Silent Giants: Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd
From December 5 through December 30, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents Silent Giants: Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd, a series of eight programs featuring the three greatest masters of silent comedy, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. Each week throughout December, we present a classic Keaton feature and short, along with either a Chaplin feature or a program of a Lloyd feature and short.
Buster Keaton formed his remarkably modern comedy style from a vaudeville background, a less-is-more acting technique (“The Great Stone Face”), the body control of an acrobat, and a serene contemplation of the bizarre that verges on surrealism. A creature of the mechanical age, Keaton was fascinated by gadgets, locomotives, motorcycles, flying machines, and, above all, the movie camera.
The four Keaton programs--headlined by the features SHERLOCK, JR., THE GENERAL, COLLEGE, and STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.--feature live accompaniment by the Film Center's peerless piano man Dave Drazin. Dave has accompanied several Keaton retrospectives at the Film Center over the past 20-plus years, and his love and insight for the great comedian have given his Keaton scores an extra pizzazz that surpasses even his usual high standard.
Trained in music hall (the British equivalent of vaudeville), Charles Chaplin is usually identified with a less modern, more Victorian, even Dickensian sensibility. However, his ability to combine humor and pathos represented a giant step forward in the evolution of movie comedy, and his performing style--a mixture of dance-like grace, earthy body language, and exquisite pantomime--revolutionized screen acting.
The Chaplin features in our series, CITY LIGHTS and MODERN TIMES, are the only two silent Chaplin features currently in theatrical distribution in the U.S., and they are scheduled to go out of circulation on January 1. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to see this amazingly subtle and expressive actor-director on the big screen for which his art is tailored.
A would-be dramatic actor who drifted into movie comedy, Harold Lloyd spent a lengthy period of trial-and-error before he perfected the glasses-wearing character often called "The Boy" in his films. Once he hit his stride, Lloyd was more consistently popular than either Keaton or Chaplin.
Less eccentric and incongruous than his two great comedy contemporaries, Lloyd embodied the quintessential all-American go-getter of the 1920s. His realistic persona lent a more suspenseful believability to his stunning action set pieces, as demonstrated in our series by the football-game climax of THE FRESHMAN, the skyscraper scaling of NEVER WEAKEN and SAFETY LAST!, and the speeding-car maneuvers of GET OUT AND GET UNDER.
As James Agee wrote in his classic 1949 essay "Comedy's Greatest Era," the great silent comedians "learned to show emotion and comic psychology more eloquently than most language has ever managed to, and they discovered beauties of comic motion which are hopelessly beyond the reach of words." We invite you to join us in making this holiday season a silent--and screamingly funny--one.
Special thanks to Tim Lanza of the Douris Corporation, Bonnie Marshall of The Harold Lloyd Trust, and Gary Palmucci of Kino International.
Photos for THE FRESHMAN and SAFETY LAST! ©2009 The Harold Lloyd Trust.
— Martin Rubin
Saturday double-bill discount!
Buy a ticket at our regular prices for the 3:00 Silent Giants program on any Saturday in December, and get a ticket for the second Silent Giants program that day at this discount rate (tickets must be purchased at the same time): General Admission $7; Students $5; Members $4. (This discount rate applies to the second film only.)
SHERLOCK, JR.
1924, Buster Keaton, USA, ca. 50 min.
With Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire
THE PLAYHOUSE
1921, Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, USA, ca. 25 min.
With Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox
One of the greatest tours de force in movie history, this pioneering "self-referential” film was a major influence on Chuck Jones’s DUCK AMUCK and Woody Allen’s THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO. Buster stars as a movie-house projectionist and amateur detective who dreams himself into the movie screen in order to solve a crime that mirrors his own real-life travails with an unscrupulous romantic rival. The precision of Keaton's gags here (his first entry in the movie screen, his instantaneous transformation into female disguise) at times approaches the mind-boggling. 35mm.
Preceded by THE PLAYHOUSE, featuring a spectacular opening in which an entire theater is populated by replicas of Buster Keaton. 35mm. (MR)
Live piano accompaniment at both shows by David Drazin.
- December 5th—3:00pm
- December 9th—6:00pm
CITY LIGHTS
1931, Charles Chaplin, USA, 86 min.
With Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill
Widely considered the pinnacle of Chaplin's art, CITY LIGHTS plays sentiment and slapstick off each other to devastating effect. He plays a tramp whose outcast state is overlooked by two complementary characters: a blind flower girl who thinks he's a millionaire, and a real millionaire who's too drunk to care. Silent film with synchronized music score (composed by Chaplin). 35mm. (MR)
- December 5th—4:30pm
- December 7th—6:00pm
THE GENERAL
1926, Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, USA, ca. 75 min.
With Buster Keaton, Marion Mack
THE SCARECROW
1920, Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, ca. 20 min.
