One of the most revered comedies of the silent era, this film finds hapless Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray (Buster Keaton) facing off against Union soldiers during the American Civil War. When Johnny's fiancée, Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack), is accidentally taken away while on a train stolen by Northern forces, Gray pursues the soldiers, using various modes of transportation in comic action scenes that highlight Keaton's boundless wit and dexterity.

July is hot and the winds are kicking up in 1928’s THE WIND starring Lillian Gish. Based on the 1925 novel by Dorothy Scarborough, The Wind follows young Letty going west, headed to live with a cousin. Slowly, adversities increase as the howling dusty winds outside gain strength, serving as a metaphor for Letty’s increasingly fragile psychological state.

This is considered one of Lillian Gish’s best films and was sadly overlooked at the time, being released after talking pictures had become the rage. We welcomed THE WIND into the public domain this year! Hurrah for art for all of us!!

Tickets $5: Lillian Gish in THE WIND (1928) presented by Silents, Please! STL – ARKADIN CINEMA & BAR

Silents, Please! STL presented a double feature of films by Tod Browning, film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer.

THE BLACKBIRD

The Blackbird (Lon Chaney) is a bishop by day, but a world-class thief after nightfall. When he develops feelings for a sultry singer named Fifi Lorraine (Renée Adorée), he will stop at nothing to steal a diamond necklace that she covets. Unfortunately for him, West End Bertie (Owen Moore) has the same idea and beats him to the punch, stealing the jewels and the dame's heart. But The Blackbird won't give up without a fight -- and it threatens to reveal his other persona.

THE SHOW

A Hungarian carnival troupe follows a young girl who reforms a tearaway after her old suitor tried to kill him with a poisonous lizard.

In this silent drama, lifelong school chums Leo (John Gilbert) and Ulrich (Lars Hanson) are soldiers in the German army. Leo falls in love with Countess Felicitas (Greta Garbo) and courts her, which enrages her husband (Marc McDermott). When Leo fights a duel with and kills the Count, he is deployed to Africa for five years as punishment. Leo returns to find that Ulrich has fallen for Felicitas, but she resumes her amorous pursuit of Leo, thus pushing the limits of their friendship.

Silents, Please! STL is throwing Charlie Chaplin a 135th birthday party and you’re invited! Featuring MODERN TIMES.

This comedic masterpiece finds the iconic Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) employed at a state-of-the-art factory where the inescapable machinery completely overwhelms him, and where various mishaps keep getting him sent to prison. In between his various jail stints, he meets and befriends an orphan girl (Paulette Goddard). Both together and apart, they try to contend with the difficulties of modern life, with the Tramp working as a waiter and eventually a performer.

Arrive early for a Chaplin look-a-like contest and a new experiment - the mutual jukebox! You’ll get to choose the tunes to put alongside some Chaplin shorts and make your own soundtrack for The Tramp! Pre-show begins at 6 pm

Silents, Please! STL celebrates Women’s History Month with with a night devoted to WOMEN PIONEERS OF EARLY CINEMA. The program will feature a selection of shorts by groundbreaking French director Alice Guy-Blaché, whose work influenced Alfred Hitchcock and Sergei Eisenstein. Then, we’ll present Lois Weber’s masterful 1916 tearjerker SHOES, of which critic Louella Parsons wrote that it “loosens the heartstrings, stirs the pulse and makes one choke with emotion.” Both Shoes and Guy-Blaché’s short Matrimony’s Speed Limit have been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.

TICKETS $5

Arkadin Cinema and Bar

Grab your sweetie and come see SPEEDY! Admission includes a bubbly beverage to toast with your darling at this Valentine's Day screening!

Speedy was the last silent feature to star Harold Lloyd—and one of his very best. The slapstick legend reprises his “Glasses Character,” this time as a good-natured but scatterbrained New Yorker who can’t keep a job. He finally finds his true calling when he becomes determined to help save the city’s last horse-drawn streetcar, which is operated by his sweetheart’s crusty grandfather. From its joyous visit to Coney Island to its incredible Babe Ruth cameo to its hair-raising climactic stunts on the city’s streets, Speedy is an out-of-control love letter to New York that will have you grinning from ear to ear.

