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From the moment films were first produced, comedy has been a key feature of cinema. From just before the turn of the twentieth century until the early 1930s, audiences celebrated the brilliant humor of cinematic clowns who left their marks forever. We still remember—and laugh at—the hilarious antics of Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and many others. In 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies James Roots identifies the major comedic motion pictures produced in the first few decades of the twentieth century. With a lucid and lively style, Roots takes a look at more than 400 silent comedies and narrows the list to 100 that viewers should consider. Each entry includes cast and crew information, a synopsis, critical evaluation, and additional commentary—all to demonstrate why that particular film is essential viewing. The films range from 70 seconds to full-length features and even include some of the earliest produced films, starting in 1894. In addition to citing Hollywood’s finest, the book profiles comedies from around the world, including selections from the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Russia. More thanseventy silent comedians from Charlie Chaplin to Max Linder are represented in these selections, and the book celebrates such established classics as The General and Safety Last—as well as relatively obscure one-reelers. Including information about DVD availability, 100 Essential Silent Film Comedies is an invaluable resource that provides both scholars and general film fans a list of entertaining films to explore.
Examines the social and historical significance of women’s contributions to American silent film comedy. For many people the term "silent comedy" conjures up images of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Buster Keaton's Stoneface, or Harold Lloyd hanging precariously from the side of a skyscraper. Even people who have never seen a silent film can recognize these comedians at a glance. But what about the female comedians? Gale Henry, Louise Fazenda, Colleen Moore, Constance Talmadge—these and numerous others were wildly popular during the silent film era, appearing in countless motion pictures and earning top salaries, and yet their names have been almost entirely forgotten. As a consequence, recovering their history is all the more compelling given that they laid the foundation for generations of funny women, from Lucille Ball to Carol Burnett to Tina Fey. These women constitute an essential and neglected sector of film history, reflecting a turning point in women's social and political history. Their talent and brave spirit continues to be felt today, and Comic Venus: Women and Comedy in American Silent Film seeks to provide a better understanding of women's experiences in the early twentieth century and to better understand and appreciate the unruly and boundary-breaking women who have followed. The diversity and breadth of archival materials explored in Comic Venus illuminate the social and historical period of comediennes and silent film. In four sections, Kristen Anderson Wagner enumerates the relationship between women and comedy, beginning with the question of why historically women weren't seen as funny or couldn't possibly be funny in the public and male eye, a question that persists even today. Wagner delves into the idea of women's "delicate sensibilities," which presumably prevented them from being funny, and in chapter two traces ideas about feminine beauty and what a woman should express versus what these comedic women did express, as Wagner notes, "comediennes challenged the assumption that beauty was a fundamental component of ideal femininity." In chapter three, Wagner discusses how comediennes such as Clara Bow, Marie Dressler, and Colleen Moore used humor to gain recognition and power through performances of sexuality and desire. Women comedians presented "sexuality as fun and playful, suggesting that personal relationships could be fluid rather than stable." Chapter four examines silent comediennes' relationships to the modern world and argues that these women exemplified modernity and new womanhood. The final chapter of Comic Venus brings readers to understand comediennes and their impact on silent-era cinema, as well as their lasting influence on later generations of funny women. Comic Venus is the first book to explore the overlooked contributions made by comediennes in American silent film. Those with an interest in film and representations of femininity in comedy will be fascinated by the analytical connections and thoroughly researched histories of these women and their groundbreaking movements in comedy and stage.
Praised as the "best modern survey of the silent period" (New Republic), this indispensable history tells you everything you need to know about American silent film, from the nickelodeons in the early 1900s to the birth of the first "talkies" in the late 1920s. The author provides vivid descriptions of classic pictures such as The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Sunrise, The Covered Wagon, and Greed, and lucidly discusses their technical and artistic merits and weaknesses. He pays tribute to acknowledged masters like D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Lillian and Dorothy Gish, but he also gives ample attention to previously neglected yet equally gifted actors and directors. In addition, the book covers individual genres, such as the comedy, western gangster, and spectacle, and explores such essential but little-understood subjects as art direction, production design, lighting and camera techniques, and the art of the subtitle. Intended for all scholars, students, and lovers of film, this fascinating book, which features over 150 film stills, provides a rich and comprehensive overview of this unforgettable era in film history.
