The silent film era returns to the big screen at Red River Theatres with the screening of a classic silent comedy accompanied by live music.
Featured will be a full-length comedy, Grandma’s Boy, starring Harold Lloyd, a popular 1920s film star.
Showtime is July 26 at 7 p.m. Admission is $10 per person general admission.
The screening, the latest in Red River’s silent film series, will feature live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based composer who specializes in creating scores for silent films.
Grandma’s Boy tells the story of a cowardly young man (Harold Lloyd) who seeks the courage to battle a menacing tramp who terrorizes his small hometown. Audiences loved Grandma’s Boy when it was first released, and the picture helped establish Lloyd as a major star for the rest of the silent film era.
In revival, Grandma’s Boy continues to delight movie-goers and serves as a great introduction to the magic of silent film. It also provides a marvelous window into small town American life as it was lived a century ago.
Despite his mega-star status in the 1920s, Lloyd is largely unknown to today’s audiences, mostly because he retained control of his films in later life and refused to let them be shown on television.
“People today remember Charlie Chaplin, but the silent era had many popular stars,” Rapsis said. “Harold Lloyd’s ‘average American’ character was immensely popular in the 1920s, not just in the U.S. but around the globe.”
With the release of Lloyd’s films on DVD, audiences are rediscovering his works. The reissue sparked a demand for screenings in theaters, where the Lloyd films continue to cast their spell on audiences. Shown in a theater with live music, Lloyd’s features maintain their power to delight movie-goers.
“Times have changed, but people haven’t,” Rapsis said. “The Lloyd films were designed to be shown in a theater with an audience, and to appeal to a worldwide audience, and their universal themes haven’t lost any power,” said Rapsis, who has performed music for silent films in venues ranging the Donnell Library in New York City to the Kansas Silent Film Festival.
Using original themes created beforehand, Rapsis improvises the music live as the films are shown.
“When the score gets made up on the spot, it creates a special energy that’s an important part of the silent film experience,” said Rapsis, who uses a digital synthesizer to recreate the texture of a full orchestra for the accompanimemt.
Red River Theatres includes silent film in its programming to give today’s audiences a chance to experience the great films of cinema’s early years as they were intended: in restored prints, on the big screen, and with live music and an audience.
Grandma’s Boy will be shown in the Jaclyn Simchik screening room. Admission is $10 per person. For more info, call 224-4600 or visit redrivertheatres.org.
