WHAT MAKES A CLASSIC?    Find out on two Mondays this season as the “Summer Classics” series at the Strand in Schroon Lake presents silent comedy shorts starring the legendary Buster Keaton and TCM’s choice for the greatest Hollywood movie ever!    “Silence is of the gods; only monkeys chatter.”  —Buster Keaton  July 8, 2019 SCHROON LAKE, NY — The only way to truly tell if a new work of art is destined to be a classic is through the test of time. On two Mondays this summer, filmgoers at the Strand Theater in Schroon Lake, New York—itself a classic Art Deco movie house—will be treated to movies that have not only stood the test of time but aced it:  ● On Monday, July 29, at 8 pm, the 2019 edition of “Summer Classics @ the Strand” opens with an evening of three silent comedy shorts starring one of the most physically daring actors ever to perform in movies—the irrepressible Buster Keaton—with live piano scoring by Ben Model, resident film accompanist at the Library of Congress and New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. The films—One Week, The Scarecrow and The Blacksmith, all of which date from the Golden Age of silent movies, the early 1920s—were recently restored by Lobster Films and have been handpicked by Model, who will introduce each short and lead a Q&amp;A discussion with the audience following the screenings.  ● Then on Monday, August 12, at 8 pm, “Summer Classics @ the Strand” presents one of the most romantic-iconic films ever made and what Turner Classic Movies (TCM) hails as “Our candidate for the best Hollywood movie of all time”—Casablanca (1942), starring the one-and-only Humphrey Bogart as American ex-patriate saloon owner Rick Blaine and the radiant Ingrid Bergman as Rick’s long-lost love, Ilsa Lund. The program will be hosted by film historian Jeremy Arnold, himself a TCM contributor and author of the TCM-tie-in books, The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies and Why They Matter (which, of course, includes Casablanca) and his latest work, Christmas in the Movies: 30 Classics to Celebrate the Season. If you’ve only seen Casablanca on TV, your laptop or even the tiny screen of your smart-phone, this is the perfect opportunity to view the movie on the big screen—and in stunning digital format that is featured at the Strand.  Tickets to each evening’s program are $10 and will be available at the door (cash only, please). The historic Strand Theater is located at 1102 Main Street (U.S. Route 9), Schroon Lake, NY; box office: 518-532-9077. To learn more, please contact Fred Balzac, Program Director of the “Summer Classics @ the Strand” series, at 518-588-7272 or by e-mail at fredbalzac@aol.com or adirondackfilmsociety@gmail.com.  And speaking of stunning digital viewing, this is the fourth consecutive summer that the Strand is partnering on special programming with the Adirondack Film Society (AFS)—the people who bring you the annual Lake Placid Film Festival and the monthly (September through May) AFS Screening Series at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. It was a collaboration between the two organizations resulting in a New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) grant award—along with the tremendous generosity of the Schroon Lake-area community—that helped Larry and Liz McNamara, the theater’s owner-operators, purchase and install digital film-projection equipment, enabling the Strand to continue as a first-run movie house.  ]END[   Press Release by Fred Balzac on behalf of Adirondack Film Society