Alloy Orchestra to accompany 3 silent film programs

The Alloy Orchestra offers a sneak preview of its brand-new score for Harold Lloyd's "Speedy" on Friday, Nov. 16, at 7:15 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. The three-man musical ensemble also will perform with the silent comedy program "Fun with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton" on Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. and a restored print of "Metropolis" on Nov. 17 at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are on sale now.

Clink, clang, bang, smash -- the Alloy Orchestra is back in town! Amazing sounds will fill the Willard Straight Theatre when the three-man musical ensemble, which performed its original silent film scores to sold-out crowds last year, returns for three more shows at Cornell Cinema on Nov. 16 and 17. Just weeks before the ensemble performs the world premiere of its scores for Harold Lloyd's "Speedy" and the program "Fun With Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton" at Lincoln Center, the musicians will be giving Ithaca audiences a sneak preview of these musical events.

Tickets for the two evening shows are $12 general/$9 students and seniors. Tickets for the Nov. 17 afternoon show of "Fun with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton" are $6 adults/$5 for kids 12 and under. Advance tickets are available at the following locations: the Willard Straight Hall ticket desk, 255-3430; the ticket center at the Clinton House downtown, 273-4497; and the Dillingham Theatre box office at Ithaca College, 274-3224.

Since the three-man group began composing and performing its own wildly innovative scores for silent films back in 1992, it has won raves from critics and audiences alike. The New York Times has said that the Alloy Orchestra is "fast becoming the country's leading avant garde interpreter of silent films." Using everything from synthesizers and drums to horseshoes, air-conditioner ducts and bedpans, the Cambridge-based musicians bring new life to classics usually overlooked by '90s film audiences.

The Alloy Orchestra's visit kicks off with "Speedy" (1928), showing Friday, Nov. 16, at 7:15 p.m. In his last film before the talkies took over, Lloyd stars as a happy-go-lucky soda jerk who falls for the daughter of the last horse-drawn tram driver in the city. When railroad developers try to put the old man out of business, Lloyd stumbles in and tries to save the day. The Alloy Orchestra provides a rollicking accompaniment for the film's famous Coney Island sequence and a breathtaking chase scene through the city streets. Shot on location, with cameo appearances by Babe Ruth and a vintage Yankee Stadium, this celebration of the Big Apple's spirit is as rousing today as it was at the end of the silent era.

As part of the Ithakid Film Fest, the Alloy Orchestra will accompany a program of silent comedy called "Fun with Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton" on Saturday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. These three short films, directed by and starring Arbuckle, confirm his place as one of the most charming and versatile pioneers of silent comedy. In "Back Stage" (1919), Arbuckle and Keaton play a couple of vaudeville stagehands who lead an uprising against the show's tyrannical strongman. "The Garage" (1919) stars Fatty and Buster as a pair of mechanics/firefighters who destroy a car that they're supposed to clean and race to a false alarm. And in "Coney Island" (1917), the boys battle over a bathing beauty in the famous ocean side amusement park.

The futuristic music of the Alloy Orchestra finds its perfect mate in Fritz Lang's "Metropolis," and the show has sold out each time it has come to Willard Straight Theatre. This time around, the Alloy Orchestra will be performing with a new print of the classic, recently restored by the George Eastman House in Rochester. The Alloy Orchestra will accompany "Metropolis" at Cornell Cinema on Saturday, Nov. 17, at 7:15 p.m.

The Alloy Orchestra's visit is co-sponsored with the Cornell Council for the Arts.