Tillie's Punctured Romance (United Artists Pressbook, 1914)
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Mabel's Blunder
Mabel’s Blunder By Brent E. Walker Mabel Normand was the first major female comedy star in American motion pictures. She was also one of the first female directors in Hollywood, and one of the original principals in Mack Sennett’s pioneering Keystone Comedies. “Mabel’s Blunder” (1914), made two years after the formation of the Keystone Film Company, captures Normand’s talents both in front of and behind the camera. Born in Staten Island, New York in 1892, a teenage Normand modeled for “Gibson Girl” creator Charles Dana Gibson before entering motion pictures with Vitagraph in 1910. In the summer of 1911, she moved over to the Biograph company, where D.W. Griffith was making his mark as a pioneering film director. Griffith had already turned actresses such as Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford into major dramatic stars. Normand, however, was not as- signed to the dramas made by Griffith. Instead, she went to work in Biograph’s comedy unit, directed by an actor-turned-director named Mack Sennett. Normand’s first major film “The Diving Girl” (1911) brought her notice with nickelodeon audiences. A 1914 portrait of Mabel Normand looking Mabel quickly differentiated herself from the other uncharacteristically somber. Courtesy Library of Congress Biograph actresses of the period by her willingness Prints & Photographs Online Collection. to engage in slapstick antics and take pratfalls in the name of comedy. She also began a personal ro- to assign directorial control to each of his stars on mantic relationship with Mack Sennett that would their comedies, including Normand. Mabel directed have its ups and downs, and would eventually in- a number of her own films through the early months spire a Broadway musical titled “Mack and Mabel.” of 1914. -
My Wonderful World of Slapstick
THE THIS BOOK IS THE PROPERTY OF Georgia State Bo»r* of Education AN. PR,CLAun\;v eSupt of School* 150576 DECATUR -DeKALB LIBRARY REGIONAI SERVICE ROCKDALE COUNTY NEWTON COUNTY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from Media History Digital Library http://archive.org/details/mywonderfulworldOObust MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK MY WO/VDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK BUSTER KEATON WITH CHARLES SAMUELS 150576 DOVBLEW& COMPANY, lNC.,<k*D£H C(TYt HlW Yo*K DECATUR - DeKALB LIBRARY REGiOMA! $&KZ ROCKDALE COUNTY NEWTON COUNTY Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-5934 Copyright © i960 by Buster Keaton and Charles Samuels All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition J 6>o For Eleanor 1. THE THREE KEATONS 9 2. I BECOME A SOCIAL ISSUE 29 3. THE KEATONS INVADE ENGLAND 49 4. BACK HOME AGAIN IN GOD'S COUNTRY 65 5. ONE WAY TO GET INTO THE MOVIES 85 6. WHEN THE WORLD WAS OURS 107 7. BOFFOS BY MAN AND BEAST 123 8. THE DAY THE LAUGHTER STOPPED 145 9. MARRIAGE AND PROSPERITY SNEAK UP ON ME 163 10. MY $300,000 HOME AND SOME OTHER SEMI-TRIUMPHS 179 11. THE WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE 199 12. THE TALKIE REVOLUTION 217 13. THE CHAPTER I HATE TO WRITE 233 14. A PRATFALL CAN BE A BEAUTIFUL THING 249 15. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 267 THE THREE KeAtOnS Down through the years my face has been called a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, "a tragic mask." On the other hand that kindly critic, the late James Agee, described my face as ranking "almost with Lin- coln's as an early American archetype, it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful." I cant imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this, though I sure was pleased. -
New Findings and Perspectives Edited by Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, Lucia Tralli Researching Women in Silent Cinema New Findings and Perspectives
in Silent Cinema New Findings and Perspectives edited by Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, lucia Tralli RESEARCHING WOMEN IN SILENT CINEMA NEW FINDINGS AND PERSPECTIVES Edited by: Monica Dall’Asta Victoria Duckett Lucia Tralli Women and Screen Cultures Series editors: Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett ISSN 2283-6462 Women and Screen Cultures is a series of experimental digital books aimed to promote research and knowledge on the contribution of women to the cultural history of screen media. Published by the Department of the Arts at the University of Bologna, it is issued under the conditions of both open publishing and blind peer review. It will host collections, monographs, translations of open source archive materials, illustrated volumes, transcripts of conferences, and more. Proposals are welcomed for both disciplinary and multi-disciplinary contributions in the fields of film history and theory, television and media studies, visual studies, photography and new media. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ # 1 Researching Women in Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives Edited by: Monica Dall’Asta, Victoria Duckett, Lucia Tralli ISBN 9788898010103 2013. Published by the Department of Arts, University of Bologna in association with the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and Women and Film History International Graphic design: Lucia Tralli Researching Women in Silent Cinema: New Findings and Perspectives Peer Review Statement This publication has been edited through a blind peer review process. Papers from the Sixth Women and the Silent Screen Conference (University of Bologna, 2010), a biennial event sponsored by Women and Film History International, were read by the editors and then submitted to at least one anonymous reviewer. -
