Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival: ‘The Black Pirate’
Watch this 1926 swashbuckler, accompanied by a live original score, at The Lindsay!
September 27 @ 2:00 pm
The Pittsburgh Silent Film Society returns to The Lindsay in September with a rollicking pirate adventure set on the high seas!
The Black Pirate will sail here on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m., as part of the fourth annual Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival. This screening will be accompanied by a live original score, courtesy of the locally based Thoth Trio. All tickets are available for $15 and will not be refundable.
The Black Pirate (1926) was directed by Albert Parker and stars Douglas Fairbanks as the titular swashbuckler who embarks on a perilous revenge mission against the marauders who killed his father.
A young nobleman’s life changes forever after a ruthless Pirate Captain sinks his vessel and maroons him on a deserted island. He eventually forms an alliance with fellow captives to fight back. As the Black Pirate, he infiltrates the Pirate Captain’s ship, engaging in daring sword fights and acrobatics.
The film’s cast also includes Billie Dove as Princess Isobel; Anders Randolf as the Pirate Captain; Donald Crisp as the one-armed pirate MacTavish; and Sam De Grasse as the Pirate Lieutenant.
The Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival is showing a 4K technicolor restoration of The Black Pirate. It was restored by The Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation in Cooperation with the British Film Institute. Funding was provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, with special thanks to Alexander Payne.
For some 25 years, the Thoth Trio has been a force in Pittsburgh’s creative music community. Described as “intense jazz”, Thoth shows are dynamic and bring in elements of both traditional and free jazz. The group includes reedist Ben Opie, bassist Paul Thompson and drummer David Throckmorton.
This Black Pirate screening kicks off the 2026 Pittsburgh Silent Film Festival, taking place across multiple locations from Sunday, Sept. 27 through Sunday, Oct. 4. Previous Silent Film Festival events at The Lindsay have included 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 2023, 1924’s The Hands of Orlac in 2024 and the original 1925 Ben-Hur last year.
