Harold, Gloria, Greta and Buster all wish you a very happy Valentine's Day

Harold Lloyd displays one reaction to romance in 'Never Weaken' (1921).

Every year I have such high hopes for Valentine's Day.

As a silent film accompanist, I imagine doing music for great old films while surprised couples find them so beguiling that the deal is sealed right there.

They love each other! Or they love silent film! I'll take either outcome.

So, will my latent Yente find satisfaction this time around?

We'll know soon, as here comes yet another Valentine's Day, and silent film romance is in the air—or at least on selected screens in my corner of the world.

Romantic or not, you're welcome to join us for a stretch of some great classic cinema in some really great venues.

We start off Thursday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. with a Harold Lloyd program at Red River Theatres in Concord, N.H.

On the bill are two of what I would call Lloyd's sure-fire romantic comedies—the short 'Never Weaken' (1921) and feature-length 'Girl Shy' (1924).

To call these films "romantic comedies" is to reverse-engineer the label, which wasn't used to describe this genre of movies until much, much later.

Even so, Lloyd, by weaving somewhat plausible romance into his character and stories, pioneered the notion of the sweet boy-meets-girl picture that became a staple of the motion picture industry.

Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston, along with dog and train conductor, in the midst of their "meet-cute" in 'Girl Shy.'

Also, among its other virtues, 'Girl Shy' boasts some of the most exciting and suspenseful sequences of any of the Lloyd features.

And there's nothing like seeing Lloyd films in a theater with an audience, which is how they were meant to be experienced.

So check it out—complete info for the Red River's Harold Lloyd Pre-Valentine's Day Show is found in the press release pasted in below, or visit www.redrivertheatres.org.

Then Saturday, Feb. 10, I haul myself up to the foothills of the White Mountains for what's become an annual tradition: pot luck supper and silent movie night at the Campton (N.H.) Historical Society.

This year our star is Gloria Swanson, who will hold the screen with 'Zaza,' her big 1923 feature for Paramount Pictures.

I created music for a DVD/Blu-Ray reissue of 'Zaza' by Kino-Lorber last year; Saturday night's screening will be a live recreation of the score.

Also on the program: Gloria's early appearance in 'Teddy At the Throttle' (1916), a Mack Sennett Keystone comedy.

Admission is free, but attendees are expected to bring a dish for the pot luck. Also, donations accepted to help support the historical society's programming.

Dinner is at 5 p.m., the movies start at "6-ish." For more info, visit the Campton Historical Society online.

And on Sunday, Feb. 11, it's a double helping of romance.

At 4:30 p.m., we're running Greta Garbo's 'Wild Orchids' (1928) at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H.

When that wraps, I zip down to the Aeronaut Brewing Co. in Somerville, Mass., where at 8 p.m. we're running Buster Keaton's classic comedy 'The Cameraman' (1928).

More info about these screenings is on my online calendar. Hope you can make it!

Okay, here's the press release for our Harold Lloyd program on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m.:

Not sure how Harold's approach to women will go over in the midst of the "Me, too" movement—but we'll find out.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 24, 2018 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

No words: Red River salutes Valentine's Day with silent comedy romance

Live music to accompany Harold Lloyd's uproarious feature film 'Girl Shy' on Thursday, Feb. 8

CONCORD, N.H.—When words can't express how you feel, then let a classic silent film do the talking.

That's the sentiment behind an upcoming screening of 'Girl Shy,' a vintage Harold Lloyd silent comedy, to be shown at Red River Theatres, 11 South Main St., Concord, N.H.

'Girl Shy' (1924), along with a Lloyd comedy short 'Never Weaken' from 1921, will be screened on Thursday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. in Red River's Stonyfield Farm Theater. The films will be accompanied live by silent film musician Jeff Rapsis.

Admission to this special program is $12 per person.

