Early 20th century comedy - silent movies

I am a big fan of early 20th century comedy, the old silent movies in particular. I think that many of today's acts owe a great deal to these early pioneers. In particular Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and most things from the Mack Sennett Studios, although for some reason I am not a great fan of Charlie Chaplin.

There we literally hundreds of these made each year. Now I appreciate that some of the material will have been lost/destroyed but surely there must be shedloads to show and yet it rarely is shown.

Are today's audiences too sophisticated to appreciate this type of comedy, or is it just not good enough?

Silent films can be difficult to watch but I agree that there were some great movies. I really like Harold Lloyd, so I was excited to find a photo of him that my grandfather took on a movie set during a visit to Hollywood in the early 1920s.

I love Harold Lloyd. They used to occasionally show his films and some Laurel and Hardys on TV when I was really young (before I started school) and I loved them.

Quote: zooo @ January 8 2012, 6:58 PM GMT

I love Harold Lloyd. They used to occasionally show his films and some Laurel and Hardys on TV when I was really young (before I started school) and I loved them.

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Same here.

Quote: smc4761 @ January 8 2012, 6:43 PM GMT

I am a big fan of early 20th century comedy, the old silent movies in particular. I think that many of today's acts owe a great deal to these early pioneers. In particular Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, and most things from the Mack Sennett Studios, although for some reason I am not a great fan of Charlie Chaplin.

There we literally hundreds of these made each year. Now I appreciate that some of the material will have been lost/destroyed but surely there must be shedloads to show and yet it rarely is shown.

Are today's audiences too sophisticated to appreciate this type of comedy, or is it just not good enough?

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As the old saying goes "Actions speak louder than words" and I think all comedy has to pay its respect to this era of film for what it did in comedy. Stand-up comedy and the telling of jokes have been around since the dawn. When the silent movie came out, it must have been really hard to think up original gags every time other than someone taking un unfortunate tumble to create some laughs. How many times have we seen the gag where the guy is moving around in front of a mirror.... only it's not a mirror and his reflection is the very person he's trying to catch (one of my favourite gags even 100 years on)? This comedy was very clever for its day, but as soon as film evolved into sound the age old telling of jokes was always going to take over.

Like Charlie Chaplin or not, he always said that his character should never speak and he stood by the silent movie till the end.

Mr Bean is based primarily on silent comedy and that seemed to have went down well with current TV audiences. Anyone can appreciate silent comedy purely because it is solely visual and it seems to cross the generations

The film The Artist won the Oscar this year for Best Picture. Will people, perhaps even niche TV companies see a market for silent comedy? I mean there are only so many times you can watch Friends, OFAH, Porridge etc. That is no disrespect to these programmes they are/were funny the first 10 times around.

Have you tried the Three Stooges?

I have all of Laurel & Hardy's surviving films on DVD (accept for their final film Utopia which is a terrible film and quite upsetting to watch due to Stan and Ollie's physical frailty at the time).

The problem is getting silent films on DVD. Most of them (the big names: L&H, Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton) are widely available and have been released multiple times by different distributers. Unfortunately as a lot of the films are in the public domain, the difference in picture quality between releases is massive. From digitally remastered with a brand new score, to barely watchable with some random library music. It's not always easy to tell which is the quality release and which is the naff release.

There's never been a better time to watch silent movies thanks to digital clean up techniques and remastering them so they play at the right speed. Compared to the quality I experienced as a child they are a marvel to watch.

Did manage to get a great DVD of Buster Keaton's 'The General'. Great quality with a great new score by Joe Hisachi (he does the scores for a lot of the Studio Ghibli anime films). Double disc, the second has the 1965 fly on the wall documentary 'Buster Keaton Rides Again' featuring the making of his final silent short 'The Railrodder' (this film is also on as an extra). Glad I bought it when I did, it's down for £100.00 on amazon now.

I attended a film festival last weekend where three Laurel and Hardy silents were shown on the big screen (along with archive footage of them visiting Edinburgh) with an amazing live piano accompaniement. There were more laughs in that hour and a half than many recent comedy movies I've seen. I'd recommend the Laurel and Hardy DVD box set (size of a shoe box!) - many gems in there.

Bo.