“The Johnstown Flood” (1926)
- Film
- Ticket Required
Suzanne and Paul Westlake Performing Arts Center
George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor in The Johnstown Flood. Image courtesy of the Cleveland Silent Film Festival
About The Event
In 1889, the South Fork Dam above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, failed, killing 2,209 people in the deadliest flash flood in American history. Nearly 37 years later, director Irving Cummings dramatized the event in The Johnstown Flood. George O’Brien stars as Tom O’Day, a civil engineer concerned with the dam’s instability and the vulnerability of the workers living in the valley below. Costars Janet Gaynor and Florence Gilbert, representing opposite sides of the social divide, are the two women who love him. The Johnstown Flood is noted for its innovative special effects in depicting the film’s disastrous events. Historian Robert A. Harris notes that “the importance of The Johnstown Flood to film history is difficult to overstate.” This screening includes a guest appearance by noted silent film musician Rodney Sauer, who leads a quintet in a score created expressly for the film.
More information about the Cleveland Silent Film Festival can be found on the organization’s website (opens in a new tab).
The views expressed by performers during this event are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Ticket Prices
Festival Pass
Guests have the option to purchase tickets to individual screenings or to buy a festival pass, which allows purchasers to attend all screenings at the Cleveland Museum of Art at a discounted fee. In addition, the festival pass includes admission to the screening of East and West on September 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque and The General on September 17 at 7:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Grays Armory Museum. Festival pass holders must bring their festival pass to the Cinematheque box office to receive their ticket for the East and West screening. Festival pass holders must bring their festival pass to the Cleveland Grays Armory Museum to receive their ticket for The General screening.
A festival pass costs $120 for nonmembers and $100 for members.
Sponsors
The 2026–27 Performing Arts Series is sponsored by the Musart Society. This program is made possible in part by the Ernest L. and Louise M. Gartner Fund, the P. J. McMyler Musical Endowment Fund, and the Anton and Rose Zverina Music Fund.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
Performing arts programs are supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.