Join Silents, Please! STL for an evening of fantasy, whimsy, and downright oddity as we screen the British release of Alice in Wonderland from 1915. Other magical and fantastical shorts will be shown for your delight.

To celebrate the holiday season, we are again bringing Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece CITY LIGHTS (1931) to the screen.

“If only one of Charles Chaplin's films could be preserved, “City Lights” (1931) would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius. It contains the slapstick, the pathos, the pantomime, the effortless physical coordination, the melodrama, the bawdiness, the grace, and, of course, the Little Tramp--the character said, at one time, to be the most famous image on earth….. Chaplin's gift was truly magical. And silent films themselves create a reverie state; there is no dialogue, no obtrusive super-realism, to interrupt the flow. They stay with you. They are not just a work, but a place…. Children who see them at a certain age don't notice they're “silent” but notice only that every frame speaks clearly to them, without all those mysterious words that clutter other films. Then children grow up, and forget this wisdom, but the films wait patiently and are willing to teach us again.” —Roger Ebert

You asked for it? You got it!! The oft requested, Fritz Lang Expressionist masterpiece, METROPOLIS is coming to Arkadin Cinema and Bar! Thank you for coming out in support of silent film this year! *with the tip of a hat* This one’s for y’all.

This influential German science-fiction film presents a highly stylized futuristic city where a beautiful and cultured utopia exists above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers. When the privileged youth Freder (Gustav Fröhlich) discovers the grim scene under the city, he becomes intent on helping the workers. He befriends the rebellious teacher Maria (Brigitte Helm), but this puts him at odds with his authoritative father, leading to greater conflict.

$5
Wednesday November 8
7pm

Great care is always taken to choose the perfect film for Halloween season — and this year is no exception! There are so many amazing silent suspense/horror films, and this one is often requested. 

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, directed by Rupert Julian and starring Lon Chaney in the title role of the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star. The film remains most famous for Chaney’s ghastly, self-devised make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film’s premiere. The picture also features Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis and Snitz Edwards.

Get ready to come in your best masquerade attire….. There will be prizes!

“First released in 1925, the Chaney Phantom lets the drama of Gaston Leroux’s novel play out on exaggerated sets inspired by German Expressionism, but seemingly projected from the villain’s twisted psyche. The atmosphere matches Chaney’s performance perfectly.”
–Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

We are so excited to bring to the screen filmmaker Benjamin Crew’s brilliant silent edit of Tim Burton’s BATMAN (1989).

Accompanied by the original Danny Elfman score and title cards added by Crew, you will have the opportunity to really see and feel the German silent DNA that is splashed throughout Burton’s filmography - and experience Batman in a whole new and wonderful way.

We hope you will join us for this amazing opportunity, including a Q and A with Benjamin Crew.

$9
7pm (doors at 6pm with a pre show of film clips related to Batman and Burton)

tickets: https://checkout.square.site/buy/INBT3DWLIFW23YI7X5JP4QF2...

Ben Crew is a writer and documentary filmmaker based out of Chicago. He is known as the writer of the viral "Muppets Present The Great Gatsby" screenplay and for his Mad Men trivia nights. He has made a hobby of reediting existing films and shows with Batman: The Silent Motion Picture being his favorite of those projects

Considered to be the first film to explicitly depict psychoanalysis, symbolically and practically, SECRETS OF A SOUL (1926) is a fun trip into the filmic psyche of a man who is struggling with unwanted thoughts, compulsions, and feelings of inadequacy which leads him to the couch of his friendly neighborhood analyst.

G.W. Pabst, one of the greatest filmmakers out of Weimar Germany, does a beautiful job of using the camera and filmic language to convey the experience of dreaming and dissociative fantasy. This film is not an explicitly Expressionist film, but its influence is felt throughout.

accompanied by short films that feature dream logic and sequences

Wednesday July 12

8pm (doors at 7 - with pre-show films and clips)

Arkadin Cinema and Bar

5228 Gravois Ave St. Louis, MO 63116

FREE (donations welcome to help support and sustain programming)

Reservations Recommended (click here)

Considered one of Chaplin’s best films, THE KID is a tender and humorous film, complete with Chaplin’s trademark pathos and social commentary.

Paired with THE KID is the 1921 (often overlooked) film THE PILGRIM, when an escaped convict (Chaplin) evades the law by taking the clothes and role of a pastor in a small desert town.

