Naro Summer Classics: Silent Film with Live Score – Sherlock Jr. (Norfolk)

Sunday, August 30th at 1pm & Monday, August 31st at 7pm
Two silent film classics with original live musical score! 

A kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train station — only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theater, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. In 2005, Time named Sherlock Jr. as one of the All-Time 100 Movies, writing “The impeccable comedian directs himself in an impeccable silent comedy … Is this, as some critics have argued, an example of primitive American surrealism? Sure. But let’s not get fancy about it. It is more significantly, a great example of American minimalism—simple objects and movement manipulated in casually complex ways to generate a steadily rising gale of laughter. The whole thing is only 45 minutes long, not a second of which is wasted. In an age when most comedies are all windup and no punch, this is the most treasurable of virtues.” (1924, 48m)

Sherlock Jr. will be preceded by a Buster Keaton short: One Week. Film critic Walter Kerr, in his landmark book The Silent Clowns, said of this film,“To sit through dozens and dozens of short comedies of the period and then to come upon One Week is to see the one thing no man ever sees: a garden at the moment of blooming.” It was the first time in one of his own films that he used the iconic falling house front gag, using a full-size house, not a model. (1920, app. 22m)

 Featuring live original accompaniment by virtuoso pianist and composer Christopher Kypros. (1924, 48m)

Live Original Score: Christopher Kypros received his graduate degree (M.M.) in 1973 from The Juilliard School in New York City, where he studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki. Kypros completed his undergraduate studies at Old Dominion University. He has appeared as guest soloist with the Virginia Symphony and the Jacksonville Symphony, with Skitch Henderson conducting, as well as with the Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra and regional college orchestras. As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Feldman String Quartet, the LeHigh String Quartet, and the Norfolk Chamber Consort. His solo appearances include a concert at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.