INDIANAPOLIS — Film historian Eric Grayson is hosting four programs in July and August in Indianapolis, including one you’re very unlikely to have seen unless you were going to the movies in 1929. Grayson, a film collector, lecturer, and preservationist, has brought back to life a pre-Frankenstein Boris Karloff.
An informative and illustrated talk along with a special showing of the recently restored King of the Kongo, Chapter 5, will be offered at Indiana Landmarks on July 26 at 7:30 p.m. King of the Kongo, made in 1929, was the first sound film serial and features Boris Karloff before he became famous in Frankenstein. Grayson has restored and preserved several old films and shorts, but this chapter was his most ambitious effort to date. He recently screened it for fellow film historians and the general public at a special gathering hosted by the Library of Congress. Admission is $10 ($7 for members). For more information, visit www.indianalandmarks.org.
The monthly Vintage Movie Nights series continues at the Garfield Park Arts Center on July 20 at 8 p.m. with The Thing from Another World starring Kenneth Tobey and James Arness (later of Gunsmoke fame). This isn’t the 1982 version. It’s not the sequel to the 1982 version that was released a couple of years ago. It’s the original 1951 film. Admission is $4 and concessions $1. For more information, visit www.gpacarts.org.
The August 17 Vintage Movie Night selection at Garfield Park is Metropolis, a 1927 film, accompanied by a live piano score with Roger Lippincott. The film stars Brigitte Helm and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. The Germans have restored this film to most of its original length, but the original U.S. release by Paramount was a very different film, rewritten by socialist writer Channing Pollock. Grayson will be running this version, now very hard to find!
For more information on Grayson, visit www.filmeric.com. To read his popular blog on many aspects of film, visit www.drfilm.net/blog. Join his Dr. Film group on Facebook: www.drfilm.net/Facebook.
