Tweet 1975: Walter Kerr and Blackhawk Films

Jim,

Yes, I have the five Photoplay Productions VHS Lloyd's, released by HBO home video in the early 90's. Consisting of SAFETY LAST, GIRL SHY, HOT WATER, THE KID BROTHER and SPEEDY. As well as the Documentary THE THIRD GENIUS. And as I have said here many times, I'm partial to the Jim Parker score to GIRL SHY, and the Adrian Johnston score to HOT WATER, over the Robert Israel ones that replaced them on the Trust Editions and later New-Line (Warner), DVD's. I have a special fondness for that version of HOT WATER, because my late Mother and I saw it together several times. She loved it just as much as if seeing it the first time.

It wasn't until April 2003 when Harold was TCM Star of the Month, that I got to see the uncut versions of A SAILOR MADE MAN, GRANDMA'S BOY, THE FRESHMAN and FOR HEAVENS SAKE. Not to mention seeing DR. JACK, and WHY WORRY? for the first time ever. I was ecstatic!

Is there anything beyond anecdotal evidence that specifically illustrates the true impact the 1975 publication Kerr's book had on sales of Blackhawk's silent comedy titles, in any gauge?

I can't offer anything but anecdotal evidence of my own experience. Kerr's book was hot off the presses when I discovered silent comedy, and I checked it out of the library over and over. At the same time, I was also buying all the super 8mm Blackhawk prints that I could.

But as Ed observed, there were other books too, like the Lahues, and they really fueled my enthusiasm as well. Kerr's book only reinforced a drive to buy all the Chaplin, Keaton and L&H films I could, and that drive would have been there with or without his book. His casual dismissal of the non-genius comics (Bevan, Pollard, Turpin etc.) did little or nothing to dampen my fascination with those comedians, and even as a twelve-year-old I rejected his implicit argument that only genius comedy is worth consideration. But I'll admit that my perception of Langdon's abilities were a bit warped by Kerr's appraisal, which itself had been warped by his reading of the Gospel According to Capra.

Bottom line: I devoured the book and I enjoyed the book, but it didn't really influence my film collecting one way or the other.

Richard,

I only heard two of the Time-Life scores. The only part of their score for THE FRESHMAN that I really liked was the Walter Scharf stuff. I wondered why they didn't use the complete score. His music for "The Fall Frolic" sequence was great. I also saw a screening of the condensed SAFETY LAST about 1980 at the Cinema Arts Guild. I didn't like that Cresent City Jazz Band score either. And yes, I was greatly annoyed by the extensive sound effects. I figured it was inspired by the Robert Youngson compilations, which also had allot of sound effects, but not this heavily saturated. I actually have a VHS copy of the TIme-Life version of THE FRESHMAN released by some outfit in England around 1987-88.

I was already very into Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, L&H, etc before Silent Clowns came out. What it did for me was introduce me to comics I hadn't heard of, like Raymond Griffith. Soon after reading it the junior college in Tulsa offered a night course in film comedy. The guy who taught it was a huge Griffith fan so I got to see Hands Up, plus on other nights The Kid, College and a Langdon feature that might have been The Strong Man. I was into the Lahue books way earlier than this, including his "Collecting Classic Movies".

As much as the kalton Lahue books were probably instrumental in inspiring we who were already beginning to form an interest in silent films, his books were not big sellers in the mainstream (which is why, after ten years of diligent writing of them, Lahue got into the more lucrative eras of publishing like girlie magazines and auto manuals). But they were in nearly all the public libraries in America, which is where we all discovered them while devouring all the movie books our libraries had.

Oddly enough, THE SILENT CLOWNS was not a huge mainstream best-seller either, partially because of Knopf's layout of the book into that huger-than-even-standard-coffee-table first edition that went for the then-whopping book price of $25! I think it sold better when it was reproduced first in a somewhat messed-up soft-cover edition, then a much improved one in the early 80's.

