A NIGHT AT THE SHOW (1915): Charlie Chaplin, while finishing out his Essanay contract in L.A., made this little piece about comic mishaps during a night out at the theater. He even plays a dual role in which at one point he dumps drinks from the balcony onto himself below.
GET OUT AND GET UNDER (1920): Harold Lloyd in this movie I saw last year at the same place. Here's what I said then:
Harold Lloyd is late for his big amateur stage role. No problem, he has his beloved automobile. Problem is, stuff keeps getting in his way. Stuff like arguing with a neighbor, the car stalling, and lots of police chases. But if he doesn't get there in time, his rival will step into the role of the masked prince and he'll lose his girlfriend (Mildred Davis, his future wife).
Yeah, that still works.
And then an intermission....
And back to the show. By the way, note the theater theme.
THE PLAYHOUSE (1921): Buster Keaton in an amazing multiple-role tour de force (impressive even if you don't think about how all effects were done in camera, even more amazing when you do think about it), where he plays all the roles in a theater production. And then he wakes up from that nightmare, and he's in the theater. Now with just one role, but wackiness still ensues.
YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN' (1928): Laurel and Hardy as lousy musicians (they don't play by ear or by reading music, they play by brute force) in an orchestra. They get fired, try to survive as street performers, and get into all sorts of hilarious trouble.
So that was last Saturday at Niles. Coming up this weekend:
David Shepard is in town, and Friday night we get a sneak peek at the upcoming DVD release of Chaplin at Keystone, with 7 shorts from his years working for Mack Sennet.
Saturday we have the usual Saturday night at the movies, featuring the 1927 original version of CHICAGO.
And Sunday, David Shepard is still in town and showing some rare not-on-DVD talkies from his collection. Should be fun.
Total Running Time: 95 minutes
My Total Minutes: 208,475
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