The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra's 18th annual Silent Film Gala, on Saturday at UCLA's Royce Hall, promises both laughter and live music with its double bill of Chaplin's 1923 classic, "The Pilgrim," and Keaton's inventive 1924 vehicle, "Sherlock Jr." Timothy Brock will be conducting Chaplin's own score for "The Pilgrim" and premiering his original score for "Sherlock Jr." Chaplin scored the film, as well as "A Dog's Life" and "Shoulder Arms," in 1959 and released them theatrically under the title "The Chaplin Review.
" "He was a self-taught pianist," Michael Chaplin says. "He couldn't read music and certainly couldn't write it down, but he would compose, and then music associate Eric James would come over and transcribe it to music sheets." Chaplin believes his father's evocative scores reflect his Gypsy roots.
"Both his grandmothers were Gypsy," he says. "And you can hear that kind of emotional chord in his music. It's very gripping.
" Brock, who has restored many of Chaplin's scores, says "The Pilgrim" marked the first time Chaplin composed music for one of his early films. "You can see the Chaplin style, but it's a little rougher in some ways just because it's more traditional, in the silent-film manner. It's not so narrative, like 'Modern Times,' where every elbow that moves there is a music to it.
It's more like the English music-hall setting, where you would play a bed of music underneath the action . That's not to say it's not highly synchronized it is." "Sherlock Jr.
," which was one of Woody Allen's inspirations for "The Purple Rose of Cairo," finds Keaton playing a movie projectionist accused of stealing his girlfriend's father's watch. When he falls asleep on the job, he dreams he has actually joined the movie that's on-screen. Because of his experience restoring and conducting Chaplin scores, he says: "I have learned quite a bit about writing for comedy in a more subtle way than I used to.
Writing for Keaton he has such a rhythm in his editing, like Chaplin, that the score almost writes itself in terms of rhythm and texture." A fast-paced 45 minutes, "Sherlock Jr." has "one feature's worth of action in it," Brock says.
"The changes are so quick . Of course, once again, I have painted myself into a corner by writing very highly synchronized music. If the film runs 24 frames per second, I have to be within six frames per second accurate all the time.
" When: 8 p.m. Saturday Price: $35, $75 and $300 (includes post-film supper) Contact: (213) 622-7001, Ext.
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