire's fastest-growing towns. Undoubtedly the reason for this is that the library programs silent films with live music. Other towns, take note!
Lots more info on the film (and the screening) in the press release pasted in below.
Before I head up to the Lakes Region, here's a look back at two notable screenings from this past weekend.
On Saturday, Aug. 9, I served as accompanist for 'Dog Day Afternoon: A Celebration of Canine Stars in Silent Film' at the Johnson Hall Opera House in Gardiner, Maine. The program was, yes, all films starring dogs!
Organized by film preservationist (and Maine resident) Ed Lorusso, attendees were treated to rarely seen short films starring Jean the Vitagraph Dog (including two shot in Maine), Shep the Dog, Teddy the Wonder Dog, plus the feature-length 'Clash of the Wolves' (1925) starring Rin Tin Tin.
At least one dog, Uncas, attended, and seemed to enjoy the program. In the "You Never Know Who Will Attend a Screening" Department, his owner was a descendant of Laurence Trimble, the man who owned and trained Jean the Vitagraph Dog, the most popular dog star in the movies circa 1910.
We saw why in three short films starring Jean, each of which I'd never seen before but had a great time finding the right music to bring them to life. I kept the textures light and tuneful, with occasional forays into drama when warranted.
I'd never seen the other films, either, with the exception of the Keystone comedy 'Teddy at the Throttle' (1916), which I must have accompanied at some point, and 'Clash of the Wolves' (1925), an audience favorite that I've accompanied many times.
For 'Clash,' I switched the synthesizer to full orchestra to reflect the film's outdoorsy sweep and to amp up the drama. You might say I pulled out all the stops, although that's a phrase from the world of pipe organs.
About 80 people turned out for the program, which at four hours was a fairly big gulp, but which actually seemed to rocket right by. Audience reaction was strong throughout. Kudos to Ed Lorusso for not only restoring many of the shorter films, but also curating a program in which every film was a winner.
The show was Lorusso's 3rd Annual Silent Film Festival in support of the Colonial Theater in Augusta, Maine, which is undergoing extensive renovations, hence the use of the Johnson Hall Opera House, an equally worthy venue.
Many thanks to all who made this event something to bark about!
And in a weird coincidence, I found that after the silent film festival, the next act at the Johnson Hall Opera House would be none other than Garrison Keillor. Really! Check out the photo:
I've been a life-long admirer of Keillor's work as a writer and also improviser. Really—the weekly 'News from Lake Wobegon' monologues he did for decades on the 'Prairie Home Companion' radio show were largely improvised on the spot.
I've often felt this was an act of sustained creativity on the same level as Bach churning out entire cantatas for weekly services at St. Thomas in Leipzig.
I also believe his writing is under-rated. In particular, I think he captured something very special about life in America in 'Lake Wobegon Day,' the 1985 novel in which he stitched together and wrote down much of the material he'd been working out in front of audiences for the radio show.
There's stuff in there that captures life in as it was lived in smaller communities in the United States in the mid-20th century. And it does it with a simplicity and plainness that I've never found in any other writing.
I think a long time from now, if historians want to know what it was like to grow up in the era that so many of us did (post World War II, pre-Internet), they could do worse than read this book.
And here's the thing. I didn't grow up in Minnesota, but long stretches of 'Lake Wobegon Days' captures exactly what I remember experiencing as I came of age (in my case, in the mill town of Nashua, N.H.) and began to see the world around me.
So although the book is about a very specific time and place, I consider it an example of how the universal can be found in what's most familiar and all around us.
Maybe that's why I return to 'Lake Wobegon Days' every few years and read through it. Maybe that's why I included a small excerpt as one of the texts read at my wedding, which will be 30 years ago next month.
"Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known."That gloriously convoluted sentence, but made up entirely of one- and two-syllable words, and in that unmistakable voice and cadence, with the emergence of the realization embedded within it. I imagine a lot of work went into shaping that sentence, which appears at the very end of the book. Wow!