I think the biggest influence on the General Public to watch silent films had to be Public Television in the early 70's, with shows like THE TOY THAT GREW UP, and especially Paul Killiam's THE SILENT YEARS and FILM COMMENT, which ran much of the Janus Film Catalog. Thats when the real upsurge of private collecting, Blackhawks sales, and public showings of silent films in libraries, film societies, and college campuses began. Blackhawks real heyday began in the mid-60's when Sears was even selling their products, and lasted until the mid to late 70's when the things I mentioned earlier like the spike in the price of silver and film stock and the birth of home video signalled the end of the boom.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Christopher Jacobs]

As Richard noted, the Kerr book was very pricey when it came out, especially for teenage film collectors (hey, for $25 you could get a 5-reel feature from Thunderbird!), so I only saw it at the public library. Still it mainly reinforced most of my ideas on silent comedy rather than introducing me to them. The books that most influenced my comedy buying from Blackhawk were the very reasonably priced paperbacks (a pittance by today's book prices) MR. LAUREL & MR. HARDY by John McCabe and especially 4 GREAT COMEDIANS by Donald W. McCaffrey. For silent dramas it was the "Joe Franklin" William K. Everson book of top 50 silents and Kevin Brownlow's THE PARADE'S GONE BY. Those four titles were a big percentage of what was easily available on silent film around 1969-70 when I started to get into collecting.

As much as the kalton Lahue books were probably instrumental in inspiring we who were already beginning to form an interest in silent films, his books were not big sellers in the mainstream (which is why, after ten years of diligent writing of them, Lahue got into the more lucrative eras of publishing like girlie magazines and auto manuals). But they were in nearly all the public libraries in America, which is where we all discovered them while devouring all the movie books our libraries had.

From what Sam Gill's told me, Lahue was doing just well enough with his film history books to get by, and there was talk about doing a follow-up to their Clown Princes and Court Jesters. But about that time, Lahue's reasonably ambitious history of the Selig studio was published and sold very poorly. Maybe that was more because of the '73-'74 recession than anything else, but evidently he had to give in to spousal pressure to follow a different path.

That path would soon wind through divorce court and toward new endeavors. But when I wrote him a gushing fan letter in 1976, he sent me a note on really beautiful stationery decorated with the logos of nickelodeon-era studios, so I guess he still had some interest in vintage film at that point.

Oddly enough, THE SILENT CLOWNS was not a huge mainstream best-seller either, partially because of Knopf's layout of the book into that huger-than-even-standard-coffee-table first edition that went for the then-whopping book price of $25! RICHARD M ROBERTS

It was that huge coffee table proportion that made the book so impressive to me when it first came out. Each page had ample room to reproduce those marvelous black & white stills of films that I was chasing down, to those that I had proudly seem. And then you would turn a page and there would be a full page spread of Chaplin or Langdon staring you straight in the eye and one could imagine viewing that film at that very moment. It didn't hurt that the photos were book-ended by intelligent, personalized writing.

Oddly enough, THE SILENT CLOWNS was not a huge mainstream best-seller either, partially because of Knopf's layout of the book into that huger-than-even-standard-coffee-table first edition that went for the then-whopping book price of $25! RICHARD M ROBERTS

It was that huge coffee table proportion that made the book so impressive to me when it first came out. Each page had ample room to reproduce those marvelous black & white stills of films that I was chasing down, to those that I had proudly seem. And then you would turn a page and there would be a full page spread of Chaplin or Langdon staring you straight in the eye and one could imagine viewing that film at that very moment. It didn't hurt that the photos were book-ended by intelligent, personalized writing.

