John T. Ryan
WE HAD NEVER heard of this film until it turned up on the MOVIES channel recently. We took a chance, recorded it and finally took the time to watch today.THE BEST WAY to classify this is a Documentary, with the sub-section of Primer. Whereas it offered nothing which was new to us, it did a fine job of introducing so much information to those who are not as familiar with silent film clowns Chaplin and Keaton.THE FILM Stitches together a myriad of scenes from a wide variety of silent shorts with occasional references to the features such as Mack Sennett's TILLIE'S PUNCTURED ROMANCE (Keystone, 1914), THE GENERAL (1926), THE GOLD RUSH (1925), STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (1927) as well as latter day sound features CITY LIGHTS, MODERN TIMES, THE GREAT DICTATOR. Keaton's teaming with Jimmy Durante at MGM is highlighted.WE CAN'T SAY that the names in the credits were familiar to us; not that this would make any difference. The beauty here is that it is quite obvious that there was not a whole lot of fund$ available in the budget; yet they finished with reasonably well mounted production nonetheless. It is quite clear that this was indeed a labor of love, the production team is high on the subject matter.HERE'S HOPING THAT they made at least a few buck$ for their efforts.
