Imagine my surprise walking home from the C train tonight, listening to the newest episode of Seth Godin’s podcast “Akimbo“, and hearing my own voice. Last week, Seth Godin discussed the current status, validity, importance and relevance of copyright on… Read More »Is Copyright All Right?
For a clown, a real honest-to-goodness Clown, the core of what they are doing is rooted in the honest, raw, vulnerable connection they create and have with the audience members. This is the source of where the laughs come from.… Read More »Red Noses in Black & White: Clowns in Silent Movies
The things you see during a silent film show when you’re the one who’s closest to the screen! As a film accompanist, I’m constantly scanning the frame for information while I’m playing. Impending story developments can be introduced in different… Read More »Arbuckle-Spotting, or: What Emma Clifton and I Saw Last Night
“The Lighthouse and the Sidecar” is a nickname that is probably more catchy in its original language, Danish. Evoking two things that are pretty much extinct doesn’t help either. But this was how many people in Scandinavia and maybe Europe… Read More »The Lighthouse and the Sidecar Get it Right
Worries and Wobbles (1917) has what might appear to be three strikes against it on the surface: “Jimmy Aubrey comedy”, “directed by Larry Semon” and that it’s a rather blatant knock-off of Chaplin’s One A.M.. The first of these is… Read More »“Jimmy Aubrey Comedy” is Not Always an Oxymoron
You may know that face. No, it’s not Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Nor is it Oliver Hardy, sans mustache, nor is it Otto Fries, or any of the other lesser-known plus-size comedians of the silent era. This performer was in over… Read More »Charles Puffy’s Film Career Sandwich
Rene Clair’s Last Silent Completes the Boomerang Arc of French Comedies To America and Back (image above sourced from SFSFF press/downloads page, whose image credit reads “Poster courtesy of the Cinémathèque Française”) There are a few occasions I can recall… Read More »Leo McCarey, Charley Chase and René Clair Walk Into a Bar…
Two main elements in film programming, I’ve found, are knowing the films and knowing where prints of them are. The rest, to a certain degree, is setting the table or parking cars in a lot. Sometimes the prints turn up… Read More »Looking for Squibs
Rotating bookcases, a Creeping Hands, Disappearing Bodies, a Madman on the Loose, Suspicious Family Members After the Family Jewels — All in a Spooky Old Mansion There’s no iconic monster in the title of Paul Leni’s The Cat and the… Read More »A Classic Horror Film Without a Monster to Sell It
There is no deeply dramatic reason for Douglas Fairbanks to leap over the benches and fences or climb the trees or anything else of extreme athleticism he does to get from point A to point B in American Aristocracy (1916),… Read More »Before There Was Parkour, There Was…Douglas Fairbanks