See fashion and flapper icon Louise Brooks at Arcada silent film series
The Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St. in St. Charles, is continuing its "Silent Film Night" series with the 1929 German silent film classic "Pandora's Box," featuring flapper icon Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner and Francis Lederer.
The film set in the Weimer Germany was directed by Austrian avant-garde film and theater director G.W. Pabst. He also directed Greta Garbo, Asta Nielsen and Leni Riefenstahl in their early film roles.
After struggling in Hollywood, the role of the seductive and alluring "Lulu" in "Pandora's Box" made Brooks an iconic symbol of the flapper age and popularized the bobbed haircut.
The Louise Brooks style had a revived popularity in the 1990s with Uma Thurman's character Mia Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction."
Tickets are $10 or $8 for members of the Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts or the Silent Film Society of Chicago. Visit www.arcadalive.com.
Enjoy fresh popcorn while watching a silent film in a 1920s vaudeville theater. In addition to popcorn, there are food and drink specials, including hot dogs, Bavarian pretzels, pizza grinders, and regular or jumbo Guinness beer brats.
The movie will be accompanied live by Jay Warren, Chicago's foremost pipe organ expert, on the classically restored 3/16 Marr Colton/Geneva Arcada organ.
As a regular photoplay organist for the Silent Film Society of Chicago, Warren has accompanied most of the great silent films throughout his 40-year career. He has been featured annually for the society's highly regarded Silent Summer Film Festival since its beginning in 2000.
For a dozen years, he played the huge E.M. Skinner pipe organ for silent films at the University of Chicago's famed Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. He also performs film accompaniment on the beautiful Letourneau pipe organ in the Crimi Auditorium of Aurora University. He also has made several silent film photoplay appearances on the incredible five-manual Wurlitzer located at the Sanfilippo Foundation's Place de la Musique in Barrington.
The Arcada Theatre opened in 1926 as a silent film and vaudeville theater. In later years, the theater owners had the Geneva Organ Co. put in a larger console and add more pipes.
The Chicago Chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society helps maintain the organ which has about 1,000 pipes, plus real drums, cymbals and the usual noisemakers used in the days of the silent movies to make the background sound.
To learn more about the Chicago Area Theatre Organ Enthusiasts and other upcoming events, visit www.facebook.com/CATOE61/. For more on the Silent Film Society of Chicago, visit www.facebook.com/SilentFilmChicago/