Please join us for another Silent Movie at St. John’s Church
this Saturday at 7 pm.
Music Guild, Saint John’s Episcopal Church, 48 Middle Street, Gloucester MA
978.283.1708
http://www.stjohnsgloucester.org
The St. John’s Music Guild hosts Peter Krasinski playing the organ accompanying the 1927 silent film “Underworld”, the first modern gangster movie on Saturday March 24 at 7 pm. The public is welcome. $15/$10 for students and seniors donation at the door. The church is located at 48 Middle Street, Gloucester and the parking lot is at 33 Washington Street. Call 978.283.1708 ext 2 to reserve tickets. These productions are “standing room only” so come early and enjoy vintage cartoons. Doors open at 6 pm. Complimentary popcorn. St. John’s Church is handicap accessible.
This is Peter’s 9th performance accompanying silent films. He has provided music for many famous hits, including “The General”, “Spite Marriage” and “The Cameraman” with Buster Keaton and “Modern Times” with Charlie Chaplin, “Speedy” and “The Freshman” with Harold Lloyd. Most of these have been the famous slapstick style popular with children of all ages. Peter has also accompanied Fritz Lang’s monumental “Metropolis”. “Underworld is a serious film, not recommended for small children. We’re recommending that parents consider this appropriate for ages 12 and up. “There is something magical that happens when the figures on the silver screen are brought to life with music, that gets the crowd rooting for the hero. This doesn’t happen watching movies in one’s living room!” reports Mark Nelson, music director of St. John’s Church. “His appearances warm the soul of the folks who come, we’re very privileged to be able to offer these programs.”
Peter was featured at the Hammond Castle years ago in accompanying “Salome”. He’s provided musical art for silent films around the world including several trips to Japan. In 2002 he won the national Improvisation Competition for the American Guild of Organists. He has studied in Boston and Paris. He enjoys sailing the New England coastline in his J24.
Josef von Sternberg’s gangland melodrama Underworld (1927) with George Bancroft and Clive Brook, often considered as the first modern gangster film, had many standard conventions of the crime film – and it was shot from the gangster’s point of view. It won the Best Original Story Award for Ben Hecht – the first Oscar ever awarded for an original screenplay, and the first of Hecht’s two Oscar wins (among six writing nominations during his career).
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed’s girlfriend. ‘Nobody helps me — I help them!’ boasts open-handed gangster Bull Weed, handing over what will prove to be the best investment in his high-spending career: a thousand dollars that will put the literate ‘Rolls Royce’ of vagrants back on his feet. Living it up in the Twenties with the aid of cool but smouldering moll Feathers, the Bull lords it over the law and his rivals alike — specifically big Buck Mulligan, whose floral-tributes business echoes that of a certain real-life Chicago gangster… Yet Feathers, prize possession and object of envy, proves his weak point; and in the end, Bull Weed will indeed come to need help from others, and more than he has ever needed it before. But can Rolls Royce and Feathers still give it to him? And will the Bull accept? Writes Igenlode Wordsmith from IMDB.com.
Paramount Pictures initially predicted this film to be a failure and therefore released it in only one theater initially in New York. Ben Hecht even asked for his name to be taken off the credits. After strong word-of-mouth, the movie went on to become a hit. The gangster role played by George Bancroft was modeled on “Terrible” Tommy O’Connor, an Irish-American mobster who gunned down Chicago Police Chief Padraig O’Neil in 1923 but escaped three days before execution and was never apprehended.
Please join us for another Silent Movie at St. John’s Church
this Saturday at 7 pm.
Music Guild, Saint John’s Episcopal Church, 48 Middle Street, Gloucester MA
978.283.1708
The St. John’s Music Guild hosts Peter Krasinski playing the organ accompanying the 1927 silent film “Underworld”, the first modern gangster movie on Saturday March 24 at 7 pm. The public is welcome. $15/$10 for students and seniors donation at the door. The church is located at 48 Middle Street, Gloucester and the parking lot is at 33 Washington Street. Call 978.283.1708 ext 2 to reserve tickets. These productions are “standing room only” so come early and enjoy vintage cartoons. Doors open at 6 pm. Complimentary popcorn. St. John’s Church is handicap accessible.
This is Peter’s 9th performance accompanying silent films. He has provided music for many famous hits, including “The General”, “Spite Marriage” and “The Cameraman” with Buster Keaton and “Modern Times” with Charlie Chaplin, “Speedy” and “The Freshman” with Harold Lloyd. Most of these have been the famous slapstick style popular with children of all ages. Peter has also accompanied Fritz Lang’s monumental “Metropolis”. “Underworld is a serious film, not recommended for small children. We’re recommending that parents consider this appropriate for ages 12 and up. “There is something magical that happens when the figures on the silver screen are brought to life with music, that gets the crowd rooting for the hero. This doesn’t happen watching movies in one’s living room!” reports Mark Nelson, music director of St. John’s Church. “His appearances warm the soul of the folks who come, we’re very privileged to be able to offer these programs.”
Peter was featured at the Hammond Castle years ago in accompanying “Salome”. He’s provided musical art for silent films around the world including several trips to Japan. In 2002 he won the national Improvisation Competition for the American Guild of Organists. He has studied in Boston and Paris. He enjoys sailing the New England coastline in his J24.
Josef von Sternberg’s gangland melodrama Underworld (1927) with George Bancroft and Clive Brook, often considered as the first modern gangster film, had many standard conventions of the crime film – and it was shot from the gangster’s point of view. It won the Best Original Story Award for Ben Hecht – the first Oscar ever awarded for an original screenplay, and the first of Hecht’s two Oscar wins (among six writing nominations during his career).
Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed’s girlfriend. ‘Nobody helps me — I help them!’ boasts open-handed gangster Bull Weed, handing over what will prove to be the best investment in his high-spending career: a thousand dollars that will put the literate ‘Rolls Royce’ of vagrants back on his feet. Living it up in the Twenties with the aid of cool but smouldering moll Feathers, the Bull lords it over the law and his rivals alike — specifically big Buck Mulligan, whose floral-tributes business echoes that of a certain real-life Chicago gangster… Yet Feathers, prize possession and object of envy, proves his weak point; and in the end, Bull Weed will indeed come to need help from others, and more than he has ever needed it before. But can Rolls Royce and Feathers still give it to him? And will the Bull accept? Writes Igenlode Wordsmith from IMDB.com.
Paramount Pictures initially predicted this film to be a failure and therefore released it in only one theater initially in New York. Ben Hecht even asked for his name to be taken off the credits. After strong word-of-mouth, the movie went on to become a hit. The gangster role played by George Bancroft was modeled on “Terrible” Tommy O’Connor, an Irish-American mobster who gunned down Chicago Police Chief Padraig O’Neil in 1923 but escaped three days before execution and was never apprehended.
