Mabel Normand’s 1918 comedy/drama “Mickey” is next in the Town Hall Theatre’s summer salute to female stars of the silent screen.
“Mickey” will be screened with live music by Jeff Rapsis Sunday, June 19, at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton. Admission is free, and a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.
In “Mickey,” Normand plays an unsophisticated miner’s daughter sent east to live with a wealthy aunt. Chaos ensues as the unrefined girl copes with high society, and vice versa. The climax is a horse racing sequence and includes a rooftop rescue.
Normand and producer Mack Sennett were romantically involved. Sennett was boss of Keystone Studios, which produced short slapstick comedies featuring Normand, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle and other comics. To boost Normand’s career, in 1916 Sennett and Normand started a separate studio to produce “Mickey.”
Initially judged to be a flop, the film was held back until 1918, when Sennett loaned a print of “Mickey” to a small theater on Long Island to solve a booking mistake. The film became a surprise hit, with other theaters soon booking the picture. By the time of the delayed release of “Mickey,” Normand had broken up with Sennett and left Keystone to work at other studios.
While “Mickey” was in theaters, Normand’s career was sidelined when she caught the flu during the 1918-1919 epidemic. Although Normand recovered, from then on she struggled to match her previous output.
In 1922, Normand was interrogated in the murder of her friend, director William Desmond Taylor. Then in 1924, Normand’s chauffeur used her pistol to shoot and injure a millionaire oil broker. Normand wasn’t implicated in these incidents, but her public image was tainted by scandal, which greatly narrowed her career prospects.
In 1926 she married Lew Cody, who played the villain opposite her in “Mickey.” She developed tuberculosis, was sent to a sanatorium, and died in 1930 at the age of 37.
The remaining screenings in the series are as follows:
Sunday, July 17, 2 p.m. — Double feature with Greta Garbo and Colleen Moore. In “The Single Standard” Garbo is a socialite determined to treat men the way they treat women. In “Ella Cinders,” Moore reinvents the fairy tale with a 1920s comedic twist.
— Sunday, July 24, 2 p.m.: Norma Talmadge in “Within the Law.” Talmadge plays a shopgirl wrongly imprisoned, and bent on revenge against the man who wronged her. Filmed on location in New York City.
— Sunday, Aug. 14, 2 p.m.: Marion Davies in “Beverly of Graustark.” A gender-bending comedy in which Davies stars as an American cousin of a European prince, with whom she must switch places to keep the kingdom from unraveling.
— Sunday, Aug. 28, 2 p.m.: Double feature with Gloria Swanson and Mae Marsh. Swanson stars in “Fine Manners,” a comedy about a chorus girl trying to keep up with a high society beau. In “Daddies,” Marsh plays an unlikely orphan adopted by the head of the local bachelor’s club.
For information, visit wiltontownhalltheatre.com or call 603-654-3456. For more about the music, visit jeffrapsis.com.