Best silent era comic film star?

[ceptimus]

http://www.ida.liu.se/~juhta/buster/gif/electric_house.gif Buster Keaton?

http://www.geocities.com/~ppicking/lloydsmile.jpg Harold Lloyd?

http://wso.williams.edu/~dgerstei/chaplin/myscans/sadfacetramp.gif Charlie Chaplin?

...or suggest your own favourite.

[Brown]

Buster Keaton's my favorite. I never cared all that much for Chaplin.

[Boo]

I always thought Lloyd was the funniest. His routines make me laugh until my sides ache.
Chaplin makes me laugh until I cry and cry until I laugh.

Chaplin, hands down.


Boo

[SteveW]

Wow! Tough question. I like them both so much but they had very different comedy styles. I guess I would have to say Keaton is my favorite just for the scene when the house frame falls down on him.

[Mark]

Originally posted by SteveW
Wow! Tough question. I like them both so much but they had very different comedy styles. I guess I would have to say Keaton is my favorite just for the scene when the house frame falls down on him.

The look on his face afterwards is beyond classic. I don't think there is any visual comic who has not been at least indirectly influenced by Keaton, whether he/she knows it or not.

[bignickel]

Lloyd will always be one of my fave comedians.

The first Lloyd flick I ever saw was "Hot Water", and I laughed my ass off.

You think Lloyd is just trying to get you to laugh, but check out some of the interesting stuff he does in his films. Especially one of his better ones, if not his best, "The Kid Brother." Just a wonderful shot as he climbs a tree after talking to the girl, so he can shout something to her as she's walking up a hill. Then he climbs FURTHER with camera following him up, to shout something to the girl. Then he climbs further STILL on this tall tree, the camera following him the whole time.

I espcially love the construction of alot of scenes. So many complicated things all happening at once, all depending on exact timing for the scene to work out.

Everybody remembers the tall building he climbed in "Safety Last", with that classic movie still of him hanging from the clock face; but did you know he had a few fingers missing from one of his hands due to an explosion years earlier? Climbing, leaping, doing stunts, with missing fingers: not for the timid.

[Ove]

Buster Keaton unquestionally. The General is a silent movie masterpiece but most of his movies were extremely funny. :clap:

[EdipisReks]

Keaton, definitely. while The General is incredible, my favorite film of his is Steamboat Bill, Jr.. beyond the great acting and script, Marion Byron was incredibly cute in that film. :)

[luvtinayothers]

Keaton! Chaplin's great too...but Lloyd? I've just never found him funny. He
just doesn't make me laugh.

[shemp]

I will vote for Keaton, but an honorable mention should go to Fatty Arbuckle.

http://silent-movies.com/Arbucklemania/RAPor12.jpg

Fatty Arbuckle (http://silent-movies.com/Arbucklemania/home.html)

[fhios]

Harol Lloyd! Of the three people mentioned so far, his films have definitely dated the least. You can still kind of picture yourself in them and identify w/Lloyd.

[LuxFerum]

I once saw something on tv that explain why some movies can be extremely funny in the time they were made but after some years (50 or more) no one find the movie that funny. And why some movies are still funny after the same amount of time.

For that reason, I wont chose a favorite, since the movies they made were target to people from that time, not to people from the next millennium.:p

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I didn't like any of them. I could never hear the jokes! :D

[KelvinG]

I'll go with Chaplin, although Keaton is right up there as well.

Chaplin was a little more capable to handle different levels of emotion, from pure slapstick to pathos.
Keaton's movies were a little more dependent on only physical humour.

Chaplin couldd tug at the heart strings more effectively than any filmmaker of his time, and perhaps even among filmmakers today.

[Ove]

Chaplin couldd tug at the heart strings more effectively than any filmmaker of his time, and perhaps even among filmmakers today.

Which is precisely why i prefer Keaton. I've allways hated "The clown with tears in his heart" and some of Chaplins later movies are just too "dripping with tears".:rolleyes:

[teddygrahams]

Lloyd is pretty funny when you can't hear him. Comparing "Safety Last" to the talky remake, it's a lot funnier to see him hanging there than to hear him screaming "Help, Help, somebody help me."....

[Azathoth]

Harold Lloyd wins, easily. Safety Last, The Freshman, Hot Water... all wonderful.
Buster Keaton comes in a close second. The General really is a work of genius. But how can anyone empathize with his immobile face?
Chaplin just doesn't appeal to me much.

[FFed]

I like Buster the best.
The Railrodder was a great little movie too. That's the one where he rode that small rail car across Canada. I think he died shortly after making it.

[ChrisH]

Keaton for me...

Then Fatty Arbuckle (at his best with Keaton), Chaplin and Charlie Chase. These all played European-styled characters. Harold Lloyd was the first to portray a truly American character.

WC Fields made a good silent too, by the way.