TCM presents a 2-Disc special collection containing silent film genius Buster Keaton's greatest work. watch
A rising star who rose from bit player to writer, director, and star of comedies for Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle recruited up-and-coming vaudeville comic Buster Keaton for a series of films from 1917 through 1919. Presented chronologically, these shorts demonstrate Keaton's evolution from bit player to full partner as both men honed their comedic skills. Following the 1921 scandal that was inflamed by a publicity-seeking prosecutor and the tabloid press, Arbuckle's films were withdrawn from circulation in America. The films in this collection were gathered from international archives and private collections, with new English intertitles and digitally mastered from 35mm, some directly from the nitrate originals. watch
Highlighting the Golden Age of screen comedy as it has never been presented before, "Slapstick Encyclopedia" collects more than fifty silent short comedies with new musical soundtracks.Laurel and Hardy, Fatty Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, Will Rogers, Ben Turpin and more--from the early innovators, who redesigned the routines of vaudeville with narrative form, to the celebrated masters whose inspired improvisations helped establish the world dominance of American film, "Slapstick Encyclopedia" is your laugh-filled tour of this eternally appealing art. Includes: In the Beginning: Film Comedy Pioneers; Keystone Tonight!: Mack Sennett Comedies; Sennett in the Twenties; Funny Girls: Genders and Their Benders; Keaton, Arbuckle and St. John; Hal Roach's All-Star Comedians; Hal Roach: The Lot of Fun; Chaplin and the Music Hall Tradition; The Race Is On; Tons of Fun: The Anarchic Fringe. watch