Nick Redfern – Shot Length Distributions in the Chaplin Keystones
Shot length distributions in the Chaplin Keystones Nick Redfern Abstract Cinemetrics provides an objective method by which the stylistic characteristics of a filmmaker may be identified. This study uses shot length distributions as an element of film style in order to analyse the films by five directors featuring Charles Chaplin for the Keystone Film Company. A total of 17 Keystone films are analysed – six directed by Chaplin himself, along with others directed by Henry Lehrman, George Nichols, Mabel Normand, and Mack Sennett. Shot length data was collected for each film and then combined to create data sets based on the studio style and for each director. The results show that for the distribution of shot lengths in Keystone films starring Chaplin (1) there is no significant difference between films directed Chaplin and the overall Keystone model; (2) there is no significant difference between Chaplin’s films and those of Lehrman, Nichols, and Sennett; (3) there is a significant difference between the films of Normand and the Keystone model but the effect size is small; and (4) there is a significant difference between Normand and the other Keystone filmmakers but the effect size of these differences is again small. This study shows that the distribution of shot lengths can be used to identify how the style of an individual filmmaker relates to a larger group style; and that, in the specific case of the Keystone Film Company, it is the studio style of fast- paced, slapstick comedy that determines the distribution of shot lengths with little variation present in the films of individual filmmakers. -
THE ANIMATED TRAMP Charlie Chaplin's Influence on American
THE ANIMATED TRAMP Charlie Chaplin’s Influence on American Animation By Nancy Beiman SLIDE 1: Joe Grant trading card of Chaplin and Mickey Mouse Charles Chaplin became an international star concurrently with the birth and development of the animated cartoon. His influence on the animation medium was immense and continues to this day. I will discuss how American character animators, past and present, have been inspired by Chaplin’s work. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (SLIDE 2) Jeffrey Vance described Chaplin as “the pioneer subject of today’s modern multimedia marketing and merchandising tactics”, 1 “(SLIDE 3). Charlie Chaplin” comic strips began in 1915 and it was a short step from comic strips to animation. (SLIDE 4) One of two animated Chaplin series was produced by Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan Studios in 1918-19. 2 Immediately after completing the Chaplin cartoons, (SLIDE 5) Otto Messmer created Felix the Cat who was, by 1925, the most popular animated character in America. Messmer, by his own admission, based Felix’s timing and distinctive pantomime acting on Chaplin’s. 3 But no other animators of the time followed Messmer’s lead. (SLIDE 6) Animator Shamus Culhane wrote that “Right through the transition from silent films to sound cartoons none of the producers of animation paid the slightest attention to… improvements in the quality of live action comedy. Trapped by the belief that animated cartoons should be a kind of moving comic strip, all the producers, (including Walt Disney) continued to turn out films that consisted of a loose story line that supported a group of slapstick gags which were often only vaguely related to the plot….The most astonishing thing is that Walt Disney took so long to decide to break the narrow confines of slapstick, because for several decades Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton had demonstrated the superiority of good pantomime.” 4 1 Jeffrey Vance, CHAPLIN: GENIUS OF THE CINEMA, p. -
I!Information
PAGE 4 UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKER—DETROIT, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1939 UNITED AUTOMOBILE WORKER The Upper Crust It’s A Great OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. Inti. Union, United Automobile Workers of America, affiliated with the ClO—Published weekly; System! yearly subscription to members 60c, to nonmembers $1 —Entered as 2d-class matter April 26. 1937 at the postoffiice at Detroit, By JOHN PAINE Mich, under the act of Aug 24. 1912. Federated Press Publication Office: 281 W. Grand Blvd, Detroit—Lafayette 79M -I! INFORMATION#. Mayor LaGuardia has warned New Yorkers of an impending water shortage. Why not a mu- MEMBERSHIP nicipal vineyard project? » • • Turkey wurst Sausage casing dealers have announced a new wiener, consist- ing of ground turkey meat to be served with cranberry sauce on a 37S 000 roll. Hope for distribution by Thanksgiving. • * * The Seattle electrician who rigged an electric eye to close his windows and make his toast when the sun comes up should EDITED DY THE INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE DOARD, UAW-CIO continue his research. ' I What we need is an automatic cold shower for the front porch, to be turned on by the shadow of WHAT IS the landlord. CHRYSLER UP TO? • * • The prize mystery of the season is why Chrysler Corp. Irrepressible is acting the bullhead in its prolonged lockout over the A 145-lb. Chinese laundryman in New York made the headlines speedup and arbitrary discharges. when he grappled w ith a 200-lb. A corporation that made $25,000,000 the first half year robber and shot the man w ith his own gun. stood every chance of doubling that in the prosperous second The Japanese army would un- half. -