Apparently Kerr himself hated the over-produced layout of the book. Actually, one of the frustrating things about many of the photos are so many of them, despite the size of the book, are thumbnail-sized and stuck on the margins around the large-print text. And other photos are blown-up across two pages with the spine breaking the middle of the picture. The whole thing was way expensively overdone,jarring against Kerr's intimate writing style. It should had just been a nine by twleve book with more pages allowing for average half-page photo reproductions. Even the reversed-imaged white-letter on black background opening chapter pages caused Knopf reprint trouble in the first paperback edition when they just printed them non-reversed, giving the opening chapter pages a rather dirty black letter on grey background look.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

As much as the kalton Lahue books were probably instrumental in inspiring we who were already beginning to form an interest in silent films, his books were not big sellers in the mainstream (which is why, after ten years of diligent writing of them, Lahue got into the more lucrative eras of publishing like girlie magazines and auto manuals). But they were in nearly all the public libraries in America, which is where we all discovered them while devouring all the movie books our libraries had.

From what Sam Gill's told me, Lahue was doing just well enough with his film history books to get by, and there was talk about doing a follow-up to their Clown Princes and Court Jesters. But about that time, Lahue's reasonably ambitious history of the Selig studio was published and sold very poorly. Maybe that was more because of the '73-'74 recession than anything else, but evidently he had to give in to spousal pressure to follow a different path.

That path would soon wind through divorce court and toward new endeavors. But when I wrote him a gushing fan letter in 1976, he sent me a note on really beautiful stationery decorated with the logos of nickelodeon-era studios, so I guess he still had some interest in vintage film at that point.

The other thing that hurt Lahue was changing publishers from the University of Oklahoma Press to A.S. Barnes, where his later books like MACK SENNETTS KEYSTONE, CLOWN PRINCES AND COURT JESTERS, DREAMS FOR SALE, and MOTION PICTURE PIONEER: THE SELIG POLYSCOPE COMPANY were published. Barnes was a bigger company, but because of that, they did less to push and publicize the books, and never reprinted them after a limited first printing. They then sold out to somebody, and those late Lahue movie books have always been harder to find than the earlier ones ever since.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Kerr's book was nice to look at, and there was some good reading.
But even by then I'd read enough about Chaplin, Keaton & Lloyd.
My interest was in reading about Langdon, Hamilton & the lesser known.
But it was Kalton Lahue's comedy books that did it for me.
Lahue (& his collaborators) was the first champion of the forgotten comedic underdogs...
Arbuckle, Chase, Mace, Turpin, Semon, Normand, Sterling, etc., etc.
Bought his Clown Princes & Court Jesters hot off the press Christmas 1970. Darn book is still warm.
I heard there was gonna be a second volume of that one, with 50 more bios, but it didn't happen.

SteveR (a tip of the hat to everyone who took silent comedy a step further!)

Let''s not forget the influence that Leonard Maltin's The Great Movie Shorts had on many of us, beckoning us down an endless road tracking down as many of those tantalizing titles as possible.

Let''s not forget the influence that Leonard Maltin's The Great Movie Shorts had on many of us, beckoning us down an endless road tracking down as many of those tantalizing titles as possible.

"The Great Movie Shorts" remains a useful reference some 40 years later. Years ago I xeroxed filmographies from Leonard's book and tacked them to the aisles where I keep my 16mms. The titles I acquire get highlighted (though in upgrading I occasionally end up with duplicates).

Leonard was the first fellow collector I got to know in the 1970s who was not the Alpha Male type, and generous to a fault to boot. I hope that I've learned something from him. And it's great to see him still at the top of his game.

Let''s not forget the influence that Leonard Maltin's The Great Movie Shorts had on many of us, beckoning us down an endless road tracking down as many of those tantalizing titles as possible.

Thanks for mentioning that book, Rob.
With all due respect to all the other books and authors already mentioned, I'd say that "Leonard's Shorts Book" (as I've always called it) has always been a favorite and one of the most useful to me (always having been a little more into sound shorts than silent). Before I found it back in 1973 or so I had actually already started compiling my own filmographies of a lot of the series in the book (including the Leon Errol & Edgar Kennedy RKO shorts that a local station had recently started running), so it was great to see the complete lists in that book. I still have my original book sitting right here within arm's reach.

