Tweet 1975: Walter Kerr and Blackhawk Films

Writers on various message boards and blogs have often told of how reading Walter Kerr's THE SILENT CLOWNS unlocked their inner film fanatic, which led to them saving up enough money to order from Blackhawk. Is there anything beyond anecdotal evidence that specifically illustrates the true impact the 1975 publication Kerr's book had on sales of Blackhawk's silent comedy titles, in any gauge? Something along the lines of cumulative sales figures for the (between 2-5) years prior to the book's release, versus the same time period after.

I'd even be interested if there's evidence that the book's publication triggered an increase of orders for Prevue 8, as this in turn would have led to increased subscriptions to the Bulletin and thus (presumably) more orders placed. I'm sure Blackhawk didn't engage in true market research, but surely any significant increase in subscriptions and/or orders at that time would have been noted and identified, no?

Thanks, Michael

I've read several postings on various message boards of how Walter Kerr's THE SILENT CLOWNS unlocked the authors' inner film fanatic, which led to saving up money to order from Blackhawk. Is there anything beyond anecdotal evidence that specifically illustrates the true impact the 1975 publication Kerr's book had on sales of Blackhawk's silent comedy titles, in any format? Something along the lines of cumulative sales figures for the (between 2-5) years prior to the book's release, versus the same time period after . . .

Thanks, Michael

I doubt that Kerr's research had any great impact on his own purchases--Kerr was very friendly with Herb Graff and other New York area film collectors and would have had access to any number of films they owned. I think Kerr collected because he enjoyed collecting. For all his lofty position as the drama critic for the NYT, I found Kerr pretty down to earth and truly interested in films when Herb introduced me to him at Cinecon in New York in 1976.

I doubt that Kerr's research had any great impact on his own purchases--Kerr was very friendly with Herb Graff and other New York area film collectors and would have had access to any number of films they owned. I think Kerr collected because he enjoyed collecting. For all his lofty position as the drama critic for the NYT, I found Kerr pretty down to earth and truly interested in films when Herb introduced me to him at Cinecon in New York in 1976.

I guess I'd better go back and edit that post. I was referring to the authors of the various message board postings I've read, not Kerr.

Michael

Mr. Kerr's 16mm collection didn't have that many Blackhawk prints in it. The BH's in his collection were mainly typical comedy shorts, I remember he had BH prints of things like One Week, Wrong Again, etc.

Ben

[silentfilm]

Reading Kerr's book definitely made me purchase more one and two-reel comedies, but then that's all I could afford in 16mm...

Writers on various message boards and blogs have often told of how reading Walter Kerr's THE SILENT CLOWNS unlocked their inner film fanatic, which led to them saving up enough money to order from Blackhawk. Is there anything beyond anecdotal evidence that specifically illustrates the true impact the 1975 publication Kerr's book had on sales of Blackhawk's silent comedy titles, in any format? Something along the lines of cumulative sales figures for the (between 2-5) years prior to the book's release, versus the same time period after.

I'd even be interested if there's evidence that the book's publication triggered an increase of orders for Prevue 8, as this in turn would have led to increased subscriptions to the Bulletin and thus (presumably) more orders placed. I'm sure Blackhawk didn't engage in true market research, but surely any significant increase in subscriptions and/or orders at that time would have been noted and identified, no?

Thanks, Michael

I doubt that THE SILENT CLOWNS triggered any more sales at Blackhawk than anything else going on in Silent Film Fandom at the time, and certainly wouldn't have had anything to do with PREVUE 8, which was marketed in all sorts of magazine advertising (I can remember seeing ads for it in publications like BOYS LIFE and numerous camera periodicals). And though the mid-seventies were I'm sure boom years for Blackhawk, home video and the Hunt Brothers trying to grab the silver market were just around the corner and about to begin the downward slide for that whole business. David Shepard would have those answers, but the one I want to know is why you're asking in the first place?


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Mike Gebert]

Yeah, like Bruce my answer is, I was a kid who maybe bought one or two Super 8 comedies ever, so even giving Kerr credit for them (and I had and loved his book then) I'm sure they saw that surge in their numbers when it happened...

