As silent film fans, we’re past the point of going to a show, seeing empty seats and blaming the venue for not doing enough to get people in. There’s no budget for advertising for silent film shows, really, and ads… Read More »Why Wasn’t This Advertised More?
Ernie Kovacs show ensemble cast members turn up out of seemingly nowhere in the TV-ography of the shows. Ernie’s penchant for casting or hiring people through unusual channels and based on a personal reaction runs throughout his career. The trajectory… Read More »Singer Peter Hanley – Under-Documented Kovacs Ensemble Player
The Nation’s First Exposure to Ernie Kovacs Was in a Summer Replacement In 1951 After hosting a daily 7-9am wake-up show as well as a number of other programs — cooking, fashion, quiz — for local NBC affiliate WPTZ, Ernie… Read More »How Do You Replace Kukla, Fran and Ollie?
There are three key elements that make up what Silent Film truly is. It’s the overlapping presence of these live factors, at a show, that make the full experience. It’s the reason I refer to Silent Film as a medium… Read More »Silent Film Is Something That Happens
The best-known and most-seen version of Ernie Kovacs’ famous “Nairobi Trio” sketch is one shot on videotape. It was used in an episode of the 1977 series “The Best of Ernie Kovacs”, and it’s on YouTube. I’d always thought the… Read More »The Nairobi Trio: Behind the Masks
[This was originally posted on May 15, 2019, and was revised on May 18 to correct some factual errors brought to my attention by a colleague.] The pool game in Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr. is one of the film’s many… Read More »Missing the Shot in Sherlock, Jr.’s Pool Game
One of my favorite sounds at a silent film show is that of kids’ laughter over the laughs of the adults in the theater. People bring their children or grandchildren to silent film shows from time to time, and it’s… Read More »Audience Preservation: Silent Movies as Family Programming
A number of personal, “tone-poem” slice-of-life films were made at the tail end of the silent era. The ones often mentioned are titles like Sunrise (1927), The Crowd (1928) and Lonesome (1928). Even von Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1928) has… Read More »Speedy Has Quite The Hold On An Audience
Is Silent Movie “Cosplay” Necessary? I don’t spend a lot of time watching silent films made recently or any time after sound came in. Maybe I should. In pondering the idea of making one myself, I’ve often wondered how important… Read More »Silent Filmmaking Then and Now
Ernie Kovacs hated working with a live audience for his TV shows. His TV shows feel like you’re having a visit with him. Having spent 8 years in radio before starting in TV, in its own nascent years, Ernie carried… Read More »Just You And Ernie Kovacs…And a Theatre Full of Fellow Fans