Two more silent classics, this time a pair of comedies by two of the greatest entertainers of all time; Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton.
The Gold Rush (1925)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srnlg2b7y7M - from the Rick Deerfield YouTube channel (1 hour 17 mins long - 720p)
Synopsis:
A prospector goes to the Klondike in search of gold and finds it and more.
Directed by Charlie Chaplin.
Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Georgia Hale & Mack Swain.
Trivia:
Chaplin drew inspiration from photographs of the Klondike Gold Rush as well as from the story of the Donner Party who, when snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to cannibalism or eating leather from their shoes. Chaplin, who believed tragedies and comics were not far from each other, decided to combine these stories of deprivation and horror in comedy.
And the colourized version if you wish to dabble in such things;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaVNPZNKX7k
The General (1926)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m33VfG6-4vQ - from the FEATURE FILM YouTube channel (1 hour 18 mins long - 720p)
Synopsis:
When Union spies steal an engineer’s beloved locomotive, he pursues it single-handedly and straight through enemy lines.
Directed by Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton.
Cast: Buster Keaton & Marion Mack.
Trivia:
In 1963, Keaton said that “I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made. Because I took an actual happening out of the…history books, and I told the story in detail too”. With changing tastes and a re-evaluation of his works, audiences and critics would later agree with him, and it is now considered a major classic of the silent era. In 1989, The General was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.