Three-day Lon Chaney marathon to include silent crime drama about...ventriloquism?

Me outside the Rex Theatre last night in downtown Manchester, N.H.

Last night's screening of 'Nosferatu' (1922) drew about 150 people to the Rex Theater in downtown Manchester. Thanks for everyone (including volunteers and staff at the Rex) for all collaborating on what turned out to be a spooky good time!

But if there's no rest for the wicked, then I must have done something really bad.

Tonight marks the start of a three-day mini-marathon of rarely shown silent thrillers starring Lon Chaney, even while I'm doing 'Nosferatu' again on Saturday night in Maine and then 'Dracula' at the Somerville Theatre on Sunday.

The mini-marathon is the culmination of a two-month series of films directed by Tod Browning, most famous for Bela Lugosi's 'Dracula' (1931) and the cult classic 'Freaks' (1932).

But before that, Browning made a number of very strange silent-era movies, many of them starring Chaney. And that's what we'll be seeing this weekend at the Town Hall Theater in glamorous downtown Wilton, N.H.

Tonight (Friday, Oct. 29) it's 'The Blackbird' (1926), in which Chaney plays two roles: a criminal mastermind of London's underworld, and also "The Bishop," his pious but deformed brother.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m.; more details are in the press release below.

And if you think that sounds strange—well, we're just warming up. 

On Saturday at 2 p.m., how about 'The Unholy Three' (1925), which stars Chaney (at left) as a sideshow ventriloquist who teams up with a circus midget, a strong man, and a gorilla to create an elaborate criminal syndicate fronted by a pet shop. 

Yes, ventriloquism in silent film. It's kind of like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the radio.

But I'm really looking forward to it. When you're celebrating Halloween by accompanying nine silent film shows in seven days, reality begins to blur and anything seems possible. 

'The Unholy Three' is paired with 'Outside the Law' (1920), an early Browning crime drama that pairs Chaney with actress Priscilla Dean.

We'll round things out on Sunday at 2 p.m. with 'Where East is East' (1929), a late Browning/Chaney collaboration and one of the last films Chaney appeared in before his untimely death in 1930.

Hope you can make some or all of the screenings in this spooky smorgasbord. As promised, more info in the press release below.

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An original poster for 'Where East is East' (1929).

MONDAY, OCT. 18, 2021 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Halloween mini-marathon of Lon Chaney thrillers to run Oct. 29-31 at Town Hall Theatre

Three days of rarely screened silent film classics with live music, all starring the 'Man of a Thousand Faces'

WILTON, N.H.—He's best known for his iconic leading roles in such classics as 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925) and 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923).

But versatile actor Lon Chaney, known as 'The Man of a Thousand Faces,' starred in dozens of other ghoulish thrillers at the peak of the silent film era in the 1920s.

Four of these rarely screened pictures will be shown with live music during a three-day Lon Chaney mini-marathon over Halloween weekend at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

The screenings are free and open to the public; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to support the Town Hall Theatre's silent film programming.

All screenings will feature live music by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

• The mini-marathon opens on Friday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. with 'The Blackbird' (1926), a bizarre melodrama in which Chaney leads a double life as a criminal mastermind of the London slums and also "The Bishop," his pious but deformed brother. Will the entrance of a new woman expose his secret?

• On Saturday, Oct. 30 at 2 p.m., it's a twisted Halloween Weekend Double Feature. 'Outside the Law' (1920) features Chaney as a gangster who frames a former rival and turns his young daughter to a life of crime. In 'The Unholy Three' (1925) Chaney is a criminal ventriloquist who runs a pet store that fronts a daring scheme for fleecing wealthy customers.

• The series concludes on Sunday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m.with 'Where East is East' (1929) featuring Chaney as "Tiger Haynes," a jaded animal trapper in the jungles of Laos, who cares only for his young daughter, Toyo. The daughter plans to marry a circus owner's son, but the couple's happiness is threatened by the appearance of a mysterious woman.

All four films were directed by Tod Browning, a frequent Chaney collaborator best known for helming the original 'Dracula' (1931) starring Bela Lugosi and the early cult classic 'Freaks' (1932), a horror film featuring handicapped circus performers.

The four Chaney films are part of an ongoing retrospective at the Town Hall Theatre highlighting Browning's early work.

Browning (at left) specialized in twisted melodramas, gritty crime thrillers, and bizarre stories that drew on his own background as a carnival sideshow entertainer—themes that are on display throughout the Chaney mini-marathon.

Unlike Chaney's iconic performance in the lead role of 'Phantom of the Opera,' many of the Browning films feature Chaney without heavy makeup.

The roles, however, are as demanding as any that Chaney tackled, and show the actor's immense range as a performer.

"These early Tod Browning pictures starring Lon Chaney are great for Halloween because of the ghoulish ideas that drive them," Rapsis said. "When shown in a theater with live music and an audience, they really come to life, which is also in spirit of Halloween."

The Town Hall Theatre's three-day Halloween weekend Lon Chaney mini-marathon opens on Friday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m. with 'The Blackbird' (1926); followed on Saturday, Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. with 'Outside the Law' (1920) and 'The Unholy Three' (1925); and concludes on Sunday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. with 'Where East is East' (1929).

Live music for all screenings will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

Admission is free to all screenings, with a suggested donation of $10 per person. The Town Hall Theatre is located at 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.; for more information, call (603) 654-3456 or visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com.

 

Next week: 'The Storytellers,' five days of film that pioneered the full-length motion picture

Showing on Tuesday, Jan. 12: D.W. Griffith's 'Intolerance' (1916).

