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Silent Movies with Theater Organist Dennis James
A Maritime Tradition
For the entire series:
$40 Adult
$20 Child
Recently Restored Films
Thursday, October 4
BEYOND THE ROCKS (1922- 85 minutes)
Director: Sam Wood
Starring: Gloria Swanson & Rudolph Valentino
Long considered one of the great "lost" films from the Hollywood golden age, Beyond the Rocks has been one of the most sought-after films of the silent era. Lost for over eighty years, film cataloguers at the Nederland's Film Museum were amazed to find the first two nitrate reels of the film when inventorying a vast collection of nitrate bequeathed to them by a film collector from Haarlem, they were amazed. The story, based on a novel by Elinor Glyn, features Valentino as a British lord who falls for Swanson's sweet but simple girl from the coast. Although she's engaged, it doesn't stop them from carrying on in London, Versailles, on the Alps and in the Sahara - where a tribal battle affects their relationship.
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Thursday, October 25
IT (1927, 79 minutes)
Director: Clarence Badger
Starring: Clara Bow
Vivacious. Stunning. Exhilarating. She was the brightest star of the Jazz Age and its greatest sex symbol. There was never anyone like Clara Bow before ... or since! And after this movie, they had a title for her: "The It Girl." Clara plays Betty Lou Spence, an impudent, supremely pretty and rather self-assured sales girl at the Waltham Department Store. Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno), handsome son of the owner, is running the business while subjected to the constant musings of his friend Monty on the IT-content of all present. Betty Lou, identified as top-heavy with IT, falls for the uninterested Cyrus - and the chase begins in one of the great romantic comedies of the silent era!
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Thursday, November 15
PICCADILLY (1929, 108 minutes)
Director: E.A. DuPont
Starring: Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong & Jameson Thomas
E.A. DuPont's Piccadilly, the 1929 silent masterpiece brilliantly restored by the British Film Institute, stars the sultry Anna May Wong in her greatest role. After many years of supporting roles in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in search of better work. And did she find it! Her electric, sexually-charged performance in Piccadilly is a revelation. She is mesmerizing as Shosho, the Chinese scullery maid at a Piccadilly nightclub who overnight becomes the toast of London - and the object of desire of all around her. The camera adores Wong, and against Alfred Junge's astonishing set design, she glows on the big screen. Now, with this gorgeous restoration of Piccadilly and its first distribution in the US since 1929, audiences will fall under the spell of the bewitching Anna May Wong! Dennis James Dennis James has dedicated his professional career to the continuation of the theatrical traditions of organ performance and furthering public interest in the theatre pipe organ. From the time he began concertizing while still in his teens; James has been at the top of the theatre organ profession. He has played virtually everywhere pipe theatre organs are to be found, from the preserved movie palaces throughout the United States and Canada to concert halls and theaters in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
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Organist Dennis James
Dennis James has dedicated his professional career to the continuation of the theatrical traditions of organ performance and furthering public interest in the theatre pipe organ. From the time he began playing concerts while still in his teens, James has been at the top of the theatre organ profession. He has played virtually everywhere pipe theater organs are to be found, from the preserved movie palaces throughout the United States and Canada to concert halls and theaters in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Highlights of James' professional organ career include his New York City recital debut at
St. Patrick's Cathedral and an appointment as organist at the largest pipe organ in the world - the
Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia. His organ concerto debut was with the Chicago Symphony
at Orchestra Hall in 1984. James' annual European concert tours have included several return
engagements at Vienna's famed Konzert Haus to perform concerts and silent film accompaniment at the
historic 5-manual Rieger concert pipe organ.
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