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A LIVE "Anything But Silent" Event!
Harold Lloyd in GRANDMA'S BOY (1922)
featuring Live Piano Accompaniment by BEN MODEL from home!
Live Streaming on Wednesday, July 22nd at 7:00 PM EDT! - Event Link provided in Email Order Confirmation through "Buy Tickets" link above.
General Admission is FREE or Pay-What-You-Can!
GRANDMA'S BOY (1922)
Harold Lloyd stars in a double role in this film, one of his most popular and enduring comedy classics. When he is chosen as a member of a posse to capture a notorious criminal, Harold confides in his grandmother (Hannah Townsend) that he is really a coward. She explains how his grandfather overcame his cowardice to capture some important military papers during the Civil War*. She gives him a good luck charm that is really only the handle to an old umbrella. Harold has the courage to single handedly capture the fugitive without the use of a weapon. His heroism endears him to the girl (Mildred Davis) before he discovers his courage came from within and not from the charm.
James Agee, in his famous article Comedy’s Greatest Era, says of Harold Lloyd: “He looked like the sort of eager young man who might have quit divinity school to hustle brushes. He depended more on story and situation than any of the other major comedians; he kept the best stable of gagmen in Hollywood. He had an expertly expressive body and even more expressive teeth, and out of his thesaurus of smiles he could at a moment’s notice blend prissiness, breeziness, and asininity, and still remain tremendously likeable. His movies were more extroverted and closer to ordinary life than any others of the best comedies; he was especially good at putting a very timid, spoiled or brassy young fellow through devastating embarrassments. He went through one of his most uproarious Gethsemanes in Grandma’s Boy. The chase and fight are a high point in melodramatic slapstick, thanks importantly to the terrifying face of Dick Sutherland as the villain; and Grandma’s Civil War flashback is achingly funny. Lloyd was outstanding even among the master craftsmen at setting up a gag clearly, culminating and getting out of it deftly, and linking it smoothly to the next. If great comedy must involve something beyond laughter, Lloyd was not a great comedian. If plain laughter is any criterion–and it is a healthy counterbalance to the other–few people have equalled him, and nobody has ever beaten him.” (USA, 1922, 60min., NR, B&W | dir. Fred C. Newmeyer)
*The silent era of cinema coincided with a surge in African-American political activity, which inspired an unfortunately very successful response from pro-segregation organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The teens and 1920s were when many Confederate monuments were erected. This is when the myth of the “heroic lost cause” really took root in American society, such as this, and Hollywood movies culminating in Gone With the Wind.
Tickets are limit one (1) per order. Advance registration may be made any time prior to the start of the event. Ticket-holders will receive an email order confirmation with a link to the event upon completing their order. This link will become active at the start of the event.
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Thank you for your support of the Cinema Arts Centre at this time. If you need assistance with any step of your ticket purchase, please reach out to info@cinemaartscentre.org and a customer service representative will be in touch within 24 hours.
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. Since March 16th, 2020, Ben has been hosting a weekly live-streamed silent film show from his living room, “The Silent Comedy Watch Party.” Click here to visit Ben's YouTube page!
