Silent film fans are in for a double treat at this year’s El Paso Community Foundation Plaza Classic Film Festival. Theater organist extraordinaire Walt Strony returns to accompany two silent classics on the Plaza Theatre’s original, restored Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer Pipe Organ during the festival, which runs July 16-26 in and around the Plaza Theatre in downtown El Paso.
Strony, who has been a fixture at the Plaza Classic since 2013, will accompany Clara Bow’s 1927 comedy It at 4 pm Sunday, July 19 in the Plaza Theatre. Tickets are $6, on sale Monday, June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
He’ll return the following week to accompany Buster Keaton’s 100-year-old Civil War classic, The General, at 12:30 pm Thursday, July 23, part of the festival’s free, annual Plaza Days program. Strony made his Plaza Classic debut in 2010 when he accompanied the 1926 Keaton film.
He returned to the Plaza Classic in 2013 to accompany The Thief of Bagdad and has returned every year since to work his magic with some of the best silent films ever made, including Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, Kid Brother and Speedy, Keaton’s The Cameraman and Steamboat Bill Jr., and other classics including Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings and Lon Chaney’s The Phantom of the Opera. He’s also accompanied several silent shorts by Charlie Chaplin, Charley Chase and Laurel and Hardy in various Plaza Days programs.
One of America’s premiere concert and theater organists, Strony studied with silent film accompanists and was a protégé of longtime Chicago Stadium organist Al Melgard. He has performed with films and symphony orchestras all over the world and is frequently featured at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the American Theatre Organ Society, which inducted him into its hall of fame in 2011.
Walt also will play before several films during this year’s film festival. Ken Fedorick, John Fields, Rick Garven, Joshua Gunstream and Laurie Koval also will perform on the Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer before many of the films in the Plaza Theatre.
Tickets for the 19th annual Plaza Classic Film Festival go on sale Monday, June 22 at the Plaza Theatre Box Office and Ticketmaster.
Festival and Movies Only passes are available here. The festival schedule of 100 movies is available here. Check out the Plaza Classic Podcast here.
