Foreword by Jeanine Basinger
Ben Model and Jeanine Basinger, at the September 2021 dedication ceremonies for the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown CT. (photo by Tracy Heather Strain). There are two excellent articles about Jeanine you can read in The Hollywood Reporter and in Script Magazine.
Introduction
Walter Kerr in his study at his home, where he screened silent comedy films for me. Kerr owned a number of projectors over the years, but the ones I remember the most were a pair of Bauer 16mm’s, which were replaced by a pair of Kodak Pageant projectors. Note the reel-to-reel tape deck just over his shoulder. He assembled soundtrack tapes from instrumental music LPs for all the silent films in his collection, which he would play back during the films…occasionally stopping and starting either the tape deck or projector when one of them got ahead or behind the other.
The home of Walter and Jean Kerr, at 1 Beach Avenue in Larchmont NY. Yes…this is the “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” house – not the one in the movie or TV show, but the one the Kerr family lived in.
The Silent Clowns was published by Knopf in 1975 in hardcover, seen above. Knopf issued a softbound edition, with a white cover. Years later, DaCapo Press republished the book in a softbound edition with a purple cover – unfortunately, the photo reproductions in the DaCapo edition are weak. If you’re going trawling on eBay or Alibris for this book, you want one of the Knopf copies. Ideally, the hardcover edition.