I want to see a silent movie.

Cafe Society
1

The silent movie should show a team of workers raising a barn.

Now, the iconic image in movies of barn raisings is where all the workers, having constructed the frame of a wall on the ground, gather along the “roofline,” pick it up, and walking forward as a team, push the wall to an upright position. The “classic” slapstick version of this is when, either as a group, or because of the incompetence of one member, they continue past the vertical, and push the entire wall over.

That’s not what I want to see.

I want to see everyone on the team picking up their section of the roofline, and making sure that they’re positioned with access to a vertical stud, so once the top rail is out of reach of the ground, they can still push forward. Except this one guy. He’s going to grab a section of the rail, and not have anything to transfer his grip to as the section goes higher. So he just hangs on.

So he’ll be riding the roofline forty feet into the air, as the team pushes the wall up to vertical. And then the dinner bell is rung, and everyone migrates over to the other iconic barn-raising movie image, the lunch table laden with hundreds of pounds of tasty, tasty food, while our hero hangs forlornly forty feet in the air.

Did anyone ever shoot this scene, back in the old days of the silents?

2

Sounds like something Larry Semon would have done.

3

How expensive could it be to film this scene yourself? Jolly good weekend fun! I’ll be one of the extras and charge ya nothin’! (Probably should hire a professional stunt-actor for the guy being hoisted aloft.)

4

If you turn off the sound to the movie Witness, you’ll see a scene very much like it. :slight_smile:

5

If you turn off the sound to Witness, you’ll miss a really great score. But, yes, there is a scene much as described in the OP.

6

With a guy left dangling from the top while everyne goes and eats? I don’t think so.

7

Yes, that was in there as well. Most people just aren’t looking closely enough to see him.

Also, compare and contrast the meanings of “much as described” and “precisely as described”.

8

I just think you’re kind of missing the point of the OP, which isn’t, “Are there any barn raising scenes,” but rather, “Are there any barn raising scenes with that particular joke.”

9

Pretty much. I mean, I knew it wasn’t in Kingpin…