Thursday, April 9, 2026

Frank Capra’s First Film Turns 100, Returns to a Theater That Knew Him When

The Caltech graduate’s directorial debut screens with live piano at a Sierra Madre venue that was showing silent movies when Capra was making them

Frank Capra graduated from Caltech in 1918, and his family lived in Sierra Madre, where his father oversaw a citrus orchard. Eight years later, at 29, he directed his first feature film. One hundred years after that, the film is coming back to the foothills.

Sierra Madre Playhouse screens The Strong Man (1926) on Sunday, April 12, at 8 p.m., with live piano accompaniment by Larry Garf and a post-show discussion led by writer and humorist Rich Procter. Tickets are $20.

The screening marks the centennial of the silent comedy that the Library of Congress selected for the National Film Registry in 2007, calling it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” It also marks something the Registry citation didn’t mention: the film was made just miles from the theater where it will now be celebrated.

The Playhouse’s building dates to 1910, when it opened as a furniture store. It became the Wistaria Theatre in 1924 — two years before The Strong Man was released — and screened silent films before converting to talkies and eventually live theater. The 99-seat venue now presents the screening as part of Film @ the Playhouse, a series produced in collaboration with Retroformat Silent Films that, according to the Playhouse, embraces “the venue’s 100-year legacy as a silent film theater.”

The Strong Man, produced by and starring Harry Langdon, follows Paul Bergot, a naïve Belgian soldier who travels to America after World War I in search of the girl who wrote to him during the war. He joins a traveling strongman act and encounters crooks, preachers, and showgirls. The Library of Congress noted that the film placed Langdon among what critic Walter Kerr called “The Four Silent Clowns” — alongside Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. The Playhouse describes the film as a blend of “slapstick, tenderness, and the quiet absurdity” that defined Langdon’s style, according to its event listing.

Capra would go on to win three Academy Awards for Best Director and create It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It’s a Wonderful Life. But it started with Langdon, and with this film.

Garf, who provides the live score, combines a passion for vintage cinema with ragtime and early jazz, according to a 2024 Altadena Library event listing. Procter brings his own history in comedy to the post-show discussion. He was a member of the Groundlings troupe in its early years alongside Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, and in 2018 the Themed Entertainment Association gave him its “Master of the Craft” award.

The Playhouse is at 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. Doors open an hour before the show, and the Playhouse recommends arriving 20 to 30 minutes early. Transit riders can reach Sierra Madre Villa Station on Metro’s A Line and connect via the 268 bus. Tickets and information are available at sierramadreplayhouse.org or by calling (626) 355-4318.

Caltech honored Capra with its Distinguished Alumni Award in 1966. The university screened It’s a Wonderful Life at Beckman Auditorium in 2018, marking the centennial of his graduation. Now it is the film that started it all — made by a young engineer from Pasadena who traded chemical equations for a camera — that turns 100.

FILM | THE STRONG MAN (1926) Date & Time: Sunday, April 12, 2026, 8:00 PM |Venue: Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024 | Phone Number: Contact 626-355-4318 | Website: https://www.sierramadreplayhouse.org/event/thestrongman2026