Category: Undercrank Productions
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A Racing Locomotive, a Town on Fire and Colleen Moore
The Ninety and Nine was one of a handful of stage properties that were very popular and which toured a lot in the early 1900s. Like a few other of its type — such as Ben Hur, East Lynne and a certain play by Thomas Dixon — it had a major chase and spectacle mounted…
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Is a Spinning Flat Plastic Disc Preservation?
I’ve been complimented on my work by fans, show attendees, people who’ve supported my Kickstarter’s and/or bought my DVDs. It’s gratifying, although my reason for doing what I do has nothing to do with the “has the ‘Thank-you-masked-man Man been here today?”** aspect of it. One such thank-you I receive about What I Do from…
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Wake Me When It’s Streaming
Several years ago a typical conversation I had at holiday parties when introduced to someone got an upgrade. Up to that point, when introduced to someone, a question they’d ask — “Have you scored anything for DVD?” — became “Do you have anything on YouTube?” I didn’t at the time, but the following month I…
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Found at “Mostly Lost”: volume 2 – new DVD
My DVD label Undercrank Productions has a new release, the second in a series that showcases the identification fun we have every year at the “Mostly Lost” workshop at the Library of Congress at it’s Packard Preservation Campus in Culpeper, VA. Attendees each year receive a “swag bag” when they arrive and register on day…
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Marion Davies Makes an Appearance in Italy
Marion Davies’ 1922 Film Beauty’s Worth Gets a Deluxe Outdoor Screening In the Birthplace of Its Director Robert G. Vignola At the end of this week, on a piazza in the ankle of the boot that is Italy, a crew will assemble a large movie screen, high-end video projector, performance stage, sound system, music stands and…
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What’s a Nice Car Like You Doing in a Comedy Short Like This?
Putting Humpty Together Again, Thanks to the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress It isn’t often that a two-reel comedy can be reassembled by accessing a reel from one archive and a reel from another, but we were fortunate in the case of this film. Oh! What a Day (1918) is a…
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Charlie Chaplin, Marcel Perez, and a Pair of Drowning Ladies
There was a lot of borrowing and sharing of material in the days of silent comedy shorts, a tradition that grew out of vaudeville and circus. In the milieu of live comedy performance, there were certain routines that were a particular comedian’s property, to be sure, but there were many routines that everyone knew and…
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Buster Keaton’s Leap to ‘One Week’, and Marcel Perez’s Jump from “Split-reelers” to 2-reelers
Stretching to Two Reel Length was no Stretch For Marcel Perez What has always struck me as remarkable about Buster Keaton (well, one of several things) is his maturity as a filmmaker at the ripe old age of 25. His first solo release, One Week (1920), looks nothing like any of the 14 two-reel Arbuckle comedies…
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Marcel Perez…or “Marvel” Perez?
Buster Keaton’s Idea of “Impossible Gags” Take on ‘Popeye’ Proportions In the Tweedledum/Twede Comedy Shorts Stylistically, there are two things about the American films of Marcel Perez that make them stand apart from the work of all the other slapstick comedians of the silent era. One of them I can’t yet put my finger on.…