Escape Pod Dreams
Created | Updated Aug 5, 2009
Escape Pod Dreams, the Silent Cinema Issue
You don't have to be quiet while watching a silent movie and you don't have to be deafened by THX
What do Jackie Chan, Alfred Hitchcock, Jacues Tati, Clint Eastwood and Mel Brooks all have in common? Silent movies. Jackie studied hundreds of slapstick films of the silent era starring Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Fatty Arbuckle and the Keystone Kops while learning how to develop his unique combination of martial arts and comedy. Alfred Hitchcock started out as a title card designer in silent films. Clint Eastwood's famous Sergio Leone films were shot without live sound. Every noise and voice was added in post production. Jacques Tati was a master of silence, even when surrounded by noise and glass and steel. Mel Brooks made a movie with Marty Feldman and Dom Deluise called 'Silent Movie'. Let's see him make a musical out of that. The only spoken word in the entire film comes from Marcel Marceau. They wanted Harpo Marx, but he was detained in the graveyard.