Silent Comedy
see all genres ›What many still consider the "Golden Era" of film comedy took place during the silent years when a stellar lineup of comedic talent (most famously Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd) churned out umpteen funny shorts and features. Considered disposable entertainment then, they've by and large stayed remarkably fresh over a century's course since.
Watch Silent Comedy Films
Genres / Silent / Silent Comedy
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Cops
One of Buster Keaton's greatest and most famous comedies, COPS is universally enjoyed for the inventive comedy and amazing chase sequences. However, its darker aspects (Keaton's use of an anarchists bomb risked painful reminders of the horse and wagon, similar to the one Buster drives, that...Watch Movie
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Ghosts Before Breakfast
The Dadaists were closely attuned to cinema's native surrealism. And so it is fitting that Hans Richter's GHOSTS BEFORE BREAKFAST should return to so many of the medium's first loves: trick shots, fisticuffs and slapstick are all thrown in the dada blender, unfettered from the...Watch Movie
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What's the World Coming To?
This zany Hal Roach production of WHAT'S THE WORLD COMING TO? takes place in a future "one hundred years from now, when men have become more like women and women more like men." The film opens with the "blushing groom" approaching the altar where his tuxedoed bride awaits to...Watch Movie
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Number, Please?
Arguably one of Harold Lloyd’s best two-reel comedies, NUMBER, PLEASE? takes place at a Los Angeles amusement park. It’s an unusual day: Mildred Davis is with another man, Harold is desperate to find her lost dog and Harold and Roy Brooks vie to take Mildred for a balloon ride. In the midst of...Watch Movie
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Thirty Days at Hard Labor
A faithful adaptation of O. Henry's short story that was presented in "good comedy spirit" according to one enthusiastic reviewer. In order to gain the father's permission to marry his daughter, the spoiled son from a rich family must work to make his own living. By opening up...Watch Movie
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One Touch of Nature
The film's title comes from Shakespeare: "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." This is just one of many stories from the period that illustrate this dictum. A well-to-do, middle-aged man with a foul temper regains his humor when he spends some time in the woods with...Watch Movie
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The Farmer's Daughters
The daughters of the farmer do some very good character work fooling young college graduates who are bent on matrimony. Incidental glimpses of American farm life considerably enhance the value of the film. The one-reel light comedy was a specialty of Thanhouser, as were...Watch Movie
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Daddy's Double
This deft comedy about a foiled elopement and assumed identity shows the importance of a carefully worked out scenario for narrative flow. The rule at many other comedy-producing studios was that gags drove the film and story line was incidental. With the talent of Lloyd Lonergan, it was the...Watch Movie
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Fantasmagoria
Émile Cohl was already 50 by the time he made his first breakthrough work for Gaumont. FANTASMAGORIA's squirmy chalk drawings are infused with the same anarchic spirit which inspired his earlier work as a caricaturist and art provocateur. Pointedly crude, the animation skewers a bourgeois lady at...Watch Movie
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Too Much Johnson
In 1938, three years before CITIZEN KANE, New York theater tyro Orson Welles filmed comedy sequences for his stage production of TOO MUCH JOHNSON, a rapid-fire farce of mistaken identities. The slapstick prologue features Joseph Cotten doing Harold Lloyd antics through the...Watch Movie
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The Railrodder
In one of the last films of the comedian's long career, Buster Keaton stars as a "railrodder" crossing Canada from east to west on a railway track speeder. As might be expected, the film is full of sight gags as Keaton putt-putts his way to British Columbia. Not a word is spoken throughout and...Watch Movie
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An Eastern Westerner
Rural comedy abounds in this romp as young upstart Harold (Harold Lloyd) is shipped to his uncle’s ranch out west. There, he meets Mildred (Mildred Davis), assists her in staving off the unwanted affections of rogue Young (Noah Young) and, after a wild altercation with a gang...Watch Movie
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Grandma's Boy
One of Harold Lloyd’s personal favorites of his films, GRANDMA'S BOY is a beautiful tale of self-discovery with a bounty of comic overtones. Sonny is a self-professed coward who balks at the sight of the town tramp (Dick Sutherland). Armed with a lucky charm given to him by his grandmother (Anna...Watch Movie
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Airy Fairy Lillian Tries on Her New Corsets
A heavyset young woman asks for help in fitting into a new corset but it proves a challenge even for two assistants in this unattributed 1905 comic short from New York-based American Mutoscope and Biograph. The company was founded in 1895 originally to produce flip-card movies...Watch Movie
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Two Gun Gussie
When Sheriff Whooping-Cough Charlie mistakes Harold Lloyd's hapless piano player for a gunslinger, Lloyd learns that being a tough dude is all an act. That is, until he runs into the real thing at the bar! The place goes to pieces, but there's time for a kiss before this wild one-reeler is through.Watch Movie
