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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.
Discover Silent Comedy Films
Genres / Silent / Silent Comedy
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I Do
Originally in three reels, Harold Lloyd cut a whole reel after previews went poorly. The two-reel result is classic domestic comedy, with Harold as a henpecked hubby babysitting his two young nephews. See a jug of bootleg liquor masquerade as a baby in a carriage; watch Harold try to walk into his slippers which have been...Start your free trial to watch
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I Don’t Want to Be a Man
In I DON'T WANT TO BE A MAN, a teenaged tomboy, tired of being bossed around by her strict guardian, impersonates a man so she can have more fun, but discovers that being the opposite sex isn’t as easy as she had hoped. What ensues is a gender-bending comedy that was decades ahead of its time.Start your free trial to watch
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I Fetch the Bread
Arriving dinner guests find somewhat improbably that their hostess has forgotten the bread; a quick visit to the bakery motivates this accumulation of comic incident, a variation on the chase film formula. I FETCH THE BREAD was filmed in the empty streets of Paris by Pathe Freres in 1907.Start your free trial to watch
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In the Barber Shop
Blackface proves less than permanent in this slapstick confection by French pioneer Georges Méliès. The fanciful vision of a barber shop run amok anticipates later comedies of faulty machinery in Charles Chaplin's MODERN TIMES and Jacques Tati's PLAYTIME. - Max GoldbergStart your free trial to watch
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Isn't Life Terrible
Taking aim at the sanctimonious tone of D.W. Griffith’s ISN’T LIFE WONDERFUL? (1924), this buoyant Charley Chase two-reeler plays life's tough breaks as gags. Hal Roach house director Leo McCarey’s typically patient camera setups allow for a hilarious interval between slapstick disasters and Chase’s...Start your free trial to watch
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Just Rambling Along
In one of his first starring roles, Stan Laurel plays a foolhardy tramp on an unlucky streak. He tussles with a kid over a wallet left on the street just as the boy’s policeman father comes around the corner. After ducking the law, he pilfers his way down a cafeteria line but the lovely lady at his table...Start your free trial to watch
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Keep Smiling
This Weiss Bros. production starring veteran silent comic Jimmy Aubrey opens with the warning. “Man is clay (a woman's touch and he becomes all wet) and his name is mud.” When jobless Jimmy's landlady seizes his clothes for lack of rent payment, he improvises a sailor suit and finds himself vying with a real gob for the love...Start your free trial to watch
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Kid Auto Races at Venice
KID AUTO RACES AT VENICE, CAL. is enormously important as the comedy in which audiences first saw Charles Chaplin's Tramp character. It was filmed at the second annual "Pushmobile Parade," a children's car race. The improvised film has as its comic situation as the Tramp manages to get in the way of the...Start your free trial to watch
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Laughing Gas
With African-American Bertha Regustus in the principle role, this comedy seems to depart from conventional black stereotypes. Indebted to other comedies of the period (Vitagraph made a film with an identical title less than a year earlier), LAUGHING GAS is based on the premise that laughter is contagious.Start your free trial to watch
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Little Billy's Triumph
The first of several “Little Billy” films produced by Mack Sennett starring Billy Jacobs as a pint-sized hellion, LITTLE BILLY’S TRIUMPH pioneers the boisterous terrain later taken up by OUR GANG. A couple of older bullies steal Billy’s ice cream money. Enterprising rascals, they reinvest in sock puppets...Start your free trial to watch
