A surrealistic silent detective story

For the milestone tenth year, Lea at Silent-ology is hosting the Buster Keaton Blogathon. You can click the image above to go to the full list of participants. This year, my topic is the magical 1924 film Sherlock, Jr. No matter how many times I see it, it always evokes such a surrealistic mood and pulls me right into this world blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.

Sherlock, Jr., originally called The Misfit, released 21 April 1924. Buster wanted his leading lady to be Marion Harlan, whom he’d previously worked with on Three Ages, but she took sick and was replaced by Kathryn McGuire, a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1923.

Another change was the co-director. Buster brought on his best friend Roscoe Arbuckle, who was still blacklisted by most of Hollywood and the American public after the scandal of 1921–22. Even after he was acquitted at the third trial and given an unprecedented personal apology from the jury, many people still refused to believe his innocence or support his career. Roscoe had to work under the pseudonym William B. Goodrich and move behind the camera.

Buster was one of the few people who stood by Roscoe through thick and thin. Not only did he remain friends, he also gave Roscoe the chance to work again. Roscoe was deep in debt from his long legal battle, and had lost his home and cars. Many film scholars believe the premise of Sherlock, Jr. is a tribute to Oscar Heinrich, the forensic scientist who helped to clear Roscoe’s good name.

Sadly, after a great beginning, Buster and Roscoe got into a big fight triggered by Buster correcting a mistake, and Buster had to direct the entire film himself. After all the trauma poor Roscoe went through, could he really be blamed for behaving irrationally in its wake? Trauma responses by definition aren’t rational, and anger is one of the most common ones.

Because of the surrealistic storyline and its complicated special effects, Sherlock, Jr. was Buster’s most challenging film to create. It took four months to film and edit, from January to April 1924, twice Buster’s normal production length. Buster later told film historian Kevin Brownlow, “Every cameraman in the business went to see that picture more than once trying to figure out how the hell we did some of that.”

Buster famously did all his own stunts, and often got injured because he refused to use doubles or dummies. During the filming of Sherlock, Jr., he unknowingly broke his neck when he grabbed a water spout while walking on top of a moving train. The back of his neck was bashed against a steel rail on the ground, and Buster blacked out. Filming wrapped early that day, and he had blinding headaches for weeks. Only in 1935 did he discover he’d broken his neck.

A relatively less serious accident happened when Buster’s motorcycle skidded straight-on into two cameras, which knocked over gag man Eddie Cline and tossed Buster onto a car.

The preview in Long Beach didn’t go very well, so Buster re-edited the film to try to make it funnier. The second preview was even worse, so Buster cut the film down to a mere five reels. He refused producer Joseph Schenck’s suggestion to add another thousand feet of film (about eleven minutes).

Sherlock, Jr. earned $448,337 ($8,086,242.84 in 2024), making it Buster’s first real failure in his long, successful career. The New York Times and Photoplay loved it, but other reviews were very negative. A century later, this film is much more highly-regarded by both critics and audiences. In 1991, it was chosen for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

A film projectionist in a small town spends his free time studying how to be a detective. While sweeping up the trash in the theatre, he finds a whole dollar (which went a lot further in 1924!) and feels compelled to return it to the pretty young lady who lost it. He also gives one of his own dollars to an older woman sifting through the pile. When a gruff-looking guy comes up, the Projectionist hands over another dollar without a fight, but the guy gives it back and looks through the pile to find a whole wad of cash.

With his last dollar, he buys a box of chocolates at a nearby shop and phonies up the price to look like $4 to impress his rich love interest. He also gives her a ring when he goes to her house. While they’re very demurely, shyly sitting together in the parlour, the local Sheik (Ward Crane) steals a watch from her father’s coat and pawns it. With the money, he buys the $3 box of chocolates the Projectionist hoped to buy earlier.

The father (Joe Keaton, Buster’s real-life dad) notices his watch missing, and Buster says it’s a good idea to search everyone. The Sheik slips the pawnshop ticket into the Projectionist’s pocket, and when it’s found on his person, the Girl’s father kicks him out of the house in perpetuity. (In a lot of old films, the person who makes an accusation is always believed, and the person accused is judged automatically guilty and not allowed to plead his or her case.)

