Finding a brass band with wings while en route to the Library of Congress Packard Campus

Hey! There's a brass band in my gate area!

Getting my shoes shined this past weekend led to an unexpectedly moving experience—partly musical, and entirely human.

It was Saturday, 7:30 a.m. at National Airport in Washington, D.C. I had just flown in, on my way to do silent film accompaniment at the Library of Congress that day.

My dress shoes were looking pretty shabby. Why hadn't I shined them? Because the C Concourse at National Airport boasts one of one of the best shoe-shine operations around, and I was saving myself if they were open.

They were! And no line. So I walked in, climbed up on the raised chair, and the age-old ritual commenced.

While sitting there, the usual airline terminal white noise washed up against my ears: the murmur of passengers, the shrill boarding calls, the pre-recorded security announcements. Background noise you don't even notice.

But then I heard something that caught my attention because it didn't fit in at all. It sounded like the rat-a-tat-tat of a snare drum!

And not from a speaker, either. From an actual snare drum that wasn't too far away, from the sound of it.

Rented a tent! Rented a tent! Rented a rented a tent!

This was followed by the brassy tones of a trombone warming up, and then a clarinet, and other instruments that brought me back to my own band days.

It felt like we were getting ready for Circus Night with the American Legion Post 48 Band in the parking lot of Simoneau Plaza in Nashua, N.H. Where was my tuba?

Being still in mid-shine, I couldn't see what was going on. But it sure sounded to me like an ensemble tuning up prior to, say, a football game or parade.

In an airport concourse?

And it all somehow seemed fitting, as I've recently been rereading the Charles Ives biography by Jan Swafford, and other stuff on Ives. He's a composer close to my heart since I did a research paper on him in 10th grade.

Ives had the same small town New England background I did—one full of marching bands and church hymns and music lessons. (He didn't have Warners Bros. cartoons, though.)

Later, Ives wrote: "In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it."

That's the sound I was hearing out in the corridor, coming from somewhere: the racket of a band warming up. Why? How come?

As soon as my shoes were shiny, I went to find out.

Across the corridor, packed into most of the space for Gate 36, was a full concert band, music stands and all. And it looked they were about to play!

And so they did: a medley of World War II songs in big band style. Tunes included 'White Cliffs of Dover' and 'Thanks for the Memories.'

I still didn't get what was going on. What would prompt a band to crowd itself into an airport gate on a rainy Saturday morning? How did the bass tuba clear security?

But the sheer unlikeliness of it all appealed to me, so I figured I'd stick around to hear some music.

What was going on, of course, was that they were there to welcome the impending arrival of an "Honor Flight" of U.S. veterans due in soon from Fort Myers, Fla.

The Honor Flight program brings veterans to the nation's capital at no charge to visit the monuments to their service. I'd heard of it, but never seen it in action.

That was about to change. Soon an honor guard of active duty military personnel assembled in the gate area, flags included. Joining them were several dozen civilians holding WELCOME and THANK YOU signs, and even a passel of cheerleaders carrying pom poms.

And the band? Turns out it was the Main Street Community Band from Fairfax, Va., under the capable leadership of Geoffrey K. Steffens. Even in a challenging acoustical environment, they sounded great.

The warm-up session was cut short by the need to get passengers on a flight to Minneapolis out of Gate 36. But that set the stage for the arrival of the Honor Flight, an American Airlines jet carrying 150 vets not only from World War II, but also Korea and Vietnam.

With the gate clear, the band resumed playing. P.A. announcements that the Honor Flight had landed further swelled the crowd. I found myself getting caught up in the moment. It was really quite moving to see all this being done to welcome vets to the nation's capital.

It's always a joy to see things done well, and this was a class act all the way!

The flight then pulled up. And the vets themselves didn't disappoint.

Emerging from the jetway, many in wheelchairs, each was greeted by a crush of well-wishers as the band kept playing patriotic marches and all of us applauded continuously. You couldn't ask for a warmer welcome—a hero's welcome, really.

Some of the vets laughed. Some posed for pictures. And a few just began flat-out sobbing. All the time that had passed, all the people that never made it, either back then or who were lost along the way—all of it carried forward to this moment of getting off a plane and being honored for what you and so many others did, in some cases so long ago.