Moma More Cruel and Unusual Comedy Social Commentary in The
MoMA Presents: More Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Social Commentary in the American Slapstick Film Part 2 October 6-14, 2010 Silent-era slapstick highlighted social, cultural, and aesthetic themes that continue to be central concerns around the world today; issues of race, gender, propriety, and economics have traditionally been among the most vital sources for rude comedy. Drawing on the Museum’s holdings of silent comedy, acquired largely in the 1970s and 1980s by former curator Eileen Bowser, Cruel and Unusual Comedy presents an otherwise little-seen body of work to contemporary audiences from an engaging perspective. The series, which first appeared in May 2009, continues with films that take aim at issues of sexual identity, substance abuse, health care, homelessness and economic disparity, and Surrealism. On October 8 at 8PM, Ms Bowser will address the connection between silent comedy and the international film archive movement, when she introduces a program of shorts that take physical comedy to extremes of dream-like invention and destruction. Audiences today will find the vulgar zest and anarchic spirit of silent slapstick has much in common with contemporary entertainment such as Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, MTV's Jackass and the current Jackass 3-D feature. A majority of the films in the series are archival rarities, often the only known surviving version, and feature lesser- remembered performers on the order of Al St. John, Lloyd Hamilton, Fay Tincher, Hank Mann, Lupino Lane, and even one, Diana Serra Cary (a.k.a. Baby Peggy), who, at 91, is the oldest living silent film star still active. -
“From the Archives of Keystone Memory”
5 “From the Archives of Keystone Memory” Slapstick and Re-membrance at Columbia Pictures’ Short-Subjects Department The mood of retrospect seems indeed the soundest of possible instincts, fulfilling a purpose against which almost every large force in the country seemed to war upon, that to take root. Constance Rourke, American Humor (1931) If anybody else says it’s like old times, I’ll jump out the window. Buster Keaton, in Limelight (1952) If one asks the naïve question “When was American film comedy’s golden age?” one encounters the paradox that there has only ever seemed to be one answer: the silent era, specifically sometime between the ascent of Chaplin in the mid- 1910s and the coming of sound. Often cited, James Agee’s eloquent 1949 Life essay, “Comedy’s Greatest Era,” is a turning point in this regard, a nostalgic paean that, once and for all, elevated silent comedy as a symbol of the past glories of popular culture. “Anyone who has watched screen comedy over the past ten or fifteen years is bound to realize that it has quietly but steadily deteriorated. As for those happy atavists who remember silent comedy in its heyday and the bellylaughs and boffos that went with it, they have something close to an absolute standard by which to measure the deterioration.”1 It is a remarkable rewriting of slapstick comedy. Agee’s essay was crucial in establishing Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon as a kind of Mount Rushmore of comic achievement—the “four most eminent masters”— and it did so, we have seen, by appreciating slapstick in formal terms as an art of pantomime (see the introduction). -
Best Picture of the Yeari Best. Rice of the Ear
SUMMER 1984 SUP~LEMENT I WORLD'S GREATEST SELECTION OF THINGS TO SHOW Best picture of the yeari Best. rice of the ear. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT (1983) SHIRLEY MacLAINE, DEBRA WINGER Story of a mother and daughter and their evolving relationship. Winner of 5 Academy Awards! 30B-837650-Beta 30H-837650-VHS .............. $39.95 JUNE CATALOG SPECIAL! Buy any 3 videocassette non-sale titles on the same order with "Terms" and pay ONLY $30 for "Terms". Limit 1 per family. OFFER EXPIRES JUNE 30, 1984. Blackhawk&;, SUMMER 1984 Vol. 374 © 1984 Blackhawk Films, Inc., One Old Eagle Brewery, Davenport, Iowa 52802 Regular Prices good thru June 30, 1984 VIDEOCASSETTE Kew ReleMe WORLDS GREATEST SHE Cl ION Of THINGS TO SHOW TUMBLEWEEDS ( 1925) WILLIAMS. HART William S. Hart came to the movies in 1914 from a long line of theatrical ex perience, mostly Shakespearean and while to many he is the strong, silent Western hero of film he is also the peer of John Ford as a major force in shaping and developing this genre we enjoy, the Western. In 1889 in what is to become Oklahoma Territory the Cherokee Strip is just a graz ing area owned by Indians and worked day and night be the itinerant cowboys called 'tumbleweeds'. Alas, it is the end of the old West as the homesteaders are moving in . Hart becomes involved with a homesteader's daughter and her evil brother who has a scheme to jump the line as "sooners". The scenes of the gigantic land rush is one of the most noted action sequences in film history. -