The Projectionist’s detective book includes the suggestion to shadow his man, which he does. However, he’s quickly waylaid by the abovementioned incident with the water pipe, so he returns to his day job.

The Girl goes to the pawnshop to ask who got the ticket, and the pawnbroker describes the Sheik, who presently passes by. Meanwhile, the Projectionist falls asleep while projecting Hearts and Pearls, a film about the theft of a pearl necklace, which very closely mirrors the real-life situation. His dream self wanders down the aisle, climbs over the organ supplying live music, and tries to jump into the screen.

The first attempt is unsuccessful, but the second attempt succeeds. And here begins a movie within a movie.

He shifts back and forth between a bunch of different scenes before moving into the story of Hearts and Pearls as Sherlock, Jr., the world’s greatest detective. The actors transmogrify into the people involved in the real situation.

The Sheik and his accomplice (Erwin Connelly, the butler) rig one murderous trap after another for Sherlock, Jr., but he outwits them all—an exploding billiard, a chair with long-handled axes above it, poison. The next day, Sherlock, Jr. tracks them and more bad guys down to a shack and is captured.

The Sheik says the man struggling in a wicker cage in the next room is a detective, and that he’ll put Sherlock, Jr. in there next. He also says the Girl is at another shack. Sherlock, Jr. escapes and ends up in a wild chase on a cop’s motorcycle handlebars.

For almost the entire chase, which goes through one wacky situation and close scrape after another, he has no idea the cop fell off and he’s only moving through momentum.

The bike eventually crashes through the shed where the Girl is being held hostage, and she and Sherlock, Jr. have another close escape and wacky car chase.

The Projectionist wakes up to the Girl announcing they discovered the real guilty party and that her father is very sorry for the mistake. He proceeds to copy the actions of the hero in the romantic closing scene of the film he’s still projecting, but the final image of married life with twins might be a bridge too far.

How I compile my list of silent films I’ve seen

I began compiling my list of silents seen in early 2005, when I was just seriously getting into the artform and could easily recall every silent I’d seen to that point. The rest I got from journal entries and film lists on DVD compilations (e.g., The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy series). Thus, I wasn’t listing most of these films in the actual order I’d seen them until about #125, The Wind.

But what exactly do I count as a silent, and what don’t I count? And what are some other things I always make note of?

1. I always include hybrids made during the transitional period of 1926–31. These are films with synchronised soundtracks, sound effects, crowd noises, musical performances, and/or short, sporadic speech. I note in parentheses that it’s a hybrid, and what exact type of sounds it has.

2. A silent or overwhelmingly silent film made for artsy reasons after the silent era is still a silent! Such films include The Artist (2011), Cowards Bend the Knee (2003), The Heart of the World (2000), and Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002).

3. Many avant-garde, surrealistic, and experimental films deliberately tell their stories without a lick of dialogue. The only sounds they have are from soundtracks.

4. A lot of cartoons likewise choose not to use dialogue, though I’d refrain from starting to add them too early. Let’s be honest, counting every Pink Panther and Tom and Jerry cartoon before or almost exclusively of films from the actual silent era is a lazy way to quickly bulk up your count.

5. You can also count films made during the sound era with no sound of any kind. These tend to be home movies, promo films, outtakes, and screen tests that either never had any sound, or lost their sound over the decades.

6. Don’t confuse a film that deliberately uses selective sound or doesn’t begin dialogue until 10+ minutes in with a true silent film! There can be a fine line with some avant-garde, surrealistic, and experimental films, but it should be pretty clear when there are only a few scenes of dialogue amidst intertitles and acting purely with body language, vs. when the film just happens to have dialogue scenes few and far between and gets a late start on that first dialogue.

7. Many films from the early talkie era still used intertitles to, e.g., convey things that happened between scenes or to introduce the film. If everything else uses sound to tell the story, it ain’t a silent!

