For many years Marion Davies was only remembered as the mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and as the prototype for Susan Alexander in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). Over the last twenty years her work as a wonderful comedienne and terrific mimic have been rediscovered thanks to the screening of classics like Show People and The Patsy (both 1928). The Cardboard Lover, also from 1928, is a Davies film that has been long unseen due to the rocky shape of surviving prints. Now Undercrank Productions has restored this overlooked gem, and is making it available to fans of silent comedy.

NOTE: Admission for Friends of the Silent Clowns members at this screening is FREE – but you must email tickets@silentclowns.com or leave a voicemail at (212) 712-7237 to reserve your seat ahead of time. If you wish to make a donation and become a member, click here. If you are not a friend of the Silent Clowns Film Series you can go directly to the Symphony Space website and buy tickets for each show.

We are proud participants in the Museums for All program. $2.00 admission will be granted to those enrolled in the SNAP program, by presenting their EBT card to a Silent Clowns Film Series rep at the show. 

Laurel & Hardy came together as a team in 1927 after years of solo work, and by 1929 had become screen icons recognized around the world. Already familiar with their contrasting shapes and shared derbies, as well as Laurel’s grin and cry and Hardy’s slow-burn and delicate gestures, audiences loved them and were ready to follow their transition to sound. This selection of 1929 shorts – That’s My Wife, Bacon Grabbers, Wrong Again, andBig Business – is the climax of their silent screen career. 

NOTE: Admission for Friends of the Silent Clowns members at this screening is FREE – but you must email tickets@silentclowns.com or leave a voicemail at (212) 712-7237 to reserve your seat ahead of time. If you wish to make a donation and become a member, click here. If you are not a friend of the Silent Clowns Film Series you can go directly to the Symphony Space website and buy tickets for each show.

We are proud participants in the Museums for All program. $2.00 admission will be granted to those enrolled in the SNAP program, by presenting their EBT card to a Silent Clowns Film Series rep at the show. 

Reginald Denny was the most popular of the “light comedians” of the silent screen. In a series of expertly made farces for Universal Pictures, the British-born Denny starred as an all-American everyman who was always embroiled in myriad problems and complications. Funny features such as California Straight Ahead (1925), What Happened to Jones? (1926), and this program’s Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926), made Denny one of Universal’s biggest moneymakers of the 1920s. Opening the show for Mr. Denny is Billy Bletcher in the rare 1921 two-reeler The Noodle Nut.  

NOTE: Admission for Friends of the Silent Clowns members at this screening is FREE – but you must email tickets@silentclowns.com or leave a voicemail at (212) 712-7237 to reserve your seat ahead of time. If you wish to make a donation and become a member, click here. If you are not a friend of the Silent Clowns Film Series you can go directly to the Symphony Space website and buy tickets for each show.

We are proud participants in the Museums for All program. $2.00 admission will be granted to those enrolled in the SNAP program, by presenting their EBT card to a Silent Clowns Film Series rep at the show. 

The Gold Rush is perhaps Charlie Chaplin’s most famous film, and a rare example of historical epic as slapstick. Most silent comedies magnify minutiae to ridiculous proportions, but here Chaplin did the inverse – he took an epic historical event, the Klondike gold rush, and made it intimate by focusing on Charlie’s loneliness and will to survive. Starvation, cannibalism, and isolation became the inspiration for some of Chaplin’s most memorable moments. The Gold Rush features an original score by Ben Model, and the opener for Charlie is the overlooked Hal Roach short Riders of the Kitchen Range (1925). Screening rights for The Gold Rush courtesy of Janus Films.

NOTE: Admission for Friends of the Silent Clowns members at this screening is FREE – but you must email tickets@silentclowns.com or leave a voicemail at (212) 712-7237 to reserve your seat ahead of time. If you wish to make a donation and become a member, click here. If you are not a friend of the Silent Clowns Film Series you can go directly to the Symphony Space website and buy tickets for each show.

We are proud participants in the Museums for All program. $2.00 admission will be granted to those enrolled in the SNAP program, by presenting their EBT card to a Silent Clowns Film Series rep at the show.