What a panorama of emotions on parade—and all on a Saturday before 9 a.m.!

I couldn't help but think of how my father (himself a World War II vet) was famous for choking up at the sound of a Sousa march. There's a little of that in me, I think.

It all made for great theater, not just because of the veterans but because of everyone who was part of the scene. For a little while, a bunch of passing strangers, plus the Main Street Community Band of Fairfax, Va., all came together to bring about one of those shared experiences that are a big part of what life is all about.

A brass band with wings, indeed!

And to me, the sheer randomness of it was exactly what life has always felt like. One minute you're getting your shoes shined. The next, you're applauding members of the Greatest Generation as a band in an airport gate area plays the Guadalcanal March.

And to think I'd have missed it if I'd worn sneakers.

After a half-hour, veterans were still emerging from the plane. I lingered as long as I could, but then had to get on my way to Culpeper, Va. and the Packard Campus, home to the National Audio Visual Conservation Center of the Library of Congress.

The public entrance to the Packard Center.

It was a rainy day: a good one to spend the afternoon in a darkened theater. I was there to do music for two programs honoring Dennis R. Atkinson, donor of more than 350 films to the LOC since 1969.

Asked what title of his he most wanted to see, Atkinson had replied with one word: "Mawas," the first film he turned over to the LOC. So a private screening of it was arranged at noon for Dennis and his family.

There was absolutely no information available on this film from any source I checked, so I was curious what it could be.

I arrived about 11:30 a.m. to find the order of the reels being sorted out by running them on screen: scenes of jungle explorers stalking a leopard, or possibly vice versa.

Turns out 'Mawas' was something of a stock footage festival. Someone had shot about ten minutes of guys sitting around a campfire somewhere out in the American West, swapping tales of far-off jungle lands. And the rest of the film was footage taken from other sources.

I swear some of the footage was from 'Chang' (1927), a much more well known "jungle" picture that earned an Academy Award for "Unique and Artistic Production" at the first-ever Oscars, and which fueled the demand for lesser efforts such as 'Mawas.'

Still, the print looked great, and it was fun to create music as the "drama" unfolded. Once I recognized the flashback structure and episodic nature of the film, it wasn't hard gauge the music to help make it work.

I actually got kinda lost in the film, and worked up some big stuff as it built to something of a climax. So it was a little weird for the film to end, the lights to come up—and to have just four people in the theater.

Many more turned out for the "public" program at 2 p.m.: three obscure comedy shorts and 'Twisted Triggers' (1926), a melodramatic Western.

Having had the chance to warm up and get comfortable at the keyboard with 'Mawas,' I found myself more than ready for the rapid-fire comedy shorts, which were quite good.

Notable was 'Ko Koo Kids,' which turned out to be a satire on the Ku Klux Klan, with members of a KKK-like group attempting to lynch the local schoolmaster for alleged hanky-panky with a young girl.

Lots of alarming stuff in this one, but I had the presence of mind to swing into 'Ride of the Valkyries' when the townsfolk began donning white robes and hoods and jumping on horses.

Speaking of horses: I really got into 'Twisted Triggers,' the featured attraction. Released by "Action Pictures," it lived up to its name, packed with one thrilling scene after another.

This posses a challenge for the accompanist, in the sense that usually any movie has at least a few slower-paced scenes, which help you pace yourself and provide contrast to the action sequences.

Not 'Twisted Triggers!' Any time things slowed down for what seemed to be a quiet scene, someone jumped on a horse and rode off to take care of some life-or-death situation.

A rare scene without a horse in 'Twisted Triggers.'

So I did my best to keep up, always holding back at least a little so I'd still have somewhere to go. It was only when the good guy and the bad guy wound up off their horses to fight one-on-one in a river that I felt we were at the true climax, which was my green light to go all out.

This time there were people when the lights came up, and response was generous.

While in mid-film, I'm often not sure how what I do comes across. But at the Atkinson screenings, I did feel I gave it my all, and that's a good feeling to have when the lights come up.

Afterwards, Mr. Atkinson seemed delighted by the whole afternoon. It was a treat to talk with him and thank him for his donations over such a long span.

