Tonight: Harold Lloyd way up on that building and me way up in Maine paper mill country

The paper mill in Rumford, Maine.

If you happen to be in the vicinity of Rumford, Maine tonight, then come join us for a screening of 'Safety Last' (1923).

Rumford, home of the biggest paper mill I've ever seen, is just up the road from Dixfield, Maine, home of the Tuscan Opera House, site of tonight's show.

It's not the first time the Tuscan Opera House has served the community as a makeshift cinema.

Years ago, before television, the grand multi-story structure doubled as the town's moviehouse, showing features and newsreels to keep backwoods Maine connected to the world.

But that was then. The movies stopped a long time ago, and for many years the place was a restaurant.

In more recent years, I've come there do silent film programs with live music.

This has been at the behest of Dirigo High School teacher Kurt Rowley and his students, who hold an annual silent film night to raise funds for the local historical society.

Tonight's show is Harold Lloyd's great comedy 'Safety Last,' which is best seen with an audience.

So a good time will be had by all, including you, if you're within shouting distance of Rumford, Maine. So get in the car. It's only an eight-hour drive from New York!

Here's the press release with more info:

* * *

Harold Lloyd in 'Safety Last' (1923).

MONDAY, OCT. 28, 2019 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film classic 'Safety Last' on Saturday, Nov. 9 at Tuscan Opera House

Thrill comedy climaxed by Harold Lloyd's iconic building climb; with live music

DIXFIELD, Maine—It's an image so powerful, people who've never seen the movie still instantly recognize it.

The vision of Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of a huge clock, from the climax of his silent comedy 'Safety Last,' (1923), has emerged as a symbol of the "anything goes" spirit of early Hollywood and the magic of the movies.

See how Harold gets into his high-altitude predicament in a screening of 'Safety Last,' one of Lloyd's most popular comedies, on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Tuscan Opera House, 11 Main St., Dixfield, Maine.

The program, organized by Dirigo High School students as a fund-raiser for the local historical society, is open to the public. Admission is $10 per person.

The screening will feature live music by New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis, a New England based composer who specializes in creating music for silent film presentations.

The show will allow audiences to experience silent film the way its makers originally intended: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

The story of 'Safety Last' follows young go-getter Lloyd to the big city, where he hopes to make his mark in business and send for his small town sweetheart. His career at a downtown department store stalls, however, until he gets a chance to pitch a surefire publicity idea—hire a human fly to climb the building's exterior.

However, when the human fly has a last-minute run-in with the law, Harold is forced to make the climb himself, floor by floor, with his sweetheart looking on. The result is an extended sequence blending comedy and terror that holds viewers spellbound.

Lloyd, along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, is regarded as one of the silent screen's three great clowns. Lloyd's character, a young go-getter ready to struggle to win the day, proved hugely popular in the 1920s. While Chaplin and Keaton were always favored by the critics, Lloyd's films reigned as the top-grossing comedies throughout the period.

The screening in the historic Tuscan Opera House gives today's audiences the chance to experience early cinema as it was intended: on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

The Tuscan Opera House dates from 1905, when it replaced an earlier hall that burned in 1901. The building's first two floors housed a movie theater for many years until the advent of television in the 1950s. It later housed the Opera House Restaurant and now hosts occasional shows and programs.

"Put the whole experience back together, and you can see why people first fell in love with the movies," said Rapsis, who practices the nearly lost art of silent film accompaniment.

Rapsis performs on a digital synthesizer that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra, creating a traditional "movie score" sound.

"Seeing 'Safety Last' with an audience is one of the great thrill rides of the cinema of any era, silent or sound," Rapsis said. "Harold's iconic building climb, filmed without trick photography, continues to provoke audience responses nearly 100 years after film was first released."

Harold Lloyd in 'Safety Last' (1923).

Tributes to the clock-hanging scene have appeared in several contemporary films, most recently in Martin Scorsese's 'Hugo' (2011), which includes clips from 'Safety Last.'

