Now or Never (1921)
There It Is (1928)
Now or Never (Fred C. Newmeyer, Hal Roach, US 1921, 25 min., 35mm)
The Bicycle Flirt (Harry Edwards, US 1928, 20 min., 35mm)
There It Is (Harold L. Muller, US 1928, 18 min., 35mm)
Three comic shorts kick off Silent Tuesdays, demonstrating the daring stunts and filmic techniques that make the films popular to this day. In Now or Never, Harold Lloyd is traveling to meet his childhood sweetheart, a nanny who surreptitiously takes her charge on vacation with her. Lloyd crashes his car and must stow away on a train before meeting his sweetheart, who asks him to take care of the child. In The Bicycle Flirt, Carole Lombard uses Billy Bevan, a bicycle salesman, as a foil for the man she truly wants to date. When the family has to take Bevan home to recover from an injury, he assumes that Lombard wants to marry him. Finally, There It Is uses many late-silent techniques in a haunted house comedy. When “The Fuzz Face Phantom” haunts a family, they call on Scotland Yard to solve the mystery. They send Charley Bowers and his assistant, a kilt-wearing, fourth-wall-breaking, stop-motion insect to investigate. Hidden passages and flywire stunts highlight the absurdist case.