How Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton & Harold Lloyd Pulled Off Their Spectacular Stunts Throughout Silent Movie’s Golden Age

It may be tempt­ing to view the field workplace’s dom­i­na­tion by visu­al-effects-laden Hol­ly­wooden spec­ta­cle as a current phe­nom­e­non. And certainly, there have been peri­ods dur­ing which that was­n’t the case: the “New Hol­ly­wooden” that started within the late 9­teen six­ties, as an illustration, when the previous stu­dio sys­tem hand­ed the reins to inven­tive younger weapons like Peter Bathroom­danovich, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, and Mar­tin Scors­ese. However lest we for­get, that transfer­ment met its finish within the face of com­pe­ti­tion from late-Seventies block­busters like Jaws and Star Wars, a brand new type of block­buster that sig­naled a return to the sim­ple thrills of silent cin­e­ma.

Even a cen­tu­ry in the past, many film­go­ers anticipate­ed two expe­ri­ences above all: to be wowed, and to be made to chuckle. No received­der that period noticed visu­al come­di­ans like Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Char­lie Chap­lin grow to be not simply essentially the most well-known actors on the planet, however among the most well-known human beings on the planet.

Keep­ing on high required not simply seri­ous per­for­ma­tive ability, but additionally equal­ly seri­ous tech­ni­cal inge­nu­ity, as defined in the brand new Misplaced in Time video above. It breaks down simply how Lloyd, Keaton, and Chap­lin pulled off a few of their career-defin­ing stunts on movie, placing the actu­al clips alongside­aspect CGI recon­struc­tions of the units as they’d have appeared dur­ing shoot­ing.

When Lloyd hangs from the arms of a clock excessive above down­city Los Ange­les in Protected­ty Final! (1923), he’s actual­ly hold­ing excessive above down­city Los Ange­les — albeit on a set con­struct­ed atop a construct­ing, shot from a care­ful­ly cho­sen angle. When your complete façade of a home falls round Keaton in Steam­boat Invoice, Jr. (1928), leav­ing him stand­ing unhurt in a win­dow body, the façade actu­al­ly fell round him — in a pre­cise­ly chore­o­graphed man­ner, however with solely a cou­ple of inch­es of clear­ance on all sides. When a blind­fold­ed Chap­lin skates per­ilous­ly near a mul­ti­sto­ry drop in Mod­ern Instances (1936), he’s per­fect­ly secure, the sting of the ground being noth­ing greater than a mat­te paint­ing: a type of ana­log tech­nolo­gies of film magazine­ic whose obso­les­cence remains to be bemoaned by clas­sic-film enthu­si­asts, from whom CGI, no mat­ter how expen­sive, nev­er fairly thrills or amus­es in the identical approach.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Artwork of Cre­at­ing Spe­cial Results in Silent Motion pictures: Inge­nu­ity Earlier than the Age of CGI

Watch the Solely Time Char­lie Chap­lin & Buster Keaton Per­fashioned Togeth­er On-Display (1952)

Protected­ty Final!, the 1923 Film Fea­tur­ing the Most Icon­ic Scene from Silent Movie Period, Simply Went Into the Pub­lic Area

30 Buster Keaton Movies: “The Nice­est of All Com­ic Actors,” “One of many Nice­est Movie­mak­ers of All Time”

How Char­lie Chap­lin Used Floor­break­ing Visu­al Results to Shoot the Demise-Defy­ing Curler Skate Scene in Mod­ern Instances (1936)

Char­lie Chap­lin Does Cocaine and Saves the Day in Mod­ern Instances (1936)

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His initiatives embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the guide The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly often called Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.