Classic movie buffs in NYC get a treat on Friday evening: a program of silent comedies, curated by Nelson Hughes and rescued from decades in the cinematic Twilight Zone by painstaking restoration work from The Library of Congress.
On the program: a 1916 Plump & Runt 2-reeler co-starring a youthful yet rotund Oliver Hardy with Billy Ruge, more than a decade before Hardy teamed with Stan Laurel at the Hal Roach Studio. This was just one of dozens of films Hardy appeared in during his years working in Jacksonville, FLA for the Vim Comedy Company.
There will also be films starring the amazingly unsympathetic rapscallion Billie Ritchie and the World War I era and 1920's Queen of Slapstick, the hilarious Alice Howell.
Having been lost films until recently, these have not seen by a theatrical audience in over 100 years. Special guest Steve Massa, author of Slapstick Divas and Lame Brains And Lunatics: The Good, The Bad And The Forgotten Of Silent Comedy, will tell the audience more about the films, as well as ongoing efforts by The Library of Congress to preserve them.
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