For diehard classic movie fans, the love of comedy films produced in the silent era remains steadfast, no matter how old one gets. If silent comedy obsession is regarded as a malady, it remains a disease that cannot be cured. This is not lost upon the international fans of The Silent Comedy Watch Party on YouTube!
Silver screen comedy aficionados will be delighted not only by the recent release (on June 13) of two feature films starring the gifted actor-producer-comic Raymond Griffith, but by the success earlier this month of a Kickstarter for a Blu-ray retrospective devoted to the diminutive yet frequently hilarious Italian-born star of American slapstick comedies Monty Banks a.k.a. Mario Bianchi.
One of many things learned watching numerous movies from the silent era is that comic brilliance is not limited to the Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd trifecta, but actually extends to at least four or five tiers of super talented comedians and comediennes active in the World War I era and 1920's.
In spring 2022, wrote a blog post about a fundraiser for a Blu-ray devoted to the classic films of 1920's Paramount star Raymond Griffith. Griffith's essential screen persona is an always indefatigable and unflappable "Mr. Cool."
On the first day of the Kickstarter, the funding goal of $11,500 was surpassed, so the video restoration process commenced and now two of Raymond Griffith's Paramount features, Paths To Paradise (1925) and You'd Be Surprised (1926), are available on Blu-ray.
Undercrank Productions. much celebrated by Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, has done it again with this Raymond Griffith retrospective.
The restorations were sourced from 35mm nitrate and safety preservation materials preserved by the Library of Congress.
Along with the new 2K digital scans of archival 35mm materials preserved by the Library of Congress, the set also contains a 12-minute video essay, Raymond Griffith: Silent Comedy’s Silk-Hatted Secret, by Crystal Kui and Steve Massa.
The Wikipedia entry on Raymond Griffith adds: "His film debut was for the L-KO Kompany. Many of his starring feature films have long since been lost, but probably the best known of his films today is Hands Up! (1926), a Civil War comedy feature directed by Clarence G. Badger, and co-starring Mack Swain, which was entered into the National Film Registry in 2005.
Also considered a classic is Badger's Paths to Paradise, a caper film that is in all circulating prints missing its final reel. Like many silent comedians, he had a traditional costume; his was a top hat, white tie and tails, often augmented by a cape and/or walking stick. The coming of sound ended Griffith's acting career, but he did have one memorable role in a motion picture before retiring from the screen, playing a French soldier killed by Lew Ayres in the 1930 Lewis Milestone film All Quiet on the Western Front. He then segued into a writing/producing career at Twentieth Century Fox."
First learned about Raymond Griffith, ubiquitous stock company member in dozens of L-Ko and Mack Sennett comedies, in Leonard Maltin's outstanding book The Great Movie Comedians. More recently, I much enjoyed reading Matthew Ross' article on "the silk hat comedian," The Sheik Of Silent Comedy, from his comedy-centric classic movie website The Lost Laugh.
The dapper Griffith, always wearing a top hat and cape with unshakable aplomb, is a very funny and unique talent. Much look forward to watching the suave and debonair "silk hat slicker" in Paths To Paradise and You'd Be Surprised.
While he never went away, especially in the hearts of classic movie buffs and devotees of Fractured Fairy Tales, the great Edward Everett Horton is back as of today - and always a favorite at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
Not only is Eddie back, he's back on DVD as a headliner in silent movies. Yes, we kid you not, silents. The new 2-DVD set, mastered from Library of Congress 35mm prints, can be purchased here.
As fate would have it, Horton starred in a series of very funny 2-reel comedies produced for Paramount Pictures by Harold Lloyd's company, Hollywood Productions. He's incredibly funny in these silents and you can practically hear the mutterings of his character. No surprise that Mr. Horton would subsequently be a riot as a prolific comic character actor in countless 1930's - 1940's movies and TV shows through the 1960's.
Ben Model's Undercrank Productions, along with Steve Stanchfield's Thunderbean Video (now shipping its new Rainbow Parade cartoons compilation) and Tommy Stathes' Cartoons On Film our favorite DIY producers of classic stuff on Blu-ray and DVD, has officially released Edward Everett Horton: 8 Silent Comedies, featuring hilarious entries from this series. This release was the result of a successful Kickstarter last year, which we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog were delighted to contribute to.
Mr. Horton has his legion of fans, so it did not take long for the original Kickstarter to meet and exceed its goal.
These times we live in, while treacherous in many ways, are filled with miracles. One is long-lost films getting transferred via state-of-the-art equipment to DVD.