I've known of D.W. Griffith as 'The Father of Film' since at least the 1970s, when I'd eagerly await my monthly Blackhawk Films catalog in the mail.

But for many years, I just didn't understand his work. The films—either the short dramas for Biograph, or the longer features—either weren't interesting, or left me cold. 

Okay, I thought: Griffith is the father of film. But as a teenager, I'd rather run my Super-8 print of Keaton's 'Cops' (1922) for the 80th time rather than sit through 'Way Down East' (1920), the legendary Griffith melodrama. (That's Lillian Gish on the ice floes below, at the climax of 'Way Down East.')

My first sense of what I was missing, however, came thanks to the Kansas Silent Film Festival, which I began attending back in 2000. Every year, they'd run at least one Griffith title (usually one of the Biograph shorts) in honor of his role as an industry pioneer.

So I got to see some of Griffith's work on the big screen, with an audience, and with live music—in other words, the way it was intended to be shown. And I found that under those circumstances, the Griffith films had a certain elemental quality that I hadn't picked up on until then.

By elemental, I mean they could hold a crowd. Through simple, basic stories, they got your attention quickly, and then held it.

Later, when I began accompanying silent film programs, I found a curious thing: the Griffith films—even the famous ones regarding as classics—seemed really lame when viewed in isolation to prepare for a screening. 

But in front of an audience in a theater, they leaped to life. People would hoot and holler at what they saw. They'd stamp their feet, totally engaged in what they were seeing unfold in front of them.

As I learned more about Griffith's background and career, I realized what as going on. Griffith was the father of film, yes, but not for technical innovations such as close-ups and such. It was because of his ability to lay out a story to get an audience's attention right away, and then keep them on the edge of their seats.

That, as demonstrated more or less throughout his work, I feel was Griffith's most valuable contribution to cinema. He showed how full-length feature films could hold an audience's attention throughout an entire evening-long narrative journey.

And he did it so well that the films still work today, if you can show them as intended. 

The big "Ancient Babylon" set for Griffith's 'Intolerance.'

I remember once when we ran 'Birth of a Nation' (1915), Griffith's incredibly racist blockbuster set in post-Civil War America. The film climaxes with the Ku Klux Klan riding to the rescue,  and I remember of friend of mine saying afterwards, "You're like, 'Yes, ride to the rescue,' and then 'But no, it's the Klan!' " Such was (and is) the elemental narrative power of Griffith's tales.

Of course this is evident only if one experiences the films as intended, of which there are precious few opportunities these days. But not next week, when the Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. presents 'The Storytellers,' a five-day festival of early films that still keep audiences on the edge of their seats.

The festival includes two big Griffith films: 'Intolerance' (1916) and 'Way Down East' (1920). We're also running two early films made in Germany by Fritz Lang: 'Destiny' (1921) and 'The Spiders' (1919).

For details, check out this info sheet for the series. 

Or you can peruse the press release below. Either way, I hope you'll join us for some or all of the series. It's a rare chance to see some terrific cinema that still holds up well if you experience it as intended—in a theater, with live music, and with an audience.

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A scene from Fritz Lang's 'Destiny' (1921), being shown Monday, Jan. 11.

MONDAY, JAN. 4, 2021 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Week-long film series at Town Hall Theatre turns spotlight on early directors, great stories

'The Storytellers,' Jan. 11-15, highlights talent of D.W. Griffith, Fritz Lang to mesmerize movie audiences with terrific tales

WILTON, N.H.—Everyone loves a good story.

In early cinema, a talent for story-telling was a key factor in popularizing feature-length movies.

Pioneering directors such as D.W. Griffith in the U.S. and Fritz Lang in Germany helped transform the motion picture from a sideshow novelty into a major art form—and a big business.

See for yourself when the Town Hall Theatre presents a week-long series, 'The Storytellers,' designed to highlight filmmakers who told tales that kept early movie-goers coming back for more.

With programs every evening from Monday, Jan. 11 to Friday, Jan. 15, 'The Storytellers' will showcase five spectacular full-length movies that helped build the audience for feature films.

Two are directed by Griffith: the mega-epic 'Intolerance' (1916) and the melodrama 'Way Down East' (1920). Two are from Lang: the afterlife drama 'Destiny' (1921) and action-adventure film 'The Spiders' (1919).

Although produced in Germany, the Lang films will be shown with titles translated into English.

The series finishes with Wall Street comedy 'The Saphead' (1920), the first feature-length film starring Buster Keaton. (There's a poster at right, although without Buster in it.)

All shows in 'The Storytellers' begin each night at 7:30 p.m. Each screening will be accompanied by live music by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film musician.

Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to support the Town Hall Theatre's silent film series.

The Town Hall Theatre ordinarily programs the latest first-run feature films. But the ongoing pandemic, plus Hollywood's resistance to releasing new material to theaters, has prompted the highly regarded venue to focus on alternative programming.

The aim of 'The Storytellers' is to highlight a factor in the rapid growth of the movie business that's often overlooked: the power of the narrative.

Early directors such as D.W. Griffith and Fritz Lang are often noted for their technical innovations or sense of visual design, which helped establish the basic grammar of cinema.

But another major factor in audiences returning for more was the story itself.

"In early cinema, the best directors had a knack for laying out a story that could keep people on their edges of their seats for an entire evening," Rapsis said. 

"Up until the mid 1910s, most movies were 10 or 20 minutes long," Rapsis said. "Griffith and Lang were among the directors who led the way to feature-length films, and their stories were the foundation of their success."

