THE RAT’S KNUCKLES (Pathe-Hal Roach, 1924) Starring Charlie Chase. 1 reel.

If Chase ever made a bad comedy, we haven't seen it yet; even when his material was routine, his sprightly personality seemed to give it added sparkle. (We have an especially good Chase talkie coming up in June). The Rat’s Knuckles, admittedly not one of Chase's best, has some wonderfully idiotic gags and one or two really unexpected ones.

A NATURAL BORN GAMBLER (Biograph, 1916) One reel.

After Griffith left Biograph, the company began to sink rapidly, abandoning both stars and the techniques taught by Griffith, who took most of the talent he had trained along with him to the coast. For the most part Biograph now concentrated on inferior imitations of Griffith melodramas and Sennett comedies. The one really bright spot in their schedule was provided by the delightful and original comedies of Bert Williams. William, a tremendously gifted pantomimist, had been successful initially back in 1886 with minstrel shows, and was thereafter part of the famous team of Williams and Walker. A fine vaudevillian, and a song-writer with more than 50 popular songs to his credit, he did a tremendous amount towards popularising, and bettering the conditions for, the negro entertainer. (Incidentally, very light-skinned himself, he used black-face makeup). A Natural Born Gambler was one of the very best of his films for Biograph, made when he was a solo headliner for the Ziegfeld Follies. One of his most famous pantomime routines was that of the porter carrying bags from taxi to train through a still-under-construction Grand Central -- climbing up ladders, and along girders! This particular routine is not included in the film, but his wonderful card game routine is, and even more notable, his solo poker game pantomime, which is still a classic routine, and as funny, and human, as it was in 1916. We have placed this film fairly early in our program because its humor is of the quiet and gentle kind; later on in the evening, amid hectic slapstick, it probably wouldn't be seen to its best advantage. Nevertheless, despite its "supporting" place on the bill, we consider it one of the finest (and rarest) items of our show.

MONTIE OF THE MOUNTED (Educational, 1927) Director: Charles Lamont. 2 reels.

Like Charlie Chase, Lupino Lane never seems to have made a bad comedy -- although admittedly so few are around today for reappraisal that that may be rather too sweeping a statement. Lane, a British comedian who appeared in Griffith's Isn’t Life Wonderful?, Lubitsch's The Love Parade, and the very successful British show (and film) of the late 30's, The Lambeth Walk, was a cherubic little comedian, not unlike Langdon, with an incredible acrobatic ability - an ability on continuous display in this film. Although it is ostensibly a satire on westerns, it is far less successfully so than Mack Swain's Cowboy Ambrose. Really it is lust a succession of wonderful gags, only a few of which bear much relation to the western scene, and several of which (e.g., the "hands" gag) seem to have been cheerfully stolen from Chaplin. There's some fine foolery with an incredibly realistic-looking phoney horse, and more action and movement than in many a feature.

DON'T PARK THERE (Pathe-Hal Roach, 1924) One reel (condensed from two).

The Will Rogers comedies for Roach were surprisingly variable. The political spoofs tend to date most, and seem rather pointless today. But the less restricted satires sometimes stand up wonderfully well, particularly his jibes at moviedom, as in Uncensored Movies and Big Moments from Little Pictures (both shown by this society two years ago), and also this fine study in exasperation at the parking problems of the 20s -- a subject still nicely topical. Hordes of model-T Fords are on hand to add to the nostalgia.

In conjunction with the showing of The Haunted House, we are issuing an index to the work of Buster Keaton (up to 1936), specially prepared for us by George Geltzer, to whom we are most grateful. Done at top speed in order to be ready for issuing today, this is merely a listing of titles and dates and is not meant to be an "index" in the accepted, detailed, sense. This, no doubt, will come later. In the meantime, this is, we believe, the first complete and accurate list of Keaton's work to be published, and thanks are due again to George Geltzer for his research.

NEXT MONTH

We are devoting our programs to Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Program one will consist of Lillian's THE SCARLET LETTER and Dorothy's PAINTED LADY, a very rare old Griffith-Biograph, plus at least one other item.

Program two will be Griffith's ORPHANS OF THE STORM, co-starring Lillian and Dorothy Gish. We have had many requests for this wonderful film, which is only very rarely shown by the Museum of Modern Art, and NEVER at the correct silent speed, always so important in any Griffith film. We're planning a really ambitious program note for this showing. Following Orphans of the Storm, we will be playing a tape recording of Erich von Stroheim's broadcast tribute (via BBC in London) to D.W. Griffith.

We hope to have the print of Chaplin's THE PILGRIM in very shortly, and so this will form the nucleus of a second comedy program in June. We have plenty of fine material left over that just couldn't be fitted into tonight's program.

Secondly, we'd like to ask your opinion of a possible JOHN FORD marathon screening some Saturday afternoon and evening shortly? Because most of this material is reasonably familiar, and sane of it is now on tv, we wouldn’t devote one of our regular showings to it. But if there are enough Ford devotees who would like a concentrated session of his films - uncut, as opposed to some of the tv prints, and in the case of DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK in color (theatrical prints for years have been only in black and white) - we'll be happy to set up such a session. Tentatively, the idea would be to run about four films complete - possibly DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, YOUNG MR LINCOLN and SUBMARINE PATROL - along with lengthy excerpts from STAGECOACH, LONG VOYAGE HOME, THE FUGITIVE, WAGONMASTER, THEY WERE EXPENDABLE, etc. If those of you who are interested will drop me a line, we'll see if it's worth planning such a show. Of course, we can't get everything we want of Ford, but there are about 20 of his sound films available to us.