The annual Mostly Lost film identification workshops at The Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA are a magnet for classic movie scholars, archivists and students interested in film preservation. The Library of Congress began hosting the free three-day workshops identifying film rarities starting in 2012. The workshop is open to the public and screens movies from all genres which, as the press release described, are "unidentified, under-identified or misidentified."
This DVD features eleven movie rarities which were identified during the Mostly Lost conferences held in 2012-2014 and preserved by the Library of Congress. Among them: Ventriloquist, a 1927 short subject featuring the vaudeville act of William Frawley - yes, THAT William Frawley, a.k.a. Fred Mertz.
There are also silent comedies featuring slapstick mainstays Snub Pollard, Hank Mann, Monty Banks, Jimmie Adams, George Ovey and Bud Duncan. The Found at "Mostly Lost" - 11 Rare Uncirculated films from 1914-1940 treasures from the Library of Congress' vaults include:
Silent films on the disc feature new piano scores by silent film accompanists Philip Carli, Ben Model and Andrew Simpson, the guys who tickle the ivories with panache at all Mostly Lost screenings.
Much enjoyed reading the enthusiastic Trav S.D. review of Found at "Mostly Lost" and will enjoy watching the DVD.
"In the world of Musty Suffer, anything can and does happen, and it’s not always pretty—to the cognoscenti, that is the beauty of these films: they are not pretty." Ben Robinson
"Volume 2 gives us another visit to the hilarious and surreal world that Musty barely survives in. Either you're laughing at his antics, or your jaw is dropping in suspended disbelief at his predicaments. Frank Commins
"Take one hapless tramp who dreams of bathing in bathtubs of beer, suffers from tenacious hookworms, and regularly goes reconstructive surgery with blunt instruments but always lives to tell about it in the next episode, and you have The Mishaps Of Musty Suffer."Steve Massa
Well, it took 97 years in limbo for the warped comic universe of goofball tramp Musty Suffer to make the journey from its original 1916-1917 run in movie theaters to a revival in a 2014 DVD release.
This first volume of Musty's mishaps turned out to be the first time these films have been available to be seen the general public after their theatrical release.
The Mishaps Of Musty Suffer series, produced by George Kleine for Essanay in 1916-1917, stars rubber-faced circus clown and Ziegfeld Follies performer Harry Watson, Jr.
The humor is original and highly unusual, with one foot planted firmly in the 19th century circus, with plenty of extra sawdust, and the other foot not-so-squarely into the most wacky, cartoony and surreal movie sight gags, looking forward to the wildly imaginative likes of such animators as Charley Bowers and especially that master of physical distortion gags, Tex Avery.
Watching The Mishaps Of Musty Suffer, besides recalling Terry Gilliam's animated abuse of 19th century photo cut-outs in quite a few Monty Python's Flying Circus shows, brings to mind a "face rearranging gag" from Avery's epic MGM cartoon Northwest Hounded Police, in which The Wolf (who, after at one point literally running off the very sprockets of the film) barges into a plastic surgeon's office and demands "Doc, you gotta get me a new face - YOU GOTTA GET ME A NEW FACE!" These films are decades apart, but, weirdly and with some serendipity, in the same comic spirit.
Hallelujah, there is a followup DVD release in 2015, now available via Amazon. That means more HD transfers of Musty's "greasepaint and surrealism" packed mishaps (a.k.a. "whirls"), preserved by The Library Of Congress, with new musical scores by Ben Model. None have been previously available on video.
The Mishaps Of Musty Suffer volume 2 features four more off-the-wall scenarios in which Musty Suffer works in an arcade and as a messenger boy, has his body and face repeatedly mangled in the hopes of getting a meal, and is gifted a pantomime horse by the itinerant Fairy Tramp for a business opportunity.
Also on the DVD are Bickel & Watson's first film from 1915, and a 1910 newsreel that contains footage of them as members of a clown band as well as of the legendary Bert Williams doing some of his famous boxing routine.
Showing Some Speed (1916) - 13 mins
Out of Order (1916) - 13 mins
Musty's Vacation (1916) - 13 mins
Strictly Private (1916) - 13 mins
Actors Fund Field Day (1910) - 5 mins
The Fixer (1915) - (1916) - 33 mins
Produced by Ben Model/Undercrank Productions
Curated by Steve Massa and Ben Model
97 mins - B&W - stereo
NTSC - region 0 (all-regions)
Meanwhile, Undercrank Productions, responsible for bringing Musty (and stylish slapstick farceur Marcel "Tweedy" Perez) back from the deep past have also launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to get the ball rolling on their next Accidentally Preserved DVD of very funny and VERY rare silent comedy films, thankfully still surviving due to 16mm prints struck long, long ago.