Wednesday June 14

8pm (doors at 7 - with pre-show films and clips)

Arkadin Cinema and Bar

5228 Gravois Ave St. Louis, MO 63116

FREE (donations welcome to help support and sustain programming)

Reservations Recommended (click here)

ALL AGES

Often credited as the first (feature) horror film, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920) takes the viewer on a dreamlike journey through distorted spaces both real and imagined. With subtext critical of power and social control that led to the horrors of WWI, Caligari operates on a number of levels. This film is often recognized as the pinnacle of German Expressionism, which found its place in a post war Germany, rife with scarcity and instability. Artists and filmmakers took what limited means they had and worked within in these boundaries to expansive and brilliant effect.

Join us on Wednesday October 12 at Arkadin Cinema and Bar to see this classic masterpiece of horror. Whether it’s your first time or tenth, there’s always something new to be found in the dreamy landscape where somnambulist Cesare roams the night, doing the bidding of his ruthless master, Dr. Caligari.

A collection of horror shorts from the earliest days of filmmaking will be shown before the feature.

$10 (https://silents-please-stl.square.site/)

21+ — enter through The Heavy Anchor, located at 5226 Gravois Ave

8pm (doors at 7:30pm)

Did you know that exploitation films have existed since the earliest days of filmmaking? Framing films as morality tales enabled filmmakers or get certain content past the censors.

In THE PACE THAT KILLS (1928), we follow a young man from the country to the city as he searches for his sister who has fallen into ill repute. In an effort to keep a pep in his step, a young woman at his job offers him cocaine -- and you can guess where it goes from there.

This may not be the pinnacle of filmmaking, but it sure is a lot of fun. Come and make some noise. Silents are never silent!!

21+
$10
https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

In 1950’s SUNSET BOULEVARD, aging silent star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) proclaimed, “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!”

In this 1922 film starring the aforementioned Gloria Swanson and silent heartthrob Rudolph Valentino you’ll get all the faces! In this story of unfulfilled romance and desire, you’ll see the only time these titans of silent film appear together on screen. The camera loves them both and you’ll be swept up by their presence and charisma.

August in St. Louis is hot and steamy - and we will turn it up a notch. To keep cool, the first 18 guests will receive your very own Valentino hand fan. So, grab your smelling salts and your best fainting pillow and join us for a sizzler of an evening on the backlot. Swoon!

21+
$10 (your ticket supports this and ongoing silent film programming in St. Louis)
https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

Join us for an evening of more Buster Keaton than you could shake a pork pie hat at!! Titles to be announced, but you can pretty much bet on SHERLOCK, JR being in there along with maybe another feature, a short, maybe a few shorts. STAY TUNED!!

This event is FREE in celebration of a full year of Silents, Please! STL offering up the best in silent film for St. Louis -- oh yeah, it's Kate's birthday too.

ALL AGES WELCOME!! Noisemakers (slidewhistles, tambourines, kazoos, etc) welcome!! Come and make some noise for Buster.

8:30pm

In this Chaplin film, that marked the end of the silent era (though not the end of silents for Chaplin), Chaplin's tramp is accused of criminal acts, and unwittingly ducks into a big top, where his bumbling attempts to avoid pursuing police officers earn the laughter and applause of the circus-goers. Impressed, the ringmaster decides to employ the tramp as an entertainer. In between getting trapped in a lion's cage and partaking in clumsy high wire escapades, he falls for a beautiful show rider, who unfortunately has eyes for a daring tightrope acrobat.

Jeffrey Vance wrote, "Chaplin—a great cinema auteur—revealed his innermost feelings through his films. In The Circus, he fashioned a scenario that places The Tramp within the confines of a circus and, in so doing, documents, celebrates, and memorializes his own position as the greatest clown of his time. And, that accomplishment—beyond the wonderful comedy—ranks The Circus a major Chaplin film of considerable importance."

Chaplin (Mutual) short ONE A.M. (1916) will also be shown.

$10 -- your ticket supports this screening and ongoing silent film programming in St. Louis.

THIS EVENT IS ALL AGES!! And, if you’ve never seen a silent film before, message us and we will reserve a seat for you, for free.