'The Storytellers' aims to highlight this enduring quality of the tales that brought cinema from a carnival sideshow attraction to an art form that would dominate the 20th century.

A scene from Fritz Lang's action-adventure 'The Spiders' (1919).

"The films were so well built with audience reaction in mind that they still work when shown as intended: on the big screen, with live music, and in a darkened theatre with other people joining in a shared experience," Rapsis said.

Among early directors, Griffith was uniquely positioned to understand how to engage an audience for an evening of story-telling.

Prior to his motion picture work, Griffith spent two decades directing stage melodramas in small towns across the U.S., where keeping an audience occupied was an essential skill.

"In Griffith's stage experience, if you didn't hook the crowd right away, and keep them hooked, they'd throw things at you—or worse," Rapsis said.

This experience honed his story-telling skills, which became essential when creating movies in studios where no audience was present during the filming and editing.

"Griffith knew in his bones how large crowds would react to a story, and built that into his most popular films," Rapsis said.

"His ability to hold an audience was based on a profound understanding of human nature, and how people react, especially when part of a crowd," Rapsis said. "Because of this, his films still work today when presented as intended, which we'll do at the Town Hall Theatre."

Lang exploited a similar knack for story-telling to expand the scope of full-length movies in his native Germany.

Lang was among the first to exploit the ability of cinema to take viewers to exotic places or to travel in time. This helped him craft stories that showed early audiences the power of cinema. 

A scene from Lang's 'Destiny' (1921), screening on Monday, Jan. 11.

'The Storytellers' will focus on five early feature films. It's a rare chance to experience them as intended: on the big screen, with live music, and in a darkened theater with an audience present:

• Monday, Jan. 11 at 7:30 p.m.: Fritz Lang's 'Destiny' (1921). Years before his classic 'Metropolis,' German director Fritz Lang brought this ground-breaking expressionist fantasy to the big screen. It's a powerful tale in which human lives are each represented by a candle, and a figure representing 'Death' grants a woman three chances to rescue her lover from a premature demise.

• Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m.: D.W. Griffith's 'Intolerance' (1916). D.W. Griffith's early blockbuster about man's inhumanity to man weaves together four stories spanning four eras of civilization. Filmed on a vast scale, setting a new standard for Hollywood extravagance, and new levels of editing fluency in pulling together four story climaxes simultaneously. A movie made for the big screen.

• Wednesday, Jan. 13 at 7:30 p.m.: Fritz Lang's 'Spiders' (1919). Early Lang opus that anticipates Indiana Jones by three generations. An intrepid explorer looking for an Incan diamond must stay ahead of a criminal syndicate known as 'The Spiders,' which seeks it for nefarious purposes.

• Thursday, Jan. 14 at 7:30 p.m.: Griffith's 'Way Down East' (1920). One of the most popular films of the silent era features Lillian Gish as a wronged woman in old-time New England who can't escape her past. Still-thrilling climax on ice floes heading towards the falls was filmed on location on the Connecticut River.

• Friday, Jan. 15 at 7:30 p.m.: Buster Keaton in 'The Saphead' (1920). Buster Keaton's debut in a feature-length picture, although not a Keaton film. Rather, a stage adaptation in which the comedian was hired to play a role originated by Douglas Fairbanks Sr. A rare chance to see this seldom-screened landmark picture on the big screen.

The Town Hall Theatre continues to observe procedures to comply with all state and CDC public health guidelines, including reduced seating capacity.

For complete information about safety protocols, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com

'The Storytellers,' a five-day series of early motion pictures from directors D.W. Griffith and Fritz Lang, will run from Monday, Jan. 11 through Friday, Jan. 15 at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H. Screenings start at 7:30 p.m.; live music will accompany each film. Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to support the Town Hall Theatre's silent film series.

For more info, call (603) 654-3456 or visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com.   

April Fool's Day rewinding, fast forwarding:Past projects, future possibilities

Recording music last month for videos supporting 'The White Mountain,' a new book by author Dan Szczesny.

Back with a blog post after a long silence.

It's not for lack of material—the month just past has actually been full of projects and performances.

Among the highlights: a last-minute score for 'The Lost World' (1925) at the annual 24-hour Boston Sci-Fi Marathon. (At left is a photo by Tony Joe Stemme of me taking a bow); and music for Nazimova's 'Camille' (1921) at the Kansas Silent Film Festival, for which I channeled my inner Rachmaninoff.

Rather, it's more lack of time. With so much going on, there's rarely a chance to sit down and chronicle it.

But as we finish up the first quarter of 2018, time to look back as well as look at what lies ahead.

In April, highlights include a spate of Buster Keaton performances in mid-month, including 'The General' (1926) at the Capitol Theatre in Arlington, Mass.

And the month ends with a particularly big challenge: doing music for Fritz Lang's two 'Die Nibelungen' films over a single weekend. More on that below.

For now, let me take stock. (Never understood this phrase—what am I, soup?)

Rewinding:

In the first three months of this year, I've reduced the pace of live accompaniment performances.

This slowdown has been deliberate. It's not because I don't enjoy doing music for films, but because my schedule was leaving little time for anything else.

For one thing, as part-owner of a publishing business that's branching in new directions, my "day job" is more than enough to keep anyone hopping.

Music does remain a necessary artistic outlet. But I need to balance it with all the other things going on in my life, plus leave room for eating (no problem there!) and sleeping. (Sometimes more troublesome.)

Also, I'm now making a concerted effort (pun!) to write down music so that it might be performed by others.

