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00:00:11New art form. One flourished, then died. The only comedy to be seen, not heard. Many believe it's the greatest
00:00:19comedy of all. It was to be found on every screen of every theater, every day. It made the 20s
00:00:27roar.
00:00:27We believe it will make you laugh as loudly as the audiences of so long ago. For the next 90
00:00:34minutes, you will be part of a world a third of a century younger, when comedy was king.
00:01:05The End
00:01:11The End
00:01:11The End
00:01:20The End
00:01:27The End
00:01:28The End
00:01:30The End
00:01:40The End
00:01:40The End
00:01:59As in the bygone days of vaudeville, if anything or anybody meets with your approval, we hope you will applaud.
00:02:05Somewhere, ghosts may be listening.
00:02:15The End
00:02:16The End
00:02:17The End
00:02:19Oh, oh, oh, oh.
00:02:56I don't know.
00:03:25I don't know.
00:03:48I don't know.
00:03:52I don't know.
00:03:55I don't know.
00:03:59I don't know.
00:04:16We begin where American screen comedy began.
00:04:20Max Sennett's old Keystone studio.
00:04:23Charlie Murray is the director.
00:04:24The footloose hero is a 24-year-old movie newcomer named Charlie Chaplin.
00:04:30The year is 1914.
00:04:32At this year's beginning, Chaplin, an obscure stage comedian, made his first screen appearance.
00:04:37During the year, he turned out a staggering total of 35 pictures.
00:04:42By the year's end, he had become the most famous comedian in the world.
00:04:50The young Charlie Chaplin, swept so swiftly to fame, was to grow into a figure of controversy.
00:04:57But in 1914, all that lay undreamed of decades in the future.
00:05:02Whatever one may think of Chaplin, these films made so long before the troubled times are blameless.
00:05:09A replacement is quickly recruited.
00:05:12Walrus-mustached Chester Conklin, the little eternal loser in big pants, another keystone immortal.
00:05:43So Charlie bids the studio a flying farewell.
00:05:47To end up as Charlie usually ended up, a homeless, jobless, friendless vagabond.
00:05:54We iris in on a scene of touching domestic bliss.
00:05:58Whoops!
00:06:00The beloved Mabel Norman plays Charlie's pocket-picking wife.
00:06:08Mabel discovers a mash note from one of Charlie's admirers.
00:06:12Like most of the Keystones, the Chaplin films were shot script off the cuff.
00:06:16The actors ad-libbed their stuff as they went along.
00:06:20Scenes requiring split-second timing were made in this fashion, and they were rarely taken more than once.
00:06:25The reason for this method was economy, but the result was sometimes a brand of spontaneous fun,
00:06:32unapproached since the passing of silent comedy.
00:06:43Cast out, Charlie is once again the homeless wanderer into endless trouble.
00:06:49He quickly stumbles onto one of the town's better restaurants.
00:06:53Take a look at that sign of 40 years ago, and weep.
00:07:01In a time when the world's funny bone was far less touchy than it is now,
00:07:05Charlie displayed the same solicitude for old men as he did for babies.
00:07:22Charlie's dainty dinner companion is Max Swain, famed Ambrose of the old Keystones.
00:07:27Like most of the films produced during Charlie's busy first year,
00:07:32this picture was directed by Chaplin himself.
00:07:47Did you still get burned away one of his feet Wench who wanted to draw the
00:08:12Coming up is the most famous of the thousands of comedy inventions originated in the Keystone
00:08:18Studios. The pie in the face. Meanwhile, spurred on by that mash note, Mabel's off in hot pursuit.
00:08:28If anyone gets mashed, it'll be Charlie. Of the comedians who abounded in comedy's golden
00:08:34age, a handful achieved greatness. And three of them, in the opinion of critics, were so
00:08:40completely original in their portrayals as to scale the heights of pure genius. You
00:08:58can't do it.
00:09:14Revving up are sleek racers of 1914, among them a unique propeller car. There was hardly a
00:09:21local race, parade or fire that failed to bring out a Keystone company eager to utilize the
00:09:27crowds and excitement as a free backdrop. In this early film, Charlie could still work
00:09:32almost unnoticed among the spectators. Yet he had already mastered most of his familiar
00:09:37mannerisms, including that wonderful skidding turn.