I doubt that THE SILENT CLOWNS triggered any more sales at Blackhawk than anything else going on in Silent Film Fandom at the time, and certainly wouldn't have had anything to do with PREVUE 8, which was marketed in all sorts of magazine advertising (I can remember seeing ads for it in publications like BOYS LIFE and numerous camera periodicals). And though the mid-seventies were I'm sure boom years for Blackhawk, home video and the Hunt Brothers trying to grab the silver market were just around the corner and about to begin the downward slide for that whole business. David Shepard would have those answers, but the one I want to know is why you're asking in the first place?

RICHARD M ROBERTS

I figured the PREVUE 8 thing was probably a stretch. I got mine via the coupon in the revived LIBERTY magazine's "The Funny Men" issue, a Christmas gift in '72. But I had to ask. Hopefully David will respond, since he was there at the time. As for your question, Richard... "inquiring minds want to know."

MJH

I doubt that THE SILENT CLOWNS triggered any more sales at Blackhawk than anything else going on in Silent Film Fandom at the time, and certainly wouldn't have had anything to do with PREVUE 8, which was marketed in all sorts of magazine advertising (I can remember seeing ads for it in publications like BOYS LIFE and numerous camera periodicals).

I had a print of Prevue 8 (I guess because it was free or nearly so), but it wasn't a very intriguing introduction to silent film. I think if most of us were to put together our own intro reel, The First Glidden Tour wouldn't make the cut!

Preview 8 was definately a freebie. It came with a catalogue. And thus many a small boy was lead to life of ruin (at least financilly)

The majority of the films Kerr focused on in his book were not commonly accessible to home movie collectors in 1975 -- most of the Keatons and Langdons were controlled by Rohauer, Time-Life had the Harold Lloyds, and Chaplin's First National/UAs were still being doled out by Roy Export (if you missed THE KID that night when Chaplin came to Lincoln Center in '72, it wasn't seen again in these parts until MOMA launched their Bicentennial Salute to American Comedy four years later, and then for only one day's screening).

Apart from the Mutual Chaplins and the silent Laurel & Hardys, most of Blackhawk's fine output got the bum's rush from Kerr, unintentionally I'm sure, but it's true nonetheless. In his book Kerr tended to denigrate most of Mack Sennett and Roscoe Arbuckle's output in general, and he made no bones about his disaffection for Charley Chase...these were all filmmakers for whom Blackhawk had a fairly substantial showcase of titles.

Yeah, Mr. Kerr gave a measly Three chapters to Harold Lloyd which was frankly insulting!

There's interesting (and mostly fond) opinions on Walter Kerr in the Alan Schneider autobiography. They were both very young and teaching drama at Catholic University in DC in the 1940s. And then, of course, Schneider, became a big-time theater director...

Interesting the twists and turns this thread has taken.

The majority of the films Kerr focused on in his book were not commonly accessible to home movie collectors in 1975 -- most of the Keatons and Langdons were controlled by Rohauer, Time-Life had the Harold Lloyds, and Chaplin's First National/UAs were still being doled out by Roy Export (if you missed THE KID that night when Chaplin came to Lincoln Center in '72, it wasn't seen again in these parts until MOMA launched their Bicentennial Salute to American Comedy four years later, and then for only one day's screening).

Apart from the Mutual Chaplins and the silent Laurel & Hardys, most of Blackhawk's fine output got the bum's rush from Kerr, unintentionally I'm sure, but it's true nonetheless. In his book Kerr tended to denigrate most of Mack Sennett and Roscoe Arbuckle's output in general, and he made no bones about his disaffection for Charley Chase...these were all filmmakers for whom Blackhawk had a fairly substantial showcase of titles.

That's true, but only to a degree. Certainly the feature films were locked up by their respective rights holders, but I recall Blackhawk having some good Keaton shorts like ONE WEEK and COPS, and they had Lloyd's HIS ROYAL SLYNESS and HAUNTED SPOOKS, and possibly one of the "Lloyd climbing" shorts as well. As for Langdon, I know they had most of the best Sennett titles (ALL NIGHT LONG, BOOBS IN THE WOOD, HIS MARRIAGE WOW, REMEMBER WHEN?, SATURDAY AFTERNOON, SOLDIER MAN, among others), because I have ads that will appear in our book's Epilogue.

