Movies

Silent movie update

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Presenting and accompanying a silent movie a month on Twitch hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped, so I’m making a couple of changes. I’ve also added a silent movie schedule to this website. Feel free to bookmark it or link to it.

First, I’m moving to YouTube. While I’m not thrilled with attaching myself too much to Google, it looks like a better choice than Twitch. There’s little live music anymore on Twitch; it’s mostly gaming, DJs, and talk. It pushes content creators toward a weekly schedule, which isn’t practical for the stuff I do. YouTube is a more popular choice for live concerts, not to mention Ben Model’s silent film watch parties. In experimenting on YouTube, I’ve found some other advantages. Twitch doesn’t support private test runs; I’ve already done one on YouTube to work out the details of streaming with OBS Studio. YouTube lets you post links to events in advance, which I find very nice. Finally, YouTube livestreams stay up indefinitely if I want them to.
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May 1 silent film show: Short comedies

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Because of other stuff I have scheduled in May, my next silent film show will be on the first Wednesday of the month instead of the second. That’s May 1, 8 PM EDT. The show, with my live accompaniment as usual, will consist of three short comedy films starring famous actors:

Scene from silent film Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde. Pryde (Stan Laurel) is menacingly approaching a boy with an ice cream cone.

  • The Goat (1921) with Buster Keaton. A case of mistaken identity leads to Keaton’s character being chased by everyone.
  • Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925) with Stan Laurel. This spoof is based chiefly on John Barrymore’s 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Laurel was a noteworthy comedian by himself before teaming up with Oliver Hardy.
  • His Royal Slyness (1920) with Harold Lloyd. A prince asks an American who looks exactly like him to impersonate him, so the prince can stay with his girlfriend. Lloyd’s brother Gaylord, who looked a lot liked him, plays the prince.

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This entry was posted in Movies and tagged science fiction silent movies on by | Open »

Tomorrow as I post this (April 10, 2024) at 8 PM Eastern Time I’ll accompany Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film, Metropolis, on Twitch. It’s one of my favorites, with a futuristic city, an evil robot, and probably the first full-blown mad scientist’s lab in a movie. Twitch left my last two shows up for on-demand playing for about a week, and I assume they’ll do the same with this one, so you can catch it even if the show time is inconvenient. This is the restored 2 ½ hour version, and there will be a 10-minute intermission to give my arms a rest.

If you’re near Plaistow, NH, you can catch me accompanying it in person at the Plaistow Library at 1 PM on Friday, April 12.

A preview scene with my accompaniment is up on YouTube.