Thanks to everyone at the Library of Congress for bringing me down to help with this one, especially Rob Stone, George Willeman, and Mike Mashon. Looking forward to being down there next month for 'Mostly Lost.'

Finding my way to this year's 'Mostly Lost': joining in an interactive vintage film event

My own photos of Mostly Lost in action were—well, mostly lost causes. This one is borrowed from accompanist Ben Model.

What happens when you assemble dozens and dozens of unidentified film clips, and then run them in a theater full of vintage movie experts armed with Internet access?

You get 'Mostly Lost,' a unique classic movie gathering—unique in that it actually encourages audience members to talk (the louder the better), check their laptops, and generally raise a ruckus, all while a film is running.

The idea is that someone might be able to identify something on screen: an actress, a location, a detail that fixes a year or date. And often, that's enough for everyone else to start calling out suggestions or mining the Internet for more info to nail down the film's title.

The thing is, it works! More often than not, a film is identified thanks to the collective brain power of some of the film community's biggest nerds—er, leading aficionados.

And I've seen it in action, having just returned from attending the most recent edition of "Mostly Lost," now in its fourth year at the Packard Center of the Library of Congress down in Culpeper, Virginia.

The full "Mostly Lost" is three days of film screenings and other events. But a tight schedule meant I could only make it down for the final day on Saturday, June 13.

Even so, a visit to the Packard Center earlier this year (thanks, Rob Stone!) had me eager to see "Mostly Lost" in action.

That, and a $59 round-trip airfare (that's no misprint) on JetBlue out of Hartford was enough for me get down there. And I'm glad I did.

What really surprised me is how interactive the whole process is. Once the films start running, one after another, everyone joins in. And I mean everyone—not just the big-name experts on hand, but just plain folks of all ages. They all throw out suggestions, comments, corny jokes, and anything else that comes to mind.

It's surprisingly refreshing—because, I think, we're so used to experiencing cinema as a passive art form. We sit, we watch. But at "Mostly Lost," we engage with the screen in a way that transforms movie-going into a collaborative effort.

The view from my seat on Saturday during 'Mostly Lost.' That's Phil Carli at the keyboard at lower right.

I think it's a close cousin to what an accompanist does in creating a live score for a silent film. The real-time involvement with the motion picture is engrossing, absorbing, and satisfying in a way that transcends cinema as a passive activity.

At Mostly Lost, the screenings take place in the Packard Center's comfy and well-appointed theater. No conference room atmosphere here, folks—it's one case in which I can see my federal tax dollars put to good use. (Actually, the whole Packard Center is like that. We'll see how I feel next April 15, though.)

Sessions are broken into chunks of roughly 90 minutes each, and follow a definite pattern.

At first, we all stare at whatever footage comes up. Then invariably, someone recognizes something—often a performer, with a comment such as "that's the guy who played the orphanage director in Chaplin's 'The Kid,' but I don't remember his name.

Then someone else remembers the guy's name, and soon the cross-referencing begins, checking cast lists against plot summaries against studio production lists, all online in various places.

So it's like a crossword puzzle. Often, if you get one solid answer, you can fill in many other things based on that. And before you know it, the formerly unknown film now is now reconnected with its name, production date, studio, cast, and so much else.

Chief organizers Rob Stone and Rachel Parker.

At this year's Mostly Lost, selections ran the gamut from "Unidentified Auto Comedy" to "1917 Crime Melodrama." The Saturday session I attended included American films in prints from the Netherlands that sported Dutch intertitles that no one could really translate in real time. "GOUD IS LOKKEND EN MACHTIG," anyone?

Still, almost all the films were positively identified via records of their original U.S. release.

And even if what's on screen isn't entertaining, usually the commentary is. Few things are funnier than a room full of film experts watching footage of an unidentified travelogue from Verona, Italy that consists entirely of long sustained shots in which absolutely nothing moves.

"I think I can see the ivy growing!" shouts accompanist Phil Carli, part of a chorus of increasingly irate comments.

Speaking of which: nearly all the fragments are from the silent era, meaning the festival's three accompanists were kept busy. Carli was joined at the keyboard by Ben Model and Andrew Simpson, who took turns, swapping out for each film. They're among the best in the field, and one of the delights of the festival is hearing them create accompaniment for fragments of film they've never seen before, sometimes while also shouting out their own suggestions.