This illustrated compilation identifies people, studios, technical companies, and terms associated with silent film comedy from about 1890-1930. More than 300 entries are biographical, including actors, studio and other corporate executives, directors and other technical personnel, inventors, etc. These sketches usually include birth and death dates and a summary of the contributions of the person to the genre; some entries include a photograph, selected filmography, and movie-magazine excerpts. For the more than 100 entries on studios and companies there is a brief history, emphasizing the firm's contribution to the development of silent film comedy. The third category of entries is quite a miscellany, including Blacks in Silent Film Comedies, Edison Kinetogram (a bulletin announcing new Edison films), Keystone Kops, Nickelodeons.
The silent film era featured some of the most revered names of on-screen comic performance, from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks, and Laurel & Hardy. Besides these giants of cinema, however, there are other silent era performers—both leading actors and supporting players—who left an enduring legacy of laughter. In The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians, James Roots ranks the greatest performers based on a scorecard that measures each comic’s humor, timelessness, originality, and teamwork. Far more than just a listing, this is an idiosyncratic and entertaining review of the men and women who created the golden age of comedy. As a critic and deaf viewer, Roots brings a truly unique perspective to the evaluation of these performers and their work. He has viewed thousands of silent comedies and offers some assessments that run contrary to the standard list of performers. While many obvious names are placed in the top echelon, the author also champions performers who have been neglected, in part because their work has not been as visible. Each entry includes a filmography a scorecard an evaluation of the artist’s overall work an assessment of representative films DVD availability With the increased availability of films on DVD, as well as Internet access, more and more silent performers are being discovered by film fans. Supplemented by an appendix of comedians who missed the cut, as well as an annotated bibliography, The 100 Greatest Silent Film Comedians will be an invaluable resource to anyone wanting to know more about the brilliant entertainers of the silent era.
Illustrated with 440 rare movie scene shots, formal portraits, candid behind the scenes photos, film frame enlargements, trade magazine advertisements, lobby cards, stage photographs, artist's renderings and caricatures, and casting guide entries.
Well illustrated book on history of silent movies
Women explode out of chimneys and melt when sprayed with soda water. Feminist activists play practical jokes to lobby for voting rights, while overworked kitchen maids dismember their limbs to finish their chores on time. In early slapstick films with titles such as Saucy Sue, Mary Jane’s Mishap, Jane on Strike, and The Consequences of Feminism, comediennes exhibit the tensions between joyful laughter and gendered violence. Slapstick comedy often celebrates the exaggeration of make-believe injury. Unlike male clowns, however, these comic actresses use slapstick antics as forms of feminist protest. They spontaneously combust while doing housework, disappear and reappear when sexually assaulted, or transform into men by eating magic seeds—and their absurd metamorphoses evoke the real-life predicaments of female identity in a changing modern world. Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes reveals the gender politics of comedy and the comedic potentials of feminism through close consideration of hundreds of silent films. As Maggie Hennefeld argues, comedienne catastrophes provide disturbing but suggestive images for comprehending gendered social upheavals in the early twentieth century. At the same time, slapstick comediennes were crucial to the emergence of film language. Women’s flexible physicality offered filmmakers blank slates for experimenting with the visual and social potentials of cinema. Specters of Slapstick and Silent Film Comediennes poses major challenges to the foundations of our ideas about slapstick comedy and film history, showing how this combustible genre blows open age-old debates about laughter, society, and gender politics.
This film reference covers 646 silent motion pictures, starting with Eadweard Muybridge's initial motion photography experiments in 1877 and even including The Taxi Dancer (1996). Among the genres included are classics, dramas, Westerns, light comedies, documentaries and even poorly produced early pornography. Masterpieces such as Joan the Woman (1916), Intolerance (1916) and Faust (1926) can be found, as well as rare titles that have not received critical attention since their original releases. Each entry provides the most complete credits possible, a full description, critical commentary, and an evaluation of the film's unique place in motion picture history. Birth dates, death dates, and other facts are provided for the directors and players where available, with a selection of photographs of those individuals. The work is thoroughly indexed.
Harry Langdon was a silent screen comedian unlike any other. Slower in pace, more studied in movement, and quirkier in nature, Langdon challenged the comic norm by offering comedies that were frequently edgy and often surreal. After a successful run of short comedies with Mack Sennett, Langdon became his own producer at First National Pictures, making such features as Tramp Tramp Tramp, The Strong Man, and Long Pants before becoming his own director for Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble. In The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928), film historian James Neibaur examines Langdon's strange, fascinating work during the silent era, when he made landmark films that were often ahead of their time. Extensively reviewing the comedian's silent screen work film by film, Neibaur makes the case that Langdon should be accorded the same lofty status as his contemporaries: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With fascinating insights into the work of an under-appreciated artist, this book will be of interest to both fans and scholars of silent cinema.