00:09:47Flirtace's Charlie has just begun to make time with Mabel when her boyfriend, myopic, bristling
00:09:52little Chester Conklin tries to fracture their romance. It's a trite situation, one used over
00:09:59and over again in the Keystones. But notice how Chaplin builds it up, brightening what could
00:10:05be the most humdrum of scenes with a whole library of comedy improvisations.
00:10:25Close-ups of the young Chaplin are rare. This is one of the best. He was soon to bid Keystone
00:10:32goodbye, increasing his salary twenty-fold in two years.
00:10:35The Chaplin story of fabulous success and fabulous trouble was just beginning on this bright September day, forty-five years
00:10:45and two world wars ago.
00:10:48Across the decades from a sentimental age, peers Mabel Normand with her partner, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. As Fatty and Mabel,
00:10:58they were beloved by the fans of 1916, and their appeal is still apparent in this little valentine.
00:11:05of a comedy which has remained fresh and charming through the passing years. Of course, there must be a villain.
00:11:15He's jealous Al St. John, the boy Mabel left behind.
00:11:43He's jealous Al St. John, the boy Mabel.
00:11:43Fatty and Mabel are newlyweds, and live in a cottage by the sea,
00:11:47in a day before beaches were littered with beer cans.
00:12:06At least one graying moviegoer remembers viewing this tender domestic sequence as a child.
00:12:12across the lives of Mad Cable and jovial Fatty alike were to pass the shadows of scandal, ill fortune, and
00:12:20early death.
00:12:21But that too was the undreamed of future in these gay Keystone days.
00:12:41At Keystone, the versatile Fatty directed his own films, and even the old master D. W. Griffith himself, never produced
00:12:49a more tender scene than this phantom kiss of long, long ago.
00:13:12Later that night, the storm.
00:13:16Later that night, the storm.
00:13:41In stalks Al St. John and his skulking toadies, so Mabel prefers Fatty to him.
00:13:47In stalks Al St. John and his skulking toadies, so Mabel prefers Fatty to him.
00:13:47He'll show them both.
00:13:49His dastardly deeds screamed by the sounds of wind, rain, and surf.
00:13:54He'll float their cheese box cottage to its doom at sea.
00:14:05Here comes the dawn.
00:14:20My goodness, wonders Fatty, did Mabel leave the bathtub running?
00:14:25Do the television-fed kids of today ever thrill as did the kids of old?
00:14:31Crouched down with eyes big in the magic darkness of the local bijou as scenes like this staggered their imaginations.
00:14:55A glance out of the window tells the awful story.
00:14:58They've drifted miles to sea.
00:15:01How can they be saved from a watery grave?
00:15:05Fatty has an idea.
00:15:06He'll send Fido with a note.
00:15:08If only he can find a pencil.
00:15:10Hurry, Fatty, hurry.
00:15:11The water in that bedroom is getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
00:15:44The water has risen to Fatty's shoulders.
00:15:46If they don't get out of that sinking room soon, Fido needn't bother delivering that note.
00:15:51...
00:16:04...
00:16:06...
00:16:06...
00:16:07...
00:16:07...
00:16:20Straight to the old homestead dashes gallant Fido.
00:16:23Fatty's father, aroused from slumber, quickly finds the note,
00:16:27which must have been written on waterproof paper.
00:16:38A cry for help, and the film shifts gears to the kind of chase climax
00:16:43that had become Keystone's trademark everywhere in the world
00:16:46and which made all other moving pictures look like they were standing still.
00:17:26So Fatty and Mabel are rescued in this happiest of happy endings,
00:17:31which proves that true love will always triumph thanks to man's best friend, the dog.
00:17:39The villain is Wallace Beery, years before he became one of America's most beloved stars.
00:17:45The little heroine is Gloria Swanson, making her Hollywood debut in this hit comedy of 1917.
00:17:51The equally little hero is Bobby Vernon.