8. Many of Georges Méliès’s films are accompanied by a narrator on DVD, or when shown on TV, but they’re still very much silent films. That narration was never part of the original film recording, but provided as the films were projected in theatres. Without narration, it can be hard to make heads or tails of exactly what’s going on in some of these films.

9. If you happen to find a Japanese silent film with recorded narration from a benshi, that’s not in any way a sound film. Japan was silent much longer than the rest of the world, until 1938, largely because the benshi were so popular. They did sound effects, sang, provided commentary, and made up dialogue for the scenes without intertitles.

10. A number of films during the transitional and early talkie era had both sound and silent versions, to accommodate theatres not yet wired for sound, or just to see which version would be more successful. I always note in parentheses if this is the silent version.

11. Some anthology DVDs only have excerpts of longer films, or they’re shown in shorter form on TV. I always note this. If I later see the full-length film, I go back and take out that note, or if it’s part of an anthology, I mention I later saw the whole thing.

12. Surviving footage from a lost film should be noted as such. You don’t want people to get excited thinking a Holy Grail film like Theda Bara’s Cleopatra was found when you only saw one reel or a small fragment!

13. Some films have deteriorated too badly to be completely restored even with modern technology, and so were padded out with stills and intertitles (either original or newly-written). Other films lost in entirety, like London After Midnight, have stills- and intertitles-only versions. These are also things to be noted in parentheses.

14. If a film isn’t a feature or short, I make a note of what it is. E.g., home movie, newsreel, trailer, outtake, screen test. Since most of these things don’t have titles, I just describe what they are.

15. I give the English translation of most foreign films’ titles first, with the original title in parentheses. I only give the original title first if it’s generally better-known by that, or I just think it sounds better than the translation.

16. An easy way to quickly bulk up your count is by watching lots of short snippets from the 1880s–1900s. You can find many on anthologies of early film, films by pioneers, and early avant-garde and surrealistic films. There are also YouTube channels devoted to such films.

17. I always note if a film has scenes in two-strip Technicolor, or is entirely in Technicolor. Other films used hand-colouring.

18. If I’m listing films from a collection of shorts, I mention it excludes films I’ve already seen.

19. And speaking of not counting films twice, when your count gets too high to easily keep track of, always search to see if you’ve already seen a film. So many times, I discovered a title hundreds of films back.

20. Every so often, I provide commentary of my own. E.g., of the silent version of Unaccustomed As We Are, I wrote: “[T]he glut of intertitles reveals this was meant to be a talking short and doesn’t work at all as silent comedy.”

21. If there’s a well-known other film by that name, I note they’re not to be confused with one another.

22. Films I most recommend to a newbie have a *, and films I don’t recommend have a †.

23. I count different versions of the same film if they’re markedly different; e.g., the general release and the much-longer director’s cut, the U.S. and European cuts, a later reissue with new scenes, deleted scenes, and tinted scenes.

24. I mention if a film were shot in a certain year but not released until a later year.

25. If I can’t find the exact date, I’ll give it my best guess and write a ? after it. If I know the decade, I’ll put a ? in place of the fourth digit. This mostly applies to stuff like home movies and outtakes.

26. I note if a film is mistakenly labelled with a different title, or if there’s confusion about what its true title really is.

27. I put horizontal lines before and after the films from collections, to keep them separated from the films I saw individually.

28. I mention if a film is unfinished.

29. I obviously note I’m excluding sound films from collections with a mix or a few early sound-on-film experiments!

30. I never include sound era edits making up dialogue, narration, and sound effects.

31. I also never include films I’ve only seen the shortest snippets of in documentaries or commercials.

A funny, ferocious feud of the 1830s, Buster-style

For the ninth year, Lea at Silent-ology is hosting the Buster Keaton Blogathon. You can click the image above to go to the full list of participants. I didn’t participate for the last two years, owing to how lockdown wrecked my mental health, so I’m very glad to finally start doing it again. This year, my subject is Buster’s brilliant 1923 film Our Hospitality.

