Stanford Theatre celebrating one hundredth birthday in basic vogue

The Stanford Theatre goes again to the silent period for per week of movies June 9-13 to have a good time the one hundredth anniversary of the enduring film palace on College Avenue in Palo Alto.

Generally known as the “New Stanford” when it opened to distinguish it from a predecessor subsequent door, the 1,400 seat theater was constructed for $300,000. The opening celebration included a speech by Palo Alto Mayor E.A. Contrell and an look by British movie star Reginald Denny, whose latest comedy, “I’ll Show You the Town,” was the primary function proven.

An old school ticket sales space stands on the entrance of the Stanford Theatre on College Avenue in Palo Alto. The basic film palace will have a good time its one hundredth anniversary on Monday, June 9, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Space Information Group) 

As you would possibly count on, that’s additionally the film that’ll be proven June 9, together with Denny’s 1927 comedy “That’s My Daddy.” The inimitable Dennis James might be on the Stanford’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ (Elmer Vincent, who additionally labored the keys on the Backyard Theater in San Jose, was the organist on opening evening.)

After all, Denny — who died in 1967 after an extended profession as a Hollywood character actor — gained’t be making an encore. However his granddaughter, Kimberly Pucci, might be there and could have an on-stage dialog with David W. Packard, the person who resurrected the theater within the late Nineteen Eighties and has stored it alive regardless of the arrival of TCM, DVDs and streaming — and the problem of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pucci has actually written the e book on her grandfather, “Prince of Drones: The Reginald Denny Story.” The actor had an enchanting life past the silver display screen. He was an aviation pioneer who loaned a airplane to Howard Hughes to make use of in “Hell’s Angels,” opened a pastime store in Hollywood that offered mannequin kits and inventing a “radioplane,” an early distant management drone plane that he hoped may very well be utilized in World Warfare II.

On June 10, Pucci will return to the Stanford together with Suzanne Lloyd, the granddaughter of movie comedy pioneer Harold Lloyd. That evening’s program consists of Lloyd’s 1927 basic, “The Freshman,” and Denny’s 1926 comedy, “Rolling Home.” It’s value noting that “Rolling Home” is taken into account by many on-line sources to be a “lost film.” I assume these sources don’t understand how severe David W. Packard is about movie preservation.

Advance tickets for the June 9 occasion might be out there for $10 beginning Could 30, together with passes for the silent-week movie for $20.

By the best way, there’s some poetry to the Stanford having its anniversary celebration proper on the heels of its present Fred Astaire competition, which opened this week and has “The Gay Divorcee” and “Roberta” displaying this weekend. Packard rented the Stanford — then falling into severe disrepair — for a competition of Astaire’s movies following the actor and dancer’s demise in June 1987. That led to his two-year effort to revive the theater, which reopened in 1989 with “The Wizard of Oz.”

You may get the total lineup for each the Fred Astaire competition and the silent-film week at www.stanfordtheatre.org.

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