The Silent Clowns Film Series is New York City’s longest-running regularly-scheduled showcase for classic silent film comedy. Our screenings are presented at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts in Manhattan’s Upper West Side and at the Cobble Hill Cinemas in Brooklyn, NY.
The Silent Clowns Film Series is a production of Silent Cinema Productions, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to presenting silent movies with live musical accompaniment to audiences of all ages, in order to preserve the experience of silent cinema. We produce silent film shows at a variety of venues, and we restore silent films for use at our shows.
Vitagraph Comedies (1927)
Saturday September 21, 2024
2:30pm
NYPL Library for the Performing Arts
FREE
Brooklyn’s own Vitagraph Film Co. was one of the most important early American film studios. Making all kinds of pictures–melodramas, historical epics, and even Shakespeare adaptations–in the 1910s, they had the market cornered on sophisticated situational comedies. Their best-remembered star is John Bunny, but this program covers other players that include Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew, Flora Finch, Frank Daniels, Hughie Mack and Edith Storey in Sweeney’s Christmas Bird (1914), Boobley’s Baby (1915), Jane’s Bashful Hero (1916), Captain Jenks’ Cure (1917), Bullies and Bullets (1917) and Damsels and Dandies (1919).
Presented courtesy of Kino-Lorber and the Library of Congress
The Gorilla (1927)
Saturday October 19, 2024
2:30pm
NYPL Library for the Performing Arts
FREE
Thrills and chills mixed with comedy has been a cinematic staple since movies began – even before with optical toys and magic lantern shows. In the mid-1920’s Hollywood embraced the horror comedy with films about mysterious doings in haunted houses. Features such as The Bat (1926), and The Cat and the Canary (1927) followed, and for this program, we proudly present the recently rediscovered and restored The Gorilla (1927). One of the most popular of the genre, the bravura camerawork and feeling of creeping dread from German Expressionism meet the slapstick antics of Charlie Murray. Closing the show is the spooky two-reel comedy A Fraternity Mix-Up (1926).
Digital restoration of The Gorilla courtesy Cineteca di Milano.
Speedy (1928)
Saturday, November 16, 2024
2:30pm
NYPL Library for the Performing Arts
FREE
Remembered as the “third genius” of silent comedy, Harold Lloyd was first at the box-office in the 1920’s. Speedy (1928) is not as well known as Safety Last (1923) or The Freshman (1925), but is equally funny and shows Lloyd at the peak of his cinematic skills. Set in Manhattan, the films boast some still recognizable NYC locations, as well as vanished icons like old Yankee Stadium and Babe Ruth. This was Lloyd’s last silent film, and, along with the previous year’s The Kid Brother (1927), was a final summing up of his mastery of the silent comedy feature. One of Harold’s early one-reel shorts will open the program.
Speedy is presented courtesy of Harold Lloyd Entertainment.
The Strong Man (1926)
Saturday, December 7, 2024
2:30pm
NYPL Library for the Performing Arts
FREE
After years in vaudeville, Harry Langdon made his movie debut in 1924, and his career blazed brightly until 1928. Forgotten for many years, today he’s considered one of the era’s greatest and most original film clowns. The Strong Man (1926) was the second for his own production company, and is his best- known and most successful starring comedy. It’s also the first feature for director Frank Capra, and is the best example of their close collaboration, featuring some of Langdon’s most memorable and celebrated comedy set pieces. Although his top stardom ended in 1928, Harry continued to entertain audiences until 1945. The Strong Man is preceded by a Mack Sennett two-reel short.
