Topic: Great Show at the Ohio Theatre!!

[soiently64]

We had a great showing of dedicated Stooge fans this morning at the Ohio Theatre. I was wondering if anyone noticed the extra scene in "Violent Is The Word For Curly"? The extra scene was when the boys were onstage in front of the student body of Mildew College; Larry had a stupid  dazed look on his face and he was day dreaming  to an earlier scene when their boss was yelling at them at the service station. Larry was quickly brought back to reality with a slap  across the kisser by Moe. Very interesting, makes you wonder how many of the other shorts were butchered by Columbia.

[Pilsner Panther]

We had a great showing of dedicated Stooge fans this morning at the Ohio Theatre. I was wondering if anyone noticed the extra scene in "Violent Is The Word For Curly"? The extra scene was when the boys were onstage in front of the student body of Mildew College; Larry had a stupid  dazed look on his face and he was day dreaming  to an earlier scene when their boss was yelling at them at the service station. Larry was quickly brought back to reality with a slap  across the kisser by Moe. Very interesting, makes you wonder how many of the other shorts were butchered by Columbia.

Now, that's interesting, all right. The copy I have is the Columbia VHS tape, and the scene where Larry daydreams about being back at the gas station definitely isn't in there. On the other hand, those tapes restored some scenes that were cut for TV, like the black baby in "Uncivil Warriors."

You have to remember that when these films were made, no one expected that anyone would still be watching them 60 or 70 years later, so they weren't taken very good care of. That attitude went all the way back to the silent era— more silent films have actually been lost than still survive, and a lot of them were butchered by later editors for one reason or another ("Metropolis" and "Greed," for example).

The only reason we have most of Buster Keaton's best work is beacuse he put his personal copies of the films in a closet in his house, forgot about them, and years later, another owner of the house found them there. MGM Studios (shamefully) had no interest at all in preserving them.

 

[soiently64]

Funny you mention Metropolis....I saw Metropolis last week at the Ohio Theatre. I had never seen it before but it was a restored version with I think almost an extra hour of previous deleted material in it. Our organist, Clark Howard did a wonderful job playing along.

I only recently discovered Buster Keaton's work while attending The Cameraman at the Ohio Theatre....now I am hooked, I have read serveal books about him.

[Pilsner Panther]

Funny you mention Metropolis....I saw Metropolis last week at the Ohio Theatre. I had never seen it before but it was a restored version with I think almost an extra hour of previous deleted material in it. Our organist, Clark Howard did a wonderful job playing along.

I only recently discovered Buster Keaton's work while attending The Cameraman at the Ohio Theatre....now I am hooked, I have read several books about him.

Now you'll be hooked, in a positive and very enjoyable way. Buster influenced every single physical comedian who came after him, everyone from the Stooges to Red Skelton to even modern comics like Geoff Hoyle and Penn & Teller (Teller is a very Buster-like character, what with his complete silence, poker face, and hazardous stunts). The similarity to the Stooges isn't an accident, either: Stooge writer/director Clyde Bruckman started out as Buster's collaborator on some of his funniest films.

My recommendations for anyone who's just getting into Keaton, more or less according to my own preferences:

Steamboat Bill Jr. (feature)
Daydreams (short)
The High Sign (short)
One Week (short)
The General (feature)
The Paleface (short)
The Garage (co-starring Fatty Arbuckle) (short)

And that's just for starters, on a very rich body of work.

As for "Metropolis," you probably saw the same print that's now available from Kino Video. It's an amazing job of restoration, considering that the film was basically in tatters, with a number of different chopped-up prints floating around, including that horrible 80's version with a disco musical (!?) score.

If anyone ever does a full remake, I want to play Rotwang!

 





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