Phil, it seems, has an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage autos, which comes in handy. Absent other clues, the shape of a car's running board can sometimes pinpoint when a film was (or was not) produced.

If someone has a lot to say about something on-screen, the person is handed one of the wireless microphones and allowed to talk freely. That happened to me during another travelogue, which came to us identified only as scenes from Switzerland.

When the footage screened, I was surprised to recognize scenes of the Landwasser Viaduct, a landmark structure on the mountain railway that links Chur with St. Moritz high in the Alps. Just last year, I had ridden on and photographed this line, and immediately knew what it was.

The iconic stone viaduct soars over a deep gorge before plunging into a tunnel in the side of a vertiginous cliff face. The line as a whole is famous because of how it loops around and on top of itself several times to gain altitude as it climbs up the narrow valley. It looks a model railroad layout, but in real life!

Accompanist Ben Model snapped this pic of the Swiss travelogue during Mostly Lost.

So I started spouting off—and the next thing I know, I'm holding one of the wireless microphones and I'm narrating a vintage travelogue about Switzerland, drawing upon my arcane fixation with railroads as well as my half-assed knowledge of the mountain culture of my wife's people.

And when that failed me, I resorted to stand-up, even though I was sitting down.

"Here we see scenes of an Alpine logging operation," I remarked. "If this had been a sound film, right now you would undoubtedly be hearing plenty of yodeling."

Accompanist Phil Carli immediately obliged by shifting the music into a bumptious folk idiom, topping it off with a scrap of melody from the well-known theme song to the "Swedish Chef" of Muppets fame, for which he apologized even before he'd finished playing the phrase. Wow!

'Mostly Lost' is a chance to catch up with folks such as film experts Bruce Lawton and Eric Grayson, seen here enjoying mostly lunch.

As the day progressed, I expected to get a little antsy as the grind of fragments wore on. But that never happened. Instead, time flew, with each piece of film bringing the possibly of discovering something special or unknown.

The atmosphere was buoyed, I think, by the energy of all that film nerd power in one place, and all focused on a single shared task. Think of it: Some of these people had been preparing 40 years or more for this moment!

Plus, special presentations throughout the event broke things up. The day I was there, film buff Jim Kerkoff presented "Visiting Roach Royalty," a delightful account of his efforts to track down living ex-employees of Hal Roach studios during visits to the Los Angeles area back in the 1980s.

Things were taken up a notch for public events in the evenings, for which "Mostly Lost" moved from the Packard to the marvelous State Theatre in downtown Culpeper.

The night I was there saw the U.S. East Coast premiere of the newly discovered and restored 'Sherlock Holmes' feature film from 1916.

The audience gathers prior to the 'Sherlock' screening.

Restoration lead Robert Byrne (president of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival) delivered a well-illustrated presentation of what it took to rehab the single print discovered last year in the archives of the Cinémathèque Française.

Then the lights went down, and we watched the film, with great live piano accompaniment from Phil Carli.

A scene from the long-lost 1916 feature film 'Sherlock Holmes,' in which actor William Gillette played the role he made famous on the stage.

And as it played out on the screen before us, I found myself marveling at how fortunate we were to be able to see a film considered lost for nearly a century. And yet here it was, with nary a scene missing and looking pretty darn good for a 1916 Essanay feature.

So if I had to comment on anything, it might be the festival's name. With so much footage being identified, and with marquee attractions such as the newly restored 'Sherlock,' maybe it should really be called something else: 'Mostly FOUND.'

More than your average post: Keaton, Griffith, the Packard Center, Ben Cohen, and more!

A documentary film crew will be on hand for our screening of Keaton's 'The General' (1926) on Sunday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. in Wilton, N.H.

How would you like to be in the movies by going to the movies?

That's what might happen on Sunday, April 26 when a documentary film crew will be on hand for our screening of Buster Keaton's 'The General' (1926) at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

They're from Merge Creative Media in New York City, and they're working on a feature-length documentary on the continuing popularity of Keaton's comedy.