Let''s not forget the influence that Leonard Maltin's The Great Movie Shorts had on many of us, beckoning us down an endless road tracking down as many of those tantalizing titles as possible.

Oh, yeah! First book on classic film I ever owned (got it the same Christmas as that "Funny Men" issue of LIBERTY). It's still a prominent part of my library. By the same token, it does have some factual errors, and it's now apparent that Maltin hadn't seen all of the films he was criticizing. (Based on his summation of the Langdon-Roach shorts, I'd say he'd only viewed SKIRT SHY and THE KING, the least amusing of the circulating six.) Plus, of course, silent shorts were beyond that book's scope.

I think Ed Watz makes an excellent point that so much was happening in the early 70's with bicoastal Keaton and Langdon screenings, followed by Chaplin's return to the US, that Kerr's book was likely triggered by all of that, rather than actually being a catalyst for anything. As a child, I discovered the films on TV: the Youngson comps, then Herb Graff's Chaplin and Silent Comedy shows on WNET-13. Those shows, plus Killiam's THE SILENT YEARS were no doubt catalysts for many other East Coast collectors.

MJH

[Mike Gebert]

I think Ed Watz makes an excellent point that so much was happening in the early 70's with bicoastal Keaton and Langdon screenings

Well, before we let California and New York give themselves credit for everything...

You may be able to point to this or that lesser-known film getting rare attention from this or that archive. But the silent comedy revival of the 50s through early 70s was a national phenomenon. It involved national releases of Robert Youngson compilations and national reissues of Chaplin and Lloyd films. There were also film societies all over the US-- the one in Wichita, my hometown, started in 1952, I think (there's an article by one of the founders in Films in Review around that time) and silents (both comedy and the Potemkin-Caligari-Intolerance type classics) were a major part of it. Then there was also television, and while much of that was local and on the coasts (obviously it's easier to have old comics on your show if you're in LA or NY than Provo) it had plenty of national aspects to it too.

Kerr's book came along pretty late to be credit with fostering rediscovery. Its distinction, then and now, was of being an extremely well-written and pretty well-researched book from a culturally prominent writer in a field often seen as representing fannish enthusiasm rather than scholarship. But it didn't start with him, nor with a few screenings in a few cities, either.

And as long as we're singing the praises of Leonard, his "Movie Comedy Teams" was seminal, responsible for launching many of us on a lifelong quest to see every Clark & McCullough and Wheeler & Woolsey film. Four decades on I'm STILL hoping to see Oh, Oh, Cleopatra!

That's the one I'm missing......

I think the biggest influence on the General Public to watch silent films had to be Public Television in the early 70's, with shows like THE TOY THAT GREW UP, and especially Paul Killiam's THE SILENT YEARS and FILM COMMENT, which ran much of the Janus Film Catalog. Thats when the real upsurge of private collecting, Blackhawks sales, and public showings of silent films in libraries, film societies, and college campuses began. Blackhawks real heyday began in the mid-60's when Sears was even selling their products, and lasted until the mid to late 70's when the things I mentioned earlier like the spike in the price of silver and film stock and the birth of home video signalled the end of the boom.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

I totally agree with you about Paul Killiam who has to be the most underrated figure in the preservation of silent film history and yet he probably did more than anyone to get these films seen. I remember watching THE SILENT YEARS hosted by Lillian Gish on PBS as a preteenager in the early 1970's, would love to see a episode log somewhere with air dates and movies shown.

About this time or slightly before, Sears used to have one of their "speciality" little catalogs that could be picked up free in their catalog department consisting entirely of Blackhawk films. I loved that little catalog for a long time but being a kid of course the only Super 8 films I could afford were those little Ken Films edits on 50 or 200 foot reels that were sold at almost every department store in that era.