Anything But Silent
Anything But Silent Live Theatre Organ Accompaniment by Ben Model
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE on 35mm
Tuesday, July 23rd at 7:30 PM
$11 Members | $16 Public
Based on the famous poem by James Whitcomb Riley that later inspired the Little Orphan Annie comic strip, this delightful blend of fantasy and reality tells the quintessential tale of an abused waif who uses grit, imagination, and an irresistibly sunny disposition to overcome hardship.
Little Orphant Annie is a is a delightful blend of fantasy and reality. The film's children spend their days fighting over food rescued from garbage cans, while by night they cower under the covers, menaced by grotesque puppet monsters. Into the breach steps Little Orphant Annie (Colleen Moore, in her earliest extant performance, shot before her rise to stardom in the 1920s), an eternal optimist and skilled storyteller whose imagination is alive with gnomes, fairy queens, and goblins that delight the other children at the institution. Adapted from the famed 1885 poem by James Whitcomb Riley that would later inspire the Little Orphan Annie comic strip, the film version is a work of dark whimsy and groundbreaking special effects - with dissolves, double exposures, and other in-camera tricks used to create Annie’s visions of flying witches and mischievous goblins. Annie was inspired by a real-life servant named Mary Alice Smith, whom Riley had known as a boy. Orphant Annie became a media sensation, with the character adapted to the stage, comic strips, television, and film. Little Orphant Annie is notable for its It is also thought to be the earliest surviving Colleen Moore film, shot before her rise to stardom in the 1920s. Little Orphant Annie has been painstakingly reconstructed by independent archivist Eric Grayson using materials from the Library of Congress and assorted film collectors.
(USA, 1918, 57 Mins., 35mm, Silent with English Intertitles | Dir. Colin Campbell)
Ben Model is one of America’s leading silent film accompanists, and has been playing piano and organ for silent films at the New York MoMA since 1984, and the CAC since 2006.