00:17:57Gloria, an heiress, loves Bobby, but she's in the clutches of her crooked guardian, Wicked Wallace.
00:18:03With his equally wicked sister, Beery receives word that the auditors are coming.
00:18:07It's Prison Boz on Wess.
00:18:12By the night of the Grand Ball, Beery has hatched his dastardly plot.
00:18:17Bobby has been stolen away from Gloria by Beery's bouncing sister,
00:18:21who is a vampire of classic proportions.
00:18:24Once Sis marries Bobby, Boz figures, he can grab off Gloria,
00:18:27and a wife can't testify against her husband.
00:18:36While in a secluded corner, Wally works his wicked wiles,
00:18:41Sis and Bobby go two-stepping in society.
00:19:08And Gloria was to become America's top box office star.
00:19:11For Wally, however, the pinnacle of success lay 15 years in the future.
00:19:17But in the meanwhile, Sis has a headlock on Bobby and is bound for the altar.
00:19:22Act fast, Gloria, or your love will be gone with the wind.
00:19:36At Keystone, when it stormed, it stormed.
00:19:47Gloria searches for Bobby.
00:19:55Wallace searches for Gloria.
00:19:57There are ways to stop even a woman from talking.
00:20:03Dawn's early light finds the groom still ungroomed.
00:20:06Arms vanish, and so have Sis's chances.
00:20:10But Beery's got Gloria.
00:20:11Hey, he sneaks, you can tell your story to the angels.
00:20:16The express is due, and she's sure to catch it in the middle of the morning.
00:20:23Gloria has one chance.
00:20:25She'll summon her pet Teddy, the famous Keystone Dog.
00:20:36Who could have guessed that this tiny girl chained to the tracks
00:20:40was to become the most glamorous of stars
00:20:43in that most glamorous of places, Hollywood,
00:20:46in that most glamorous of times, the 20s.
00:20:56He is pleased for help by dog mail.
00:20:59The least hasn't increased the postal rate,
00:21:01and they're off in a mad race against the onrushing train.
00:21:21While Bobby makes love, Teddy takes action.
00:21:25In the old melodramas, if it weren't for dogs,
00:21:27there wouldn't have been a hero unless.
00:21:45Gloria emerges as clean as if they kept a washroom under a cowcatcher,
00:21:50while Teddy wrap-jobbed by tracking down the villain.
00:22:01Teddy gets Wally, Gloria gets Bobby,
00:22:05Sis gets Jilted.
00:22:07So ends our story,
00:22:09as these happy lovers of the good old days at Keystone
00:22:12mount the locomotive and toot off into memory.
00:22:33High on a sheer cliff appears the second of silent comedy's
00:22:37three completely original clowns.
00:22:39White-faced Harry Langdon,
00:22:41the immortal, trustful baby in a wicked, wised-up world.
00:23:05In this Mack-Sennett comedy of 1924,
00:23:08Harry and Alice Day are blissful newlyweds
00:23:11sharing their first dish at the sink.
00:23:15Ah, thinks Harry,
00:23:16that must be the new cook.
00:23:18And the new cook is who it is.
00:23:20Angle Iron Annie,
00:23:21formerly pastry chef on Devil's Island,
00:23:23played by Louise Carver.
00:23:27Annie growls,
00:23:28where's the kitchen?
00:23:39After dinner,
00:23:40Annie,
00:23:41drawing softly on her fish hair perfecto,
00:23:43puts away the dishes.
00:23:55Hollywood used to ask,
00:23:57who will replace Harry Langdon?
00:23:59In the quarter century since his passing,
00:24:01answer has become clear.
00:24:03Nobody.
00:24:04Nobody.
00:24:22Into this happy home pops a visitor,
00:24:25Homer Hardshake,
00:24:26a long-absent school chum,
00:24:28who founded a successful career
00:24:29by stealing sandwiches out of Harry's lunch box.
00:24:44Homer snuggles in on Harry's wife.
00:24:47And where's Harry?
00:24:48By providing the music,
00:24:50of course.
00:24:59It's Annie's boyfriend.
00:25:00Come on over, says Annie.
00:25:02We'll dance here.