'Girl Shy' (1924) stars Harold Lloyd as a shy young man from a small town who pens a book about imaginary female conquests. Trouble begins when bashful Harold falls in love for real, and then must rescue his beloved from marrying the wrong man in the big city.

Harold's dilemma prompts a climactic race to the altar that stands as one of the great chase sequences in all of cinema. The sequence was so successful that MGM used it as a model for the famous chariot race in the original 'Ben Hur' (1925).

Co-starring in 'Girl Shy' is actress Jobyna Ralston, who often played Lloyd's leading lady, including in later Lloyd masterpieces 'The Freshman' (1925) and 'The Kid Brother' (1927).

'Girl Shy,' directed by Lloyd's colleagues Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, was among the top 10 grossing films of 1924.

The screening of 'Girl Shy' will be preceded by 'Never Weaken,' an earlier short film that features Lloyd's brand of "thrill" comedy. In it, a jilted Lloyd attempts to commit suicide, only to wind up stranded on the girders of an uncompleted skyscraper high over the street of Los Angeles.

Harold Lloyd, along with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, stands today as one of the three masters of silent comedy. Throughout the 1920s, Lloyd's films enjoyed immense popularity, ranking regularly among the highest-grossing of the era.

Though Lloyd's reputation later faded due to unavailability of his movies, the recent re-release of most of his major films on DVD and other media has spurred a reawakening of interest in his work and has led to more screenings of his work in theaters, where it was designed to be shown.

"Seeing a Harold Lloyd film in a theater with live music and an audience is one of the great experiences of the cinema of any era," said Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film musician who will accompany both films.

Rapsis emphasized the value of seeing early cinema as it was originally intended to be shown.

"These films were designed for the big screen, live music, and large audiences. If you can put those conditions together again, you get a sense of why people first fell in love with the movies," Rapsis said.

'Girl Shy' and 'Never Weaken,' two comedies starring Harold Lloyd, will be screened with live music on Thursday, Feb. 8 at Red River Theatres, 11 South Main St., Concord, N.H. Admission is $12 per person.

For more info, visit www.redrivertheatres.org. or call (603) 224-4600. For more about the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

A return to Blazing Star Grange—this time for Harold Lloyd in 'Grandma's Boy' (1922)

The Blazing Star Grange Hall in Danbury, N.H.—in a photo from last year, when we had a bit more snow.

Who needs a time machine to visit the past?

Just come on up to Danbury, N.H., where the entertainment this Saturday night is a Harold Lloyd silent film program shown in a real-life New Hampshire Grange Hall.

Like silent film, the Grange had its heyday in another era. At a time when most people earned their living directly from the land, the Grange was an important institution that encouraged responsible land stewardship, good animal husbandry, sound agricultural practices, and strong communities.

The Grange is still active in communities here and there, including the "Blazing Star" chapter in Danbury, N.H., which continues to operate now well into the 21st century.

But how thing have changed! Instead of encouraging good animal husbandry, they're now doing dissolute activities such as showing Harold Lloyd films on a Saturday night. For shame!

Actually, the Blazing Star Grangers are all wonderful people who are careful stewards of a wonderful vintage hall where meetings still take place.

Last year, a Buster Keaton program we did was a big success. That, coupled with all the effort that went into creating a movie screen to fill the hall's proscenium stage, led to this weekend's follow-up program of Harold Lloyd films.

We're starting with 'Never Weaken,' one of Lloyd's shorter "thrill" comedies. Then the main attraction is 'Grandma's Boy' (1922), the picture that launched Lloyd into feature-length films.

'Grandma's Boy' is a good one for the Grange because it's set in just the kind of community where the group would have flourished at the time.

And think about it: Almost all films from the silent era now carry at least some historical interest, in that they're accidental records of how people dressed, acted, and lived in past times.

Even a low-budget contemporary romance shows life as it was lived about 100 years ago, and is interesting just for that alone, I think.

