Sparrows (1926) with Live Piano by Bruce Vogt

Name: Sparrows (1926) with Live Piano by Bruce Vogt
Genre: Silent Drama
Released: 2025-11-28
Duration: 1 h 34 min
Cast: Mary Pickford, Roy Stewart

SILENT MOVIE WEEKEND 2025: In what's regarded as one of her finest melodramas, the Toronto-born Hollywood superstar Mary Pickford stars as the oldest of a dozen children held hostage at what was then called a “baby farm” where children of unwed mothers or deserted wives were deposited and then sold illegally to adoptive parents or as slave labor. By creating an empathetic melodrama that pulled on the heart strings, Pickford helped put a spotlight on this evil and increased public awareness and outrage. Directed by William Beaudine, Sparrows is a beautifully stylized epic, completed just as the industry neared the end of the silent era. Mary’s acting is not only superior, but this is her least glamorous role ever; she had to be a very confident actress to play such a character. About Silent Movie Weekend 2025: The celebrated concert pianist and professor Bruce Vogt returns to Kingston for our 2025 Silent Movie Weekend (November 29-30), a now much-loved annual tradition at The Screening Room. Bruce will provide live musical accompaniment for a Friday evening screening of a newly restored Mary Pickford melodrama Sparrows (1926), and a <a href="https://www.screeningroomkingston.com/movie/silent-comedies-with-live-piano-by-bruce-vogt">Saturday matinee program of comedy shorts</a>. About <a href="https://www.brucevogt.com/">Bruce Vogt</a>: Bruce Vogt is a Canadian pianist who has devoted a distinguished career to performing and teaching. He has toured cities and towns of all sizes throughout North America, Europe and Asia as a soloist and chamber musician. He has mentored generations of young artists in his role as professor of piano at the University of Victoria, and has lectured widely, leading master classes, workshops and adjudicating for festivals. Bruce has sustained an interest in exploring the many conversations to be found between music and film, literature and painting. This has evolved into an unusual side hustle: improvising accompaniments for the great films of the silent era. He has developed a robust career in this multimedia sphere, bringing sound to many masterpieces – by Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Griffith, Sjöström, Von Sternberg and others. In movie theaters across Europe, Asia and North America, he has provided for audiences a greater intimacy with these films, transforming the silence of the medium into another sphere.Silent DramaPT1H34MRated G2025-11-28

Mary Pickford

Roy Stewart

William Beaudine

Sparrows (1926) with Live Piano by Bruce Vogt"Sparrows (1926) with Live Piano by Bruce Vogt"

Showtimes

November 28, 7:00 pm