Matinee with The Movie Man

With the success of Alpha Video releases like Charley Chase: From Keystone to Hal Roach 1915-1926 and Blondes and Redheads: Lost Comedy Classics, John K. Carpenter—a.k.a. "The Movie Man"—has dipped into his voluminous collection of 16mm movies and whipped up another DVD all-you-can-eat guaranteed to put a smile on the face of silent comedy fans. …

Smile when the raindrops fall

In August of last year, I prematurely announced that our good friends at The Sprocket Vault would begin releasing Charley Chase shorts to DVD, beginning with a 2-disc release of the comedian’s output in 1930 and 1931 in November.  The news of this release was warmly received by the Facebook fans that propagate a lot…

“…on the dotted line!”

To the Fisher family, he’s known as “The Show Off.”  Every clan has or knows someone like Aubrey Piper (Ford Sterling), a brash, obnoxious individual with a braying laugh that sets on edge the teeth of any poor soul unfortunate to be within earshot.  Aubrey is only a thirty-dollar-a-week clerk in the offices of the Pennsylvania Railroad—but…

The old Army game

Circus life is the only existence young Sally has ever known.  Her mother Mary, the daughter of a prominent Connecticut family, was disowned after marrying a “circus man” …and as she lays on her death bed, she asks her friend and fellow Big Top performer “Professor” Eustace P. McGargle (W.C. Fields) to let her parents know…

Buried Treasures: Dementia (1955)

There’s a story behind today’s “Overlooked Film.”  Let me tell you a tale. You may know—and if you don’t, consider this me telling you—that while I relinquished my post as Associate Editor at ClassicFlix back in February 2014, I still maintain a working relationship with CF as the author of their “Where’s That Been?” column.  Each month, the new…

Where’s That Been? – Big House, U.S.A. (1955)

The following review is one of several that I composed for the ClassicFlix site under the column title “Where’s That Been?”  Most of those columns made the transition to CF’s new site but some of them stayed behind for reason or another...and since my writer’s ego is just big enough to where I don’t like having what…

Where’s That Been? – He Ran All the Way (1951)

  The following review is one of several that I composed for the ClassicFlix site under the column title “Where’s That Been?”  Most of those columns made the transition to CF’s new site but some of them stayed behind for reason or another...and since my writer’s ego is just big enough to where I don’t like having…

Silent Horrors: The Man Who Laughs (1928)

I had every intention of getting this review up yesterday, but ran into a few roadblocks along the way. The DVD recorder was in use for the better part of the day, capturing the Karloff films I didn’t already have in my collection (I could have used the DVD player on the computer, but I was…

Silent Horrors: The Cat and the Canary (1927)

John Willard’s hardy old stage chestnut—first performed in New York City on February 7, 1922—has been around the block, cinematically so to speak, on at least four different occasions: 1927, 1930 (as The Cat Creeps), 1939 and 1978. I’ve now seen all of them except the 1930 version—which is considered a lost film—and my favorite is the one made in 1939 because it…

Silent Horrors: Waxworks (1924)

Paul Leni’s Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (Waxworks, 1924) tells three tales surrounding the figures in a wax museum—the owner of which has hired a writer-poet (William Dieterle) to come up with some “ballyhoo” to promote the exhibits. The first figure is Middle Eastern despot Harun el Raschid (Emil Jannings), a powerful caliph who decrees that a baker (also Dieterle) be destroyed…