Celebrate Silent Movie Day 2024!

Tomorrow, September 29 (2024, for those of you who don’t look at the dates of things, after all this post won’t always be new) is National Silent Movie Day! Lots of exciting things are happening so I thought I’d give you a head’s up, in case you can make some of them. Whether you can or can’t, please take the opportunity to explore the nearly 1,500 silent movie related posts on Travalanche! And here’s some stuff happening tomorrow and beyond:

Friend Nelson Hughes is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his popular screening series That Slapstick Show! He’s marking the occasion with a bill of Universal shorts from the silent days (go here for a glimpse of the role the studio played in silent comedy). The photo tells us a Buster Brown short will be included. It’s at Q.E.D. in Astoria, Queens and will feature live piano accompaniment! It’s only ten bucks — here’s the link.

If you’re tethered to Manhattan, the way-uptown United Palace (4140 Broadway at 175th St) is showing perhaps the best silent comedy triple bill I’ve ever heard of: Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr (1924–a century old this year!), Charlie Chaplin’s The Adventurer (1917), and Laurel and Hardy’s Battle of the Century (1917). Live accompaniment on a huge Wurlitzer organ! Show starts at 6:30. Tix and info here.

Four Alamo Drafthouse locations (including one in New York) will be screening the Rin Tin Tin adventure film Clash of the Wolves (1925). Proceeds will go to benefit the National Film Preservation Foundation. The NYC screening is at 2pm. Tix and info (to NYC screening) are here.

If you happen to be within hailing distance of the Varsity Theater in Des Moines IA, you can catch my good friend, presenter, accompanist, preservationist (and soon, author) Ben Model as he shares a Keaton bill pairing Sherlock, Jr. (1924) plus One Week (1920).

If you’re like me and far away from any cornfields you can also partake of another Ben Model project. It’s illustrated above! His Undercrank Productions has restored Roland West’s wonderfully atmospheric and spooky silent thriller The Bat (1926) and released it on home video. It becomes available October 15, just in time for Halloween, but (gloat, gloat) I just got my review copy and that’s undoubtedly how I will be observing silent movie day tomorrow. You can order your copy here.

Also! In addition to being National Silent Movie Day, September 29 happens to be Billy Bevan’s birthday. Bevan was one of Mack Sennett’s top stars of the ’20s and a familiar character actor during the sound era. D & D Productions has a new Blu-Ray release with an official release date of October 1. Get it here.

And not only is September 29 both Silent Movie Day and Billy Bevan’s birthday, it is also National Coffee Day. In honor of the confluence (though I’d replace Bevan’s birthday with Halloween as an excuse) an Arkansas based coffee company called Breakfast at Dominiques is releasing a new blend named after Tod Browning’s The Unknown (1927). Will it give you terrifying nightmares about circuses and amputees? I don’t think it’s their intention, at any rate. It happens to be the latest in a line of flavors honoring Joan Crawford. They also have coffees inspired by Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Barbara La Marr, Bette Davis, Boris Karloff, Ava Gardner, Ella Fitzgerald, Mamie Van Doren, Cara Williams, and, um, Bozo the Clown (drink at your own risk). Drink these coffees to sober up after seeing movies at Alamo Drafthouse, I guess! Their website is here.

Circling back to NYC…the Film Forum has been letting us down lately (a Steven Spielberg retrospective? Come on!) and they’re letting us down tomorrow. Sunday mornings is when their Film Forum Jr shares movies for kids and families — a perfectly natural time for them to program a silent picture for National Silent Comedy Day, and what are they showing tomorrow? Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me (1986)! Whatever. Luckily, they partially redeem themselves with an upcoming series of Clara Bow films, screening most Mondays between October 7 and the end of the year. Get the dope, with a full list of films here.

And if that’s not enough Clara Bow for ya, the Wharton Studio Museum in Ithaca, New York is also celebrating the It Girl all month with several local cultural partners throughout the month. All the details about that are here.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest these other ways to celebrate the day:

Listen to me read the new audiobook version of my book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, also available in ebook and paperback.

And/or subscribe to my Patreon, where I frequently share clips of silent movies to members!

And, again, get lost among the nearly 1,500 articles I’ve written about silent movies and those that made them here.

Happy National Silent Movie Day!