To do that, they're looking to talk with folks after our show—a double-bill that includes Raymond Griffith's 'Hands Up!' (1926) followed by Buster's 'General.'

They're both comedies set during the U.S. Civil War, which ended 150 years ago this very month—hence the program. The fun begins at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5 per person to help defray costs.

If anyone out there is making a documentary about Raymond Griffith, feel free to show up and interview our audience members as well!

Lots more info about Sunday's below in a press release (below) that went out earlier this month. But first a few things to cover...

• Visiting the archives: You know that scene at the end of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' when the Ark of the Covenant is placed a massive government warehouse?

I couldn't help thinking about that last Saturday, when I got a tour of the Packard Campus of the National Audio Visual Conservation Center out in Culpeper, Va.

The facility, about an hour's drive south of Washington, D.C., is home to the bulk of the media operations of the Library of Congress. It handles pretty much everything connected to recorded sounds or images: acquiring materials and equipment, conserving and preserving them, and housing them in permanent climate-controlled storage.

As curator Rob Stone took me through the place, I just could not get over the scale of what I was seeing. Stepping through Maxwell Smart-like sets of doors, we entered corridor upon corridor of metal-doored vaults filled with fragile nitrate film, all of it in cans stacked neatly on fire retardant shelving in concrete units chilled to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Altogether 124 vaults make up the largest nitrate film storage facility in the Western hemisphere.

A corridor in the Packard Center's nitrate film vault area.

And that was nothing compared to the enormous quantity of safety film also kept in cold storage on site. The underground bunkers go on seemingly to infinity, prompting the thoughts of 'Raiders.' I'm told there are 90 miles of shelving in use here. The place overall maintains something like 7 million artifacts, with thousands more arriving every day.

When and if I get a chance to return, I hope to write a long post about the Packard Center. There's so much going on there that anyone with the slightest interest in film and media would find it fascinating on many levels. I know I did.

I mean, what can you say about a place where cans of film—some of it priceless—arrive by the pallet-load? Just one example: Jerry Lewis recently agreed to donate his entire archive (about 4,000 reels of 35mm film amassed over the course of his long career) to the Packard Center. So Rob Stone has been working with Lewis and his family to catalog the newly arrived material and shepherd it into the archives.

But then there are the rooms full of equipment used to work with obsolete media formats, and the weird custom-built machinery used to transfer material from several dozen videocassettes at once to digital file formats—and of course the story of the facility itself.

Tucked into the side of a hill, it's no accident that the Packard Center looks a bit like a fortress. It was originally built by the U.S. Federal Reserve in the 1960s as a secret facility to store U.S. currency in case of a Cold War emergency! It was also set up to function as a command center for government functions in the event of nuclear attack.

The place was decommissioned in 1993, and sold to philanthropist David Packard in 1997. Unbelievably, Packard sunk $150 million of his own money (Congress chipped in $82 million) to transform it into a state-of-the-art preservation mecca to centralize the far-flung audio/visual holdings of the Library of Congress.

And then Packard gave it back to the government! I'm told it's the second-largest gift ever to the feds, exceeded only by the Smithsonian Institution.

An exterior view of the above-ground part of the Packard Center. (It's actually built into the side of a hill.

The place opened in 2007, and even includes a well-appointed theater that runs regular vintage film programs. (It's one of the very few theaters in the nation that can legally project nitrate film.)

The interior of the Packard Center's theater, complete with organ, which malfunctioned recently, prompting the call for piano accompaniment.

That's why I was there: Rob had an opening for someone to accompany a Gloria Swanson program on Saturday, April 18, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to come down.

Rob was a great host, even taking me out to dinner with his wife Jody prior to the show.

The evening's feature was 'Zaza,' a big Paramount costume story which I hadn't seen before but which followed the usual pattern of Gloria's starring vehicles.

The only surprise came from the theater's digital piano. About half-way into the picture, I lost the lower half of the keyboard! For some reason, the notes below middle C just stopped playing.

Luckily, it was a quiet part of the film, so it seemed natural to restrict the music to the upper registers while I pondered what to do.

I didn't mind it right then, but I knew if I didn't find a way to restore the lower notes, I would start to go insane, as would the audience.

