Watch Their Lips--Rare Silent Movies

Farm boy Harold moves to the city and becomes a high school football star and leader of the drama club. He persuades the club to make a Western movie and, as part of the plot, blows up a county dam. After the explosion, Harold runs away because he is afraid of being arrested but returns just in time to win a football game for the home team.

They don’t make movies like that anymore.

“Harold Teen” was filmed in 1928 and has become a hard-to-find silent classic. It will be shown this Sunday at Paramount Ranch as the first in a summer-long series of rare silent movies.

“Silent films are a unique art form,” said Tim Burke, director of the Hollywood Studio Museum. “There aren’t any silent-film houses in Los Angeles, so this is a good introduction to these films.”

The movies will be shown in an outdoor pavilion on the Agoura Hills ranch that was a setting for hundreds of films and television shows over the last 50 years. A pianist will accompany “Harold” and the other films with old-time musical scores.

Last summer, a single silent-film offering at the ranch drew 400 moviegoers, so reservations for this season’s series are suggested. The films are being presented by Hollywood Heritage, the Silent Society and the National Park Service, in combination. The charge is $6 a film as one of the series, or $7 at the door.

Proceeds will go toward preserving historic sites in Hollywood. Reservations can be made by calling 888-3770.

The organizers of “Silents Under the Stars” suggest people bring a picnic to eat before the screening and a flashlight to help find the way back to the car afterwards.

“Harold Teen” will be screened at 8 p.m. with selected shorts. On Aug. 28, “Thundering Hoofs” will show at 7:30 p.m., featuring several cowboy stunts that revolutionized Hollywood. On Sept. 25 at 7 p.m., the series will conclude with “Lilac Time,” an early Gary Cooper film about World War I pilots billeted in a farmhouse near the French front.

You guessed it--Cooper falls in love with the farmer’s daughter.