Silent-film enthusiast cranks up screen history at Two Strike Park
La Crescenta resident Joe Rinaudo shows how a 1912 hand-cranked movie projector works. Rinaudo will be using another 1909 projector to present a silent film screening at Two Strike Park on July 30.
More than 100 years ago, a Connecticut man traveled from town to town using a hand-cranked projector to screen silent films for people who didn’t have a movie theater nearby.
That same antique projector will screen silent films later this month in Two Strike Park, with La Crescenta resident Joe Rinaudo turning the crank.
Rinaudo purchased the 1909 projector from the grandchildren of the man who had taken it on the road to entertain audiences between 1909 and 1915.
After finding it on the Internet, Rinaudo thought to himself, “That would be the ultimate irony, that it lives again,” he recalled recently. “One hundred and seven years later, it’s still doing the same thing. It’s entertaining people.”
La Crescenta resident Joe Rinaudo’s 1912 hand-cranked movie projector.
About 20 years ago, Rinaudo discovered his delight for antique film projectors when he went to visit his friend, George Hall, a collector in Tucson, Ariz.
“He had a whole collection of silent movies and I just started cranking them. They had to pull me away from the projector. I cranked 20,000 feet of film. I was there between 1 in the afternoon and 11 at night. They [finally] said, ‘Get away! Get away!’ I was just having fun.”
Rinaudo later purchased a 1912 projector from Hall. The projector had been built with a motor and used in a booth at a theater.
For several years, Rinaudo has used both projectors to screen silent films for community events, such as an upcoming one at La Crescenta’s Two Strike Park, hosted by the Crescenta Valley Historical Society, or for fundraisers.
As much as Rinaudo enjoys silent films, he’s equally concerned for their future. After 50 or 60 years, some films made with acetate can succumb to “vinegar syndrome,” he said, resulting in certain sections of movies becoming lost because they rot away. Newer film made of polyester, does not rot away.
In Burbank, Rinaudo routinely screens silent movies at Christ Lutheran Church with the Famous Players Orchestra, and all of the proceeds from the $10 suggested donation support his preservation efforts.
A recent screening of the comedy, “The Grocery Clerk,” brought mostly an audience of millennials, many of whom had never seen a silent film.
“They were hooting, screaming, cheering. It was like [how] an audience would have reacted in 1920,” Rinaudo said.
He believes that the silent films are timeless because the actors in them were so dynamic.
“You watch Laurel and Hardy, Larry Semon, or Buster Keaton — they knew what was funny. The humor transcends. I want to say it’s pure.”
At Two Strike Park on July 30, he plans to screen Georges Méliès’ 1902 film, “Trip to the Moon,” as well as Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle’s 1919 comedy, “Love,” and the 1926 comedy, “Crazy Like a Fox,” starring Charley Chase, using the original 1926 print.
Rinaudo also plans to share “Modeling,” a 1921 animation produced in the Max Fleischer studio.
As the films play, Cliff Rettalick will play the piano.
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FOR THE RECORD
July 20, 3:30 p.m.: A previous version of this column incorrectly stated that Dean Mora will be playing the piano. Cliff Rettalick will play the piano.
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The event at Two Strike Park begins at 8 p.m. July 30 at 5107 Rosemont Avenue in La Crescenta. Admission is free.
For information, visit silentcinemasociety.org.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