What happened was that I had grazed one of the many "setting" buttons that are flush with the keys (bad design there), partially activating a function designed to play chords instead of just single notes. I say "partially" because I only got as far as losing the individual notes, but I somehow hadn't completed whatever sequence of buttons was required to start up the chord function.

So I scanned the buttons, all the while accompanying Gloria, and found one that seemed the likely culprit: it was marked "Chords" and was glowing red.

I weighed the odds. If I pressed it again, there was a good chance that it would cancel the uncompleted chord activation and restore my keyboard, which would be great.

On the other hand, there was a chance that pressing it would activate a bossa nova rhythm, or a speed guitar function, or some other setting that would create a sonic train wreck.

As I had no other options, I went ahead and pressed it—and it worked! The light went off and all my notes were restored. I was never so glad to play octaves in the bass!

And this reminded me of something attributed to Winston Churchill: "There is nothing as exhilarating as getting shot at and missed." He was right!

But many thanks to Rob Stone and Mike Mashon and everyone else at the Packard Center who put on a great program and made me feel welcome the entire time I was there. I'm looking forward to returning with more time to explore the collection.

For a more complete look at the Packard, check out this story from Washingtonian magazine. And here's a Washington Post piece about the place.

• What's old is new: For several years, a high school student and movie buff named Matt Bilodeau helped me with a monthly silent film series at the Manchester (N.H.) City Library.

Well, Matt went on to attend Keene (N.H.) State College, where he's now a sophomore and taking a film production class this semester.

I was delighted to find out that for his class project, Matt and his roommate had created a short silent film. And I was even more delighted to be asked to create music to accompany it.

So last Wednesday, I hauled out to Keene and we recorded several takes for the five-minute comedy, titled 'Tripping Across the Way.'

Working with 16mm film, Matt and his classmates had fashioned something that captured the dream-like quality of the silent film experience. Bravo!

Also, Matt said he hoped to create a film that looked like a silent film of the 1920s, but had more contemporary content. I think he succeeded on both counts!

See what you think: the film is online and available for all to see.

• Who are you? Time for another edition of "Brush With Greatness," in which I encounter bewildered celebrities. This time the victim is Ben Cohen, the "Ben" of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. Here's a picture of us together:

Ben and Jeffy (not Jerry) at the Airport Diner in Manchester, N.H.

Ben (and his partner Jerry Greenfield, who wasn't with him) is one of my business idols. Another one is Charles Ives, who died in 1954, so I won't be meeting him anytime soon.

So I was happy to connect with Ben, who was in our town of Manchester, N.H. to promote his campaign to get big money out of politics. He was great to talk with, and seemed delighted that I use a book about the early days of Ben & Jerry's as one of the texts of a writing class I sometimes teach.

But what does this have to do with silent film?

Well, our paths crossed by virtue of local restaurant magnate Alex Ray, owner of the Common Man group of restaurants here in New Hampshire. Alex also owns the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H., so that's the flimsy excuse I have for including my encounter with Ben in this already overly long blog post.

I actually gave Ben my silent film accompanist card (as well as my standard day job publishing card), and he was polite enough to seem pretty impressed.

And I'm sorry, but that's all the time we have for "Brush With Greatness."

• Back to the program: Okay, about this weekend's program at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre. Here's the long-awaited text of the press release. Hope to see you there!

* * *

One war, two comedies: Raymond Griffith in 'Hands Up!' (1926), our companion feature to 'The General.'

FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2015 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Silent film classic 'The General' with live music in Wilton (N.H.) on Sunday, April 26

Buster Keaton's U.S. Civil War comic masterpiece to be screened with companion feature, 'Hands Up!' in honor of 150th anniversary of war's ed

WILTON, N.H.—He never smiled on camera, earning him the nickname of "the Great Stone Face." But Buster Keaton's comedies still rocked Hollywood's silent era with laughter throughout the 1920s.

See for yourself with a screening of 'The General' (1926), one of Keaton's landmark feature films, at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. The show is free and open to the public with suggested $5 donation.

The program, which includes a companion Civil War comedy 'Hands Up!' (1926), will be accompanied by live music performed by silent film composer Jeff Rapsis.

