WILTON – Mabel Normand’s 1918 comedy/drama ‘Mickey’ is next up the Town Hall Theatre’s summer-long salute to female stars of the silent screen.

‘Mickey’ will be screened with live music on Sunday, June 19 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.

In ‘Mickey,’ Normand plays an unsophisticated miner’s daughter sent East to live with a wealthy aunt. Considerable chaos ensues as the unrefined girl copes with high society, and vice versa.

The film is climaxed by a horse-racing sequence and includes a dramatic rooftop rescue.

The feature-length picture was a daring move by Normand and producer Mack Sennett, with whom Normand was romantically involved.

Sennett was boss of Keystone Studios, which produced short slapstick comedies featuring Normand, Charlie Chaplin, Fatty Arbuckle, and other comics.

To boost Normand’s career, in 1916 Sennett and Normand started a separate studio to produce ‘Mickey,’ an ambitious feature-length film starring Normand.

Initially judged to be a flop, the film was held back until 1918, when Sennett loaned a print of ‘Mickey’ to a small theater on Long Island to solve a booking mistake.

The film became a surprise hit, with other theaters soon clamoring to book the picture. ‘Mickey’ became a national phenomenon, playing in theaters through 1921 and setting box office records.

After its delayed release, the film was widely celebrated by critics. A review in The Tatler, a Hollywood fan magazine, said “No photoplay yet produced is so filled with adventure, thrills and human emotions as Mickey.”

A critic in Moving Picture World wrote “Mickey is a digest of the science of producing motion pictures. It has everything imaginable that might be conceived by the most inventive producer, past or present.”

By the time of the delayed release of ‘Mickey,’ Normand had broken up with Sennett and left Keystone to work at other studios.

While ‘Mickey’ was in theaters, Normand’s career was sidelined when she caught the flu during the 1918-19 epidemic.

Although Normand recovered, from then on she struggled to match her previous output.

In 1922, Normand was interrogated in the murder of her friend, director William Desmond Taylor. Then in 1924, Normand’s chauffeur used her pistol to shoot and injure a millionaire oil broker.

Normand wasn’t implicated in these incidents, but her public image was now tainted by scandal, which greatly narrowed her career prospects.

In 1926 she married Lew Cody, who played the villain opposite her in ‘Mickey.’ She developed tuberculosis, was sent to a sanatorium, and died in 1930 at the age of 37.

‘Mickey’ continues a Town Hall Theatre summer series featuring female stars of the silent screen, all with live music by accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

Here’s the line-up of upcoming screenings:

• Sunday, July 17 at 2 p.m.: Double feature with Greta Garbo, Colleen Moore. In ‘The Single Standard’ (1929), screen icon Garbo is a socialite determined to treat men the way they treat women; in ‘Ella Cinders’ (1926), Moore reinvents the fairy tale with a modern (1920s) comedic twist.

• Sunday, July 24 at 2 p.m.: Norma Talmadge in ‘Within the Law.’ Silent screen dramatic star Norma Talmadge plays a shopgirl wrongly imprisoned, and bent on revenge against the man who wronged her in this vintage 1923 release. Filmed on location in New York City.

• Sunday, Aug. 14 at 2 p.m.: Marion Davies in ‘Beverly of Graustark.’ Gender-bending 1926 comedy in which Davies stars as an American cousin of a European prince–and with whom she must switch places to keep the kingdom from unraveling. Newly released title!

• Sunday, Aug. 28 at 2 p.m.: Double feature with Gloria Swanson, Mae Marsh. Silent screen icon Gloria Swanson stars in ‘Fine Manners’ (1926), a comedy about a chorus girl trying to keep up with high society beau. In ‘Daddies’ (1924), Mae Marsh plays an unlikely orphan adopted by the head of the local Bachelor’s Club. Hilarity ensues!

All titles in the series have never been shown as part of the Town Hall Theatre’s long-running silent film programming.

“We specifically chose films that we haven’t run before in Wilton, in part to explore the incredible range and surprising diversity of roles women played in Hollywood’s silent era,” said Jeff Rapsis, the Town Hall Theatre’s silent film accompanist.

‘Mickey’ (1918) starring Mabel Normand will be shown with live music on Sunday, June 19 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses.

For more info, visit www.wiltontownhalltheatre.com or call (603) 654-3456. For more about the music, visit www.jeffrapsis.com.