{"id":21158,"date":"2015-05-24T20:37:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T03:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=21158"},"modified":"2015-05-24T20:37:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T03:37:39","slug":"mighty-general-with-a-mighty-wurlitzer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/24\/mighty-general-with-a-mighty-wurlitzer\/","title":{"rendered":"Mighty General with a Mighty Wurlitzer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just had a unique experience: watching Buster Keaton’s<\/a> great silent film The General<\/i><\/a> on a big screen, accompanied by live music from a “Mighty Wurlitzer” theater organ.<\/p>\n

\"The_General_poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Never before and probably never again. Not in a little berg like this one, anyhow. I love The General<\/i>. And Buster Keaton was a gorgeous man with a magnetic screen presence, amazing directing and acting talent, and colossal daring (those stunts! he really does them). But I’ve never seen The General<\/i> on anything larger than a mid-sized TV.<\/p>\n

\"busterkeaton\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Took a while to get things started. First they had a presentation by a “real film buff.” She had obviously gotten all her information about The General<\/i> and the historic Great Locomotive Chase<\/a> that inspired it from the same place I got my information — Wikipedia. But she had a Master of Fine Arts, so her info must be better.<\/p>\n

The movie itself seemed sloooooowww and static at the start. Modern movies are not only a lot better, but they know how deliver more information during their opening credits than old films delivered in their first half hour. <\/p>\n

But once the comic railway chase got underway … wow. This experience I’ll remember forever. <\/p>\n

The General<\/i> is about a dauntless (if also hapless and inept) Southerner in the War Between the States. Movies may be better now, but that’s something you couldn’t pull off today without some government-schooled jerker-of-knees accusing you of being a racist.<\/p>\n

Now, for the chance to see Fritz Lang’s Metropolis<\/i><\/a> on the big screen ….<\/p>\n

\"Metropolisposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just had a unique experience: watching Buster Keaton’s great silent film The General on a big screen, accompanied by live music from a “Mighty Wurlitzer” theater organ. Never before and probably never again. Not in a little berg like this one, anyhow. I love The General. And Buster Keaton was a gorgeous man with a magnetic screen presence, amazing directing and acting talent, and colossal daring (those stunts! he really does them). But I’ve never seen The General on anything larger than a mid-sized TV. Took a while to get things started. First they had a presentation by a “real…<\/p>\n

Continue readingMighty General with a Mighty Wurlitzer<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-aesthetics","category-books-and-movies","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}