"This month marks the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, so we thought a fitting way to commemorate this milestone would with a double feature of silent films set during that period," Rapsis said.

'The General' tells the story of a Confederate locomotive engineer (Keaton) whose engine is hijacked by Northern spies with his girlfriend on board. Keaton, stealing another train, races north in pursuit behind enemy lines. Can he rescue his girl? And can he steal his locomotive and make it back to warn of a coming Northern attack?

Critics have called 'The General' Keaton's masterpiece, praising its authentic period detail, ambitious action and battle sequences, and its overall integration of story, drama, and comedy. It's also regarded as one of Hollywood's great train films, with much of the action occurring on or around moving steam locomotives.

Also on the program is another comedy set during the Civil War, 'Hands Up!' (1926), starring Raymond Griffith, a once-popular silent film star with boyhood ties to New Hampshire.

Long before he entered the movies, as a student Griffith attended St. Anselm prep school in Goffstown in the early 20th century.

A talented actor and comedian, Griffith became a major comic star in the 1920s for Paramount Pictures. Unfortunately, most of his films are lost, making it difficult to assess his career and talents today.

In 'Hands Up!' Griffith plays a wily Confederate spy charged with preventing a shipment of Western gold from reaching Union forces. The film is regarded as the best of Griffith's few surviving pictures.

While Griffith's work has languished in obscurity, Keaton's films are more popular than ever.

Keaton, along with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, stands today as one of the silent screen's three great clowns. Some critics regard Keaton as the best of all; Roger Ebert wrote in 2002 that "in an extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, (Keaton) worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies."

As a performer, Keaton was uniquely suited to the demands of silent comedy. Born in 1895, he made his stage debut as a toddler, joining his family's knockabout vaudeville act and learning to take falls and do acrobatic stunts at an early age.

A remarkable pantomime artist, Keaton naturally used his whole body to communicate emotions from sadness to surprise. And in an era with no post-production special effects, Keaton's acrobatic talents enabled him to perform all his own stunts.

Critics review 'The General':

"The most insistently moving picture ever made, its climax is the most stunning visual event ever arranged for a film comedy."
—Walter Kerr

"An almost perfect entertainment!"
—Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

"What makes the film so special is the way the timing, audacity and elegant choreography of its sight gags, acrobatics, pratfalls and dramatic incidents is matched by Buster's directorial artistry, his acute observational skills working alongside the physical élan and sweet subtlety of his own performance."
—Time Out (London)

Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film musician who has accompanied shows at venues across New England, said films from the silent era were not made to be viewed at home on online. By running a monthly series, the Wilton Town Hall Theatre lets people experience silent film as it was meant to be seen—in high quality prints, on the big screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who will improvise the musical score on the spot as the films screen. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early Hollywood leap back to life in ways that can still move audiences today."

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

Buster Keaton's 'The General' (1926) and Raymond Griffith's 'Hands Up!' (1926) will be shown on Sunday, April 26 at 4:30 p.m. at the Wilton Town Hall Theatre, 60 Main St., in Wilton N.H. The program is open to the public. Suggested donation $5. For more info, visit wiltontownhalltheatre.com; for more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Coming 4/24: Langdon's 'The Strong Man' ...but first, my Library of Congress debut!

An original poster for Harry Langdon's 'The Strong Man' (1926), which I'm accompanying on Friday, April 24.

Here's some news: Today I head down to Washington, D.C., where this weekend I'll make my silent film accompaniment debut at the Library of Congress.

The screening is actually at the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation out in Culpeper, Va., where Saturday night I'll do music for 'Zaza' (1923), a romance starring Gloria Swanson and H.B. Warner.

Many thanks to Rob Stone of the Packard Center for offering me a turn on the bench as guest accompanist for a screening at their theater.

Here's a picture of the Packard Center:

It didn't always look like this. Prior to its current role as a center for film preservation, the Packard Center was quite a different place. Built during the Cold War, its original purpose was to serve as a secret storage bunker for the currency stockpiles of the U.S. Bureau of Printing and Engraving!

Later, it turned out that storage vaults for paper money could be repurposed for nitrate film. And here we are!

I'm looking forward to visiting the Packard and seeing the conservation labs and vaults, which I'll report about when I return.

