Author: Ben Model

  • Douglas MacLean-Spotting Around the Ince Lot

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    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…

  • George H. Reed

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    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…

  • The Blue Dot After a Flash Photo

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    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…

  • Directed by Terry Jones

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    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…

  • Talking About Silents with the New Yorker

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    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…

  • Pie-Eyed – In Search Of The Pie Fight’s Origins

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    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…

  • Enjoying Douglas MacLean – It’s Not Just Me

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    Ben Model
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    On Tuesday night I rolled the dice and presented yet another obscure, unknown silent comedy film I’d taken a liking to at a show I was accompanying. Sure, I liked the wacky adventures and Fairbanksian enthusiasm of Douglas MacLean in Bell Boy 13, but would the audience? It was very satisfying to me that within…

  • Gilbert Gottfried, Silent Film Narrator

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    About a month ago I went from being a fan and regular listener of Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast to being a guest on the show. Josh Mills and I were on the show’s 294th episode to talk about Ernie Kovacs. The podcast aired on SiriusXM last week, and became available for everyone else as…

  • My Favorite Silent Film to Accompany Is…

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    The question I am asked most often at show Q&A’s, social situations and in press interviews is one I still don’t know how to answer. “Do you have a favorite film that you like to accompany?” After 38 years of accompanying silent movies I am still caught off-guard trying to answer this. The truth is…

  • Undercranking Study: Buster Keaton Trails a Suspect

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    Buster Keaton, along with Larry Semon, made the best use of taking different shots at different cranking speeds within a scene. This part of the Silent Film language was available and used by everyone in the silent era. Since the film was running faster in projection, mixing cranking speeds is undetectable. Action stars like Douglas…