With Buster Keaton, Sybil Seely
A commercial and critical disappointment when first released, THE GENERAL eventually became Keaton’s most admired film. Based on the same Civil War incident that inspired Disney’s THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE, the film stars Buster as a Confederate Army wash-out who gets his chance to be a hero when Union spies steal his beloved locomotive. This ambitious production combines large-scale battle scenes with brilliant chase gags. 35mm.
Preceded by THE SCARECROW, which opens with a hilarious gadget-assisted meal and climaxes with a wedding aboard a speeding motorcycle. 35mm. (MR)
Live piano accompaniment at both shows by David Drazin.
- December 12th—3:00pm
- December 16th—6:00pm
THE FRESHMAN
1925, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, USA, 76 min.
With Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston
NEVER WEAKEN
1921, Fred C. Newmeyer, USA, 29 min.
With Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis
Rah-rah Harold yearns to be a college football hero, but a series of pranks and faux pas turns him into the campus laughingstock. Can he redeem himself in the Big Game? Enormously popular, THE FRESHMAN boasts some of Lloyd's most ingenious gags, but the key to the film's success is its integration of comedy with strong characterization and heartfelt romance, the latter supplied by almond-eyed Jobyna Ralston as the cigarette-counter girl who can appreciate the gumption beneath Harold's gaucherie. Silent film with recorded musical accompaniment. 35mm.
Preceded by NEVER WEAKEN, the first of Lloyd's celebrated ledge-hanger comedies, in which romantic disappointment drives him literally to the brink. Silent film with recorded musical accompaniment. 35mm. (MR)
- December 12th—4:45pm
- December 17th—6:00pm
MODERN TIMES
1936, Charles Chaplin, USA, 89 min.
With Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard
Although an implicit social consciousness informs much of Chaplin's work, MODERN TIMES marked his explicit response to the political and economic unrest of the 1930s. In his last silent film (with music score and sound effects) and his last appearance as the Little Tramp, Charlie is an assembly-line worker who loses his job, goes to jail, befriends a waif (Goddard), and finds work as a singing waiter. The feeding-machine, cocaine-in-the-salt-shaker, and roller-skate-ballet scenes rank among Chaplin’s funniest set pieces. Silent film with synchronized music score (composed by Chaplin). 35mm. (MR)
- December 19th—3:00pm
- December 21st—6:00pm
COLLEGE
1927, James W. Horne, USA, ca. 70 min.
With Buster Keaton, Anne Cornwall
COPS
1922, Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, USA, ca. 20 min.
With Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox
After alienating his sweetheart with anti-jock diatribes, nerdy Buster sets out to win her sports-crazy heart by trying out--disastrously--for every athletic activity on campus. Keaton claimed to have directed nearly all of COLLEGE uncredited; the subject was close to the heart of this great physical comedian, a superb athlete who invests much skill into appearing hilariously klutzy here. COLLEGE makes a fascinating comparison with Harold Lloyd's similarly themed THE FRESHMAN (screening on December 12 and 17).
Preceded by COPS, in which Buster, mistaken for an anarchist, is pursued by an ever-expanding army of policemen. 35mm. (MR)
Live piano accompaniment by David Drazin on Wednesday only; recorded organ accompaniment by Lee Erwin on Saturday.
- December 19th—4:45pm
- December 23rd—6:00pm
STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.
1928, Charles F. Riesner, USA, ca. 75 min.
With Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence
ONE WEEK
1920, Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline, USA, ca. 20 min.
With Buster Keaton, Sybil Seely
STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. was Keaton's last film under his own independent production banner, and it is one of his best. Buster returns from college citified and sissified, much to the disgust of his gruff steamboat-captain father (Torrence). To make matters worse, he falls in love with the pretty daughter of dad's archrival. The hat-selecting scene and the umbrella-in-the-downpour scene are two of Keaton's best, but they are both topped by the cyclone climax--spectacular, surreal, and hair-raisingly dangerous. 35mm.
Preceded by ONE WEEK, Keaton's first film as director and star, in which a newlywed couple struggles with a prefabricated house. 35mm. (MR)
Live piano accompaniment by David Drazin at both shows.
- December 26th—3:00pm
- December 30th—6:00pm
SAFETY LAST!
1923, Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, USA, 73 min.
With Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis
GET OUT AND GET UNDER
1920, Hal Roach, USA, 25 min.
With Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis
SAFETY LAST! is the definitive example of Lloyd's "Comedy of Thrills," in which laughs and screams are combined to mutually enhancing effect. To win a prize and impress his girl, Harold plans to scale a twelve-story building--but with a professional climber secretly subbing for him after the first couple of floors. When the pro doesn't show up, Harold is left on his own, launching one of the great stunt sequences in film history, capped by the iconic image of Lloyd dangling from a high clock. 35mm.
Preceded by GET OUT AND GET UNDER, in which cops, dogs, traffic, parades, and pesky kids delay Harold's jalopy-borne race to the theater where he and his sweetheart are performing The Masked Prince. 35mm. (MR)
Live piano accompaniment by David Drazin on Monday only; recorded musical accompaniment on Saturday.
- December 26th—4:45pm
- December 28th—6:00pm