21:00 - Teatro Verdi Pordenone
TELL IT TO THE MARINES (US 1926; 102 min)
by George Hill with Lon Chaney, William Haines, Eleanor Boardman
Musical Accompaniment: Neil Brand

In M-G-M's action-comedy Tell It to the Marines, "man of a thousand faces" Lon Chaney, without makeup, using no more elaborate disguise than a US Marine Corps uniform and a set of Sergeant's stripes, scored one of the biggest hits of his career. The film premiered at the Embassy Theatre in New York on 23 December 1926, where it ran for 13 weeks.
Tell It to the Marines is mostly a peacetime boot-camp training caper, starring William Haines as George "Skeet" Burns, a wise-cracking bachelor dandy with a "sheik style" haircut, who dubs himself "America's sweetheart". Skeet reluctantly enlists and is put through his paces at the San Diego Marine Base by Chaney's growling drillmaster Sergeant O'Hara.
While Chaney was an established star, Haines was on the rise, and was something of a mischief-maker on set: "I was determined to stand up to Mr. Lon Chaney, who was a superb actor but took himself quite seriously" (Filmograph, No. 3, 1972).
Haines and Chaney make for an entertaining double-act, the rogue and the martinet, but both with hidden depths. Haines's boyish charm softens Skeet's cynicism, while Chaney reveals the lovelorn soul of his parade-ground bully, a man sorrowfully aware that his face is far from fair enough to win the heart of Nurse Norma, whom they both adore.