New 4k digital restoration courtesy of the Mary Pickford Foundation! Shown with newly composed and recorded orchestral score by Andy Gladbach.

Our program on Sunday begins with a screening of the Buster Keaton classic short The Balloonatic, with live theater organ accompaniment by Dale Abraham.

Kids 12 and under FREE

Few women in early Hollywood wielded as much power as “America’s sweetheart,” Mary Pickford. Through a career that spanned over 250 films, Pickford truly established what it meant to be a Golden Age movie star. For this classic – seen here in a brand new restoration – Pickford served as producer, star, and writer of the original story for the film. Pickford stars as the titular tenement kid, a plucky ragamuffin who spends her days wrecking havoc in the streets that her cop father patrols but, when tragedy strikes, she realizes that she must grow up fast.

About the restoration: The original tinted nitrate print in Mary Pickford’s personal collection at the Library of Congress, made from the camera negative in 1925, was brought to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences archive in Los Angeles.

Through the Mary Pickford Foundation’s extraordinary, multi-year partnership with AMPAS, the Academy Film Archive preserved the film photochemically, creating new 35mm preservation masters and prints.

The preservation master was then scanned at 4K high definition so that the MPF, in cooperation with AMPAS, could create a digital version, evaluating the film frame by frame, removing dirt and other signs of deterioration to perfectly match the original nitrate tints and tones.

Then, through the MPF Composition Program at Pepperdine University, an extremely gifted young composer, Andy Gladbach, was chosen to create a new sound track for the film. Mentored by professionals, Gladbach was joined by a 16 piece orchestra that included three percussionists, as well as a conductor and engineers, to record his original music.