Palace Theater in Hilo screens Keaton classic and local short

The Palace Theater gave Hilo moviegoers a rare double feature that linked silent-film history to a homegrown short in one downtown night. With live organ music setting the mood, the historic venue paired the 2014 short The Moving Picture Co. 1914 with Buster Keaton’s 1928 classic The Cameraman, turning a single screening into an experience rooted in film preservation and local pride.

Doors opened at 6:30 p.m. and the films began at 7 p.m. General admission was $10, with tickets $9 for students, seniors and military. That price point kept the event within reach for families, students and longtime Palace supporters, while the live organ accompaniment recreated the atmosphere that once defined silent cinema. The Palace pipe organ page describes the instrument as a reminder of the bygone days when large movie houses accompanied silent films with music, a touch that made the evening feel less like a routine movie and more like a return to the era that built the theater.

The local connection came through The Moving Picture Co. 1914, a 26-minute short written and directed by Mark Kirkland and produced by Future Days Studio. The Palace’s event listing says the film centers on Ellen, an aspiring actress chasing her lucky break in a studio where everything goes wrong, a premise that lands neatly beside a Keaton comedy about the chaos of movie-making itself. Production materials also list Puna resident Jeffrey von Meyer in the cast, along with special appearances by Weird Al Yankovic and Haskell Wexler, giving the short an unusual Hawaii link and a wider cinephile appeal.

The pairing carried extra weight because The Cameraman is not just another old comedy. The Library of Congress placed the film in the National Film Registry in 2005, recognizing it as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. Its story follows Buster, a tintype photographer who falls in love with Sally, a secretary for MGM newsreels, then buys a movie camera and tries to win her attention by filming news events. For anyone who cares about how films are preserved and passed down, the Palace offered the chance to see a landmark work in a setting built for exactly this kind of communal viewing.

That setting matters in Hilo. The Palace, which opened in 1925 at the height of the American movie-palace era, has spent years restoring itself as a downtown arthouse and performance space after a period of closure. Celebrating 100 years, it remains one of the Big Island’s most visible cultural anchors, and another Silent Movie Night was already announced for June 11 with Wings, extending a programming run that keeps old film alive for a new generation.