To do in LA, Jan 18: a special screening of Charlie Chaplain's "The Gold Rush" with live, improvised piano accompaniment

Heather sends us a notice of "a screening of Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece The Gold Rush, with live musical accompaniment at Hollywood's stunning new venue: The American Legion Theater on Highland Avenue."

For this one-of-a-kind screening, the Chaplin Office has waived their usual requirement that the film be accompanied by recorded music, and has given Retroformat Silent Films' resident Musical Director Cliff Retallick permission to improvise a live, grand piano score! The screening will be introduced by world renowned independent filmmaker and Retroformat Silent Films board member Allison Anders, whose films include Gas Food Lodging, Mi Vida Loca and Grace of My Heart.

In The Gold Rush, Chaplin's immortal Tramp is a lone prospector in the Alaskan Gold Rush, where he meets the beautiful dance hall girl Georgia Hale and becomes trapped in a snowbound cabin, hilariously boiling, carving and eating his own shoe and performing the famous dance-of-the-dinner-rolls, in two of the greatest scenes in movie history.

The Gold Rush was originally released by United Artists in 1925, but in 1942, Chaplin recut and re-released the film, adding a score that he recorded and composed himself, dubbing it the "official version." In 1993, internationally renowned film restorationists, historians and documentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill restored the original 1925 version, and it is this restoration that will screen in the beautiful Legion Theater. This event will kick off a series of tributes to the founders of United Artists by Retroformat Silent Films, with subsequent screenings of films by Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith to take place at the historic Woman's Club of Hollywood early in 2020.

Retroformat presents Chaplin's The Gold Rush in 35mm at the Legion Theater [Eventbrite]