I had a great time putting together the unexpectedly large-scale 'Kilimanjaro Suite' for orchestra, which was performed last year by the New Hampshire Philharmonic.

I'd like to do more. And I find I'm now ready to take the musical vocabulary I've developed (in part by more than a decade of improv-based silent film accompaniment) and put it to work in written-down music.

In the past year, however, I've found precious few opportunities to make progress on a number of written-down projects.

The only recent non-silent-film music I've done was background scoring for some video work by filmmaker Bill Millios in support of 'The White Mountain,' a new book by author Dan Szczesny.

Filmmaker Bill Millios shoots footage during the 'White Mountain' recording session at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Nashua, N.H.

And although I created what I thought was some effective material for this, I never got a chance to sit down and write out exactly what I wanted.

It ended up as usual—going in on the day (or actually night) of the recording session and improvising based on the melodic and harmonic material I'd put together.

And it went okay, I suppose (I never like it when I'm recorded), but it was frustrating because I think the material would make for a good 20-minute or 30-minute written-out score.

Author Dan Szczesny and me.

And I could do it if I had the time, which I still don't, despite reducing my performance schedule. It's been an unusually intense time for our business and that's been taking me away from day-to-day music.

I have been making an effort to get out. This past month, I went to Symphony Hall to hear the Boston Symphony under Andris Nelsons play the rarely heard Shostakovich Symphony No. 4, which I think is one of the great 20th century scores and which I've always wanted to hear live.

The concert (on Saturday, March 24) didn't disappoint—in fact, it was so worthwhile I actually went down again on Tuesday, March 27 for a repeat performance.

Fast-Forwarding:

Although recent weeks haven't been too fruitful regarding music, on this Easter Sunday morning I feel a kind of renewed energy. (Maybe it's no coincidence that it's also April Fool's Day?)

You know how sometimes you encounter something at just the right time? This week, I've had that happen not once but twice.

First encounter: It's a magazine piece from 2010, but I just found it now.

Hopelessly behind the curve as usual, I know—but BOY did I need to hear what author Heather MacDonald had to say: that we actually live in a "golden age" for so-called classical music.

Really! Despite financial troubles, declining attendance, and an ossified playlist dominated by dead white guys, it's an amazing time for anyone who cares about music, performers and listeners alike!

I'll let you read it yourself if you want Heather's full low-down. But one thing I got from her piece was the sense that there really is a need for new new music.

I don't agree with her that concert-goers or music directors will be satisfied with mining the archives for forgotten works instead of finding new music that actually connects with audiences and fully expresses the experience of living in our times, now.

Second encounter: This weekend the New York Times ran a profile of Saul Lipshutz, an astonishing violin prodigy who gave up on music at age 16. Fifty years later, the Times tracked him down.

It's a terrific read. And it was especially interesting to me because of what Lipshutz did. Facing the classical music infrastructure at an early age, rejected almost as if by instinct. He said he didn't want to be "a trained monkey."

I felt a shock of recognition. I'm no prodigy, but even as I was sensing a growing passion for music in my high school years, something about pursuing it at the university level put me off.

For one thing, it was lack of confidence in my own talent. Not to make too much of this, but I once heard a high school music teacher, not knowing I was standing behind him, as "That Jeffrey would light the world on fire—if he only had a match!"

Wow! But more significantly, I sensed that with the academic study of music, something was off. Composition departments at schools like Boston University seemed full of teachers and students devoted to atonalism, serialism, and other 'isms' that left me cold.

So I majored in English and went into journalism and publishing, steering clear of the classical music infrastructure that seemed so daunting to Saul Lipshutz, although for other reasons.

And here it is, three decades later, and I've found my own extremely unorthodox path to where I feel I'm ready to do music that I want to do, and I'm just not hearing from anyone else.

Rather than continue to stay away, I've come back to it having never been put through the process of whatever the classical music infrastructure would have done.

It wasn't like I chose the road less traveled. Instead, I've bushwhacked my way through a ragged landscape with no road at all. And with apologies to Robert Frost, will that make any difference?

Time will tell—and I hope to devote more of it to writing things down in the months to come.

But upcoming silent film shows beckon, including a screening of Keaton's 'The General' (1926) on Thursday, April 12 at the Capitol Theatre in Arlington, Mass.; Keaton's 'Our Hospitality' (1923) on Saturday, April 14 at the Antrim (N.H.) Grange Hall; and then 'Peter Pan' (1924) on Sunday, April 15 at the TCAN Center for the Arts in Natick, Mass.

The 'Peter Pan' screening is the first in a new series of silent films with live music in a terrific arts facility in downtown Natick, Mass. Housed in a former fire station, the Center for the Arts boasts first-class screening facilities plus a terrific grand piano that I hope to make plentiful use of.

But first up is 'The General,' so here's the press release. More about the other screenings as the days roll by.

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MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2018 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Buster Keaton's 'The General' with live music at Capitol Theatre on Thursday, April 12

Civil War railroading adventure film lauded as comic moviemmaker's masterpiece

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

Acclaimed for their originality and timeless visual humor, Keaton's films remain popular crowd-pleasers today.

See for yourself with a screening of 'The General' (1926), one of Keaton's landmark feature films, on Thursday, April 12 at the Capitol Theatre, 204 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, Mass.

Showtime is 8 p.m. Admission is $12 adults, $10 kids and seniors.

The screening, the latest in the Capitol's silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating scores for silent films.

'The General,' set during the U.S. Civil War, tells the story of a southern locomotive engineer (Keaton) whose engine (named 'The General') is hijacked by Northern spies with his girlfriend onboard.

