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FARMINGTON — The Arts Institute of Western Maine presents “The Navigator,” a Buster Keaton movie, with piano accompaniment at 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at the Emery Community Arts Center on the UMF campus.
Admission is $10 for adults, free for those under 18 and UMF students with student ID.
Time will go back to 1924 with the showing of “The Navigator,” one of Buster Keaton’s biggest hits, accompanied with old-time piano with Doug Protsik. The events in this hour-long movie are hilarious. Master pantomime actor Keaton takes on the role of Rollo Treadway, a wealthy, naive, impulsive young man who suddenly decides to propose to his neighbor Betsy across the street (Kathryn McGuire). He sends his servant to book passage for a honeymoon cruise to Honolulu but is refused by Betsy. He decides to go on the trip anyway.
A string of unlikely, charming events ensue, as only can happen in silent movies of that era. The ship used for the movie was originally the USAT Buford, a 500-foot passenger/cargo liner, which was going to be sold for scrap metal. Buster Keaton felt inspired by it, bought it and had it sailed to Los Angeles.
And so “The Navigator” came to happen! The movie was an immediate hit when shown at the Capitol Theater in New York in 1924 (unrated). Protsik, a pianist and composer of old-time piano scores for silent movies, is a lifelong musician and music educator well known in the folk music world. He is director of Maine Fiddle Camp.
