Author: Ben Model
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“Rediscovering Roscoe”: Arbuckle Made More Films Than You Think
We classic film fans typically own several “The Films of…” books that cover the careers of important stars or directors. Unavailable for our shelves has been a “films of” entry for one of the main comedians of the silent era who, like Chaplin and Keaton, was both star and director. This has now been corrected,…
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Chasing Charlie in The Adventurer
I’ve heard the term “baby pictures” used when referring to a composer or other artist’s early work. They were made at a certain point in the artistic arc of a particular creative person, someone whose work has developed and matured and improved. Those early works don’t get revisited and revised. But I really needed to…
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When a Pop Tune in a Silent Movie Isn’t Real…or Is It?
“Sing ‘Fly, Birdie, Fly’,” Angela Fish is prompted by her father in a scene from “Bell Boy 13”. She sits at the piano, beckons Douglas MacLean to join her on the bench, and launches into the song. What do I play here? There isn’t the usual obligatory shot of the sheet music on the piano’s…
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Not All Silent Film Needs A Reality Check
“Silent films were never really silent” is one of the main tenets one hears or says in defense of silent films. The medium’s name itself has stuck since the talkie transition, conjuring up a negative in the imagination of anyone who reads or hears it. The name has also reinforced another notion about these movies:…
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Douglas MacLean-Spotting Around the Ince Lot
Owners of Blackhawk Films 16mm and 8mm prints of “A Tour of the Thomas Ince Studios” probably had no idea why the smiling gentleman, seen racing to the studio in one segment, keeps popping up throughout the film. His is not a familiar face to silent film fans, so why all the cameos? Douglas MacLean…
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George H. Reed
There are a number of remarkable things I noticed in the Douglas MacLean comedy “One a Minute” (1921) as I worked on it for the new DVD release. One of them was the character played by African-American actor George Reed, and the way he is portrayed. It’s not the usual stereotype character one sees in…
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The Blue Dot After a Flash Photo
I’ve become interested in the idea of conflated memory. It’s taken me down an interesting rabbit hole with my silent film and Ernie Kovacs research. And now, it appears, it seems to have become part of the social media experience. Some of the stereotypes people know and believe about silent film involve scenes where a…
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Directed by Terry Jones
John Cleese said a lot of things during three days I spent in Dallas in the first week of December, during various events large and small with him held by the Dallas Videofest. A sidebar to an answer to a question he’d been asked, referencing Terry Jones’ directorial style, stuck with me. Specifically, it was…
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Talking About Silents with the New Yorker
My “right brain theory” about silent film resonated with a journalist recently. It doesn’t usually happen, and I was pleased as punch that this core aspect of the Silent Film medium got included in the video profile made by the New Yorker Magazine, posted in October 2019. It’s the notion that art exists in a…
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Pie-Eyed – In Search Of The Pie Fight’s Origins
Several of us classic comedy film fans have been trying to dispel the myth of pie fights and custard pie-throwing in silent movies. I’ve been pondering the myth’s origins for a while and have a theory. No factual or documentary evidence, but it the pieces of the puzzle seem to fit. In case you haven’t…