Tickets: https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

This is an outdoor event -- and in the event of inclement weather, event will be rescheduled and tickets can be refunded.

Mary Pickford may be one of the most well known faces and names from the silent era, but her legacy is often not focused on her films, but her executive power, built upon her stardom.

Join us on the backlot for an evening with Mary -- and kick up your heels with a Mary Pickford cocktail from the Heavy Anchor.

In this film Mary Pickford plays Molly an adolescent "inmate" on what was known as a "baby farm" isolated in an alligator-infested swampland. Molly is a maternal figure to the many children in need of care, as they are all exploited by the nefarious Mr. Grimes. Molly and the children provide nurturing for a new arrival, while praying for divine intercession in their lives of abuse and misery, and trying to stay away from the gaze of Mr. Grimes.

This event is on the outdoor backlot of Arkadin Cinema and is 21+

Please enter through the Heavy Anchor and be sure to pick up a Mary Pickford cocktail on your way through.

Since this is an outdoor event, there is always the possibility of inclement weather. Should the event need to be postponed you will be offered a refund, use your ticket at the rescheduled event, or apply to a future event.

$10 -- your ticket supports and sustains silent film programming in St. Louis -- ticket link coming soon

Reportedly Charlie Chaplin’s favorite among his own films and one of his most financially successful besides (a high bar to cross when dealing with a figure of his stature), The Gold Rush finds his beloved Little Tramp character going to Alaska with the hopes of striking it rich in the titular gold rush. Amidst avalanches, blizzards, and romance, the Little Tramp finds time to eat a boiled shoe and choreograph a dinner roll dance. Presented here in the restored version of the 1925 original silent film, not the more common 1942 version to which Chaplin added new music and narration.

Co-presented with Webster Dining Services. For an additional cost, patrons are invited to enjoy a 1920s-themed meal prior to the film at Marletto's, located on Webster University's campus on the north side of the intersection of Big Bend and Edgar, between 5 and 7 p.m. Please note that Marletto’s can only process card transactions. Dinner and the admission to the film will be charged separately. Please call (314) 246-7525 with any questions.

 Sunday, April 24 at 7:30pm

$8 for the general public
$7 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$6 for Webster University staff and faculty
Free for Webster students with proper ID.

We offer general admission seating with payment of cash, check, or credit.

 Winifred Moore Auditorium
470 E. Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, MO 63119

Join Silents, Please! STL at Arkadin Cinema and Bar for an evening of delights and oddities from the early 20th Century. Curated for your enjoyment is a collection of domestic and international shorts from the earliest days of filmmaking.

This is an outdoor event. In the event of inclement weather, tickets will be refunded or honored at a rescheduled date.

21+

$10 https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS is likely best known as the aesthetic inspiration for Batman’s Joker. However, the character of Gwynplaine in this film is anything but a trickster and villain. Disfigured by a king as a child, Gwynplaine, an 18th-century clown becomes the pawn of royalty and star of the freak show of a travelling carnival. Based on the Victor Hugo novel, starting Conrad Veidt (best known for his role as Cesare in THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI), and directed by German expatriate Paul Leni, “The Man Who Laughs is a melodrama, at times even a swashbuckler, but so steeped in expressionist gloom that it plays like a horror film."

This event is 21+ and outdoors on the Backlot of Arkadin Cinema. We are hoping for fair weather but be prepared to bundle up, get cozy, and settle in for an evening with a movie you never knew you needed to see.

$10 -- https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

(if we have to postpone because of weather, you will be offered a refund or you can use your ticket for the rescheduled time or another event)

You've likely seen SAFETY LAST -- maybe even THE FRESHMAN or SPEEDY, but have you seen GIRL SHY? Often overlooked in favor of the aforementioned Harold Lloyd gems, GIRL SHY is a fun and quirky romance, complete with awkward glances, swoony daydreaming, a disruptive dog, and a scheming bigamist.

While Keaton was known as the master of daredevil stunts, Lloyd matches skill in this film with one of the most epic race/chase sequences, as he utilizes just about every mode of transportation you can imagine.

Jobyna Ralston brings her radiance, skill, and chemistry -- and the Robert Israel score makes this one of Lloyd's best feature films. Give it a chance. You won't regret it.

This film will be paired with a Mabel Normand short, TBA.