Summing up, Bruce and Mike represent anecdotal evidence that Kerr's book led some of its readers to order comedy titles from Blackhawk. RMR believes there's no hard evidence to support a more significant influence, and in any case, film collecting had just about reached its peak at that point, which obviously makes sense given the data he provided. But I'm still hoping Mr. Shepard will chime in. After all, Blackhawk is the first organization Kerr cited in his Acknowledgments, and he even drops their name, along with Kent Eastin's, here and there in the main text. That had to mean something.

MJH

That's true, but only to a degree. Certainly the feature films were locked up by their respective rights holders, but I recall Blackhawk having some good Keaton shorts like ONE WEEK and COPS, and they had Lloyd's HIS ROYAL SLYNESS and HAUNTED SPOOKS, and possibly one of the "Lloyd climbing" shorts as well. As for Langdon, I know they had most of the best Sennett titles (ALL NIGHT LONG, BOOBS IN THE WOOD, HIS MARRIAGE WOW, REMEMBER WHEN?, SATURDAY AFTERNOON, SOLDIER MAN, among others), because I have ads that will appear in our book's Epilogue.

Ironically, by the late 70's Blackhawk was offering all the major Chaplin films (in Super 8mm from RBC), and all of the Lloyd silent features in the Time-Life versions, just in time for them to be ridiculously expensive. They also had the three Keaton United Artists features as well.

So just what is this book about?


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Richard,

I have five of the Lloyd features from Blackhawk in Super 8 mm. I remember that I ordered a highly abridged as it turned out SAFETY LAST in the Spring of '79, as soon as it was released. but it was immediately sold out and put on Back Order. So I got GIRL SHY instead. Cut by a good reel to reel and half. These were the same as the Time-Life edits which Blackhawk did not offer on VHS or Beta. Umatic and V-Cord. Two forgotten formats. Time-Life did though for the absurd price of $250.00 per film. Bet they didn't sell many. Just who on earth could afford that? I was only 13. I think GIRL SHY was right around $50 bucks in Super 8. Definitely not cheap, but allot more affordable than Time-Life wanted for Videos.

Later I got what I considered to be the Holy Grail THE FRESHMAN, released by Blackhawk about 3 months after SAFETY LAST. It was sold out right away too. So people did buy these Lloyd features and there was definitely a demand. I had to wait about an extra month before it arrived.

The Time-Life videos were not marketed toward the general public. They were counting more on libraries and colleges. They also sold these to institutions in 16mm.

I think with Time-Life and the Lloyd films it was bad timing on their part. They must have sunk a ton into the video and 16mm for institutions and when home video came around, they waited so long that by the time the films came out in VHS, they were much more expensive than other VHS movies which had fallen to low sell through prices. I stil bought them and they looked magnificent, but I'm guessing not many more people did.

Yeah, I remember those RBC films Chaplin releases. At least I recall the ad's anyway. They were very expensive and you had to sign a release to even buy them. The license form was supposed to be good until 1991. They first started offering these in 1977 I think, just before Charlie past away. However, they did not have several titles. Including THE KID, and THE CHAPLIN REVUE with A DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS, and THE PILGRIM. Those were soon released on VHS and Beta regardless from a company called Magnetic Video. And later in much better transfers from Playhouse Video. My VHS copy of THE CHAPLIN REVUE still has several key snippets that are completely missing from the MK2 restoration.

:o Yeah, I remember those RBC films Chaplin releases. At least I recall the ad's anyway. They were very expensive and you had to sign a release to even buy them. The license form was supposed to good until 1991. However, they did not have several titles. Including THE KID, and THE CHAPLIN REVIEW with A DOG'S LIFE, SHOULDER ARMS, and THE PILGRIM.

They weren't actually for sale but were for a limited time lease (sort of). Bob Birchard worked on that project and has a post about it somewhere on Nitrateville.

Jim,

I envy your having the Lloyd Time-Life's on Video. The only one's I ever saw with the recorded scores were SAFETY LAST and THE FRESHMAN. I missed a screening of GRANDMAS BOY. I've heard good things about their score to THE KID BROTHER. My Blackhawk prints were Silent, but they were available with magnetic sound track scores. Where i lived we didn't get these on the local PBS Station. Nor did we get the half hour series that introduced allot of people to Harold Lloyd. Speaking of copyright, Time-Life's score for THE FRESHMAN purloined about 90% of Walter Scharf's recording for "The Big Game" sequence used in THE FUNNY SIDE OF LIFE without any screen credit. How did that happen?