But 'Grandma's Boy' is especially rich in this respect, in that it's full of scenes that show how everyday life was changing in so many ways in the 1920s. America was moving from the country to the city, and 'Grandma's Boy' captures this transition quite naturally.

It's filled with things that were once a part of daily life, but which we no longer do on a regular basis.

A good example (SPOILER ALERT!) is the film's opening gag: we see Harold working up a sweat turning a crank, and we assume he's starting a stubborn car. But a pullback shot reveals he's actually involved in the much-less manly activity of turning a hand-cranked ice cream machine.

How many audience members today have any real life experience with either activity? And yet people still always laugh at the gag.

Another example is gasoline. If I get a chance to introduce 'Grandma's Boy,' I always remind people that at the time, gasoline was regarded as a cleaning agent or a disinfectant as much as it was a fuel for the new-fangled automobiles.

Absent this knowledge, a sequence involving gasoline would puzzle modern viewers, or at least be enough of a head-scratcher to take viewers out of the moment.

(It's the same with the "goat glands" gag in Buster Keaton's short comedy 'Cops.' But that a whole other story.)

So come take a trip to the past this Saturday night at the Blazing Star Grange. More info in the press release below:

* * *

Harold Lloyd prepares to confront a tramp. Hey, how'd that kid get in there?

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2016 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent comedy 'Grandma's Boy' at Danbury Blazing Star Grange on Saturday, March 19

Classic Harold Lloyd feature film to be screened with live music accompaniment

DANBURY, N.H.—The silent film era returns to the big screen at Danbury's Blazing Star Grange Hall with the showing of 'Grandma's Boy' (1922), a classic silent comedy accompanied by live music.

Showtime is Saturday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at the historic Grange Hall, 15 North Road in Danbury. The show is open to the public with suggested $5 donation.

The screening will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating scores for silent films.

'Grandma's Boy,' stars Harold Lloyd, a popular 1920s film star.

'Grandma's Boy' tells the story a cowardly young man (Harold Lloyd) who seeks the courage to battle a menacing tramp who terrorizes his small hometown.

Audiences loved 'Grandma's Boy' when it was first released, and the picture helped establish Lloyd as a major star for the rest of the silent film era.

In revival, 'Grandma's Boy' continues to delight movie-goers and serves as a great introduction to the magic of silent film. It also provides a marvelous window into small town American life as it was lived a century ago.

The Danbury Blazing Star Grange silent film program will open with 'Never Weaken' (1921), a Harold Lloyd short comedy released before he made the jump to feature-length movies.

Despite his mega-star status in the 1920s, Lloyd is largely unknown to today's audiences, mostly because he retained control of his films in later life and refused to let them be shown on television.

"People today remember Charlie Chaplin, but the silent era had many popular stars," Rapsis said. "Harold Lloyd's 'average American' character was immensely popular in the 1920s, not just in the U.S. but around the globe."

With the release of Lloyd's films on DVD, audiences are rediscovering his timeless genius. The reissue sparked a demand for screenings in theaters, where the Lloyd films continue to cast their spell on audiences.

Shown in a theater with live music, Lloyd's features maintain their power to delight movie-goers.

"Times have changed, but people haven't," Rapsis said. "The Lloyd films were designed to be shown in a theater with an audience, and to appeal to a worldwide audience, and their universal themes haven't lost any relevance," said Rapsis, who has performed music for silent films in venues ranging the Donnell Library in New York City to the Kansas Silent Film Festival.

Using original themes, Rapsis improvises the music live as the films are shown.

"When the score gets made up on the spot, it creates a special energy that's an important part of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of a full orchestra for the accompanimemt.

‘Grandma's Boy’ (1922), a classic silent comedy starring Harold Lloyd, will be shown on Saturday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at the Blazing Star Grange Hall, 15 North Road, Danbury, N.H. The program is open to the public. Suggested donation $5. For more info, visit www.blazingstargrange.org; for more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.effrapsis.com.