Author: Alana Saltz
On a street inhabited by Jewish bookstores, delis, nightclubs and vintage clothing stores, the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax Avenue definitely stands out. The building itself isn’t large, but the bright neon sign and posters of famous silent movie actors lining the front of the building immediately draw your attention.
I first heard about Silent Movie Theatre from actor Jason Schwartzman when he hosted a show on radio station Indie 103.1. He mentioned that he would be going to see a music documentary there. I was intrigued not only by the fact that Jason Schwartzman is a frequent patron, but by the name of the place itself. I had no idea that there were any theaters, even in Los Angeles, where one could see a silent movie.
The name of the theatre may be deceptive. Silent Movie Theatre plays far more than just silent movies. They screen a wide variety of films, ranging from music documentaries to classics and horror films to Japanese ghost stories.
However, I wanted to get the ultimate nostalgia experience that the name of the theatre promised: a silent movie. I went to Silent Movie Theatre’s “Silent Wednesday,” where this week they were screening The Lost World (1925).
The Silent Movie Theatre only has one screen. After passing through a small lobby, I entered the screening room, comprised of traditional movie theater seats (with added pillows) as well as several couches. There were also small coffee tables scattered intermittently between the seats, completing the illusion that you’re in somebody’s living room and not a movie theater. Like the outside of the building, the walls are lined with posters of famous silent movie actors and actresses including Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Llyod and Oliver Hardy.
I was a little confused when an old man in a nice suit wandered up to the front of the theater and took a seat at a piano. He sat there grinning at the crowd until one of the staff loudly informed him (twice) that it was time to start. He began playing the piano in the typical ragtime silent movie style. Before they started the film itself, they screened two silent film shorts. The first was Mabel’s Blunder (1914), starring Mabel Normand, about a brother and sister who switch identities for the day. The second was Family Life (1924) a story about the Mermaid family, whose antics include accidentally tearing apart a flimsy house and watching their dog float away after attaching balloons to him.
The old man, introduced as Bob Marshall, played musical accompaniment for the shorts on the piano and the accompaniment for the feature film on an organ. He also occasionally sang along to the music. That added a very special touch to the experience and allowed us to get a feel for what seeing a silent movie was really like.
The Lost World was a treat as well. Stop motion dinosaurs eating each other in the unexplored regions of the Amazon intertwined with a classic silent movie love story-that’s my idea of a perfect film. The Brontosaurus terrorizing New York City, King Kong-style, was an added bonus (incidentally, The Lost World was done by the same director as the original King Kong).
The theatre sells the usual concessions along with giant cupcakes from a local bakery. Ticket prices were reasonable and every staff member I encountered was very friendly.
The Silent Movie Theatre is one of my new favorite places in Los Angeles and is certainly a gem for film lovers of all kinds.
Silent Movie Theatre is located at 611 N. Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA. Their complete film schedule can be found at www.silentmovietheatre.com.
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