00:25:07Harry, on a suicide mission,
00:25:09prepares to fire the cook.
00:25:11Langdon rose rapidly to stardom.
00:25:13Then, at the height of his career,
00:25:15he turned, in films directed by himself,
00:25:17to a new, strange, off-beat kind of comedy,
00:25:21and even despair.
00:25:22It was like a trumpeter
00:25:24reaching for a celestial high note
00:25:26somewhere beyond human range.
00:25:28Audiences stopped laughing,
00:25:30and the little fellow slid into oblivion.
00:26:02Next morning,
00:26:03The second attack.
00:26:22Annie quits. She wasn't appreciated.
00:26:26Harry returns loaded down with household necessities, including a new cook.
00:26:31Fifi La Fluff, a kitchen slavie, played by Madeline Herlock.
00:26:38I picked her myself, says Harry.
00:26:41Oh my, purrs Fifi, you didn't tell me you were married.
00:27:07Get me the poor dear slippers, orders Fifi.
00:27:14Boy, she's good, whispers Harry.
00:27:20It's a stormy night outside, and in.
00:27:23Fortune-telling Fifi sees dark happenings ahead.
00:27:27Meanwhile, sneaky Homer tells Alice that Harry was the eighth grade's worst playboy.
00:27:53Fifi switches to reading Harry's palm.
00:27:55He never had it so good.
00:28:00Alice asks Harry for a drink of water.
00:28:02And where's the water?
00:28:03Why, it's across that dark, spooky dining room, in that dark, spooky kitchen.
00:28:11Fifi says goodnight, while Homer works to get Alice into his pudgy clutches.
00:28:29Did you ever have the feeling that you weren't entirely alone?
00:28:37The End
00:28:47THE END
00:29:08THE END
00:29:45Go back and get them, says Homer. I'll stay here and protect your wife.
00:29:52In his three years with Sennett, Langdon created dozens of short masterpieces, most of which are forever lost.
00:29:59The film you are watching had already begun to decompose when it was copied barely in time to save it
00:30:05from extinction.
00:30:14One better expressed the spirit of silent comedy than the hesitant, wistful Langdon,
00:30:19who, as one critic put it, looked as if he wore diapers under his pants and had the face of
00:30:26a baby dope feed.
00:30:29Enter wife and chum to witness the worst.
00:30:33So, says Alice, this is why you scared us into staying downstairs.
00:30:45For many a comedy fan, one of life's long-vanished pleasures is the sight of Langdon in bird-like panic,
00:30:53his hands full of swooning femininity.
00:31:02The END
00:31:02The END
00:31:24It's most annoying to have someone read over your shoulder.
00:31:34Another note.
00:31:35These must be the ghosts of departed mailmen.
00:31:38Your wife is about to leave the house with a dangerous criminal.
00:31:42Signed, The Tall Dark Man.
00:32:04Sure enough, Homer has convinced Alice of Harry's unfaithfulness and is about to take her away from it all when,
00:32:11wham!
00:32:18The mystery explained.
00:32:21Homer is really Willie, who's Dan, who's Sam, who's Melvin, the international criminal.
00:32:27As for Fifi, she's really Yvette, who's Babette, who's Lorent, who's Sophie of the Secret Service.
00:32:46An exalted figure of the early 1920s was the inventor,
00:32:50who, within a few years, had brought the average man such wonders as the automobile, the motion picture, and the
00:32:56wireless radio.
00:32:58To these achievements, Hollywood added the feather alarm clock.
00:33:01Its creator, the misfit genius Snub Pollard, a puller of strings in a world that was to go in for
00:33:09push buttons.
00:33:24Since this Hal Roach comedy was filmed, we've filled our kitchens with gadgets.
00:33:29But no housewife today can make breakfast as slick and quick as Snub could back in 1923.
00:33:56This inventive picture, entitled It's a Gift, represented Pollard's finest moment,
00:34:02for soon new stars were to rise on the Roach lot, and Snub began the long spiral down.
00:34:09Today, all too few remember the brash little fellow with the Kaiser Wilhelm mustache worn upside down.
