Tag: William S. Hart

Clap hands, here comes Charlie

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Usually, when we have occasion to recommend a film festival or other vintage event, the proceedings are taking place in New York City, the home of Cladrite Headquarters, but our recommendation for this Friday and Saturday is directed at those in Southern California.

We’re not the biggest of Charlie Chaplin fans—among the great silent-movie comedians, Buster Keaton stands above all others in our estimation, with Harold Lloyd coming in second. But we’ve enjoyed our share of laughs over the years, courtesy of the Little Tramp, and we certainly acknowledge and respect the key role he plays in cinematic history.

So it’s with pleasure that we inform you that, this weekend, the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society, the William S. Hart Park and Museum, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and the Los Angeles County Department of Parks & Recreation are commemmorating the 75th anniversary of Modern Times, the picture that some say marked the end of the silent era, with a two-day celebration dubbed ChaplinFest.

The Santa Clarita Valley is a fitting site for this event, becuase it was there, on the Sierra Highway near Vasquez Rocks, that Chaplin filmed Modern Times‘ final scene. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll recall it—the Little Tramp walks off into the distance with Paulette Goddard on his arm.

Chaplin also filmed a scene for The Pilgrim (1923) at the nearby Saugus Train Station, which has been preserved and moved to Heritage Junction park.

ChaplinFest boasts a number of intriguing events over its two days: A screening of Robert Downey Jr.’s biopic Chaplin; a ceremony dedicating a Chaplin monument at William S. Hart Park, with special guests Tippi Hedren and Leonard Maltin; screenings of Modern Times accompanied by artifacts from the movie, including Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” overalls; a book signing withJohn Bengtson, author of Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin; a screening of The Pilgrim at the Heritage Junction Train Station; A rare screening of the recently discovered Keystone comedy A Thief Catcher, with Chaplin as a Keystone Cop, and much more.

If we were within striking distance of Santa Clarita, you can bet we’d be in attendance at ChaplinFest this weekend. Since we’re not, we hope some of our SoCal readers will make it—and perhaps they’ll even send us photos of the event.

Coming soon to this theatre

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Every movie buff knows that coming attractions have been around for decades, but they’ve not always been filmed.

The earliest on-screen announcements of pictures that were to soon to play at a given theatre, back in the days of silent pictures, came in the form of painted glass lantern slides that were projected on the silver screen between showings of that night’s feature picture. Examples of those slides still exist, and are considered highly collectible.

We own no such slide ourselves, though we’ve seen some in action at the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, California, an historic bijou that was built in 1921 and today screens silent and vintage pictures, with pre-show performances on a Wurlitzer organ and, yes, vintage glass lantern slides touting attractions that were once, y’know, coming.

We recently came across Starts Thursday, a delightfully addictive blog that explores the history of the motion picture coming attraction slide. As is explained on the site, “‘Coming Attractions’ have been part of the American cinema-going experience since 1912. STARTS THURSDAY! is devoted to the most unique and aesthetic medium of cinematic promotion, the glass lantern slide.”

If you have the least interest in this now relatively obscure chapter of motion picture history, we urge you to hie thee to Starts Thursday, and pronto.