Tickets $10: https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

Your ticket helps support and sustain silent film programming in St. Louis. This is a ticketed as a private event for Silents, Please! STL and does not appear on Marcus Theatre’s website.

Silents, Please! STL has saved the best for the last of 2021! Bring the family for two of the greatest films ever made: Keaton's SHERLOCK, JR (1924) and Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS (1931)

Widely regarded as a masterpiece of the silent era, Buster Keaton’s SHERLOCK JR packs a lot into its 46-minute run time. On the surface, we have a story of a young man who works as a film projectionist, who aspires to be a detective – but, as the film progresses, we are invited into Keaton’s conflicts and fantasies via cinematic dream content. Keaton masterfully utilizes cinematic technique, filmic language, and physical skill to engage the viewer as both observer and observed. Sherlock Jr is sentimental without stickiness and comedic without farce. This is pure Keaton, at the top of his game.

CITY LIGHTS, considered one of the greatest films of all time certainly has maybe the greatest final shot of all time. Slavoj Zizek once said, "CITY LIGHTS is too sophisticated for the sophisticated." On the surface, this is a simple story -- but, peel back the layers it is a foundationally human story of love, connection, and being truly seen.

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

F.W. Murnau’s SUNRISE (1927) is a watershed film in the history of cinema.

Murnau, a giant in German Expressionist filmmaking, came to the United States and was given carte blanche by the Fox Film Corp to bring his vision and talent to Hollywood. SUNRISE is one of the first films to use the Fox Movietone Sound System, which allowed for a synchronized musical score and sound effects.

A tale of a man torn between two women, representative of tradition and modernity, Murnau delivers a hazy, emotive, dream like journey through the internal conflicts of a man seduced by the vices of the emergent 20th Century.

This is a private event via Silents, Please! STL -- so, it is not listed on Marcus' website.

Reserve your seats!
$10
Your donation helps to sustain and support silent film in STL

TICKETS: https://silents-please-stl.square.site/

Filibus 

Saturday, October 30 at 7:00 p.m. 

(Mario Roncoroni, 1915, Italy, 72 minutes) 

A real find of silent cinema and newly restored to boot, Filibus concerns the adventures of a cross-dressing (female-to-male) air pirate. Packed with all the things that make movies fun—mystery, romance, jewel thievery—J. Hoberman of the New York Times said that Filibus “may be the spryest comic-book movie of the season and perhaps the most progressive.” 

Sponsored by Silents, Please! STL. 

Golden Curls Tonight! Alfred Hitchcock’s silent masterpiece The Lodger (1927) is often considered the first “Hitchcock” film, from which his future narrative structures and aesthetics are built upon. This film contributed to new and cutting edge cinematic techniques and expanded filmic language in beautiful and dynamic ways. According to Phillip French, writing in The Guardian, Hitchcock borders themes of "the fascination with technique and problem-solving, the obsession with blondes, the fear of authority, and ambivalence towards homosexuality,"[2]

in the Lodger. Based on the novel of the same name by Marie Belloc Lowndes, the film opens with the murder of a young woman by a mysterious serial killer known as “The Avenger". We are then introduced to the Daisy Bunting (June Tripp), a young model, and her family who are struggling to make ends meet while keeping a lodging house. When a mysterious stranger (Ivor Novello) shows up on their doorstep, a series of triangulations and cat/mouse dynamics are put into action. Who really is The Lodger?

—————

The Buster Keaton two-reel short The Haunted House (1921) will accompany this feature.

Join Silents, Please STL for a night of back-to-school fun with Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925) -- accompanied by two Lloyd one-reel shorts Over the Fence (1917) and Bashful (1917).

Harold Lloyd was one of the most famous comedic film stars of the silent era. However, a hundred years later, his life and work are often overshadowed by the legacies of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Lloyd's films have an endearing warmth and romantic edge that are missing in those of his contemporaries. Lloyd also employs word play, sarcasm, and wry humor in his intertitles -- adding another layer of fun and enjoyment. In short, you can't go wrong with Harold Lloyd.

These films also feature the talents of Bebe Daniels, Snub Pollard, and Jobyna Ralston -- all of whom were regulars in Lloyd's films.

This event is free -- though a suggested donation of $5-10 will help support and sustain silent film programming in STL.

Reserve Your Spot