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Weekly Newsletter|No. 19 — September 15, 2026
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Hi folks,
Silent films are back at Chautauqua! Every summer, Chautauqua runs a handful of silent films with live scores, and this year, it's paired with live scoring by Rodney Sauer, Hank Troy, and the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. In the 1920s, each theater put together its own score for a film. Almost none of those scores survive. Mont Alto has created many new scores by pulling from the same libraries theater musicians used back then, so while what you hear isn't the exact score Boulder heard in the 1920s, it's quite close. I caught Mont Alto at IFS earlier this year, playing the score for The General. It was fantastic, so I reached out to Rodney Sauer, founder of Mont Alto, to share some more color on this upcoming silent film program for FAB! readers. From Sauer: [Beau Geste] is the one screening that will have the Mont Alto quintet. The movie is one of my favorite silent films, I worked really hard on the music, and it's gotten rave reviews. The restoration was the featured silent film at the Telluride Film Festival last weekend, and we presented it both at the Turner Classic Movies festival and at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Quentin Tarantino said that of all the movies he saw in 2025, it was his favorite (though his quote is a bit more profane). One fun fact about the Chautauqua Auditorium. The projection booth was installed sometime in the early 1920s, and is lined with metal fireproofing. On the wall of the projection booth opposite the door, there's a penciled list of the film program from 1929. It was written there by the projectionist, so it has notes about how many reels each film was, and also when the power went out.  Photo by Rodney Sauer, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Although Boulder's theaters would have been converted to sound by 1929, a summer-time-only auditorium would not have had the budget to do that. So it's all features and short films from 1926 through 1928, making it arguably the world's first “silent film festival.” That very projection room will be showing three more films this season, all turning 100 this year, all with live accompaniment: • Kid Boots (9/16) Eddie Cantor plays a tailor's clerk who ends up an unlikely witness in a wealthy man's divorce case. • The Winning of Barbara Worth (9/23) A land developer taps the Colorado River to turn a desert town into farmland. Gary Cooper stars in his first major role. • Beau Geste (9/30) Three brothers join the French Foreign Legion to escape a scandal back home. Featuring the full Mont Alto quintet! Catch these at the Chautauqua Auditorium for $15 each. Doors at 6:30. I can't wait to check these out live. See you at the movies! xoxo Jenn
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 FAB Picks This Week
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7.5
77%
4.0
 This Week's ScreeningsToday / September 15
Tomorrow / September 16
Thursday / September 17
Friday / September 18
Saturday / September 19
Sunday / September 20
Monday / September 21
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