Media Release

Silents Are Golden Series Presents Chicago at Rialto Theater 

Jazz, love, and betrayal highlight this extremely rare silent film, the 1927 version of Chicago. This original silent film is a fast-paced, cynical send-up of American justice that rings just as true today as when it was first filmed. The ideas that image trumps substance, that all publicity is good, and that you don’t have to have right or law on your side as long as you have the jury, were not often brought up in the more polite films of the 1920s. Phyllis Haver is perfect in the role of the seductive, shallow, and manipulative Roxie Hart; Victor Varconi plays a very sympathetic and complex Amos Hart; and Robert Edeson portrays the silver-tongued but morally corrupt lawyer Flynn.  

The accompanying music for Chicago will be provided by Louisville’s Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra with a score based on music from the original cue sheet for the film. The Mont Alto Orchestra is a chamber ensemble that recreates the small local orchestras that were popular in America from 1890 through 1930. These orchestras provided music for dancing, for listening, and for accompanying movies in the days before talkies. Mont Alto was formed in Colorado in 1989, and has toured around Colorado as well as to Kansas, New York, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and California to perform music at venues ranging from elementary schools to Grauman's Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Member Rodney Sauer is a 2001 recipient of a Music Fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Assembly of Boulder. 

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