TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS FEATURING FOTOPLAYER AT ACADEMY THEATER

FILM SCHOLARS LECTURE:

LEWIS MILESTONE: A HOLLYWOOD LIFE

FEATURING 1927 SILENT FEATURE TWO ARABIAN KNIGHTS WITH JOE RINAUDO AT THE FOTOPLAYER

Monday, March 9, 2020
7:30 PM

Linwood Dunn Theater
1313 Vine Street
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Director of such classic films as Two Arabian Knights (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), The Front Page (1931), Of Mice and Men (1939), The Red Pony (1949) and Pork Chop Hill (1959), Lewis Milestone (1895 – 1980) rose from a humble Russian-Jewish background to become one of the leading directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In the first Academy Awards, he won an Oscar for Directing (Comedy Picture) for Two Arabian Knights.

One of the earliest surviving Howard Hughes projects, Two Arabian Knights was the first and only film to earn its director an Oscar for Directing (Comedy Picture). Despite its win, the film had trouble finding an audience and vanished for decades before its reappearance in Hughes’s vaults after his death. Housed at the University of Nevada – Las Vegas for several years, the Howard Hughes collection arrived at the Academy Film Archive in 2014 when the 4k digital restoration of Two Arabian Knights was made.

Illustration of the Style 40 Fotoplayer. The Academy’s installation is the Style 41, built in 1917.

Fotoplayer
The restoration will be screened with live musical accompaniment by Joe Rinaudo on the Academy’s restored 1917 Fotoplayer. Mr. Rinaudo will change 45 Filmusic rolls throughout the film (similar to player piano rolls but specifically cut for the Fotoplayer to operate additional instruments). All but two are original score rolls for this film.

For more information about Lewis Milestone and this event, visit the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences website.