Saturday, November 28, 2020

Can You Read Title Cards?

 
   This week three disembodied voices discuss devoiced bodies. 

     A classic that launched 31 years of monster movies. A benchmark performance in the genre which looms just as large 91 years later. The first of a billion chandelier drops. Lon Chaney and company transform one of literature's most absurd characters into a haunting legend that overshadows its source. Read that strange duet with The Phantom of the Opera.
     A permanently smiling clown, desperate for love that he fells he can never deserve, is elevated to the halls of power in an adaption of Victor Hugo's melodrama. The last glorious blast of German expressionism which casts almost as long a shadow over the Universal Monsters as Phantom. Bolstered by one of the most sensitive performances ever filmed. Tragically, they did remove his brutal takedown of English government... The Man Who Laughs.
     The first film of one of the world's most popular characters. Starring by the first man to ever play the part and brought many of the staple to him that the author never envisioned before. Lost for nearly a century. William Gillette kept Sherlock Holmes viable and popular while Doyle desperately tried to forget him. 1916's Sherlock Holmes.
     A commentary on the conditions people face because of modernization. A tedious, lazy, and completely out of touch satire that set the stage for so many luddite arguments to follow. Considered by some his magnum opus despite yet another fair and featureless heroine and a total lack of points to make besides old rich man thinks progress is bad, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. Don't worry, not all of us hated it.
All that AND Dave shares the pain, Tyler embraces love, and Kevin plots revenge. Join us, won't you?

Episode 181- Can You Read Title Cards?

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