See Harold Lloyd's iconic thrill comedy 'Safety Last' (1923) on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Tuscan Opera House, 11 Main St., Dixfield, Maine.

Admission is $10 per person; tickets and concessions will be available at the door.

For more information and advance tickets, please contact Dirigo High School teacher Kurt Rowley at (207) 680-0113.

CRITIC COMMENTS ON ‘SAFETY LAST’:

"Impossible to watch without undergoing visitations of vertigo, Safety Last's climactic sequence is all it's reputed to be.”
—TV Guide

"Harold Lloyd manages to make the characters sympathetic enough to carry the audience's concern on his journey of crazy stunts and mishaps. One of the best of this era."
—David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

"The climb has both comic and dramatic weight because it is both a thrilling exercise in physical humor and a thematically rich evocation of the pressures men feel to succeed, lest they be viewed as less than a man."
—James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

Prescribing 'Dr. Jack' for what ails ya; plus other December screenings coming up

A dose of Harold Lloyd on Saturday, Dec. 13 in Dixfield, Maine will surely cure any holiday blahs.

Come December, the performance calendar slows down by design: most regular series I accompany take the month off, as a lot of people have other things besides silent film on their minds. (I know, can you imagine?)

But still, a few screenings are booked: a Harold Lloyd program way up north in Maine's paper mill country; a screenings of Fritz Lang's 'Woman in the Moon' (1929) to employees of a Massachusetts film in the rocketry field; and a Chaplin program over Christmas weekend in Wilton, N.H.

So if you're desperate for your silent film fix, there's enough out there for you to get through the month without too much risk of withdrawal.

But then there's January. I'm fortunate enough to be traveling for most of that month in Africa, where I'll attempt to trek to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. No kidding! So no silent film gigs until the last week of the month, when I return. (And not ever, if I somehow don't make it back at all.)

For now, here's info on the next upcoming gig: a Harold Lloyd program at the amazing Tuscan Opera House in Dixfield, Maine on Saturday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m.

Why amazing? It's an outrageously grand four-story wood-frame edifice, originally erected in the 1890s as the local Odd Fellows Hall, but now in private hands. (The vintage photo above, best I could find, really doesn't do it justice.)

Having survived a huge fire in 1938 and then abandonment in the 1970s, it still stands, towering over neighboring structures in the tiny town center like Cinderella's castle dominates Disneyland's Main Street.

Here's an interesting write-up on the Opera House, although it doesn't include recent efforts to restore and open it to community events. (Including silent film screenings, which local high school students have staged as fund-raisers for the local historical society.)

Speaking of which: the program on Saturday, Dec. 13 will be highlighted by 'Dr. Jack' (1922), an early Lloyd feature that remains persistently popular with audiences.

I included it a program in Brandon, Vt. in 2013 just because it's one of the few Lloyd features in the public domain that I hadn't run to death, and I was completely surprised at the uproarious laughter the picture generated.

For a recap, I'm pleased to point to this post by the astute blogger known as Nitrate Diva, who sometimes attends the Brandon screenings.

And for more information about the Lloyd program at the Tuscan Opera House in Dixfield, Maine, check out the text of the press release below.

* * *

Harold Lloyd battles the medical experts in 'Dr. Jack' (1922).

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3, 2014 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent comedy classics at Tuscan Opera House on Saturday, Dec. 13

Timeless movies starring comic Harold Lloyd to be screened with live music

DIXFIELD, Maine—A comic icons of cinema's early days will return to the big screen for one night only, as the Tuscan Opera House presents an evening of silent film comedy with live music on Saturday, Dec. 13.

The show begins at 7 p.m. and will feature films starring Harold Lloyd, the most popular comedian and box office star of the silent film era.

The program, organized by Dirigo High School students as a fund-raiser for the local historical society, is open to the public. Admission is $10 per person.

Live music will be provided by accompanist Jeff Rapsis, a resident of Bedford, N.H. and one of the nation's leading silent film musicians.

