Monday Movie

ORGAN-IZED: Monday morning, we took a field trip to one of our favorite destinations, the lovely Paramount Theatre. 

Our reason for visiting was the Paramount's annual/ongoing silent movie series. 

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about our visit.

On the morning of 24 April, my family went to the Paramount Theatre, (a historic theater for plays, and, to a lesser extent, films) for that day's Silent Movie Monday event. At the Paramount Theatre, Silent Movie Mondays are events where the theater plays various silent films, with a live soundtrack (as in, played by humans along with the visuals).

First, we were introduced to Tedde Gibson and Paul Hansen, the musicians present at the Silent Movie Monday. Tedde Gibson played a large Wurlitzer organ, which was literally connected to the walls. The Wurlitzer organ has several "sub-instruments", like a regular piano, as well as something that could make flute sounds. Paul Hansen had various Foley-studio esque objects, that would allow him to make various sound effects.

The first of the films we were shown, "A Portal for Fools", was actually a new film, created in the style of of classic silent films. A Portal for Fools was a story about a girl building a portal to another point on the planet, only for her and a friend of hers to get lost in the portal. Two of the girl's friends have to go looking for her, which culminates in a Scooby-Doo-styled-chase scene where they try and find each other. A Portal for Fools was made for a contest, in which students aged 20 and under could make a silent film for a reward of hundreds of dollars, if they succeeded. A Portal for Fools was apparently last year's winner.

The second of the films, "The Battle of the Century", is a classic Laurel & Hardy comedy from 1927. For several decades, the film was thought to be lost (save for the climactic pie fight), until 2015, when most of the rest of the film was found.
The Battle of the Century was one of Laurel & Hardy's first shorts, before they knew each other very well or were famous. The short starts off with a boxing match, evidently set up to look like "The Battle of the Century". Laurel, one of the opponents in the match, ends up losing, to Hardy's dismay. Hardy seeks insurance, and the insurer tells Hardy that if Laurel has an injury, Hardy can pocket the insurance money.

While in the city, Hardy takes a banana peel, and throws it on the ground, hoping that Laurel will slip on it. However, a chef slips on it instead, and the chef throws a pie at Hardy. This starts a legendary pie fight that everybody in the city takes part in, including the mayor. This turns out to be the actual Battle of the Century.

Annabelle weighs in, as well ...

Once a year, the Paramount theater has a field trip for schools to go on a tour of the theater and see their Silent Movie Monday feature. We didn’t go on the tour, but we did enter the theater with a group from our school to see a student-made film from a local elementary, and an old (surprisingly complete) Laurel and Hardy skit. The student film was about a young scientist girl creating a portal, which her over-eager friend decides to jump into. The scientist girl hops in after him on a rescue mission, as her other friends wonder why he hasn’t shown up for lunch. They discover her missing and the portal activated, so they too join in on a rescue mission. What ensues is a comical chase scene where all 3 groups routinely miss each other while running through hallways and asking a (very angry) woman where their friends are. Eventually, they all literally run into each other and leave the alternate world. After a thorough scolding from the scientist, they all agree never to jump into random portals again.  The second silent film we were shown was a Laurel and Hardy skit that recently had the majority of the film found and restored. It was titled “The Fight of the Century”, starting with two boxers fighting in the ring. The crowd is pumped for the popular favorite to win against a comically stupid opponent. However, as the idiot’s coach shows him which hand to punch with, the idiot actually knocks out the favorite with a punch to the face! The entire crowd leaves when the idiot goes down for 2 seconds. Later, the stupid boxer and his coach are walking down the street when they bump into a pie shoppe owner, slipping his entire tray of whipped cream pies. The pie shoppe owner decides to throw the pies at them in spite, but ends up missing. The pies hit other innocent people, and what ensues is the real fight of the century, with about 30 people in a huge pie war! Apparently during filming 3,000 pies were used. That’s a lot of baking! The silent movies were hilarious, and even more so with the accompanying organ and Foley sound effects. I love watching silent movies at the Paramount!

The L&H movie is available on YouTube via several posts. This one looks to be one of the longer ones, so maybe it's most inclusive. It's a fun watch if you have 15 minutes to spare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_OUL8hzNx8