Richard,

Not quite all of the Lloyd features. HOT WATER was cut to just a couple reels. The Turkey on the Trolly, and the New car sequences. It wasn't until 1994 that I finally got to this delightful picture in it's entirety.

Richard,

I have five of the Lloyd features from Blackhawk in Super 8 mm. I remember that I ordered a highly abridged as it turned out SAFETY LAST in the Spring of '79, as soon as it was released. but it was immediately sold out and put on Back Order. So I got GIRL SHY instead. Cut by a good reel to reel and half. These were the same as the Time-Life edits which Blackhawk did not offer on VHS or Beta. Umatic and V-Cord. Two forgotten formats. Time-Life did though for the absurd price of $250.00 per film. Bet they didn't sell many. Just who on earth could afford that? I was only 13. I think GIRL SHY was right around $50 bucks in Super 8. Definitely not cheap, but allot more affordable than Time-Life wanted for Videos.

Later I got what I considered to be the Holy Grail THE FRESHMAN, released by Blackhawk about 3 months after SAFETY LAST. It was sold out right away too. So people did buy these Lloyd features and there was definitely a demand. I had to wait about an extra month before it arrived.

Blackhawk's back-ordering had nothing to do really with demand, they backordered everything, they seldom kept much stock on hand and especially waited for a buildup of orders on Super 8mm prints, which,as I recall, due to the way Super 8 prints were set up in processing, had to be printed in groups of five prints at a time. I was always more shocked to get a print immediately from them and usually expected a backorder notice arrive in the mail.

The other thing I loved about Blackhawk is that they would always send you back a credit slip on every order for anything like 8 cents to a dollar or so, because they're postal rate charts were bizarre and nobody ever got it right. I had a box in which I threw all these credit slips in and then once in a while, added them up and bought a whole film with them.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Jim,

I envy your having the Lloyd Time-Life's on Video. The only one's I ever saw with the recorded scores were SAFETY LAST and THE FRESHMAN. I missed a screening of GRANDMAS BOY. I've heard good things about their score to THE KID BROTHER. My Blackhawk prints were Silent, but they were available with magnetic sound track scores. Where i lived we didn't get these on the local PBS Station. Nor did we get the half hour series that introduced allot of people to Harold Lloyd. Speaking of copyright, Time-Life's score for THE FRESHMAN purloined about 90% of Walter Scharf's recording for "The Big Game" sequence used in THE FUNNY SIDE OF LIFE without any screen credit. How did that happen?

Richard,

Not quite all of the Lloyd features. HOT WATER was cut to just a couple reels. The Turkey on the Trolly, and the New car sequences. It wasn't until 1994 that I finally got to this delightful picture in it's entirety.

That was all Time-Life and the Lloyd estate allowed on the film, and Blackhawk released that as well.

Those Time-Life scores by the Crescent City Jazz band were some of the WORST scores on a comedy film up until the Alloy Orchestra went into business. They seldomly fit what was going on in the films, and the sound effects were way over the top. And who could get Neal Hefti's annoying theme song out of your head. It even had lyrics!

Though we rewrote them into something like

"Har-Old-Lloyd!
Har-Old Lloyd!
Please Av-oid!
Har-old Lloyd!
He really is a major Noid!"

Right up there with the spinal-column decalcifying theme song for COMEDY CAPERS. A roomful of pre-pubescent kid chorusers making dogs howl as they screeched:

"That's all neighbors from COM-ED-DY CAP-ERS!
For a Roll-ick-ing-frol-ick-ing, GOOD TIME!"

When we put together the comedy showcase cable show JUST FOR LAUGHS in the 90's, my one demand was that we had a theme song that would match the Comedy Capers theme song for pure gratingness. We came pretty close, but they'd never let us use the lyrics.


RICHARD M ROBERTS (Oh yeah, and the reason Time-Life could re-use Walter Scharf's music for THE FRESHMAN was because Harold Lloyd owned it, not that it was particularly great music either. Waste not, want not.)

I never had those awful things. The Lloyds I had were the ones that came out in the 90s. They were unedited with (I think) good scores. They only came out on VHS and were very expensive.

I went to an advertised screening of Hot Water at the Dallas Museum of Art in the early 90s. They ran that gawd-awful Time-Life thing and it was everything I could do to stay there for the whole film.

