REFPACK020: Rare Silent Films By Animator/Comic Charlie Bowers

REFPACK 020

January-February 2018

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DVD QUALITY VIDEO:

Two Films By Charlie Bowers

He Done His Best (1926) / A Wild Roomer (1926)

What do you get if you take the imagination of a great animator and cross it with the mind of a brilliant slapstick comedian? The answer is… Charlie Bowers. Almost forgotten today and rarely mentioned in histories of silent comedy, in his day Bowers was a successful and well known film maker, a peer of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd.

Bowers started his career as a cartoonist for Raoul Barré on the Mutt & Jeff cartoons. But he was a gifted performer as well as being a cartoonist, and in the mid 1920s he starred in a series of silent live action comedies. These shorts are unique because they employ animation to create eye-popping fantastic effects. The French surrealist André Breton spoke very highly of these films. We are happy to be able to share two of these shorts with you… “He Done His Best” and “A Wild Roomer”, both from 1926. Bowers performs in these shorts as a “regular fella” much like Keaton and Lloyd, but the slapstick isn’t the thing that distinguishes these shorts. I think you’ll be amazed by the inventiveness of the mechanical effects and stop motion animation.

REFPACK020: Charlie Bowers Silents

MP4 Video File / 47:28 / 845 MB Download

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