Mabel's Dramatic Career (1913)

Mabel Normand was Keystone Studios’ greatest female star. A comedienne of the first rank, she also wrote and directed, and would be better remembered today if her personal life hadn’t ended her career, and her life, too soon.

For those of us who do know her, the rewards of a Normand performance remain as clear as they were in the 1910s. She had impeccable pacing and natural pathos, and an ability—unmatched, I think, in the silent era—to appear overwhelmed by the chaos surrounding her. This was calculated, of course, and it was a perfect fit for the short comedies Mack Sennett’s studio produced. For those films were fast—sometimes too fast—and populated with comedy grotesques. Normand brought heart, and even sympathy, to the Keystone films she starred in. She slowed the tornado down.

Mabel’s Dramatic Career isn’t Normand’s best work, nor is it one of Keystone’s best shorts. But it exemplifies what Normand’s presence could add to a film. And, maybe, what her absence could take away.

Three Ages (1923)

Everyone reading this knows Buster Keaton, and most of you probably know a little bit about Three Ages, his first feature, too. Untested in hour-long comedies, Keaton agreed to film something that was splittable into three short films: each one able to stand on its own, if need be. As it turned out, Three Ages worked out just fine as a feature. Today, we remember it as the start of the second, and most artistically successful, phase of his career.

If you like Keaton’s shorts, you’ll like Three Ages. And who doesn’t like his shorts? Almost all of them are fast-paced, sharp comedies, with good gags that obey the laws of physics. They were ambitious too—in scale, as in Cops, and in technical reach, like The Playhouse. The trio of films that make up Three Ages fall about in the middle of that pack. One, though, offered a glimpse into Keaton’s future work, and for that reason, it the most special of the three.

Paperman on Silent London

Here's a piece I wrote on Disney's newest animated short, Paperman, for Silent London. I'll be posting the text here a little later, but in the meantime, please give it a read over there. (And be sure to stick around--Silent London is a terrific source of news and writing about silent films the world over.)

Today's photo: Charlie Chaplin

Today's photo: Harry Langdon

The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906)

The films of Georges Méliès are always busy. They were born of a theatre tradition that was itself outsized, loud and flamboyant. Minus sound, those tendencies became even more extreme.

But they worked, often memorably. In the hands of Méliès—a genius designer of sets and costumes, and a magician both onstage and in-camera—these short films set a bar for artistry and imagination that in some respects has never been exceeded. We could produce a long, smug list of the ways Méliès movies seem primitive today: starting with the fixed camera, anchored, always, at medium distance. But the director’s designs remain first-rank; and he knew, most of the time, what his manic little films were truly about.

That last part is key. A Trip to the Moon (1902), and The Impossible Voyage (1904), for all their lunacy, have characters fixated on goals. Those characters are fools, yes, but their intentions are clear enough. It is their attempts to make their dreams come true that generates the spectacle.

By this measure, The Merry Frolics of Satan doesn’t quite succeed. Another of Méliès’ quest films, it too concerns a man of science, embarking on a Jules Verne-style journey, encountering bizarre obstacles along the way. But we get little sense of who this man is or what he hopes to achieve. And it is surprisingly damaging to the film.

Cops (1922)

Cops is one of Buster Keaton’s best shorts—maybe the best. That's as close to a universally held opinion as you’ll find among silent film fans.

How can I say this? Well, because Keaton’s body of work is known to almost anyone with even a beginner’s interest in silent films. If the quality of Cops was in dispute, there would be plenty of thoughtful voices to dispute it. Yet there are nearly none.

I won’t dispute it either. I think Cops is a fantastic film—brisk, smart, cynical, and funny. It’s my personal favorite of Keaton’s shorts. I’ve seen it many times, but I’ve avoided writing about it in the past because it’s so hard to examine without spoiling, and because I questioned whether I’d have anything new to say about a film seen and loved by so many.

Maybe I still don’t. But the film’s been on my mind lately, and so I’m inspired to try. The catalyst was an event I attended a little while ago—a screening of a very different film: F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924). (You can read my review of that film here.)