Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd were only the tip of the comedy iceberg during the silent film era. These six great comedy shorts, all rarities from the archives of the Library of Congress, feature comics you may not know but who were major laugh-makers during their time…and still are today.
The comedy team of Ham & Bud are The Bogus Booking Agents (1916); Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew – pioneers of the situation comedy – remember Her Anniversaries (1917), and Marcel Perez (a/k/a "Tweedy") takes a romp around the old Kalem studios in Cliffside, N.J. in You're Next (1919).
When Knights Were Cold (1923), starring a pre-Ollie Stan Laurel, was lost until a couple years ago and its re-premiere at a classic comedy film festival last year, where it brought the house down. Rounding out the program we find cross-eyed Ben Turpin running for office and getting caught in an affair in A Blonde's Revenge (1926), and Charley Chase takes a cue from Charles Lindbergh in the aerial comedy Us (1927).
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USA, 100 min., b/w, 35mm print from the Library of Congress
