Yes Virginia, there will be a Silent Movie Night 2014

Silent Movie Night will be happening in 2014, just a little later than is typical.  Instead of a pre-Lenten bash look for our silent film festival this coming Summer, 2014...

More information will follow!

Thank you to the Armstrong County Community Foundation

This year's silent film success was due in large part to the Armstrong County Community Foundation (ACCF).

The ACCF has been serving the citizens of the county by linking charitable donations to worthy causes.

We were very blessed to be the recipient of an art grant that paid for the majority of the musicians in our silent film orchestra.

We would like to thank Jeff Boarts, Mindy Knappenberger, and the Church Council of St. John's Lutheran, and the board and staff at the ACCF, for writing, processing and assisting in the grant application and in the awarding of the grant.

But above all we would like to thank all of the generous donors of the ACCF that made such a wonderful evening possible.

Armstrong County Community Foundation

2012 A Great Success!

It is hard to believe that our Night of Silent Stars has ended for another year.  It was a fantastic success, we had 220 people in attendance, as you might imagine the list of thank you's is long.  At the risk of omitting anyone, I will create a proper list of thank you's that will appear shortly.

Already, things are being considered for next year.

If you were in attendance and have any suggestions on how to improve our program we'd love to hear from you.

But mostly, we just wish to say thank you to all for their marvelous support!

A Modern Musketeer

A Modern Musketeer

1917

Our feature film for Friday, Feb. 17, 2012 (7:00 p.m.) will be A Modern Musketeer.  This 72 minute feature film is a hoot!  A combination of romantic fantasy comedy, period adventure, melodrama, and a touch of Cowboys and Indians, it flies by leaving you wanting more.  The movie features some great outdoor cinematography of the Grand Canyon and the Arizona desert, and the ever impressive Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., filling the screen with his signature acrobatic stunts and capers.  

In this pop-corn favorite from almost one hundred years ago, Douglas Fairbanks plays an eccentric young man from small town Kansas named Ned Thacker.  Ned tries to embody the chivalry of D'Artagnan and the other gentlemanly Musketeers of old. His instincts for living out the code of a more "civilized" age in the progressive 20th century means that difficulties as well as true heroism follow him wherever he goes.  Ned's anachronistic behavior can be traced to his Mother, who in the midst of a Kansas tornado insisted on reading The Three Musketeers as she gave birth!  As the movie unfolds Ned imagines himself into the 17th century (where he wrecks an entire tavern and clobbers and kills three dozen rotters just to restore a mysterious lady's handkerchief) and in the modern world he tries to serve justice in a gambling den with hilarious results.

Tiring of small town life he travels from Kansas toward the far west.  Enroute in his Model T, Ned encounters a young woman, Elsie Dodge, and her mother.  The Dodges have been taken in by a rich scoundrel and bigamist named Forrest Vandeteer who is pursuing young Elsie.  When their car is unable to make it through the desert Ned saves the day and gets them safely to the El Tovar Hotel at the edge of the Grand Canyon.  Ned and Elsie fall gently in love, but her Mother's financial needs and Vandeteer's arrogance and desire for Elsie cut young Ned out of the picture.  In the meantime a renegade Navajo Indian chief named Chin-de-dah decides that the young Elise would make an excellent, if temporary, wife.  Soon Elsie and Vandeteer are embroiled in a kidnapping, a desert chase with the bad guys, and Ned romping around trying to save the young lady from certain disaster.

While the presentation of Chin-de-dah is insensitive by modern standards, he is not held up as a model of Native Americans, but as an aberration.  The film also presents positive, if perhaps condescending footage of actual Zuni Indians performing traditional dances for tourists at the hotel, and Doug bounces a young Zuni boy on his knee with obvious affection. 

The film under the direction Allan Dwan has fast paced action, nice camera work, and fine acting from a strong cast.  The film doesn't feel like it was made in 1917 and makes understanding Fairbank's stardom easy.

The film has been lovingly restored and is nearly free of the distortion, grit, and damage typically found on films of this age resulting in a clear, stable, and throughly enjoyable viewing experience.  The painstaking restoration was carried out by the Danish Film Institute, Lobster Films, and Flicker Alley and is made available to St. John's Lutheran Church via the film's current owner, Mr. David Shepard.

The Cast:

Directed by Allan Dwan

Ned Thacker/

D'Artagnan:                Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.

Elsie Dodge:               Marjorie Daw

Mrs. Dodge:               Kathleen Kirkham

Forrest Vandeteer:      Eugene Ormonde

Mrs. Thancker:           Edythe Chapman

Chin-de-dah:              Frank Campeau

James Brown:            Tully Marshall

Screenplay by Allan Dwan and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. based on the short story D'Artagnan of Kansas by F. R. Lyle, Jr.

The Film will be projected from a DVD and accompanied by the 14 piece 

Kittanning Ivy Leaf Orchestra 

under the direction of 

Mr. Stephen J. Lipnichan.

The score for the film is made of original period numbers and photoplay music compiled, arranged and edited by Eric W. Cook

The orchestra was made possible from a grant from the 

Armstrong County Community Foundation

Visit them at: www.accfound.org

This film and several other full length and short 

early Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. films 

can be found as part of Flicker Alley's boxed set 

Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer

Visit them at: www.flickeralley.com

Silent Movie Night 2012

Plans are underway for next year's evening of silent films.

Mark your calendars now for:

Friday, February 17, 2012.

Time to be announced. 

After reviewing our survey of what format you would enjoy most, and which films you were most interested in viewing - we plan on offering a short comedy and a feature film, as always with live musical accompaniment.  As always, the evening will feature an intermission, and the programming will be suitable for the entire family.

The total program to run approximately 100 minutes.

We have reviewed several films that reflected your interests, as expressed in the survey, and we are in the process of contacting the owner of those films for permission to run them in 2012.

As soon as we have arranged for permission and licensing, the films titles will be announced.

So please stay tuned!