The Silent Clowns, 7/21

This was another in the series of silent films presented at the Bruno Walter auditorium. This double bill—Dog Shy and Hands Up!—were both from 1926. And they were both very, very funny! LOL funny (even before LOL existed). Dog Shy had Charley Chase as a frightened-of-dog fellow who ended up being hired as a butler at the home of a girl he wanted to prevent from marrying a “swell,” that her parents were intent on. (Don’t ask) At any rate, after much bathtub mayhem, involving the household dog, we got to three (three, mind you!) couples using “howl at midnight” as a signal. So we had a dog thrown out the window, a suitcase thrown out the window, and a safe thrown out the window, all onto our hero, Mr. Chase!—did I mention that this was a slapstick comedy?

Our hero returns the dog and the safe and gets the girl.

About the dog. This film was sort of in tribute to The Artist (which I have not seen), so our program notes were dog related. Buddy was our named character. I learned lots more about dogs in cinema*.

The feature was Hands Up!—a film starring Raymond Griffith. The plot was all over the place with Civil War agents and spies and a gold mine owner and his daughters and Lincoln and Brigham Young—well, you get the idea. Once again, laugh out loud situations (including a painting of a supposed firing squad victim—I’m not making this up, you know!).

The silent film personnel—Bruce Lawton, Steve Massa, and Ben Model (the indefatigable accompanist) provided great insights, information, and pianistic wonderfulness. There’s one more in the series on August 4, but I think I'll have to miss it, as I really want to hear the JACK quartet. More on that later.

ConcertMeister
*Info available on request.