TOSDV Double-Feature: 7th Heaven (1927) + Wild and Woolly (1917)

Frank Borzage’s 1927 romance (winner of the inaugural Academy Award for Best Director) follows a spirited Parisian sewer worker who rescues a mistreated young woman and offers her refuge in his tiny attic apartment, where their bond blossoms into a transcendent love just as the shadow of World War I looms and ultimately separates them. Anchored by Oscar-winning performances from Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, Borzage elevates a simple premise into something rapturous and metaphysical, crafting a vision of love as both sanctuary and miracle, one that culminates in a justly celebrated, reality-defying finale emblematic of his singular cinema.

Format: 4K DCP

About the Accompanist: Glenn Hough has been entertaining for fifty years including as house organist/silent film accompanist at the Marietta (Lancaster County) Theatre, church organist at various Lancaster County churches, walk-in music organist at the Capitol Theatre in York, and as a freelancer under the name “Glenn’s One Man Band.”  He has played the TOSDV Wurlitzer for multiple public programs. He has a twenty-rank organ in his home.  He regularly assists with the Dickinson (DTOS) Kimball providing mini concerts and other incidental organ music.

Wild and Woolly (dir. John Emerson, 1917)

Format: DCP

About the Accompanist: Don Kinnier started playing theatre organ and accompanying silent films in the Philly suburbs while in his teens.  His accompaniment skills have taken him to various organ societies and festivals in New York State where he occasionally has had to play the films “cold.”  That means never having seen the film prior to the screening.  In the 1970s and 1980s, he and his wife Judy Townsend assisted Jim Brenneman during the Kimball organ years at the Colonial Theatre including concerts, vaudeville acts, and silent films.   In recent years he has played for TOSDV at the Colonial with films like “Speedy.”   He has accompanied Halloween screenings for the Appell Center in York on that theatre’s Wurlitzer.