Premièring 9 November 1923 and going into general release on 19 November 1923, Our Hospitality (originally titled just Hospitality) was Buster’s second feature-length film. It was a huge financial success, selling out at many theatres and earning $537,844 ($9,409,753 in 2023). Most critics absolutely loved it, an appraisal which continues to this day.

Our Hospitality has been remade many times in 21st century India.

Though the story is rather obviously based on the real-life Hatfield and McCoy feud, which began in 1863–64 and picked back up from 1878–91, Our Hospitality begins in 1810 and is set primarily in 1830. Buster changed the historical era because he loved trains so much and wanted to feature this mode of transportation in its very infancy.

Artistic director Fred Grabourne built full-sized, fully-functional train replicas that were accurate down to the very last minuscule detail. Buster decided to use the 1829 Stephenson’s Rocket because he thought it was funnier-looking than the 1831 DeWitt Clinton engine.

Some of the train scenes were filmed in Truckee, California and Cottage Grove, Oregon. Cottage Grove was later to become one of the primary filming locations for The General. Truckee was given a makeover to look like Shenandoah Valley in the 1830s. During filming breaks, Buster and his co-workers (both cast and crew) frequently went fishing in the Truckee River.

Replica of the DeWitt Clinton built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition

Contemporary drawing of Stephenson’s Rocket

In addition to the authentic antique train, Buster also made use of a dandy horse, a bicycle precursor which was most popular in 1816. By the 1830s, it had long since fallen out of fashion.

Joe Roberts, who plays Joseph Canfield, had an on-set stroke during filming. Though he soon returned from a Reno hospital to finish the job, he sadly died of a second stroke a few months later.

Another near-disaster happened when Buster, who refused to use stunt doubles, almost drownt in the Truckee River when his restraining wire snapped and he was swept into the rocky rapids. Ten minutes later, he was finally found face-down and immobile on a riverbank. After he recovered, he decided to film the rest of that scene on a movie set in L.A. instead of a real river.

Buster used miniature scenery for another dangerous stunt where he swings from a rope into a waterfall, also done on a movie set.

Three generations of Keatons appear together in Our Hospitality. Besides Buster, we also see his father, Joseph Keaton, who appeared in many of his films, as a grumpy train engineer. Buster’s 14-month-old son Joseph plays Willie McKay in the 1810 prologue, though he had to be taken off the set when the bright filming lights irritated his eyes.

Last but not least, Buster’s first wife, Natalie Talmadge, plays Virginia Canfield, the leading lady. Since she was pregnant with their second child, Robert, at the time, she had to be filmed in such a way as to conceal her condition as it became more prominent.

Sorry about the obnoxious watermark on a public domain image!

In 1810, John McKay is the last of his line. The last, that is, except his baby boy. He’s terrified because he heard Jim Canfield is in town, and their families have been feuding for generations.

In the Canfield home, Joseph tries to convince his fiery brother Jim to drop the feud already, but Jim says he came a long way to kill John McKay, and he’s bound and determined to do it tonight.

After the unthinkable happens, the Canfields vow to continue the feud, and Mrs. McKay sends her son Willie to her sister’s family in NYC.

Twenty years later, Willie has grown up to be quite the dandy, in a city far more rural and sparsely-populated than we think of it as. His familiar life is disrupted when he gets a letter asking him to come to Rockville to claim his late father’s property.

Before he leaves, his aunt tells him the story of the feud and makes him promise not to go near the Canfields.

But as it would so happen, also en route to Rockville is Virginia, whom Willie doesn’t yet know is a Canfield. While riding together in one of the bumpy carriages attached to the train, they start getting friendlier and friendlier.

Troubles encountered along the way include a donkey and cows wandering onto the tracks, wheels coming uncoupled, running over a big log, coke soot getting on everyone’s faces in a tunnel, and getting on the wrong track.

When they arrive after this very eventful journey, Willie makes the mistake of asking one of Virginia’s brothers where the McKay estate is. When asked why he wants to go there, Willie identifies himself as John McKay’s son. The brother then goes to buy a pistol.

While the Canfield men are busy at their pistol cabinet at home, Virginia invites Willie to supper.

Willie is very disappointed and stunned to discover the McKay estate is nothing more than a falling-apart shack.

