Auditorium, APS Conference Center, Argonne National Laboratory
Friday February 6, 2004 at 7:30 p.m.
![[Lon Chaney]](0304_film_chaney.jpg) |
![[Harry Langdon]](0304_film_langdon.jpg) |
| Lon Chaney | Harry Langdon |
This program is partially supported by The University of Chicago and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency
Our 2004 program, “Two for the Show,” features films that star silent-era greats Lon Chaney and Harry Langdon, with live piano accompaniment by David Drazin, a professional silent-film accompanist who plays regularly for Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center, as well as at film screenings around the country.
“Lon” Chaney (real name given variously as Leonidas or Alonzo), sometimes called “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” is best known today for roles requiring the use of heavy makeup and appliances that contorted his face and body, rendering him nearly unrecognizable; examples include the all-but-inhuman Quasimodo in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” skull-faced Erik in “The Phantom of the Opera,” and the saw-toothed vampire in “London after Midnight,” as well as various twisted scoundrels in films like “The Blackbird“ and “The Unknown.“ But Chaney was an actor of enormous range, and he could display tenderness and even nobility, as he did in melodramas like “While the City Sleeps,” “He Who Gets Slapped,” “Laugh, Clown, Laugh,” and “The Road to Mandalay.” Arts at Argonne's 2004 film program shows off Chaney's abilities in one of these more human roles.
Harry Langdon, a celebrated vaudevillian who switched to a film career in the early 1920s, starred in a series of short comedies for Mack Sennett and then formed his own production company to create feature-length films. Nicknamed “The Sad Clown” and “The Baby,” Langdon --- actually among the oldest of the major silent comics --- always played an innocent, childlike waif. In his best films, such as “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,” “The Strong Man,” “Long Pants,” and “Three's a Crowd,” he stumbled through life without a clue, getting taken in by sharpers and vamps at every turn, but as often as not he came out on top. This year's program presents Langdon in a film that harks back to simpler times, when traveling players roamed the countryside, setting up their tents and impromptu stages to provide an evening's entertainment for rural and small-town audiences. It was a life that Langdon knew well from his own experience.
![[David Drazin]](drazin.gif) |
| David Drazin |
Live piano accompaniment for the films is provided by Chicago musician David Drazin, official silent-film accompanist for the Gene Siskel Film Center. Mr. Drazin has also played for the Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks, Michigan; the Northbrook and Park Ridge, Illinois, Public Libraries; and the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina. A composer, film maker, and motion-picture historian, Mr. Drazin is active in the areas of sound recording and live theater, both as performer and as director. He accompanies ballet classes, has performed in jazz ensembles, and plays in the roots rock band “Jesse Scinto and the Dignitaries.”
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Remaining tickets will be sold in the lobby of the Argonne Cafeteria (Bldg. 213) in the week of February 2 between noon and 1:00 p.m. The Auditorium Box Office will be open on the day of the performance at 7:00 p.m.
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