ANNE OF GREEN GABLES WAS A SILENT MOVIE 100 YEARS AGO

SPECIAL OFFER Hire Jack and Linda for a live presentation of their 1919 Anne of Green Gables re-created silent movie for just $100 in honour of the film's 102nd anniversary. Perfect fund-raiser for community groups, historical societies, movie buffs and LMM scholars. Call us at 1-888-579-7739 (Canada) or 705-762-5876. Email: balamus@muskoka.com

This year is the 102nd anniversary of the first Anne of Green Gables movie, a silent movie that was filmed between August and October, 1919, in Dedham, just south of Boston. It was first seen that November at a special showing for excited Dedham residents who wanted to see their town on the big screen. Bala's Museum has a close connection with this long-lost film because Jack and Linda visited the filming location at Dedham in 2005 and 2006 and then spent years re-creating the old film in a Powerpoint presentation that is remarkably close to the experience of sitting in a silent movie theatre. In June, 2008, delegates to a biennial L.M. Montgomery conference at the University of Prince Edward Island were the first to see the completed photoplay with Jack, an award-winning international ragtime performer, playing rare silent movie piano music of that era to accompany Linda's narration. The presentation was videotaped and has been seen around the globe as a DVD.

The story of how Jack and Linda became fascinated by the long-lost "Anne" silent movie sounds like a who-dunnit movie. It all began when they purchased through e-Bay a rare copy of the 1919 sheet music, "Anne of Green Gables". Its cover said it was written for the movie with approval of its star, 17-year-old Mary Miles Minter.

Jack and Linda were puzzled by the hip-roofed building on the cover of the music. It bore no resemblance to the Green Gables home in P.E.I. which has been visited by many thousands over the years. Linda's research showed that the 1919 movie had been filmed in Dedham, using the oldest frame home still standing in the United States, Fairbanks House (1636), now a museum, was used in the film as the home of Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. The Huttons visited Dedham, Massachusetts, in 2005 and 2006 to study the heritage pioneer home first-hand, and to interview local people who could tell them about the movie. They began a search for movie stills from the lost movie which was withdrawn from circulation by Paramount Pictures after the movie's director, William Desmond Taylor, was found murdered in his Hollywood bungalow in 1922. One by one, surprising movie stills showed up, including one showing Anne Shirley using a shotgun to hold off a mob at Green Gables.

Eventually Jack and Linda were able to re-create their version of the film, borrowing the story line from the original script which LMM scholar Carolyn Collins had found in the U.S. Library of Congress and generously shared with the Huttons. Jack and Linda premiered their presentation at the University of Prince Edward in 2008 for an L.M. Montgomery conference that celebrated the 100th anniversary of LMM's famous first novel.

Since then the Huttons have received standing ovations from audiences ranging from Bideford Parsonage Museum in PEI to the University of Guelph, the University of Toronto and churches, service clubs, senior citizens' homes and historical societies across Ontario. Many have used the Hutton's presentation to organize successful fund-raising evenings for their own local group.

Call Jack and Linda at 1-888-579-7739 (Canada) or 705-762-5876 (U.S.) if you are interested in celebrating the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables appearing on a silent movie screen. We have had experience with both small groups and large

POSTSCRIPT: A DVD of the Hutton's re-created 1919 Anne of Green Gables silent is still available at Bala Museum's gift shop for $15 or $20 which includes shipping within North America.