Souls for Sale

After getting bad vibes from her murderous fugitive husband (Lew Cody) en route to their honeyman, a young beauty (Eleanor Boardman) hops off her train in the middle of the barren California desert and is rescued by an actor (Frank Mayo) riding a camel filming latest adventure story. Now she struggles to gain fame in the cutthroat industry, falls into a love triangle between the dashing male lead and a stern director (Richard Dix), while her husband, having noted her stardom, returns to reclaim her. Solid silent studio film contains great insider vantage points and cameos, including fascinating appearances by Charlie Chaplin at work and Erich von Stroheim on the set of Greed, and a fantastic, apocalyptic finale.

*** ½ out of ****

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The contorted bell ringer of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral becomes a pawn in his master's evil scheme to kidnap the sweet and beautiful gypsy Esmeralda. As an underground revolution concurrently ensues and Esmeralda is brought up falsely on murder charges, Quasimodo sees his opportunity to seize the day and exact revenge on his odious keeper. Carl Laemmle and Irving Thalberg's silent production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a riveting retelling of Victor Hugo's classic due to its expansive staging and an unforgettable Lon Chaney performance who appears more sparingly than one might presume.

Safety Last!

A country boy leaves for the big city, leaving his sweetheart behind and promising to send for her as soon as he makes it big. While finding a job as a clerk in a department store, he begins to lavish her with extravagant gifts among claims that he is now the department manager. While going hungry and working himself to the bone to keep up his ruse, things get even more complicated when his love decides to come out herself and shows up at the office to greet him! "Safety Last!" is the essential film from Harold Lloyd, the top silent era screen star following Chaplin and Keaton. Legendary producer Hal Roach's film is quite brilliant in the way in plays out, and in the number of sticky scenarios in which it places its bespectacled star from which he must extricate himself from. All roads in the film lead up to, again quite ingeniously, to Lloyd's famed scaling of the department store building with his acrobatic act as he dangles from the clock that rests atop it. It is a monumental scene in a congenial, funny, and well-realized film. 

Our Hospitality

Buster Keaton was one of the great comics of the silent era of the cinema. Known for his stoneface, his deadpan delivery, and his daring stunts done without doubles (in the climax of this film, he performed a daring waterfall rescue which seems impossible and almost cost him his life). He was beloved by millions, and many current film aficianados claim his skills to be superior to Chaplin's. Yet, somehow he is largely unseen by today's viewers. His Our Hospitality tells of a young man in the early 1800s being informed that he has an inheritance and must travel to his father's southern home to claim it. During the tumultous train ride he falls for a young woman. Upon arriving he has dinner at the girl's home only to realize that he is in the house of a rival family who has engaged in a blood feud with his own family for generations (the family's are the Canfields and McKays like the Hatfields and McCoys). The girl's brothers now intend to kill him, but not while he is a guest in the house, according to their father's insistance on being hospitable. This is a set up for many a gag in which Keaton tries to quietly remove himself from the premisis without garnering attention. Our Hospitality is a delightful silent film depending on superb setup and timing. Film lovers would find it in their interest to check out this or any other Buster Keaton film at their dispense.