The Dryden will screen Sally, Irene, and Mary (Edmund Goulding, U.S. 1925, 58 min., 35mm) preceded by the short film How the Movies Began (U.S. 1954, 6 min., 35mm) with live piano by Philip C. Carli.

To celebrate the Dryden Theatre's 68th birthday, the George Eastman Museum is presenting the world premiere of its recent preservation of a Joan Crawford film not seen for nearly ninety years, restored from existing 35mm elements. A nineteen-year-old Crawford (in one of her earliest roles) stars alongside Constance Bennett and Sally O'Neill as Broadway chorus girls searching for love, money, and husbands in different ways. Sally (Bennett) is the eldest and wisest, content with her older lover who affords her a luxurious lifestyle; Irene (Crawford) is a hopeless and naïve romantic, easily seduced by the wrong man; and Mary (O'Neill) becomes engaged to a millionaire before a shocking event causes her to realize the error of her choice and return to her childhood sweetheart. The glamour and inequity of 1920s New York are on full display in the contrast between late-night Broadway parties and Lower East Side tenement apartments.

Preceded by How the Movies Began, part of a Warner-Pathé newsreel that features the George Eastman Museum, the Dryden Theatre, and James Card in the first decade of the museum's existence.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2019-Feb-25]