Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Day 12: Never Weaken

Date: July 12
Film: Never Weaken [usa, 1921]
Where: Tulsa/outdoors in a park/DVD
Who with: Greg + a bunch of strangers
Rating: ****
Harold Lloyd's skyscraper sequence: *****!

I kind of cheated a bit with my film as I didn't watch a feature, but I did watch a classic silent comedy from 1921 starring Harold Lloyd.  Five years running Greg and I have put a screen up and shown a silent film with live accompaniment from an organist. This year's short was Harold Lloyd's Never Weaken. I am quite partial to Lloyd and think he kind of gets forgotten as one silent comedies masters [Chaplin and Keaton always get the attention before him] and that's a shame. Watch the clip below to see Lloyd in all his glory as he gets caught up on a skyscraper being built and tries to make his way to safety. There were audible gasps [and laughter] from the crowd last night as they watched Lloyd's perilous adventure high above city streets. Silent comedy outdoors on a summer night with live organist? Magical.

3 comments:

hidden staircase said...

so cool...wish i could have been there. where did you do it? i sometimes think it'd be cool to do this in my backyard/back driveway...

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

We do it usually in a floating amphitheatre on the Arkansas River since it screens after an orchestra plays music from movies, but we're in such an extreme drought not enough water to keep it afloat...so we did it at the other side of the amphitheatre at the edge of a park.

hidden staircase said...

oh wow...movies on the water. very cool!