Category: Silent Comedy Film History
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Cut To The Horse
Accompanying Keaton’s Our Hospitality this past weekend reminded me of a silent comedy trope I’ve become aware of. It’s one that may have hit my radar because of how it’s handled in the language of silent film, and because of my accompanist’s spidey-sense signaling there’s a laugh here than may need a little help. It…
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Keaton’s Leap to Features
Keaton’s Our Hospitality is one of my favorites of his feature films, and for the same reason One Week is one of my top picks for the shorts. It’s not just about the smartness of the gags or the overall structure or the physical stunts for me. It’s Keaton’s progression as a silent comedy film…
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Finding a Chestnut in a Haystack
The Mack Sennett films released through Paramount in the late ‘teens give you the impression that an effort was underway to take the Keystone format up a level. That is, if you can see one of the Paramounts. Despite who produced them and who released them, they don’t survive well and are remarkably difficult to…
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16mm Film Collecting on DVDs
Over the last couple years, I’ve had conversations with people who’ve told me how much they like the Accidentally Preserved DVDs I’ve released. Which is really gratifying. What started out as a one-off turned into a short series that wound up as the springboard for Undercrank Productions. Film collectors, in particular, seem to be the…
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Cliff Bowes Made Lots of Cameos
Every once in a while, a Cliff Bowes comedy turns up. Their rarity and scarcity explains why you probably don’t know who Cliff Bowes is. His one-reel comedies are undeservedly forgotten, but luckily some were accidentally preserved. Cliff Bowes starred in a series of comedies for Educational Pictures, part of their one-reel “Cameo” series supervised…
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Charlie Chaplin, “The Eel”
In going through Chaplin’s The Adventurer for a project I’m working on, I wound up staring at a shot that usually goes by in a couple of seconds. It appears onscreen three times, and only one element is really supposed to register with our eyes and brains. What caught my eye this time was everything…
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Live Music at Silent Film Courses
When I started accompanying films it was still common practice to show silent films, well…silent. They were only available in 16mm prints that had no music tracks. That’s changed thanks to DVDs and Blu-rays and video projection, but having live accompaniment in a film class is still important. I play at a silent film class…
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The Silent Comedy Landscape 1921-1922
I’ve just been down a bit of a rabbit hole, thinking about the trajectory of the feature-length comedy in the early 1920s. (Yeah, I know…” — said no one, ever”). I’ve been revisiting the effect that Chaplin’s The Kid had on slapstick comedies, putting it into the context what was happening for the non-slapstick features.…
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Buster Keaton Meets Jimmy Johns
I almost fell off the couch today, just like when I saw the Spongebob cartoon whose punchline was “Nosferatu!” several years ago. There’s a new TV spot airing now that recreates or repurposes the Buster Keaton house-fall gag, and it’s done quite well. You always hope or assume that people in their 20s and 30s…