00:34:16The mailman arrives.
00:34:18Although regular airmail service was as yet unknown, all mail entered the Pollard house by air.
00:34:24It's a letter from the Onion Oil Company, asking an immediate demonstration of Pollard's new super substitute for gasoline.
00:34:32Snub gets dressed and straightens his room in exactly 30 seconds.
00:34:36Count them.
00:34:46Snub gets dressed and straightens his room in exactly 30 seconds.
00:34:47The mailman arrives.
00:34:50The mailman arrives.
00:34:51The mailman arrives.
00:34:52The mailman arrives.
00:34:52The mailman arrives.
00:34:52The mailman arrives.
00:34:53The mailman arrives.
00:34:54The mailman arrives.
00:34:54The mailman arrives.
00:34:55The mailman arrives.
00:34:55The mailman arrives.
00:34:55The mailman arrives.
00:34:56The mailman arrives.
00:34:56The mailman arrives.
00:34:59The mailman arrives.
00:35:12With a flick of the finger, Snub transforms garbage can into garage.
00:35:21Is your new car too long for your garage?
00:35:24Does it cost too much to run?
00:35:26Is it too big to park?
00:35:28Snub had all those problems licked back in the days when Harding was president.
00:35:34Oh, come with me, we'll travel far.
00:35:37Come with me in my magnet car.
00:35:40No gas to buy, no mechanics to see.
00:35:44The very last word in economy.
00:36:24In the park lake, a man is drowning.
00:36:26When on to the scene, Glide Snub.
00:36:29As the victim struggles, Pollard unveils his new secret weapon against Davy Jones.
00:36:35A pair of shoes for walking on water.
00:36:38It's an awe-inspiring moment.
00:36:40The policeman bonds the shoes.
00:36:42The crowd is hushed.
00:36:44Pollard makes a few last-minute adjustments.
00:36:46Then, a step into history.
00:36:51Oh, well, back to the old drawing board.
00:37:18Oh, well, back to the old drawing board.
00:37:28Snub pulls up before the Onion Oil Company.
00:37:30The board of directors hastens to greet him.
00:37:33If Pollard's gasoline substitute proves successful,
00:37:36the only use for petroleum will be to grease pigs at county fairs.
00:37:41The finest cars 1923 had to offer have been assembled for the test.
00:37:46Snub passes around eyedroppers,
00:37:48then proudly produces a single test tube containing his miracle fluid,
00:37:53Moose, which is zoom spelled backwards.
00:37:55One drop for ordinary cars, says Snub.
00:37:58A half drop for flivers.
00:38:02A drop of Moose in every motor.
00:38:05An oil tycoon behind every wheel.
00:38:07Can Pollard's elixir possibly be powerful enough?
00:38:11Powerful enough?
00:38:12Goodness gracious.
00:38:14Snub, you made the stuff too strong.
00:38:26Snub's dreams of glory, gone with a bang.
00:38:47Well, that winds up that experiment.
00:38:51Undaunted, Snub Pollard scoots back among the forgotten
00:38:55in one of the most graceful exits ever afforded a comedian.
00:39:06Straight out of the roaring 20s drive two drugstore cowboys
00:39:10and their flapper girlfriends.
00:39:12This Hal Roach comedy of 1928 was called
00:39:15A Pair of Tights,
00:39:17the tights being tightwads Stuart Irwin and Edgar Kennedy.
00:39:21Edgar is overjoyed when Marion Bryan suggests ice cream cones,
00:39:25just the thing to spoil their appetite for dinner.
00:39:34Yes, these were the 20s.
00:39:37An era of cloche hats,
00:39:39prohibition,
00:39:40the lost generation,
00:39:41and, just like today,
00:39:43no place to park.
00:39:45Notice how in this classic comedy,
00:39:47a few simple plot threads are woven into a tapestry of humor.
00:39:52One thread is the cock.
00:39:54Another is Marion and the ice cream.
00:40:13Edgar Kennedy,
00:40:14around since the movie's earliest days,
00:40:17was one of the original Keystone Cops.
00:40:19But he never caught the public's fancy until late in the 20s,
00:40:23when he developed his magnificent slow burn.
