Saturday 8 November
7.30pm
£6 + booking fee advance / £8 door
Tickets through Bridport TIC on 01308 424901 or online via SeeTickets
Marking the centenary of the start of World War I, this special programme of early films recreates a typical night out at the cinema in 1914. A glorious miscellany of comedies, adventure films, travelogues and newsreels, it has been released in selected cinemas around the country.
The Electric Palace is delighted to show this film the day before Remembrance Sunday, a day that will be highly-charged given the significance of the anniversary.
Cinema a century ago was a new, exciting and highly democratic form of entertainment. Picture houses nationwide offered a sociable, lively environment in which to relax and escape from the daily grind. With feature films still rare, the programme was an entertaining, ever-changing roster of short items with live musical accompaniment.
One hundred years on, this special compilation from the BFI National Archive recreates the glorious miscellany of comedies, dramas, travelogues and newsreels which would have constituted a typical night out in 1914.
Among the highlights of this selection of 14 short films are a quirky comic short about a face-pulling competition, a sensational episode of the American film serial The Perils of Pauline, an early aviation display, scenes of suffragettes protesting at Buckingham Palace and Allied troops celebrating Christmas at the Front. There is also an early sighting of one of cinema’s greatest icons.
The British Film Institute has commissioned composer and pianist Stephen Horne, one of Britain’s leading accompanists of silent film, to create a new improvised score – with abundant references to music of the period – which reflects the spirit in which the films were made.
Bryony Dixon, curator of Silent Film, BFI National Archive said: “We’ve trawled the Archive to find films that will give audiences a real taste of what it felt like to go to the cinema in 1914.
“Cinemas, or ‘picture houses’ as they were known then, were beginning to boom and attract millions of people, from courting couples to children who would go regularly.
“It wasn’t only a social event, but also a chance to catch up – via newsreels and travelogues – with the world beyond your local high street. Amazingly, some of the original cinemas that opened in Britain around 1914 are still operating today.”
