I really like silent films quite a bit. I love Charlie Chaplin, and up to a few years ago, his film, City Lights, was my all time favorite silent film. It's super funny and clever, plus it's heart warming, It's one of the best romantic comedies of all time. Charlie wrote, directed, starred in , and wrote the musical score for the film, which is incredible. It actually came out after "Talkies" were invented, but Chaplin said that he could make just as good a film without talking as one with talking, and possibly make it better. There's a genius scene at the very beginning of the film where a mayor is giving a speech, so Chaplin added Kazoos in the score for when the mayor and his presenters for when they talked to make the point that talking could be boring in a film. It's hysterical, and the sound from the kazoos even inspired Tim Burton to make his Martians in his film Mars Attacks! to talk like the mayor from that scene. It's great.
However, I went to a place called The Organ Loft in Salt Lake City. It is a reception center, but every spring and fall, they show silent films, and a man comes out and plays a 2,400 piece pipe organ and plays for the whole film, just like how movies were screened before recorded sound. It's really awesome, and it's cheap as well. Sadly, COVID-19 is still rampant, so they didn't do the silence films this year. A few years ago, I went there to see a film from 1925 by Harold Lloyd, The Freshman.
It became my all time favorite silent film in a single viewing, but it's incredibly rewatchable. It is also an amazing romantic comedy as well. It stars Harold Lloyd and the plot is he's headed off to college for his freshman year. He's excited to go, and unfortunately goes to a movie about college, and he went and saw it a lot, and he tries to act like the main character in the movie, but he's a nerd, and he is wanting to be the most popular man on campus.
When he leaves for college, things get off to a strange start, his train ride is a classic scene. Then everything starts to unravel when the rest of the student body thinks he's just a loser nerd. As he tries hard to fit in, things keep getting worse and worse, but there's a girl that he met that ends up seeing who he really is, and loves him, but keeps her feelings a secret.
Harold tries out for the football team, and is basically made a tackling dummy at practice, and a water boy and equipment manager, but still thinks he's on the team. He is nominated to be in charge of the "Fall Frolic" (A school dance like Homecoming.), but that scene literally unravels as his suit that he bought for the dance wasn't completely sewn together, due to the tailor having narcolepsy. His misadventures are so funny. I love it.
When I saw the film for the first time, a man got up to introduce the film and told us some cool facts about it, and then they passed out slips of paper and pencils, then after the film, he told us to write down our favorite moments from the movie. So, everyone did, and then the guy got back up and told us to get our slips of paper, then he read an article about the film when it was first released in 1925, and it had a list of everyone's favorite and most hysterical moments in the film, and 95% of the things listed by movie goers in 1925 had the same list as everyone else here 2017.
It's amazing that a 95 year old comedy is still very relevant, and another amazing fact was that there weren't any dirty jokes to be had at all or bad language. A G-Rated film from 1925 still packs a big punch. This is a film that NEEDS to be seen by everyone. The whole film is available on YouTube for free. It's one hour and eighteen minutes long. There are a couple of references in the dialogue cards that are dated, but just about everything else is still incredibly funny. "Welcome to Tate College, a football stadium with a school attached!" It's so funny.
I feel that movies are part of our lives here in America. We have film studies in high school and college, and I think that kids should be, forced sounds mean, but I think kids should be required to watch silent movies and black and white films because when kids get to a certain age, they usually dislike black and white and silent films. They are so used to watching new films and TV shows that are in color, that they can get the idea that movies in black and white, or silent movies are old, boring and stupid. I think that we do our kids a disservice by not educating them about the history of entertainment and how things came to be the way they are now.
With my son, Elliot, I showed him older things when he was younger. My favorite film is Singin' In The Rain, and I watched it with Elliot when he was three, and he really loves that movie. In fact, we were walking out of church one day after we watched Singin' In The Rain, and he jumped up on a lamppost and started singing. I also explained how lucky he is to live in a world with digital projectors at movie theaters because they used to put reels of film in the projectors, but they would get really scratched and sometimes break or melt, but the digital projectors don't have those problems.
I still have a story about all of the really bad B-movie science fiction and horror movies from the 50's, 60's and early 70s. It's a really funny history, but I'll save it for another time. Below, I will post the "Train scene" from The Freshman. I would strongly urge you to go on YouTube on your smart TV's or computers and watch The Freshman. You will be glad you did!
I linked both the train scene and the full movie so you don't have the excuse that you couldn't find it on YouTube ;) I also linked the Amazon store for the Criterion Collection. If you are unfamiliar with the Criterion Collection releases for films, they Remaster the film, for example, with the Freshman, they try to get all of the scratches off the original film and make a very high-definition picture. They choose important and amazing films, and they make an amazing collection that includes both the Blu-Ray and DVD of the film, as well as tons and tons of special features about the film and usually a book about the making of the film, and The Freshman is one of the best ones in that collection library. I also have one for the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night that has amazing special features and book about the making of the film. They are really great. They are worth the $25 to $30 purchase if you really love a movie they have.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. I am waiting for 1:00 A.M. for Disney+ to release the next Mandelorian episode. If you haven't watched The Mandelorian, do it! Be kind to everyone, and stay home and healthy unless you really need to go out. I went to the store last night to get a couple of groceries, and there was a couple at the Redbox machine looking for something to watch, and as a joke, I went up to them, and I told them that you can get COVID-19 from renting movies from the Redbox stations. Think about it, someone's in quarantine, and they are bored stiff, and they send a family member out to get them a movie from Redbox, and then they have it over night, then is returned, and then another person rent's it, and BAM, you can get it too. Then they said, dang, maybe we shouldn't rent a movie, and then I told them that I was just kidding, there haven't been any reports of that happening. They nervously laughed, and I left and got into my car, and I'm not sure if they rented something or not. I guess that was a jerky way to tease them, but it is in the realm of possibility that something like that could happen. So, be careful and safe and stay healthy. Thanks for reading. Watch the movie!
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