Keaton, commandeering another train, races north in pursuit behind enemy lines. Can he rescue his girl? And can he recapture his locomotive and make it back to warn of a coming Northern attack?

Critics call '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 railroad films, with much of the action occurring on or around moving steam locomotives.

Accompanist Jeff Rapsis will improvise an original musical score for 'The General' live as the film is 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 accompaniment.

With the Capitol's screening of 'The General,' audiences will get a chance to experience silent film as it was meant to be seen—in a high quality print, on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," Rapsis said. "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 keyboard that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

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)

Upcoming titles in the Capitol's silent film series include:

• Thursday, May 17, 8 p.m.: 'The Black Pirate' (1926) starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. The granddaddy of all pirate films, with Fairbanks as an athletic young aristrocrat who seeks revenge by joining the pirate band responsible for his father's death.

• Thursday, June 14, 8 p.m.: 'The Iron Horse' (1924). Young director John Ford's breakthrough film tells the story of the building of the transcontinental railroad through the untamed West.

• Thursday, July 5, 8 p.m.: 'The Beloved Rogue' (1926) starring John Barrymore. Epic costume adventure based on the life of the 15th century French poet, François Villon

• Thursday, Aug. 16, 8 p.m.: 'Her Sister from Paris' (1925) starring Constance Talmadge, Ronald Colman. Talmadge in top form playing two very different sisters in this effervescent battle-of-the-sexes romantic comedy.

• Thursday, Sept. 13, 8 p.m.: 'The Last Laugh' (1924). In this ground-breaking character study from director F. W. Murnau, Emil Jannings delivers a tour-de-force performance as a doorman in a swanky Berlin hotel.

• Thursday, Oct 18, 8 p.m.: 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1923). Just in time for Halloween: Lon Chaney stars as Quasimodo in this sprawling silent film adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic story.

‘The General’ (1926) starring Buster Keaton will be shown with live music on Thursday, April 12 at 8 p.m. Capitol Theatre, 204 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, Mass. Admission is $12 adults, $10 kids and seniors. For more info, call (781) 648-6022 or visit www.capitoltheatreusa.com. For more information on the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.

Thoughts on 10 years of silent film music

Me in action in 2010 at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre, which I consider home base.

This past Halloween marked my 10th anniversary as a silent film accompanist. Since October 2007, I've been creating live music in the dark to support early motion pictures.

It's been a great ride and I look forward to doing more, and different things as well. That will mean slightly fewer live performances in 2018.

Consider: this year, I'm on track to do live accompaniment for 135 screenings. While I love doing it, that represents a serious time commitment—time that I find I need to work on some long-range projects.

I'll still be on the circuit, probably as much as ever. The improvisational nature of silent film accompaniment has been an ideal place for me to forge elements of my own personal musical language.

So I see it as a crucial element of my working method—a kind of laboratory where I can test things out. So I'll keep at it, just maybe a little less often.

For now, here's a belated "dear diary" round-up of screenings so far this month, with notes and commentary.

• Last night I accompanied a program of Buster Keaton's 'Sherlock Jr.' (1924) and 'The General (1926) for the Wilmot Community Association.

Most of those who attended really got into Buster, greeting both films with constant astonished laughter, to borrow Walter Kerr's phrase.

That most were new to Keaton and to silent film was a special bonus. Always happy when this kind of screening clicks!

• Last Thursday night (Nov. 16) saw a marathon screening of D.W. Griffith's 'Way Down East' (1920) at a new venue for me: the Manchester (N.H.) Historic Association.

I say marathon not due to the film's 2½-hour length, but because a bronchial infection I'm battling made it hard to breath in the last hour!

What was satisfying, though, was that the movie kept a crowd of non-silent-film-goers glued to their seats the entire time.

The music came together nicely, but the narrative pull of 'Way Down East' is so strong that you could play klezmer music and it would still work.

• Wednesday night saw a return to 'Zaza' (1923), the Paramount costume vehicle for Gloria Swanson that I scored for Kino-Lorber earlier this year.

It was fun to revisit the film while accompanying it live at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse in Plymouth, N.H.

It was somewhat less fun to announce to the audience that in 2018, I'll be scaling back my performance schedule at "the Monkey."

Just need to make time for projects that are proving difficult to work on when you're accompanying 130 film programs a year!

But one nice side effect of this news was heavy sales of 'Zaza' discs in DVD and Blu-ray that I got for Kino-Lorber.

• Tuesday night at the Manchester (N.H.) City Library was a bummer of a screening in several ways.

First, while loading in, my digital keyboard slipped from where I had positioned it against my car, with one corner of it landing directly on my foot.

Youch! This happened in a rainy street in downtown Manchester, just before a screening of 'What Price Glory?' (1926), which I was to accompany.

It hurt like hell, but I figured I'd get through the film first (the show must go on!) and deal with it later.

Alas, the copy of 'What Price Glory' (1926) was a disc that I hadn't previewed, and turned out to have significant problems.

About half-way through the movie, the image began to pixellate and freeze up. Finally, it got so bad, I stopped the music and told everyone I'd see what I could do.

One-man-band that I am (at the library, anyway), I went back to the utility room where the library's media equipment lives and looked at the disc.

It didn't seem flawed, at least visually. So I did the only thing I could think of: I wiped it carefully with my shirt sleeve just to see what would happen.

Surprise! It actually worked. So after recuing the film, off we went until about a half-hour later, it started deteriorating again.