00:40:32Once again,
00:40:33The Cock.
00:40:34A Pair of Tights is that rarest and purest of silent comedies,
00:40:38one that tells its story completely visually,
00:40:41without the need of dialogue,
00:40:43titles,
00:40:43or a single word of explanation.
00:40:45Such comedies soared above the language barrier,
00:40:49and carried laughter from America everywhere on earth.
00:40:56True, we've had short skirts since then,
00:40:59but never skirts so delightfully short,
00:41:02nor girls so cute,
00:41:04as in the breezy 20s.
00:41:27As in the breezy 20s.
00:41:41As in the breezy 20s.
00:42:02Even the理 of the night-to-olted bathroom
00:42:46Enter a new character, the fresh kid.
00:43:02Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:43:55Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:44:04Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:44:26Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:44:49I'll handle this, says the girlfriend.
00:44:51She's Anita Garvin, whom some of you may remember as the gal who sat on the pie in the golden
00:44:56age of comedy.
00:44:57Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:44:59Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:45:05Hey, Dad, throw me another nickel.
00:46:14Edgar's face beautifully reflects the shifting tide of battle.
00:46:17No little shrimp is going to smack his girl around.
00:46:53No little shrimp is going to smack his girl around.
00:47:22No little shrimp is going to smack his girl around.
00:47:26No little shrimp is going to smack his girl around.
00:48:23No little shrimp is going to smack his girl around.
00:48:41From behind steel bars, a boy hears those old familiar words of love from the girl of his dreams.
00:48:47Make good or don't bother to come around.
00:48:49The boy is Buster Keaton, the third of the three great and completely original comedy talents to rise in splendor
00:48:57during comedy's golden age.
00:48:59Chaplin was the tramp.
00:49:01Langdon was the baby.
00:49:02Keaton was the great stone face around whose impassive figure mad havoc roared like debris around the dead eye of
00:49:10a hurricane.
00:49:12Gentle, helpful, gentle, gentle, helpful Buster was always meeting up with the unappreciative oaths of life.
00:49:18His revenge was usually swift and sardonic, but it seemed to happen mainly by chance.
00:49:24From Mark Twain to Will Rogers, America has had many dry wits whose humor sprang from words.
00:49:30Buster Keaton remains its only dry, visual comedian.
00:49:37á
00:50:03÷
00:50:04The most mechanically inventive of all comedians, Keaton had for every problem a solution completely insane, yet somehow practical.
00:50:42The most mechanically inventive of all comedians, Keaton had for the most mechanically inventive of all comedians.
00:51:03The day of the annual Policeman's Parade.
00:51:05The mayor and his daughter, look it's Buster's girlfriend, preside from the reviewing stand.
00:51:11Now into those brave ranks of marching blue, an added starter.
00:51:36The mayor and his daughter, look it's Buster's girlfriend.
00:52:03The mayor looks for a light.
00:52:04This relic of the early 20s lets go with a homemade bomb.
00:52:08Through everything, in the words of James Agee, greatest of movie critics, Keaton carried a face as still and as
00:52:17sad as a daguerreotype.
00:52:25The mayor and his daughter, look it's Buster's girlfriend.
00:52:51My, says Buster's client, do you suppose anything could have happened to our furniture?
00:52:56Well, he continues, can't wait any longer, got to go to work.
00:53:00Another cop.
00:53:27The mayor balls out his orders to the chief, the proudest police force in all the land has but a
00:53:32single mission, get Buster.
00:53:35Keaton began his career at the age of three as one of the three Keatons, a burlesque acrobatic act in
00:53:42which his mother and dad attached a handle to the youngster and threw him around the stage like a human
00:53:47medicine ball.
00:53:48Thanks to this airborne childhood, he brought to the silent screen the talents of both acrobat and clown.
00:54:37That's queer, muses Buster's client.
00:54:40That pile of smashed up junk looks just like my furniture.
00:54:43Ha ha ha!
00:54:48Ha ha ha!
00:54:51Ha ha ha!
00:54:53Ha ha!
00:55:05Ha ha ha!