Rapsis will also provide background on Lloyd's career as well as introduce each film.

"There's nothing like silent film comedy shown on the big screen with a live audience," said Rapsis, who regularly accompanies silent film screenings at venues around New England and beyond.

The program is a follow-up to a well-received silent film show held last year at the historic four-story opera house.

Last year's program featured Buster Keaton; this year's focuses on legendary silent film comic Harold Lloyd.

"Harold Lloyd was a master of knowing how to make a large audience laugh," Rapsis said. "Seeing his films as they were intended to be shown is still one of the great experiences the movies have to offer."

The program will be highlighted by the feature-length movie 'Dr. Jack' (1922), in which Lloyd plays a country doctor with methods that are unorthodox, but which get results. But now comes his toughest case yet: a rich girl (Mildred Davis) bed-ridden with a mysterious condition. Harold's cure is sure to make audiences smile!

The program will be rounded out by other Lloyd films, all presented with live music.

Lloyd's optimistic go-getter character was extremely popular throughout the 1920s, as audiences followed him from one adventure to the next. His pictures, with their mix of comedy, sentiment, and thrills, proved so successful that Lloyd was the top box office star during the silent era, outgrossing all other performers.

The silent film program at Dixfield's Tuscan Opera House aims to recreate the full silent film experience, with restored prints projected on a big screen, live music, and the presence of an audience. All these elements are essential to seeing silent films they way they were intended, Rapsis said.

"If you can put it all together again, these films still contain a tremendous amount of excitement," Rapsis said. "By staging these screenings of features from Hollywood's early days, you can see why people first fell in love with the movies."

Music is a key element of each silent film screening, Rapsis said. Silent movies were never shown in silence, but were accompanied by live music made right in each theater. Most films were not released with official scores, so it was up to local musicians to provide the soundtrack, which could vary greatly from theater to theater.

"Because there's no set soundtrack for most silent films, musicians are free to create new music as they see fit, even today," Rapsis said. "In bringing a film to life, I try to create original 'movie score' music that sounds like what you might expect in a theater today, which helps bridge the gap between today's audiences and silent films that are in some cases nearly 100 years old."

Dirigo High School students present an evening of silent film comedy with live music on Saturday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Tuscan Opera House, Maine Street, Dixfield. Admission is $10 per person, with all proceeds to go to the local historical society.

Looking back at Charlie and Buster, looking forward to 'Peter Pan' in Connecticut

A handmade sign promoting the evening's entertainment at the Tuscan Opera House in Dixfield, Maine.

Two unusual one-off screenings this past weekend as things wind down to the holiday season lull.

Last Friday night (Dec. 6), I had the pleasure of accompanying a screening of Chaplin's 'The Kid' (1921) for the Media and Design Club of Southern New Hampshire University. It was a pleasure despite lugging my gear in a light snow and the late hour: a 9:30 p.m. start!

But it was the club's sole activity this semester, and I was delighted that they'd decided a silent film with live music was the way to go. The venue: a small lecture hall with rows of bench desks, but it worked well enough.

Thanks to Bill Millios (on the SNHU faculty) for recommending me to the club, and organizer Jennifer Lampro for all her efforts. Lots of good questions afterwards, and also fun with a couple of students fascinated by my aging digital synthesizer. ("Wow, this is damaged and beat up like a road guitar.")

But real adventure was Saturday, where I put in 370 miles up and back to Dixfield, Maine, where high school students staged a silent film show at the town's opera house to benefit the town's historical society.

This part of Maine is unfamiliar to me, so I left home around noon to allow for plenty of time for some Christmas shopping on the way in Littleton, N.H. I then got on Route 2, the great east-west highway of northern New England, and even though I made good time (no lumbering lumber trucks), I just barely made it to Dixfield for the appointed 5:30 p.m. arrival.

