| « A Creative Refuge for Girls | Review: State Theatre's Talk Radio » |
Film Mon Jul 26 2010
Silent Summer @ The Portage Theater
At the six corners of Irving, Milwaukee, and Cicero, a couple doors north of a store that has the words "Thom McCann" embedded in gold script in the entryway, and across from what used to be a restaurant called Mr. Steer, is the Portage Theater. Built in 1920, and refurbished in recent years (it was used as a location for the 2008 film Public Enemies), it has been home to the Silent Film Society of Chicago's annual Silent Summer Film Festival for a number of years.
The West End Jazz Band made an appearance Friday night to mark the opening of this year's festival, warming up the audience as advertisements for area merchants, most of whom I'd never heard of before, were projected onto the screen: Tunar Design Group; Safety Signs & Lighting; and one that said, simply "Advertise On This Screen, $25".
Organist Dennis Scott, dressed in a tuxedo, introduced the film lineup to the audience: a 1919 short starring Harold Lloyd and Bibi Daniels entitled Bumping into Broadway; and the main event -- the 1925 film The Freshman.
Lloyd's bespectacled, nerdy persona is so clearly the precursor to Woody Allen that he is instantly familiar, and the physical comedy that is inherent to the medium made the audience laugh out loud -- which is something you can do at a silent film without disturbing your neighbors, since all the dialogue is projected onto the screen with intertitles. Other things you can do at a silent film include sleeping, drinking wine or beer purchased at the concession stand, and talking to your neighbors. The man in front of me fell asleep so many times, his head lolling to one side, mouth agape and snoring out loud, that I lost count.
The 2010 Silent Summer lasts for five more weeks; next Friday the 1925 film Ben-Hur, starring Francis X. Bushman and Ramon Navarro will be screened, featuring a pre-show chariot race. I have no idea what that will entail, but I'm sure it will be memorable.