00:55:07Oh, my God.
00:55:37Oh, my God.
00:56:07Oh, my God.
00:56:39Oh, my God.
00:57:06Oh, my God.
00:57:13Summing up all the lack of understanding with which woman has greeted man's efforts since time's beginning, Buster's girl gives
00:57:22him the fisheye.
00:57:35From out of a white wilderness, where neath northern lights, men muck for gold, mush is a mishmash of muskies.
00:57:42In 1924, Hollywood embarked on a cycle of far north melodramas.
00:57:47And soon, who should be galumping across the frozen wastes but that master of sledgehammer satire, Ben Turpin.
00:57:54Here, Ben portrays Nudnik of the North, the only prospector of 98 flat on his back.
00:58:20North of 57, Lord Preservers, what a pickle.
00:58:23And what a free plug.
00:58:26The weary prospector collapses.
00:58:29Then, in the unearthly stillness, weird happenings.
00:58:37Now, what would you expect to emerge from those igloos?
00:58:39If this were a modern picture, it would be monsters.
00:58:43In 1912, the Senate girls brought cheesecake to the screen and popularized the one-piece bathing suit.
00:58:49From their ranks rose such stars as Gloria Swanson, Phyllis Haver, Phoebe Daniels, Sally Eilers, and Marie Prevost.
00:58:57Names that brightened a time when those of us who are old were young.
00:59:02And those of us who are young had not yet been born.
00:59:32In slapstick, as in life.
00:59:35For every sweet dream, there's bound to be a rude awakening.
00:59:39And so it is that Ben Turpin bows out of our picture, obeying a prime rule of silent screen comedians.
00:59:47Exit, running.
00:59:49Thirty years later, Max Sennett, the old master himself, was to look back at his wacky world of old and
00:59:55wonder.
00:59:56What has happened to laughter?
00:59:59There used to be so much of it.
01:00:03It was Max Sennett who polished to perfection the chase, an art form which belongs exclusively to the motion picture
01:00:10camera,
01:00:10with its unique ability to speed up or slow down life and to banish all barriers of time and space.
01:00:16In this surrealistic world of careening objects, it mattered little who was chasing whom and why,
01:00:23as long as the pace never faltered and the imagination never flashed.
01:00:36The End
01:00:40The End
01:00:40The End
01:00:42The End
01:00:42The End
01:00:44The End
01:00:44The End
01:00:47The End
01:00:48The End
01:00:50The End
01:00:51The End
01:00:53The End
01:00:53The End
01:00:56The End
01:00:56The End
01:01:06The End
01:01:06The End
01:01:26Perhaps the funniest sight gags were those which might almost really happen,
01:01:30like Billy Bavan pushing his broken down jalopy and innocently picking up every other car along the curb.
01:01:37Goodness, says Billy, who never looked where he was going.
01:01:40My car is getting heavier and heavier.
01:01:44This episode, incidentally, was created by a Max Sennett gag writer named Frank Capra, later to win three Academy Awards
01:01:50as a director.
01:01:51It's a fine example of how silent screen comedy was constructed to progress from titter to yowl to belly laugh
01:01:58to bopple.
01:02:15The End
01:02:16The End
01:02:16The End
01:02:23The End
01:02:48Another Sennett sight gag favorite was the comedy of surprise, a delightful form of humor.
01:02:54as rare today as a celluloid collar.
01:02:57In this example, the peeper is Billy Bavan, the peeped upon Madeline Herlock, one of the loveliest of the Senate
01:03:04girls.
01:03:05The End
01:03:06The End
01:03:07The End
01:03:07The End
01:03:10The End
01:03:10The End
01:03:12The End
01:03:12The End
01:03:19The End
01:03:20The End
01:03:29The End
01:03:30The End
01:03:40The End
01:03:41The End
01:03:41The End
01:03:41The End
01:03:43The End
01:03:47The End
01:03:55Help, cries Billy.
01:03:59Drop your nickel, says the operator.
01:04:29In charge is Ruth Hyatt with a secret paper.
01:04:32Behind comes Kewpie Morgan, the arch-villain.
