IF YOU want to watch a silent comedy today, you will probably have to do so with a DVD or video on a television set.
How much better to see it on the big screen with live accompaniment and – even better – with a large audience.
That’s just what happened at the Philharmonics Hall yesterday afternoon with the added bonus of silent film fan Paul Merton doing the introductions.
Following in the line of Michael Bentine and Bob Monkhouse, Merton has been bringing silent film comedy to mass audiences by a television show, Silent Clowns.
But what a treat to catch it on the Phil’s unique Art Deco screen where the full impact of the stars of silent cinema can be even better appreciated – James Finlayson’s outraged expressions with Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton’s clever gags look even better when presented large.
The supporting casts, my favourites from the silent classics, are even funnier when they can be seen properly, characters all and especially the crowds which are always highly animated.
Merton gave us a long extract from Chaplin’s The Circus where he is escaping from both a crook and the police in a Fun House. It not only revealed Chaplin’s imagination but, for once, put to shame those who consider Chaplin “not funny”. This extract collected some of the biggest laughs of the afternoon. Laurel and Hardy were seen in full in what is probably their best silent short, Big Business, selling Christmas trees and demolishing James Finlayson’s House while Finlayson wrecks their car.
Finlayson’s fighting with a Christmas tree has to be seen to be believed.
Keaton was represented with a chase scene from Sherlock Junior and Harold Lloyd’s classic thrill comedy Safety Last, the one where he climbs a building and hangs from a clock face, was shown in full. Pianist Neil Brand improvised his accompaniment in grand style, providing his own musical comment to the on-screen mayhem.
There were also tantalising extracts featuring little-known comics like Snub Pollard and Louise Fazenda. Hopefully, Merton will do for people like them what he has done for the better-known Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.