One reason was Rumford, Maine, the town just before Dixfield. Route 2 runs right through the middle of this compact community, which is dominated by a truly enormous paper mill. The sun had gone down, and somehow I'd lost the scent of Route 2 through town, instead getting trapped in a small area of narrow one-way streets in Rumford's vintage downtown.

I finally found Route 2 after driving right through a portion of the paper mill, among piles of logs several stories high that awaited their fate. I later discovered that the Rumford Mill is the nation's largest producer of "coated paper" used in magazine publishing. So next time you pick up your copy of "Field & Stream," I may have already seen it in raw form.

The auditorium of the Tuscan Opera House, seen from the front. About a third of the floor space (at right) is taken up by a kitchen that was installed when the place functioned as a restaurant.

Dixfield's "Tuscan Opera House" turned out to be a sprawling multi-floor wood frame relic from another era. Built by the International Order of Odd Fellows in 1905 (on the foundations of a former opera house that burned to the ground), the structure hosted dances, movies, and school graduation ceremonies for generations of town residents.

In more recent years, the place has functioned as an antique shop and a restaurant, with long stretches of inactivity. Changes to the building have resulted in a really unusual layout for the auditorium, which now has about a third of its floor space taken up by a walled-off kitchen. But the stage is intact, and so it's still a good (if slightly lop-sided) place for a show.

A view of the proscenium in the opera house, with handmade movie screen front and center, restaurant kitchen to the left.

These days, building owner Nancy Carpenter is looking for ways to reconnect the Opera House to town life. So when Kurt Rowley, a teacher at the local high school, suggested that his students organize a silent film program to benefit the town's historical society, she was glad to say yes.

So I got the call a few months ago. And the next thing I knew, it was Saturday, Dec. 7, and I was face to face with a large wooden Indian of the "cigar store" type, guarding the main door of the opera house. Inside, the place is an evocative mixture of vintage bric-a-brac, including a massive mechanical cash register that students were using to ring up ticket and concession sales. (That's them "raiding the till" in the photo below.)

Although I had to concentrate on setting up my gear and preparing for the performance, I loved the quirky surroundings and wished I could have spent more time just poking around. (Mrs. Carpenter offered to give me a tour afterwards, but the three-hour drive home beckoned and I had to hit the road.)

One problem with movies at the Tuscan Opera House: it lacks any kind of screen. So, for our program, Mr. Rowley commissioned a homespun version made out of what seemed to be wide strips of cotton crafting fabric sewn together horizontally. It worked brilliantly!

The film program was preceded by music from this excellent student violinist, who made use of an incredible improvised music stand, and whose name I have misplaced. Someone help me!

The program was Buster Keaton's two "junior" films: first 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924) to warm things up, and then 'Steamboat Bill Jr.' (1928) as the main attraction. We got about 60 people and reaction was what I would call "steady." People really seemed to enjoy both films, but this just wasn't a crowd given to explosive laughter. Maybe interior Maine is just like that, I guess. Ayup. People had some very nice things to say afterwards, however, and I felt I'd hit the mark mostly.

So: a small town I'd never been to, a quirky old auditorium with good acoustics, friendly and polite high school students eager to volunteer, a live audience, and Buster Keaton. What more could a silent film accompanist want?

And that leaves just one more gig before I shut things down for the holiday season: a screening of 'Peter Pan' (1924) at the library down in Stratford, Conn. (A three-hour drive in the other direction.) The fun starts on Sunday, Dec. 15 at 2 p.m. at Stratford Library, 2203 Main St., Stratford, Conn. The screening is free and open to all! That's Betty Bronson, below, in the title role.

I'm looking forward to this, in part because I've done music for 'Peter Pan' twice in the past month, and so I feel like I'm in good shape to help the film come to life. The movie is "in my head," and I have the right musical ideas to go with it, I think. The most problematic part of the exercise will be just getting down there and setting up my gear (disc player, projector, synthesizer, speakers) prior to the show, which always has me worried until everything is hooked up and working.

So I guess that's what a silent film accompanist could want: a tech assistant!