Feeling nostalgic for a time of gin mills and jalopies, fly boys and dizzying dames? Well, you're in luck.
Vancouver residents are getting a chance to glimpse their city's rich history in a one-night-only film presentation spanning the roaring twenties, the dirty thirties and the fighting forties.
Organizer Rick Schmidlin, a director, author and silent-film scholar, says the event will be a great chance for residents to satisfy their nostalgic bent, and to experience Vancouver in a wider historical context.
"I saw how important these films were, and I wanted to give this show as a love letter to the city," the New Jersey native said. "It's been my home for the last four years."
The presentation, an assemblage of City of Vancouver archival footage, will be accompanied by live, period-appropriate piano music.
"There'll be some ragtime, some old swinging jazz from the '30s and '40s," Schmidlin said. ""We're keeping it very lively."
The films will be introduced by city archivist Les Mobbs, who will explain where each film was acquired and why it's important.
"These are real, unique records of life in Vancouver," Mobbs said. "There are home movies, children playing with pets, films of their homes."
Highlights include World War I flying ace Albert Godfrey taking off from the Royal Canadian Air Force Base and the 1927 Spencer's Toy Parade -- which features a daredevil Santa scaling a building.
"Not something in today's safety-conscious environment that you'd be likely to see," Mobbs added.
Though most of the films are available from the City of Vancouver archives website, Schmidlin says the big screen experience warrants an afternoon screening -- and there will be a few surprises as well.
"We've got something that has not been seen on a screen in Vancouver in 86 years," Schmidlin said. "Since 1923."
The event, titled Treasures from the City of Vancouver Archives, is being held at the Vancity Theatre on Nov. 29 at 2:00 p.m.
