BAR HARBOR – In 1921, Hollywood invaded the small seaside village of New Harbor, to film a romantic comedy called “The Seventh Day.”

A brash young director named Henry King chose the then-forested coast near Pemaquid Point to set his silent story of love that breaches social class in a fishing village – in an age when studio sets were the norm.

His full cast, including leading lady Louise Huff and her hero, Richard Barthelmess, filmed the picture on location with real coastal scenes and real seagoing vessels – a 190-foot steam yacht called the Sultana and a fishing schooner.

The silent film was quietly released in 1922.

But King became a film legend, directing 150 pictures before his retirement in 1962, including such classics as “State Fair,” ‘The Gunfighter” and “The Snows on Kilimanjaro.”

And, in 1987, a man from New Harbor remembered the excitement of a movie crew coming to town when he was a child. His son, Bangor Daily News editor Wayne Reilly, called on Northeast Historic Film in Blue Hill to track down a rare copy of “The Seventh Day” in Modern Art film archives in New York.

The film’s intertitles had been translated to Czechoslovakian for European release, and its original musical score had been lost. But with newly translated dialogue, and a score culled from period songs by the Bagaduce Lending Library, the long-lost film was presented to Maine audiences in July 1988.

Since its second premiere, the film has been shown several times, but never at the Criterion Theatre in Bar Harbor. In fact, it’s been decades since a silent film was screened in the glorious old hall.

A screening of “The Seventh Day” with live piano accompaniment will kick off Bar Harbor’s Ragtime Weekend at 6 and 8 p.m. Friday, June 22, at the Criterion Theatre.

– Misty Edgecomb