Unless I find a few spare bags of leftover currency, in which case I'll never return.

For now, here's a press release about an unusual screening coming up on Friday, April 24.

It's 'The Strong Man' (1926) starring Harry Langdon, and directed by a very young Frank Capra.

Harry Langdon in 'The Strong Man' (1926).

What's unusual about the screening is that it takes place on the campus of Northeast Catholic College, a small school in rural New Hampshire. (Until this year, the school was named The College of Saint Mary Magdalen.)

I've done shows there in the past, and it's proven to be a great environment for the silent film experience. Student turnout is strong and enthusiastic. We project the films on a huge blank wall in the multi-purpose room, so the image is really, really big.

The screening is open to the public, so I encourage anyone in need of a good laugh to trek on up through the back roads of Warner, N.H. (just off Interstate 89, so it's not that remote) and take in this screening.

It'll also be interesting because the story of 'The Strong Man' involves themes of religion and faith, which ought to resonate on a Catholic college campus. We'll see.

If you'd like to join in, below is the press release. Hope to see you there!

* * *

Harry Langdon in 'The Strong Man' (1926).

MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2015 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Frank Capra's first movie highlights silent film program at Northeast Catholic College on Friday, April 24

Harry Langdon's classic silent comedy 'The Strong Man' to be shown with live music; screening open to the general public

WARNER, N.H. — Silent film with live music returns to the big screen at Northeast Catholic College this month with a showing of an acclaimed comedy starring Harry Langdon.

The screening, on Friday, April 24 at 8 p.m., will feature Langdon's classic comedy 'The Strong Man' (1926).

Helming 'The Strong Man' was young first-time director Frank Capra, who would later go on to create such Hollywood classics as 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' (1939) and 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946).

Live music will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis. Admission is free to students with a college ID; general public is $5 per person.

'The Strong Man' tells the story of a World War I soldier (Langdon) who, following his discharge in Europe, comes to America as assistant to a circus strong man. As the act travels the United States, Langdon continually searches for a girl he corresponded with while stationed overseas in the military.

The search leads to a town controlled by Prohibition-era gangsters, which forces Harry to test the limits of his own inner strength even as he looks for his dream girl. Can Harry triumph over the bad guys? And is love more powerful than brute strength?

The feature-length film showcases the unique child-like personality of Langdon, who is largely forgotten today. For a brief time in the 1920s, however, he rivaled Charlie Chaplin as Hollywood's top movie clown.

Harry Langdon enjoys attention from 'Mary Brown' in 'The Strong Man' (1926).

Langdon's popularity, which grew quickly in the last years of the silent era, fizzled as the movie business abruptly switched to talkies starting in 1929.

'The Strong Man,' a family-friendly comedy, was was selected in 2007 for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

In recent years, 'The Strong Man' has been recognized as a major achievement of the silent film era—a satisfying and timeless balance of emotion and comedy.

"A little tragedy and a lot of laughs can be seen in 1926's The Strong Man," wrote critic Richard von Busack in 2007. "Director Frank Capra's energy and sturdy plot sense counterpoint Langdon's wonderful strangeness."

'The Strong Man' will be accompanied by live music by Jeff Rapsis, a New England-based silent film accompanist who performs at venues across the region and beyond.

"These films were created to be shown on the big screen as a sort of communal experience," Rapsis said. "With an audience and live music, they still come to life in the way their makers intended them to.

"So the screening at Northeast Catholic College is a great chance to experience films that first caused people to first fall in love with the movies," he said.

Established as a residential, Catholic liberal arts college in 1973 and located in Warner, N.H., the Northeast Catholic College (formerly the College of Saint Mary Magdalen) seeks to call students to the life-long pursuit of intellectual and moral virtue through the rigorous study and discussion of primary texts and through its vibrantly Catholic student life.

Frank Capra's 'The Strong Man' will be screened with live music on Friday, April 24 at 8 p.m. at Northeast Catholic College (formerly Magdalen College), 511 Kearsarge Mountain Road, Warner, N.H. Admission is free to students with a college ID; general public is $5 per person.

For more information about Northeast Catholic College, visit www.northeastcatholic.edu/ For more info on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.