Unfortunately, one of the running gags is more than just dated. Willie twice encounters a man choking and beating his wife, and he naturally intervenes. The wife gets really angry at him for interfering in their business. It makes me so uncomfortable to see domestic violence depicted like this, though I know Buster was only trying to be funny in the context of that era. Today we understand so much more about domestic violence.

The Canfields constantly try and fail to shoot Willie, though only outside. Mr. Canfield forbids his sons to commit any murders in the house, since it’s against the Southern code of hospitality. As long as Willie’s inside, he’s safe, but all bets are off the second he steps out the door.

Willie is on-edge the entire supper, and prolongs leaving as long as possible by shaking everyone’s hand multiple times, pretending his hat is missing, and playing with the dog.

He gets a reprieve when a parson who was also a guest opens the door to a huge rainstorm. Since it’s too dangerous for anyone to go outside, Willie quickly reaches outside for his suitcase and decides to spend the night.

The next day, Willie again prolongs his departure as long as possible, and finally escapes by cross-dressing. The Canfields, though, know it’s really him, and go on a murderous search for him at the train station and through the fields and woods.

The chase leads to a steep, dangerous cliff which Willie can’t find a way off of until one of the brothers throws down a rope to get a better shot. They both fall into the river below, and thus begins another desperate escape.

Willie thinks he’s finally safe when he commanders a train, but all bets are off when his car derails and sends him back into the perilous river. Now he has the difficult task of finding a way to safety, rescuing Virginia when she goes to look for him, and escaping the Canfields alive.

Happy 120th birthday, Life of an American Fireman!

Life of an American Fireman, filmed in late 1902 and released January 1903, stands as one of the very earliest narrative films in the U.S. Prior, most films were actualities, little vignettes of daily life, instead of having actual storylines like Georges Méliès’s pioneering French films. That all began changing with this short classic directed by the legendary pioneer Edwin S. Porter.

For many decades, Fireman was considered revolutionary on account of its editing techniques, namely being the first alleged known use of cross-cutting in the final scene. However, this was later proven to be a false claim, based on researching the paper print at the Library of Congress.

The original version contained few, if any, of the cross-cuts seen in the version which was best-known for a long time. E.g., the inside POV of the burning house appears first, then repeats exactly with an exterior POV, instead of cutting back and forth between the perspectives. Thus, the film was edited at some point, though the exact date is unknown.

According to film historian Charles Musser, author of Before the Nickelodeon and an expert on Edwin S. Porter, the version first seen by January 1903 audiences was the one with repeated actions and scenes, not the cross-cut version.

In 2016, Fireman was chosen for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” I first saw it on the excellent 4-disc set Edison: The Invention of the Movies, which contains films from 1889–1918. It’s also available on Treasures from American Film Archives, another 4-disc set which is the first of a currently six-part series showcasing early films.

As Charles Musser explains, this film represents how firefighters’ social role was changing in that era. It also has much in common with the 1901 British film Fire!, directed by James Williamson.

Fireman was considered a lost film until 1944, when the Museum of Modern Art acquired a 35mm print from Pathé.

The story is rather simple. A fireman dreams of a woman putting her little girl to bed, and shortly thereafter an alarm sounds. All the firemen rush out of bed and dress, slide down the pole, and get into their waiting horse-drawn firetrucks. Everyone lines up in the streets to watch as they race to the rescue.

The woman inside the burning house passes out on her bed right before the fireman gets inside. He carries her down the ladder by the window he axed open, then carries her daughter to safety. Once everyone is out, he and another fireman begin putting out the fire.

In the next scene, the same woman begs at the window for help, and the fireman goes up the ladder to rescue her. He then goes back up for her daughter. This was cross-cut together in the later edit.

Original version without cross-cutting.

A powerful story of hope, faith, and love in the face of great tribulations

Note: I wrote the first section of this post in December 2022, but was unable to squeeze it into the remainder of the year.