I stopped it again and applied the same fix, which got us going through the key battle scenes.

But with 20 minutes to go, it started again. One more attempt at fixing didn't help, so I asked the audience and we all decided to call it day.

So I can still say that in all the screenings I've done, nary a show has been missed. But this is the first time I can recall where I couldn't finish a screening.

• A week ago Sunday saw me at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre with our make-up screening of 'Häxan' (1922), the bizarre pseudo-documentary about witchcraft.

We had a healthy crowd on hand for this, even though it wasn't the usual "last Sunday of the month" on which we run silents with live music at Wilton.

The reason for the make-up screening was that we'd originally scheduled 'Häxan' for the Sunday before Halloween, but at the last minute I discovered I didn't have the film!

So we substituted with Paul Leni's comedy thriller 'The Cat and the Canary' (1927), which I hadn't done in Wilton for a long time. People loved it!

And the first weekend this month, I trekked out to the San Francisco Bay area for a gig at the Niles Essenay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, Calif.

I always seem to pass through when they program obscure Westerns, and this time was no exception: 'The Border Sheriff' (1926) starring Jack Hoxie. Huh?

Well, add another title to the list of silent film features I've accompanied, which is closing in on 300.

It actually turned out pretty well, considering I'd never seen the film, plus what seemed to be some incoherence on the part of the plot.

Still, it came together quite effectively. The audience, a majority of whom were first-time silent film attendees, ate it up, cheering on cue and all that.

While out West I managed to attend a performance of the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, who is retiring after next season. Get it while you can!

On the program: Bernstein's 'Age of Anxiety' Symphony No. 2 (some good parts) and 'Ein Heldenleben' by Richard Strauss—a big, heavily orchestrated work that really needs to be heard in a concert hall.

It served to remind me of the excitement of live performance, and also reaffirmed my desire to spend more time putting notes on paper.

Crossing my fingers that 2018 is the year I make progress in that direction.

Coming up: A double dose of Rudolph Valentino — plus composing, scoring a piece for orchestra

Some of our Kilimanjaro team at Karanga Camp, 12,800 feet, six days into the trek and two days before our summit attempt.

A cluster of shows coming up this week, including two screenings of Valentino's 'Son of the Sheik' (1926) in two very different parts of New England.

And then the decks will be cleared to make progress on a project that I'm very excited about—one involving that big mountain pictured above.

But first things first: the Valentino screenings will honor the 90th anniversary of the star's untimely death, which occurred on Aug. 23, 1926.

To mark this occasion, we're running his final film—'Son of the Sheik' (1926)—at the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine on Thursday, Aug. 25, and then again on Saturday, Aug. 27 in Brandon Town Hall up in Brandon, Vt.

Detailed info about either screening can be found by clicking on the "Upcoming Silent Film Screenings" link at the upper right.

Coming to a theater near you—if you live in Maine or Vermont.

Valentino is one of the few silent-era stars whose name still holds sway with the public. So we usually get a good turnout when his name is on the program.

It's a great way to experience the special magic that he brought to the silver screen, so hope to see you there!

And then on Sunday, Aug. 28, it's the final installment of our summer series of silent boxing films at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre.

Keaton puts up his dukes in 'Battling Butler.

We're finishing with Buster Keaton's uproarious comedy, 'Battling Butler' (1926). The bell rings at 4:30 p.m.

Though not regarded as one of Buster's timeless classics, 'Butler' was the highest-grossing of any of Keaton's silent features in the 1920s.

In fact, its box office success was one reason that producer Joe Schenck allowed Keaton to go ahead with his ambitious next film, 'The General.'

So if you've enjoyed the Civil War adventure regarded as Buster's masterpiece, you might want to check out 'Butler,' the film that helped make it possible.

Why boxing? Popular in the 1920s, it remains a compelling marriage of civilization and brutality. Read Joyce Carol Oates' 'On Boxing' and you'll see what I mean.

Okay. what about this new project?

This summer, in-between improv-heavy silent film gigs, I've been putting together something completely different: a written-down piece for orchestra.

It's not a film score. It's a concert piece.

Kilimanjaro: the highest and biggest free-standing mountain the world.

Specifically, it's a musical depiction of Mount Kilimanjaro—you know, the big snow-capped peak in East Africa.

And it's scheduled to be played in January, 2017 by the New Hampshire Philharmonic, an orchestra based right here in my home state!

Just today I noticed the piece is listed on the Philharmonic's Web site (www.nhphil.org), so I figured it would be okay to go public.

The thing is, I'm still working on it, and expect to continue to do so for awhile yet. So this might help spur me on.

(Leonard Bernstein wrote music based on 'The Age of Anxiety.' Today, we live in 'The Age of Distraction.')

We negotiate the "Kissing Rock" on a cliff known as the Breakfast Wall above Barranco Camp.

Over the years I've been doing live accompaniment for silent films, I've gradually developed a musical vocabulary or language that I feel works for me.

And now I sense it's time to start using it in ways that are different from the improvised movie scores genre.

I still expect most of my musical energies will go towards creating in-the-moment film music.

But I sense it's time to starting writing some things down and see how that goes.

Why Kilimanjaro? Unexpected forces conspired to make this happen.

For starters, I had the good fortune to be part of a team that successfully reached Kilimanjaro's 19,431-foot summit in January 2015.

Our team on Day 5, coming down from Lava Tower Camp at 15,000 feet.

I didn't sign up for artistic purposes. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

But I was surprised to find the 10-day journey of hauling yourself up and then down the highest peak in Africa is an experience filled with music of various types.

