Happenings love of sharing cinema in the great outdoors has brought some great evenings to Dublin film fans in the past, including Sing Street and other Irish favourites around the county for this year’s St. Patrick’s Festival and last year’s Centenary Cinema events for the 1916 anniversary. The most recent edition of Happenings’ Open Air Cinema will offer a unique experience for cinephiles, as they’ll be showing a silent horror classic in Mount Merrion this Saturday.
Happenings and the Dublin City Council are hosting an open-air screening of The Phantom Of The Opera, with the film to be accompanied by a live music score. On Saturday July 1st, they will be introducing ‘The Happenings Quartet’, made up of musicians Matthew Nolan, David Stalling, Sean Mac Elaine and Sharon Phelan, who will performing live to provide their own original score to Rupert Julian’s 1925 silent horror, one of the original Universal horrors from the dawn of Hollywood movies.
This edition of the classic Phantom of the Opera story stars the legendary “Man of a Thousand Faces”, Lon Chaney. As the disfigured phantom Erik, Chaney brought both horror and pathos to his performance, portraying the lonesome but fearsome monster living a menacing existence in the catacombs and dungeons underneath the Paris Opera House. When Erik falls in love with a beautiful prima donna Christine, the master musician kidnaps her and holds her hostage in his lair.
With talented Irish musicians putting their own spin on a Hollywood classic, it’s sure to be a fun evening, and Happenings will have food, coffee and treats on hand on the night, courtesy of Irish Village Markets. And with nothing ever certain in the fickle Irish summer, they recommend bringing clothes to wrap up warm and encourage weatherproof clothing, blankets and seating, just in case. As always, Happenings Open Air Cinemas are strictly non-alcohol events.
Gates at the Mount Merrion venue will be open from 8.30pm with the film kicking off when the sun goes down (approx 9:45pm).
Tickets cost €10 and are available now from www.happenings.ie