Tickets: $25/$15 concession
Film: digital presentation of restored film
Duration: 87 minutes
Live music: accompanist Mauro Colombis
Presenter: Eddie Cockrell
Eddie Cockrell is a former programmer of the American Film Institute Theater in Washington DC, is a critic for Variety, and has written film reviews and features for The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Washington Post and indieWIRE.
ONE WEEK – 1920 Buster Keaton (USA) 19 minutes
THE RINK – 1916 Charles Chaplin (USA) 24 minutes
GET OUT AND GET UNDER – 1920 Harold Lloyd (USA) 25 minutes
BIG BUSINESS – 1929 Laurel and Hardy (USA) 19 minutes
More Comedies for Kids (USA)
Featuring: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy
After the runaway success of the ‘Comedies for Kids’ session at the first Australia’s Silent Film Festival, we are pleased to present yet more hilarious, side-splitting slapstick comedies for the whole family to enjoy. Innocent and cartoon-like in nature, these short comedies which average twenty minutes in length are comical masterpieces, full of unpredictable, ridiculous and outrageous antics and stunts, and are universally synonymous with laughter and an enjoyable short escape from reality.
This year’s Festival features some of the best work by the legendary comedy masters: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and the famous duo, Laurel and Hardy, who together in a period of a decade set the benchmarks for all comedians to follow.
In One Week, Buster Keaton shows off his skill in stunts and physical agility as he builds his own house from a do-it-yourself kit which was a wedding gift, but which is sabotaged by his wife’s former lover seeking revenge. The result is a lopsided house with all kinds of unpleasant surprises to raise the roof with laughter! This is Keaton at his best!
The Rink is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most famous early comedies, and features his talent for elegant agility; first as a dexterous waiter in a restaurant, then on a roller-skating rink; a shining example of Chaplin’s comical choreography at its best!
Among the great names of silent comedy is Harold Lloyd, who took a different approach from Chaplin’s tramp character and Buster’s trademark deadpan look by being just a normal guy who always finds himself in very funny situations. In Get Out and Get Under, it is his Ford Model T automobile that supplies all the fun!
Laurel and Hardy have endured as the best-loved comedy duo of all time, and this great classic has yet another style and pace from the above comedies, focusing on a tit-for-tat demolition of a house and car. This short film, Big Business, was even added to the Library of Congress as a national treasure in 1992!