One example: on the final overnight push to the summit, as we slowly ascended a narrow trail through the pre-dawn darkness, Tanzanian guides from several teams spontaneously sang traditional Christian hymns in Swahili. Wow!

Also, not a day goes by on the mountain without people breaking out into "Jambo Bwana," otherwise known as the Kilimanjaro Song.

On a more abstract level, there's the mountain itself. Go there and march all around it, as we did, and you'll find it makes music all its own.

Someone once said that great architecture is music frozen in time. I think that's true with nature, too—or at least that's what I found with Kilimanjaro.

On the summit, dawn, Jan. 10, 2015. Groups generally spend only a half-hour at the top of Kilimanjaro due to lack of oxygen and cold temperatures.

And I felt I wanted to capture some of that: the long trek across the volcanic plains, the drama of scrambling up the "Breakfast Wall," the intense experience of marching one step at a time at high altitude to the frozen summit ridge.

But there's more. It turns out that Mark Latham, the Philharmonic's music director, is from a family of British medical officers with a long history on Kilimanjaro.

Mark's grandfather was the first Englishman to climb to the summit following World War I, after the Germans ceded what was then the colony of "Tanganyika" to the United Kingdom.

Another one of his relatives (I think Mark's great-uncle) was the guy who discovered the frozen leopard on Kilimanjaro's upper slopes that Ernest Hemingway made so much of.

One of the sub peaks is "Latham Peak," and a key spot on the main climbing route is "Stella Point," named after Mark's great aunt, apparently the first woman to ever reach the summit.

Summit photo op. How often do you get to pose with a receding glacier?

And Mark himself was born in Tanzania, and climbed Kilimanjaro some years ago. Prior to our more recent ascent, he let us look through the family's scrapbooks, which was fascinating.

All of this seemed to be drawing us all together and suggesting that we do something musical about Kilimanjaro. And so we are!

So mark your calendars: the Philharmonic has the "Kilimanjaro Suite" on their schedule for Saturday, Jan. 20 and again on Sunday, Jan. 21.

And once this is done, I can start work on that long-awaited Pam Smart opera.

Me at the end of our climb, inspecting the "Tourist Rescue Book."

A few notes from the road...

Okay, so I hand my passport to the TSA agent at Manchester (N.H.) Airport, and she says, "Are you performing somewhere?"

Performing? Turns out she recognizes me as the guy who "does all the silent films."

Wow, recognized at the airport! That's the closest I'll ever get to feeling like a rock star.

We'll, the truth is, I'm not performing, but heading off to attend my wife's family reunion in Switzerland. (If I do any performing there, it'll only be because I've had too much beer and there's a tuba lying around.)

I'll be back to doing music for silent film soon enough, though, and will resume reports prior to what promises to be a busy August.

For now, let me see if I can post a picture of the hiking boots I'm wearing using my trusty old BlackBerry. Here goes!

Saturday marathon, Sunday with Buster

Just a few notes on films from this past weekend while they're still fresh in my mind.

On Saturday, Aug. 20, played from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. for films at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre, with an hour for lunch. Part of our annual Mirthquake festival, the morning was non-stop obscure comedy shorts and fragments, some with intertitles in German or Danish, while the afternoon saw two back-to-back features: Eddie Cantor in 'Special Delivery' (1927) and then the immensely silly 'Cruise of the Jasper B.' Hey, look! There's our name above the doors to the main theater!

Not much of an audience for these films, alas, but playing all the shorts cold (I'd never seen any of them) was a great workout for a silent film accompanist. And I really mean that, because I find it takes awhile for me to get "in the zone," meaning the music comes naturally and without a lot of conscious thought. And the best way for me to achieve that state, it seems, is to just immerse myself in the process and do it until I'm completely absorbed. Then things begin to flow with an ease that's hard to describe, and which sometimes surprises me.

I saw that happen on Saturday in Wilton. After a morning of running through one silent comedy short after another, I was in a state where the music just came naturally. And so I was as astonished and delighted as anybody as a full-fledged and finished-sounding score emerged for 'Special Delivery,' the Eddie Cantor film. I based in mostly on the old "Bye Bye Blackbird" tune by Ray Henderson and Mort Dixon, which a little research reveals was the "#16 song of 1926" and which Eddie sings (and dances to) in the middle of the film.

When a character in a silent film asks street musicians to play "Bye Bye Blackbird," and it's a tune that a lot of people would still recognize, then I think it's wise to come through with the tune rather than anything else. And in this case, it was fortuitous, because the melody is well-suited for Cantor's character: by turns jaunty but also a little wistful. So it became the "theme song" for the whole picture, which means not that I kept playing it over and over again, but that I put it in a blender and used little pieces of it here and there to accompany scenes and interactions. I think I only played the actual complete tune (or actually, the chorus, the part that everyone knows) twice: once at the very beginning over the opening credits, and then when Eddie actually does sing it. I had a few other melodies going for other characters, such as the Jobyna Ralston love interest and the William Powell confidence man, and it all came together very effectively, I thought.

