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Now Playing at the Packard Campus Theater (Sept. 14-16; 18, 2017)

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The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus.

Thursday, September 14 (7:30 p.m.)
Flying Luck (Pathe, 1927)
Capitalizing on the 1927 flying craze that followed the first transatlantic solo flight by Charles Lindbergh, this comedy stars Monty Banks who will do anything to learn to fly an aeroplane. After building his own plane doesn’t go so well, he winds up enlisting in the Army. During basic training, Monty falls in love with the Colonel’s daughter (played by a young Jean Arthur), tangles with a mean drill sergeant (Kewpie Morgan) and is mistaken for a visiting French dignitary. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Ben Model.

Friday, September 15 (7:30 p.m.)
Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy (1912-1926)
Steve Massa, a leading enthusiast of silent comedy, presents a series of shorts based on his latest book Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy. Massa, who has devoted 45 years to researching the genre, has delighted Packard Campus Theater audiences in the past with similar programs featuring rare silent comedies featured in his critically acclaimed earlier tomes, Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Forgotten of Silent Comedy and Marcel Perez: The International Mirth-Maker. Massa has also organized and curated comedy film programs for the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of the Moving Image, The Smithsonian Institution, and The Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Shorts included on the program include Pants (1919) starring Gale Henry, How the Stars are Made (1916) starring Alice Howell, and His Wife Knew About It starring Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew and Kate Price. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Ben Model.

The Temptress (MGM, 1926)

Saturday, September 16 (7:30 p.m.)
The Temptress (MGM, 1926)
Greta Garbo’s performance in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling caught the attention of MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, who brought the 20 year-old actress to Hollywood the following year, along with that film’s director and Garbo’s mentor, Mauritz Stiller. Her first American film, The Torrent, was a hit and her performance as a seductress was critically acclaimed. In Garbo’s second film for MGM, she plays yet another wicked woman who has made a pastime out of breaking men’s hearts. The Temptress was also a great success with critics’ enthusiasm suggesting the emergence of a great star. Directed by Fred Niblo, the film costars Antonio Moreno and Lionel Barrymore. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Ben Model.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Hypnotic, 2016)

Monday, September 18 (7:30 p.m.)
Dawson City: Frozen Time (Hypnotic Pictures, 2016)
Dawson City: Frozen Time pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s – 1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory, in Dawson City, located about 350 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Using these permafrost protected, rare silent films and newsreels, archival footage, interviews and historical photographs to tell the story, and accompanied by an enigmatic score by Sigur Rós, collaborator and composer Alex Somers (Captain Fantastic), the documentary depicts a unique history of a Canadian gold rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery, and salvation–and through that collection, how an important hunting and fishing camp for a nomadic First Nation was transformed and displaced. The film’s director, Bill Morrison, will introduce the film and conduct a Q & A following the screening.

For more information on our programs, please visit the website at: www.loc.gov/avconservation/theater/.

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