01:04:35At stake is a plan for making clam chowder out of codfish hens.
01:04:39A priceless formula that enemy powers will stop at nothing to possess.
01:04:43The stage is set for another Mac Senate chase.
01:04:47Billy has climbed out of many a bedroom window, but never before in the cause of clam chowder.
01:05:07The stage is set for another Mac.
01:05:35Billy's friend Andy Clyde runs for help to the most famous police force of them all.
01:05:41Crafty Mac Senate knew that the deflation of authority and dignity drew the biggest laughs.
01:05:46And that the old-time policeman was the symbol of authority and dignity.
01:05:51His creation, combining the greatest of zeal with the utmost in incompetence,
01:05:55became immortal.
01:05:57The Keystone Cox.
01:05:58The Keystone Cox.
01:05:59The Keystone Cox.
01:06:28Oh, my God.
01:06:56Oh, my God.
01:07:27Oh, my God.
01:07:28But that was after Oliver Hardy could no longer hear the applause.
01:07:32In 1929, Laurel and Hardy, portraying Christmas tree salesmen in sunny California,
01:07:38bumbled head on into Jimmy Finlayson,
01:07:41a canny Scott comedian who looked eternally like he'd been weaned on a pickle.
01:07:45The result was a little film called Big Business, regarded today as one of the comedy classics of the silent
01:07:52screen.
01:08:03Big Business was made by some of the finest talents Hollywood has known.
01:08:07Its supervising director was Leo McCary, who went on to win an Academy Award for The Awful Truth,
01:08:13and two Academy Awards for writing and directing Going My Way.
01:08:18Its cameraman was two-time Academy Award winner George Stevens,
01:08:22later to direct such masterpieces as A Place in the Sun,
01:08:26Chain, Giant, and The Diary of Anne Frank.
01:08:30With the unalterable force of Greek tragedy,
01:08:33Big Business moves from misunderstanding to quarrel,
01:08:36to spat,
01:08:37to fight,
01:08:37to battle,
01:08:38to campaign,
01:08:39to war,
01:08:40to Armageddon.
01:08:42Its comedy is wild,
01:08:44yet so deep is its understanding of man's foolish ferocity,
01:08:47and so firm its contact with logic and reality,
01:08:50that it leaves the spectator with the uneasy feeling
01:08:53that not only could all this happen,
01:08:56it could happen to him.
01:09:02The Diary of Anne Frank and The Diary of Anne Frank
01:09:03The Diary of Anne Frank
01:09:34The Diary of Anne Frank
01:09:35The Diary of Anne Frank
01:10:10The Diary of Anne Frank
01:10:10The Diary of Anne Frank
01:10:28Oh, my God.
01:11:05Thank goodness a policeman to put an end to this madness.
01:11:20Cautiously, the arm of the law sizes up the situation.
01:11:27Oh, my God.
01:12:00The first rule of modern policemanship.
01:12:03Make a complete report.
01:12:04Oh, my God.
01:12:07Oh, my God.
01:12:17Oh, my God.
01:12:21Oh, my God.
01:12:22I don't know.
01:12:55I don't know.
01:13:26I don't know.
01:13:58I don't know.
01:14:34I don't know.
01:14:36I don't know.
01:15:07The law takes firm command.
01:15:09Now, says the cop, who started all this?
01:15:41No, says the cop, who started all this?
01:15:43It was all a misunderstanding, ball cop.
01:15:46Make up and be friends.
01:15:48The characters, Laura, they were bumbling, accident-prone incompetence upon who havoc settled at the simplest act.
01:15:54Beneath this, among others, were layers of dawn's dignity, hopeless heroism, and wistful sadness, with deepest of all ended the
01:16:04concert.
01:16:04And the world is beginning to realize how much love, fat Oliver, and skin-stay.
01:16:16So ends our visit to the era of the great silent clowns, who mass-produced laughter and happiness, and who
01:16:24passed into oblivion just before the years when the world needed them most.
01:16:30Please notice the people K of the darkness.
01:16:33Take care.
01:16:33Bye.
01:16:38Bye.
01:16:39Bye.
01:16:42Bye.
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