Introduction Keyword: Hokum
Introduction Keyword: Hokum The word “hokum” is one of several examples of stage slang whose meaning, at a certain point in the 1920s, was much debated. According to a 1926 article in American Speech, it was the “most discussed word in the entire vernacular” of popular entertainment (another was “jazz”).1 The term seems to have origins in the late nineteenth century, perhaps deriving from “oakum” (material used to calk the seams of a ship; by extension, “sure-fire” gags and other material used to secure the success of a stage act) or, alternatively, as a combination of “hocus-pocus” (sleight-of-hand, trickery) and “bunkum” (nonsense). Still, those origins are sufficiently questionable that novelist Edna Ferber, in her 1929 Cimarron, could claim that the term was of exclusively twentieth-century deri- vation. (“The slang words hokum and bunk were not then [1898] in use.”)2 The ambiguous sources of “hokum” also correspond to a split in its development, which, by the 1920s, had seen the sense of “sure-fire” shift in the more dis- paraging direction indicated by “bunkum.” Writing in 1928, a reporter for the New York Times expressed incredulity that a term once describing material that “ ‘get[s] over’ . with an audience” was now synonymous with “hooey, tripe, apple-sauce, blah and bologna.”3 The word seems to have something to do with comedy, although this is not invariable. An article in the Times of 1923 indicated a possible melodramatic refer- ence as well, describing hokum as “old and sure-fire comedy. Also tear-inducing situations,” which suggests hokum’s applicability to anything that traded in strong or obvious effects, whether of comedy or of sentiment.4 “Hokum is not always com- edy; sometimes it borders on pathos” echoed the essay in American Speech.5 Still, the reference to comedy, specifically of the knockabout, slapstick variety, was primary. -
Hands Up! by Steve Massa
Hands Up! By Steve Massa Raymond Griffith is one of silent come- dy’s unjustly forgotten masters, whose onscreen persona was that of a calm, cool, world-weary bon vivant – some- thing like Max Linder on Prozac. After a childhood spent on stage touring in stock companies and melodramas, he ended up in films at Vitagraph in 1914 and went on to stints at Sennett,- L Ko, and Fox as a comedy juvenile. Not mak- ing much of an impression due to a lack of a distinctive character, he went be- hind the camera to become a gagman, working at Sennett and for other comics like Douglas MacLean. In 1922 he re- turned to acting and became the ele- gant, unflappable ladies’ man. Stealing comedies such as “Changing Husbands,” “Open All Night,” and “Miss Bluebeard” (all 1924) away ing very popular with his character of “Ambrose,” a put- their respective stars Paramount decided to give him his upon everyman with dark-circled eyes and a brush mous- own series, and he smarmed his way through ten starring tache. Leaving Sennett in 1917 he continued playing Am- features starting with “The Night Club” (1925). brose for L-Ko, Fox, and the independent Poppy Come- dies and Perry Comedies. His career stalled in the early “Hands Up!” (1926) soon followed, and is the perfect 1920s when he was blacklisted by an influential produc- showcase for Griffith’s deft comic touch and sly sense of er, but his old screen mate Charlie Chaplin came to the the absurd. The expert direction is by Clarence Badger, rescue and made Mack part of his stock company in films who started in the teens with shorts for Joker and Sen- such as “The Idle Class” (1921) and “The Pilgrim” (1923). -
Send in the Clones
Send in the Clones Chaplin Imitators from Stage to Screen, from Circus to Cartoon Ulrich Ruedel The Chaplin craze of the teens is often cited as one of the main indicators of the unprecedented popularity of Chaplin's little tramp. Chaplin imitators, cartoons, songs were abound. While Chaplin may indeed qualify as the most imitated character in film history, this "sincerest form of flattery" was not limited to him. Indeed, one of the historically most remarkable Chaplin imitations, that of former Chaplin understudy Stan Laurel, was part of a Keystone Trio stage act, which also included likenesses of Mabel Normand and Chester Conklin. Nor does the phenomenon of comic clones end there. Throughout film history, we find carbon copies of then- popular film clowns, sometimes unidentified today, often though probably quite justly forgotten.1 1 The Museum of Modern Art, for example, holds footage of an unidentified Snub Pollard imitator; imitations of Harold Lloyd's glasses character have been reported, and Wolfram Tichy's 1979 Harold Lloyd bioography presents an unidentified photo of what might have been such an imitator. Europe had their own, unique comedy success in the 20s and 30s, in the Danish comedy tramp duo of Fy og Bi / Long and Short / Pat & Patachon, and this author's research into this team (easily rivaling in popularity Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd in countries like Germany and Russia) has so far confirmed at east four imitators, or "parodists," asppearing well into the 1950s. The Three Stooges are unique in this regard as their likenesses can claim a certain degree of legitimacy, either having gone through the same school as the original trio, Stooge inventor Ted Healy's act, that is, or in a couple instances even having the privilege of featuring former original Stooges.