Broadway-Inspired Silent Film CHICAGO Returns To The Cinema For A Virtual Screening With Live Piano Accompaniment

Whether an enthusiast of the hit Broadway show, or an admirer of the Academy Award winning musical, fans of Chicago are in for a treat this November as Huntington's Cinema Arts Centre presents a one-night livestream of the play's original film adaptation.

On Wednesday, November 17th at 7:00 PM ET, the Cinema Arts Centre will present a virtual screening of the 1927 silent film adaptation of the play Chicago. Audience members are invited to attend this livestream screening free-of-charge or to pay-what-they-want to attend. Throughout the film screening, Ben Model, one of the nation's leading silent film accompanists, will perform a live improvised score, expertly crafted to supplement each scene of the film. After the film, audience members are encouraged to stick around for a brief discussion of the film and its history.

Written by Maurine Dallas Watkins and debuting on Broadway in 1926, Chicago also served as the inspiration for the 1975 Broadway musical of the same name, which was later adapted into the 2002 Academy Award winning musical film.

Film Synopsis: Sexy, jazz-loving and dressed to kill, Roxie Hart (Phyllis Haver) has a doting, handsome husband in Victor Varconi; not to mention a gold-digging affair on the side with Eugene Pallette, who pays and pays, eventually with his life. Put on trial for murder, Roxie secures lawyer Billy Flynn (Robert Edeson), equal part mob "mouthpiece" and publicity agent. When Roxie hits the headlines, the courtroom theatrics begin. Like the musical Chicago that won the Best Picture Academy Award and five other Oscars in 2002, this original 1927 version descends from a 1926 hit Broadway play by Maurine Watkins. It's a terrifically entertaining mix of humor and melodrama as well as a pungent critique of trash journalism. Frank Urson signed Chicago as director, although it is substantially the work of Cecil B. DeMille and his A-list technical staff. (DeMille apparently judged it unseemly to take full credit for this cynical and secular story while his religious spectacle The King of Kings was still in theatres!) Chicago is silent filmmaking at its peak. The 1927 Chicago was long believed a lost film, but a perfect print survived in Cecil B. DeMille's private collection. Restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2006, it has since been widely performed to rapturous audiences. (Courtesy of Flicker Alley)

Anything But Silent: For more than 15 years, the Cinema Arts Centre has presented a monthly silent film as part of its Anything But Silent series. Pairing a silent movie with a live musical accompaniment, most often performed by piano & organ accompanist Ben Model, Anything But Silent offers audiences the opportunity to experience silent films as they were originally intended to be seen.

Stream virtually on the Cinema Arts Centre website. You can find the program on the Cinema Arts Virtual Screening Room page https://cinemaartscentre.org/cac-virtual-screening-room/. Or by visiting the event page: https://tinyurl.com/CAC-ABS-Chicago

Instructions: After visiting the event page, click the "Buy Tickets" button and complete the check-out process. After completed, you will receive a confirmation email containing a link to enter the livestream on November 17th. Attendees will also be able to enter the livestream by following the "Enter Livestream" prompt on the event page after RSVP'ing.

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