Ben Model’s blog
-
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 aren’t necessarily going to be effective anyway. But there is…
-
Singer Peter Hanley – Under-Documented Kovacs Ensemble Player
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 of singer Peter Hanley is harder than most to identify.…
-
How Do You Replace Kukla, Fran and Ollie?
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 Kovacs got the chance at a network show. He’d been…
-
Silent Film Is Something That Happens
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 and not a genre. It’s a medium that’s a close…
-
The Nairobi Trio: Behind the Masks
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 trio members were Ernie, Jolene Brand (keys) and Bobby Lauher…
-
Missing the Shot in Sherlock, Jr.’s Pool Game
[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 memorable sequences. For many years, one of the trick shots…
-
Audience Preservation: Silent Movies as Family Programming
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 a wonderful thing. These are general audience shows that are…
-
Speedy Has Quite The Hold On An Audience
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 a very thin plot, and is almost a meditation on…
-
Silent Filmmaking Then and Now
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 it is that the film look like it was made…
-
Just You And Ernie Kovacs…And a Theatre Full of Fellow Fans
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 over the practice of performing to an audience of one…