The Silent Comedy Shorts DCP offers 12 individual shorts, curated into 3 separate programs: Slapstick, Georges Melies, and Cartoons. Exhibitors may choose to mix and match titles from all 3 categories or create an event around only one.
Titles and Running Times by Program:
SLAPSTICK
1. WHAT PRICE GOOFY, Charlie Chase: Music track by Neil Brand – 00:24:37
2. THE IMMIGRANT, Charlie Chaplin: Music track by Carl Davis – 00:20:01
3. THE LOVE NEST, Buster Keaton: Music track by Neil Brand – 00:20:15
4. MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE, Charley Chase: Music track by Neil Brand – 00:22:50
5. NOW YOU TELL ONE, Charlie Bowers: Music track by Bowers – 00:22:20
TRICK FILMS BY GEORGES MELIES
6. EXCELSIOR, PRICE OF MAGICIAN: Music by Mont Alto Orchestra – 00:02:04
7. THE MAGIC [INFERNAL] CALDRON: Music by Neal Kurz – 00:01:45
8. UN HOMME DE TETE [The Four Troublesome Heads]: Music by Neal Kurz – 00:01:05
CARTOONS
9. FELIX GOES WEST: organ music – 00:08:18
10. FELIX IN ARABIANTICS: music compilation – 00:09:30
11. CARTOON FACTORY (Koko the Clown): Original Fleisher track – 00:07:53
12. BALLOONLAND: Original Sound – 00:06:41 (note this is a SOUND cartoon)
For more information about renting the Silent Comedy Shorts DCP for your theater, please fill out the Request Screening form or click the button below.
“Every year at Zoom we offer the best films for kids from the silent movie era. This year we’re thrilled to present a special program featuring short films by two of the greatest screen comedians ever, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917, presented in a stunning new restoration) sees the little tramp traveling by boat to immigrate to the United States, getting into mishaps, and falling in love along the way. The last short film he made before moving into features, The Love Nest (1923) also includes lots of laughs at sea when Keaton sets sail on a small boat to escape a broken heart and eventually finds himself working on a large whaling ship. Tonight’s program also features some delightful early magic trick films by Georges Méliès (who has a renewed popularity among younger audiences thanks to Martin Scorsese’s Hugo) and the cartoon antics of Koko the Clown by animation innovator Max Fleischer. (approx. 70 mins., DCP)”
– Wexner Center for the Arts
“Flicker Alley’s set displays Chaplin’s astonishing 18-month arc of creativity at Mutual, which perhaps reaches its zenith in The Immigrant (1917), his penultimate film for the company. Here the tramp seeks a new life in the US of A . . . The calming presence of Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s constant co-star of this era, sets the tone of the film’s second half . . . Entering a restaurant, they are served by a brutish waiter, played by the tramp’s mountainous adversary, the stalwart Eric Campbell. Dubbed the “Goliath” of the Mutuals, he does perhaps his best work here.”
– Bright Lights Film Journal
“Charley Chase may not be the most famous of the silent comedians but he has a passionate following (I am a third-generation Chase fan) and I must say that it is well-deserved . . . Mighty Like a Moose is a great introduction to this talented comedian and is deservedly popular at film festivals and in box sets.”
– Movies Silently
“Few (if any filmmakers) have used Satan or his minions to such consistent or impishly comedic effect as often as Georges Méliès. Here [in The Infernal Caldron] he shows a number of demons feeding several presumed innocents into a boiling cauldron, turning them into dancing specters. With its delightfully lurid color tinting, this is an early fantasy miniature par excellence.”
– Dennis Harvey, Fandor
“Wow! That was my first impression when I opened up the box containing Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema, a thick boxed set with five DVDs filled with the inovative French director’s films!”
– DVD Talk