Mary Pickford loved Tess of the Storm Country so much, she filmed it twice, in 1914 and 1922. She decided to remake it because her previous film, Little Lord Fauntleroy, hadn’t done so well at the box office, and she wanted to redeem herself. She also realized she needed to play the kind of character audiences had grown to expect from her.

Not only did Mary love the character and story of Tess, she also felt the story could be done greater justice with improved filming technology and a bigger budget. The source material was a 1909 novel of the same name by Grace Miller White (née Mary Esther Miller).

The 1914 original is one of the few known surviving films starring Harold Lockwood. Tess was remade again in 1932 (with Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell) and 1960 (with Diane Baker and Jack Ging).

The version being discussed here was released 12 November 1922.

Elias Graves (David Torrence, brother of Ernest Torrence) has another think coming if he believes he can easily expel the squatters living at the bottom of his hill. These poor fishers proudly cling to their way of life and their shabby homesteads, even in the face of cruel hostility.

Graves’s daughter Teola (Gloria Hope) is being courted by a young law student, Dan Jordan (Robert Russell). Though Dan and Graves share their hostile views on the squatters, Graves doesn’t approve of Dan and Teola’s relationship. Dan hopes to change that opinion by finding a way to get rid of the squatters.

Graves’s son Frederick (Lloyd Hughes) doesn’t share their opinions. He knows the squatters would have nowhere to go if they were evicted.

The putrid scent of rotting fish carries all the way up to the top of the hill, greatly offending Graves. Hoping to butter him up, Dan goes to take care of the matter. Graves also sends Frederick on this mission.

When they arrive, spunky 17-year-old Tessibel “Tess” Skinner (Mary Pickford) jumps on Dan and tangles him up under a fishing net, giving him a scratched cheek. She also chases Frederick away. Despite this violent meeting and Tess’s unkempt appearance, Frederick is charmed by Tess.

Dan decides to try another tack, stealing the fishing nets. If the squatters can’t fish, they’ll have nothing to eat, and will have no choice but to scram.

Frederick goes down the hill to see Tess, bringing chocolates. Though Tess is initially suspicious of his intentions, she’s quickly won over. Frederick also apologizes to Orn (Daddy) Skinner (Forrest Robinson) for his dad’s hateful views and says he doesn’t share them.

Tess also has another suitor, physically powerful, mean-spirited bully Ben Letts (Jean Hersholt), who won’t take no for an answer, despite her constant refusals.

When the thugs come to steal the nets, Tess and Daddy hide theirs in a mattress. It goes undetected until a tiny bit falls out at the last minute. Dan decides to leave well enough alone and wait until he can catch them using it. Meanwhile, the other families’ nets are burnt, with no concern for how the squatters will eat.

Driven by hunger, the squatters take a chance and go fishing under cover of darkness. Tess is terrified of trouble, and her fears come true when Dan is shot and killed by Ben. The nightmare increases when Daddy is falsely accused and arrested. He admits that’s his gun, but professes his innocence.

Ezra Longman (Danny Hoy), another guy with a crush on Tess, tells Ben he’ll keep the secret if he agrees to quit sexually harassing Tess.

The situation is even more complicated because Teola is pregnant out of wedlock, decades before single motherhood became socially acceptable.

Tess asserts her father’s innocence when Graves comes to the shanty, and prays for God to save her father, which Graves condemns as blasphemy. Graves says he’ll make Daddy pay the penalty, and Tess leaps on him in rage.

Frederick advises her to cool her temper, and reassures her that no prayer is blasphemy.

Tess and Frederick’s friendship continues to grow, and they begin studying the Bible together (with a copy Tess stole from church). A major theme of the film is that some unbaptised people who never go to church, with no formal religious education, are better Christians than people who put on a public show of piety but have no regard for even basic religious teachings.

Graves disowns Frederick when he discovers Frederick is raising money for Skinner’s defence.

The plot thickens when Daddy is found guilty. Now Tess is all alone, and Ben breaks his promise to leave her alone. Not only that, but Tess saves Teola from a suicide attempt and brings her to the shanty to give birth.

Will Daddy be proven innocent? Will Tess and Frederick’s unlikely love succeed? And what will become of Teola’s baby?