Anything But Silent Live theatre organ accompaniment by BEN MODEL
MARCEL PEREZ SHORTS
Wednesday, August 15 at 7:30 pm | Members $11 | Public $16
Guest Speaker: Film Historian Steve Massa
Born in Madrid, Marcel Perez was an innovative silent comedy star. Although he performed in over 200 shorts in France, Italy, and the US, Perez disappeared into the shadows of film history because many of his films were lost. Join us for the rediscovery of a comic master.
Some Hero” (1916) Perez survives being squashed by a safe, chews through thick ropes he’s been tied up with by bad guys, punches a cyclist so hard he flips over and over into the background like a top, drinks gallons of gas, and inhales a basement full of water…all in the name of helping a pretty young woman who’s been kidnapped.
“A Scrambled Honeymoon” (1916) Well-intentioned, Tweedledum comes to the rescue of a drowning woman, before getting distracted by her more alluring friend.
“Oh! What a Day” (1918) Twede-Dan encounters from technical difficulties. After some car trouble, he fuels it with booze, and the car becomes inebriated that can’t kick its newfound drinking problem.
“Wild” (1921) By far the most advanced of Perez’s shorts, and the only short enacted within a conventional genre- a Western. Tweedy stops a bullet with his teeth, kicks a boulder clear into the sky, and mining for gold finds a different kind of treasure.
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.
