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Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival: The Hands of Orlac with Live Accompaniment by Pittsburgh Composers Quartet
October 3 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
The Lindsay Theater and Cultural Center’s spooky October kicks off in style next week with an assist from a local group dedicated to the exhibition and preservation of silent films.
The Pittsburgh Silent Film Society is gearing up for its second-annual Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival, which will take place across multiple Western Pennsylvania locales from Sept. 29-Oct. 6. The Lindsay will host a Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival screening of the 1924 horror classic The Hands of Orlac on Thursday, Oct. 3, at 7:30 p.m.
The screening will be accompanied by live music courtesy of the Pittsburgh Composers Quartet, which consists of multi-talented musicians Ben Opie, Patrick Breiner, Adam Kantz and Mark Micchelli.
The Hands of Orlac stars Conrad Veidt as Paul Orlac, a famous concert pianist who loses his hands in a terrible accident. A surgeon replaces his hands with those of an executed murderer. It’s not long before Orlac is convinced these newly obtained hands have imbued him with their previous owner’s desire to kill.
“The Lindsay serves as a venue for all kinds of cinema, from new releases and documentaries to a silent psycho-thriller like The Hands of Orlac,” says Lindsay CEO Carolina Thor. “We welcome audiences to time-travel with us to experience the silent—sometimes scary—film era.”
During last year’s inaugural Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival, the Theater hosted a sold-out screening of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a 1920 silent horror film that also stars Veidt and was also directed by Hands of Orlac helmer Robert Wiene.
“The Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival is thrilled to team up again with The Lindsay and Ben Opie to present a 100th-anniversary screening of The Hands of Orlac,” says Pittsburgh Silent Film Society founder Chad Hunter. “When the director and star of the silent masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari collaborate again, you know you are in for a classic, twisted, German expressionist treat.”
Adds Thor: “We’re delighted to be partnering with the Pittsburgh Silent Film Society yet again to provide audiences with a rare opportunity to watch a classic film on the big screen, with live music, as it would have been seen 100 years ago.”