On the heels of the successful fundraiser mentioned here in the December 20th post - which met its goal yesterday, (congrats to Tommy and Andrew) - is this announcement from Ben Model, regarding the first DVD retrospective of the films directed by and starring the pioneering comedian-director-writer Marcel Perez, a.k.a. Robinet, Twede-Dan, Tweedy and Tweedledum. Back tracking a bit, there was a successful Kickstarter fundraiser to get this project, The Marcel Perez Collection, off the starting blocks earlier this year.
Monsieur Blogmeister, an incurable classic comedy aficionado, plugged the original fundraiser for The Marcel Perez Collection in his post on June 20
This fundraiser having met its goal, Ben Model has sent the following update: "Good news, everyone: the DVD of The Marcel Perez Collection and the companion book Marcel Perez: the International Mirth-Maker are finished!"
In short, the imaginative and prolific silent film artist Marcel Perez will, at long last, be represented on DVD in the first quarter of 2015, the official release taking place in February. Stay tuned for more details.
Currently scheduled to be on the DVD: the following 10 comedy shorts made between 1908 and 1921. Perez's Italian films (1911-1914), in which he stars as Robinet, will be seen in new digital scans of archival 35mm materials from the Desmet Collection of the EYE Film Institute (Netherlands).
The American Marcel Perez comedies will be transferred from archival 35mm prints preserved by the Library Of Congress.
In a silver screen universe that has, frankly, included, for every Chaplin or Keaton, a veritable brigade of truly terrible comics, the inventive and extremely versatile Perez (who also produced and directed serials, as well as other kinds of films outside the comedy genre) numbers among the all-time cinema greats.
Steve and Ben are also responsible for for several vintage film restorations on DVD preceding the Perez compilation, including The Mishaps Of Musty Suffer and two Accidentally Preserved collections of silent comedy rarities, unseen since their original theatrical release.
For more info, there was a detailed discussion of Perez and the difficulties finding details about his birthdate, arrival in the United States, comedienne/co-star Nilde Barrachi (a.k.a. Babette Perez and Nilde Babette), the circumstances behind his death, etc. on Nitrateville
The first cool fundraiser is for the new album by Scott Amendola, who has been one of the very best jazz drummers in the U.S. for quite a few years now. Here he is, tearing it up with the mighty and incendiary "three guitars and a drummer" jazz-rock band T.J. Kirk in 1994.
The Pledge Music campaign will raise the money for Scott to record his orchestral piece, Fade To Orange, previously performed in 2011 with two musicians who sound great in a wide variety of musical genres, guitarist Nels Cline and bassist Trevor Dunn - and the Oakland East Bay Symphony.
It will be recorded for the new album and remixed by Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto, John Dietrich, Mocean Worker and Beautiful Bells.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are happy to support any project Scott does. It's a slam dunk that the music will be tuneful, mellifluous, creative, original and at points will absolutely swing like mad. Señor Blogmeister saw the percussionist/bandleader/composer play - and brilliantly - lots of times in the 20th century with such stellar groups as The Charlie Hunter Trio and the Henry Mancini tribute band known as Oranj Symphonette, led by multi-instrumentalist and film buff Ralph Carney.
The second cool fundraiser is for the next DVD release by intrepid DIY film preservationists, historians and silver screen comedy experts Ben Model, producer of The Silent Clowns Film Series since its inception in 1997, and author Steve Massa. They're at it again with The Marcel Perez Collection, a new DVD of amazing silent comedy rarities, many unseen since their original release.
This is the first retrospective of the unorthodox, original, imaginative, very funny and at times very surreal films starring and directed by Madrid-born comedian Marcel Perez (1884-1929).
The films on the DVD will be mastered from archival 35mm prints and featuring new piano scores by Model.
Perez's Italian films (1911-1914), in which he stars as Robinet, will be seen in new digital scans of archival 35mm materials from the Desmet Collection of the EYE Film Institute (Netherlands).
The American Marcel Perez comedies will be transferred from archival 35mm prints preserved by the Library Of Congress. The box art will be created by graphic designer and silent film aficionado Marlene Weisman.
Currently scheduled to be on the DVD: the following 10 comedy shorts made between 1908 and 1921.
Assuming this fundraiser meets its goal (with 27 days to go, 97% of said goal has been made at this writing), the target date for the DVD release of "The Marcel Perez Collection" will be the end of October 2014.
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