Well, this site has information on quite a few now-obscure silent comedians, including Linder, Bowers, and Larry Semon.
I caught a Larry Semon flick years ago on television (thank god for Stu Levin and “Cinema: The Golden Age,” a Cleveland PBS silent-movie series in the '70s that introduced me to everyone from D.W. Griffith and Fritz Lang to Lon Chaney and Dr. Caligari). Not his most characteristic film…he was playing the Scarecrow in the 1925 Wizard of Oz, in tandem with Oliver Hardy as the Tin Man.
“Buster is a modernist!” critics never admit this, but Keaton could go for sentimentality when he chose; my lower lip quivered several times during Battling Butler, and you have to feel bad for him when he’s getting his butt kicked during the first half of College.
Best Keaton comedy moment, IMHO, and one that Chaplin never approached or would have been able to approach: The early scene in The Navigator where Rollo and the Girl realize simultaneously that there is SOMEONE ELSE ON BOARD the abandoned ship, and start to look for each other. They just miss seeing each other as they turn corners and go up and down companionways and in and out of hatches, and the action accelerates as they become more and more frenzied in their searches. It only lasts about two minutes, but it is a brilliant piece of choreography…
Of course Chaplin did stuff that Keaton never would have been able to accomplish, either. I can’t picture Buster doing the nightclub scene in City Lights, for example…getting great comedy out of an attempt to light a cigar. Or sweeping a society matron into a frenzied ballroom dance while she’s waiting for her husband.
Or anytime Chaplin dances. I’m thinking of the roller-skating scene in Modern Times, and the nonsense song he performs when he’s waiting tables at the cafe.
Chaplin lifted his roller-skating routines wholesale from Max Linder, which Chaplin was big enough to admit publicly.
I agree. Battling Butler also had that weird ending where Keaton almost gets his ass kicked. College is a good example of how Keaton used his “Stoneface” to good effect. He always seemed so earnest when he was trying out for various sports.
McJohn, I read that Keaton’s dad used to literally throw him around the stage as part of their vaudeville act, and little Buster wouldn’t make a noise, or betray any pain on his face. Apparently, hilarity ensued (until concerned theater managers made Big Keaton stop tossing little Keaton into walls for comedic effect), and the stone face was born.
I have seen no Max Linder, though he’s been on my list for a while.
I think Keaton is one of the 5 or 6 most important filmmakers in American Cinema history. I don’t feel as strongly about Chaplin. There’s always somthing slightly smarmy and self-conscious about Chaplin, to me. Keaton’s everyman seems far more universal than Chaplin’s. And Keaton’s bits–stunts and comic–always seemed to me to more organically arise out of the situation, while Chaplin’s seem more gratuitous.
I think of Keaton in the kind of the same way I think of Jacques Tati, while Chaplin is more a Robin Williams or Jim Carrey.
That said, Monsieur Verdoux is brilliant, but it would have been even better with someone other than Chaplin in the lead.
For thos of you interested in Max Linder, I highly recommend The Man in the Silk Hat, a video collection/bio his daughter put together. I don’t know why it says “English subtitles,” the one I have is narrated in English.
Lloyd in THE FRESHMAN, SAFETY LAST, and SPEEDY could occasionally tug my heartstrings, especially in the first one.
Chaplin’s smaller films, like CITY LIGHTS and THE GOLD RUSH, tugged a little too hard but still got to me.
Keaton is so different from either of them that I really don’t put him in the same category; he’s more of a daredevil than Lloyd but his derring-do I found less funny that the scene in SPEEDY where the hero and the girl are visiting Coney Island and a crab from a seafood stand falls into Harold’s coat pocket. As Harold strolls around (the whole film is a great travellogue of 20’s NYC, BTW). the crab picks people’s pockets, pinches women, steals a cop’s nightstick, etc., and Harold is constantly getting slapped, etc. and has no idea why. It’s probably the single funniest segment I’ve ever seen. I like Lloyd for long scenes (the chase in SPEEDY, the football game in THE FRESHMAN, the sales scene in SAFETY LAST), Buster for OMG! THAT’S FUNNY!! moments, and Chaplin for characters that I can really care about. Although I did care for Buster’s character in SEVEN DAYS, so Your Silent Film Comedian may vary.