And like a lot of things, this level was hard to sustain. The next feature, 'The Cruise of the Jasper B' (1926), was fun, but I think I peaked for the Cantor film and fatigue was starting to set in. It's a fun film and I had a good time starting out with full-fledged pirate music from the briny sea for the 18th century prologue, and then taking the swashbuckling theme and distorting it to accompany the "modern" action eight generations later. But it's hard to keep up the level of intensity during this kind of a marathon, and but the middle of 'Cruise' I found it more difficult to stay focused. Plus, it's a zany comedy and demands a certain kind of freshness, I think, that's hard to conjure up after playing for nearly six hours. :)

Still, it was fun, and I was surprised at the end when the lights came up to find a small group of people in attendance. Most were apparently early arrivals for the next film at 4:30 p.m., 'Sitting Pretty' (1948), but I'll take any audience I can get. I have to say, though, that if these folks were silent film newbies, the completely silly ending of 'Cruise' (with the entire U.S. military under mobilization to attack a mothballed 200-year-old pirate ship) did not probably make the most coherent impression...

A much better impression was made, I think, the next day (Sunday, Aug. 21), when I trekked out to the Leavitt Theatre in Ogunquit, Maine for my first-ever experience with Blu-ray hi-def silent film transfers. Two nautically flavored Keatons were on the program: the short 'The Boat' (1921) and 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928), both shown in the new Kino Blu-ray transfers. (For what it's worth, a snapshot of what was onscreen during the pre-show tryout is posted here.) They did look quite sharp, even though the theater's throw lens seemed to have some slight imperfections that caused the edges to ghost.

But no matter -- we had a nice crowd of about 25 people on hand, though it grew smaller when a couple realized that the 2 p.m. matinee was not a screening of 'Crazy Stupid Love' and walked out. Oh well! But here's a shot of the Leavitt's marquee, and I can see how they might have gotten confused...

And as I write this, New England is in the sights of Hurricane Irene, which is scheduled to arrive here this Sunday and go right up the Maine coast. Both those films, with their extended cyclone sequences, would have been perfect! Off by a week. Timing is everything...

Instead of hurricanes, we'll be screening films about love this coming weekend, as we finish off our mini "Summer Love" series at the Wilton (N.H.) Town Hall Theatre with a double feature: 'Flirting with Fate' (1916), an early Douglas Fairbanks; and Norma Talmadge in the restored 'Kiki' (1926). The show will go on, come rain or wind or whatever, so hope to see you there!

Report on Aug. 11 Raymond Griffith screenings

Last night went up to Plymouth, N.H. to accompany a pair of Raymond Griffith films at the Flying Monkey Moviehouse and Performance Center, which has the most interesting name of all the places I play. It being Raymond Griffith, I didn't count on a huge turnout. And it being a fine mid-summer evening with several large competing events happening right in town that night, my expectations were reduced accordingly.

So it was nice to get 16 people, and even nicer to hear some pretty energetic reactions as 'Paths to Paradise' (1925), the first Griffith feature, began to build steam. It's a wonderful film that I often call the "unfinished symphony" of silent film comedy becuse of the missing last reel, and how the film has a satisfying finish in spite of that. Still, I would love to see the missing end rediscovered at some point...

Playing at the Flying Monkey is always interesting because it's not really set up as a moviehouse (despite the name) and so the finer details of film exhibition sometimes go astray. Last night, it was lights. After we started 'Paths to Paradise,' the house lights went down, but all the side lights of the theater were left on.

Well, the film was still watchable, and there was no way I could get it fixed without stopping the music, so I just let it go. When it was time for the second film, 'Hands Up!' (1926), I knew the theater's sound guy would walk past me in the front to change the DVD, so I would have a chance to tell him to turn out all the lights, please. And that's what caem to pass. Verdict: Much better in full darkness.

One constant issue with this place is that at the end of a screening, invariably the house lights do not come up, and so we're all left sitting awkwardly in the dark for a bit. It happened again last night. It's just all part of the fun of doing this, I guess.

Perhaps the most alarming part of the screening was that for the first time ever, the DVD-R of 'Paths to Paradise' that I use began to get stuck while playing. It happened at a couple of moments early on, so I braced myself for disaster, knowing that no one connected with the theater was actually watching the film, so it would be up to me to stop everything if things ground to a halt.

Luckily, we moved on from that bad patch, but from then on I had to contend with the constant anxiety of wondering if and when the disc might get stuck for good. It's a big distraction when you're trying to use all your brain space to create music, but it's just something you have to deal with, as the film is moving on and you have to do your best no matter what.

Somehow, the score kept together and I was actually quite satisfied with what I did for 'Paths,' and even more so for 'Hands Up.' For the second film, I pulled a romantic melody out of nowhere that served me in good stead for the entire film, and also came up with a little tune to underscore whenever Griffith is being a wise guy. It first appeared when he was swindling the Indian chief in a dice game, and led into the later scene when he teaches the "savages" how to dance properly, which I consider one of the highlights of all silent film comedy.

I know I'll do this film again, so I'm writing it into my book of tunes, as it would have worked perfectly in some earlier scenes and allowed the whole presentation to be more integrated. Shows you how this is a really organic process that extends from one screening to the next. And now that I think of it, the Griffith "wise guy" theme is distantly related to a figure I was using a lot at a screening of 'Steamboat Bill, Jr.' (1928) in Boston last Sunday night.

Nothing for this weekend, which is good. These screenings energize me, but over time they can be draining. It's been a heavy schedule for the past few months and I find that doing them at this pace (plus keeping up with regular life, which involves managing three dogs, helping manage a small business, teaching college, and being a husband among other things) can actually wear me down.

Up next: The three-day 'Mirthquake' festival of obscure films at venues around southern N.H. It's Thursday, Aug. 18 through Saturday, Aug. 20, and the only really big gulp for me will be a six-hour marathon in Wilton, N.H. where the films are all silent and the only music will come from me. I'm looking forward to it! I'll post more here in a bit, but if you need info now, go to http://mirthquake.looserthanloose.com