And maybe that's why I got tickets to see Garrison Keillor appear earlier this year in that very same town, Nashua, N.H., and maybe that's why I went up to him afterwards and asked if he'd sign my aging paperback copy of 'Lake Wobegon Days,' which he did:
So from one improviser to another: Garrison, I hope I warmed up the Johnson Hall Opera House audience.
Another kind of warmth was to be found on Sunday, Aug. 10, when I ventured down to the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square, Somerville, Mass., where I accompanied a screening of 'Padlocked' (1926), a newly restored drama that's only recently become available.
What a blast of 1920s everything! Based on a popular story published in Cosmopolitan Magazine (ever hear of it?) 'Padlocked' has intense family drama, laugh-out-loud comedy, incredible dancing, rich men preying on young women, extremely weird theme parties, and much more, all drenched in Jazz Age atmosphere.
The film—directed by Allan Dwan and photographed by James Wong Howe, and featuring an A-list cast including Noah Beery, Florence Turner, Richard Arlen, Josephine Crowell, and, most interesting of all, Lois Moran, who would go on to have an affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who then rewrote the character of Rosemary Hoyt in his novel 'Tender is the Night' to resemble her—was considered lost for nearly a century.
But a print turned up in Czech National Archive in Prague, and we can now see 'Padlocked' again on the big screen. Kudos to the San Francisco Silent Film Festival for pursuing the restoration of this high energy chestnut, and also for making a 35mm print available for screening, which we used, and which looked great on the Somerville's big screen.
Okay, onward to tonight's screening of 'Phantom' in the fast-growing town of Moultonborough. See you at the library!
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'Phantom of the Opera' starring Lon Chaney at Moultonborough Library on Tuesday, Aug. 12
Free to the public! Pioneer classic silent thriller to be shown with live musical accompaniment
The screening will feature live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating music for silent films.
'The Phantom of the Opera,' starring legendary actor Lon Chaney in the title role, remains a landmark work of the cinematic horror genre. To modern viewers, the passage of time has made this unusual film seem even more strange and otherworldly.
It's an atmosphere that silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis will enhance by improvising live music on the spot for the screening.
Lon Chaney in the title role in 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925).
"The
original 'Phantom' is a film that seems to get creepier as more time
passes," said Rapsis, who accompanies films at venues around the
nation. "It's a great way to experience the power of
silent film to transport audiences to strange and unusual places."
'The
Phantom of the Opera,' adapted from a 19th century novel by French
author Gaston Leroux, featured Chaney as the deformed Phantom who haunts
the opera house. The Phantom, seen only in the shadows, causes murder
and mayhem in an attempt to force the opera's management to make the
woman he loves into a star.
The film is most famous for Lon
Chaney's intentionally horrific, self-applied make-up, which was kept a
studio secret until the film's premiere.
Chaney transformed his
face by painting his eye sockets black, creating a cadaverous skull-like
visage. He also pulled the tip of his nose up and pinned it in place
with wire, enlarged his nostrils with black paint, and put a set of
jagged false teeth into his mouth to complete the ghastly deformed look
of the Phantom.
Chaney's disfigured face is kept covered in the
film until the now-famous unmasking scene, which prompted gasps of
terror from the film's original audiences.
"No one had ever seen
anything like this before," Rapsis said. "Chaney, with his portrayal of
'The Phantom,' really pushed the boundaries of what movies could do."
Chaney, known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces" due to his versatility with make-up, also played Quasimodo in the silent 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923) and circus performer 'Alonzo the Armless' in Tod Browning's 'The Unknown' (1927).
The large cast of 'Phantom of the Opera' includes Mary Philbin as Christine Daaé, as the Phantom's love interest; character actor Snitz Edwards; and many other stars of the silent period.
'The Phantom of the Opera' proved so popular in its original release and again in a 1930 reissue that it led Universal Studios to launch a series of horror films, many of which are also regarded as true classics of the genre, including 'Dracula' (1931), 'Frankenstein' (1931), and 'The Mummy' (1932).
