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The
Silent Film Society of Chicago |
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The Silent Film
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The Silent Summer Film Festival Comes to the Portage Theatre
The Silent Film Society of Chicago is proud to present the silent summer film festival for six consecutive Fridays beginning
Friday, July 20, 2007. Buster Keaton, Clara Bow, Harold Lloyd, Louise Brooks and
Mary Pickford are among the featured performers in the festival. All films begin at 8 p.m. at the Portage
Theater, 4050 N. Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago.
Ticket Info Advance tickets are available at the Portage
Theatre, 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago during regular box office hours (Ph:
773-736-4050), and at The Society for Arts (1112 Gallery), 1112 N. Milwaukee,
Thursday through Sunday Noon to 6 p.m. (Ph: 773-486-9612). For your convenience,
use our Festival order form to order
tickets by mail.
Battleship
Potemkin (1925) with A. Antonov, Vladimir
Barski, Grigori Alexandrov Battleship Potemkin is director Sergei Eisenstein's depiction of an incident during a 1905 uprising against the Russian monarchy. The crew of the battleship Prince Potemkin mutinied against the cruelty and indifference of its officers when they are forced to eat rotting food. The support of the townspeople and the action taken by Tsarist troops are brilliantly captured by Eisenstein in this film, which is considered one of the 10 greatest films ever made. The film and its revolutionary message was banned at various times both in the United States and in the Soviet Union. The sequence filmed at the Odessa steps lasts for more than four minutes and contains 155 separate shots, characteristic of the film's intricate and complex montage flow.
Welcome
Danger (1929) with Harold Lloyd, Barbara Kent
and Charles "Ming" Middleton In one of Harold
Lloyd's most unusual comedies, the comedic actor plays Harold Bledsoe, a
botonist summoned to travel to San Francisco to replace his late father who was
Chief of Police. A city-wide crime wave is underway and official hope that
Bledsoe is a chip off the old block and can thwart the crooks. When Bledsoe
misses a train into the city, he meets Billie (Barbara Kent) who is taking her
crippled brother to see the one person who can cure him -- the respected Dr. Gow.
One of the city's leading citizens, John Thorne (Charles Middleton) blames the
police for the crime and drug activities of "The Dragon"? Who is the "Dragon"?
Can Bledsoe stop the crime wave?
Beggars of Life is considered Louise Brooks'
best American film. Brooks plays Nancy who lives in constant fear of her lusting
father. When he attacks her, she kills him in a moment of panic. Jim
(played by Richard Arlen) is a young hobo who discovers the murder and helps
Nancy escape. Dressed in men's clothes to disguise herself, she and Jim hop
aboard a freight train only to be thrown off by the brakeman. They eventually
end up in a hobo camp where the leadership is intensely contested between
Arkansas Snake and Oklahoma Red. Director William Wellman used actual hobos and
homeless men. Brooks did many of her own stunts. Shortly after this film was
completed, Brooks broke her contract with Paramount to work with director G. W.
Pabst in Europe. She was subsequently blacklisted and relegated to B film
productions. Suds
(1920) with Mary Pickford, Albert Austin and
Lavendor, the Horse America's Sweetheart, Mary Pickford, stars in this rarely -seen comedy that can hold its own with some of her better-known films. In Suds, she plays Amanda Afflick, a daydreaming Cockney laundress, a hopeless romantic who makes up a fictitious boyfriend from a guy who forgot his shirt eight months ago. Among Amanda's friends friends is Lavendor the Horse, a broken-down old delivery horse who is scheduled to be sent to the glue factory by the laundry's nasty owner. Lavendor's driver, Horace Greensmith (Albert Austin) likes Amanda too, but she has her eyes set on a rich suitor, Benjamin Pillsbury Jones (Harold Goodwin). Charming and funny, Suds is a memorable film that is a must-see for all audiences.
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