Academy's Summer of Silents Adds Touch of Romance with 7th Heaven 8/1

The 1927 Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner "7th Heaven" will be the next film screened in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' "Summer of Silents" series on Monday, August 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A restored 35mm print courtesy of 20th Century Fox will be screened with live musical accompaniment composed by Michael Mortilla and performed by Mortilla on piano, Nicole Garcia on violin and Frank Macchia on winds.

Frank Borzage won the first Oscar® for Directing - Dramatic Picture for this romantic drama pairing Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell as young lovers in Paris on the eve of World War I.

Film historian Janet Bergstrom will introduce the feature.

The Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®, was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and given to the producer of the year's winning film.

At 7 p.m., "Mighty Like a Moose" (1926), starring Charley Chase, and a surviving fragment from the 1928 lost film "The Patriot," directed by Ernst Lubitsch, courtesy of Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema, will be screened as part of the evening's pre-show festivities.

"Summer of Silents" features silent film classics from the 1920s, all of which received the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, on Mondays through August 8.

The series will conclude with:

August 8 "Four Sons" (1928)
"Two Tars" (1928), starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and a fragment from the 1928 lost film "The Case of Lena Smith" will be presented during the pre-show.

Updated information on speakers, music performers and other program details is available at www.oscars.org.

Tickets are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members and students with valid ID. They may be purchased online at www.oscars.org, by mail, in person at the Academy during regular business hours or, depending on availability, on the night of the screening when the doors open at 6:30 p.m. The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information, call (310) 247-3600 or visit www.oscars.org.