Silent Move is perfect start for Ayr Film Society’s session
Ayr Film Society, in association with the Organist Entertains, invites you to join them in the screening of Mel Brooks classic 1976 movie “Silent Movie” with live organ accompaniment from the hugely entertaining Gordon Cree on the Town Hall’s magnificent Lewis organ.
“Silent Movie” is not only funny, it’s fun. It’s clear at almost every moment that the filmmakers had a ball making it.
It’s set in contemporary Hollywood, where Big Pictures Studio teeters on the edge of bankruptcy and a takeover from the giant Engulf and Devour conglomerate.
Enter Mel, a once- talented director whose career was cut short by drunkenness, who vows to save the studio by convincing Hollywood’s biggest stars to make a silent movie.
This is a situation that gives rise to a lot of inside jokes, but the thing about these inside jokes is that their outsides are funny, too.
The intrepid gang of Mel, Dom, and Marty set out to woo the superstars, materializing in the shower of one ( who counts his hands, puzzled, and finds he has eight) and plucking another out of a nightclub audience. ( There are several “actual” stars in the movie, but it would be spoiling the fun to name them.)
Everything’s done amid an encyclopaedia of sight gags, old and new, borrowed and with a fly in their soup.
There are gags that don’t work and stretches of up to a minute, I suppose, when we don’t laugh – but even then, we’re smiling because of Brooks’ manic desire to entertain.
In a movie filled with great scenes, these moments are classics: The battle with the Coke machine.
The behaviour with the horse on the merry- go- round. The nightclub scene. The dramatic reaction of Engulf and Devour’s board of directors to the photo of sexpot Vilma Kaplan. The fly in the soup. The Pong game in the intensive- care unit. The ... but space is limited.
Screening is this Thursday ( September 7) at Ayr Town Hall. Doors open at 7pm with screening starting at 7.30pm. Tickets, available at the door, are £ 5.
Ayr Film Society commence their 2017 / 2018 season next Thursday ( September 14) with the Oscar winning film “Moonlight”.
This season membership rates are £ 60 for the full season or £ 30 if you are a student or under 25.
Guests may purchase tickets at any screening for £ 5, or £ 2 if a student or under 25
The membership fee allows access to all screenings, at no extra cost which, this season, would be a total of 29 screenings – what a bargain!!