I never had those awful things. The Lloyds I had were the ones that came out in the 90s. They were unedited with (I think) good scores. They only came out on VHS and were very expensive.

I went to an advertised screening of Hot Water at the Dallas Museum of Art in the early 90s. They ran that gawd-awful Time-Life thing and it was everything I could do to stay there for the whole film.

Are you talking about the Photoplay Production versions? Those were the first complete ones to come out on video as I recall. Those had good scores.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

They weren't actually for sale but were for a limited time lease (sort of).

That's correct. I often wondered, did anyone ever actually return the prints?

That's correct. I often wondered, did anyone ever actually return the prints?

By that time I don't think there was anywhere to return them.

Interesting the twists and turns this thread has taken. [snip}

Summing up, Bruce and Mike represent anecdotal evidence that Kerr's book led some of its readers to order comedy titles from Blackhawk. RMR believes there's no hard evidence to support a more significant influence, and in any case, film collecting had just about reached its peak at that point, which obviously makes sense given the data he provided. But I'm still hoping Mr. Shepard will chime in. After all, Blackhawk is the first organization Kerr cited in his Acknowledgments, and he even drops their name, along with Kent Eastin's, here and there in the main text. That had to mean something.

MJH

It does mean something but in the interest of accurate reportage here's the rest of the story: Blackhawk had only 4 of Keaton's 19 silent shorts (ONE WEEK, COPS, BLACKSMITH and BALLOONATIC -- all of which were commonly available everywhere for years before Blackhawk, from different home movie distributors). Same with the three UA-released Keaton features, the other ten Keaton features belonged to Rohauer or MGM. They had none of the Arbuckle-Keatons except for an abridged version of reel two of THE BUTCHER BOY, only a few early Lloyd "glasses" one reelers plus the 2 two-reelers HIS ROYAL SLYNESS and HAUNTED SPOOKS -- but that's all, and none of Lloyd's "high & dizzy" pictures. They did acquire the Langdon Sennetts from Killiam in the early to mid-70s (before that they only had BOOBS IN THE WOOD, SOLDIER MAN and an abridged version of SMILE PLEASE). But Kerr's writings on Langdon barely discuss these films and primarily cover the five existing First National features, which of course were Rohauer's domain.

The author who likely had the most impact on Blackhawk's sales in the 1970s was the workmanlike but prolific Kalton C. Lahue, whose WORLD OF LAUGHTER, KOPS AND CUSTARDS, CLOWN PRINCES AND COURT JESTERS, MACK SENNETT'S KEYSTONE, DREAMS FOR SALE, etcetera, were written with access to Blackhawk's silent film library, and often heavily illustrated with frame enlargements from the Blackhawk prints. Kent D. Eastin of Blackhawk wrote the foreward for one or more of these books. Blackhawk also sold these books through their catalogue, it was sort of a symbiotic relationship - we read them to learn about the comedians, then we bought the films that were described in them. Sam Gill was coauthor of CLOWN PRINCES and I only wish he had written these books at the time, his knowledge of film comedy is prodigious and was well-honed working at the Academy Library.

The other major influence on us kid/young adult collectors were the compilations of Robert Youngson, covered by others elsewhere in these threads. The first two Youngson features GOLDEN AGE OF COMEDY and WHEN COMEDY WAS KING were virtually a showcase of the Blackhawk library highlights -- CIRCUS TODAY, THE DAREDEVIL, MOVIE NIGHT, IT'S A GIFT, A PAIR OF TIGHTS, TEDDY AT THE THROTTLE, etc., and of course all those Laurel & Hardys...the only frustrating thing was that neither of the Langdon shorts excerpted (THE LUCK O' THE FOOLISH and THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS) were available from any home distributor, not until David Kalat's superlative LANGDON LOST & FOUND set did either film become generally available to Langdon fans (Rohauer had a more complete version of YEARS but that's another story in itself).

In the mid-1970s Raymond Rohauer probably benefitted the most from Walter Kerr's book. He had struck a deal with Kerr in the late 1960s and Kerr borrowed prints of the rare titles in Rohauer's collection. I've seen the contract between them and have a photo of Kerr & Rohauer together that was planned for the book jacket, taken in Kerr's home study. After they had a falling out Rohauer's name was removed from the acknowledgements on the book. Rohauer had his day by touring with his own "Silent Clowns" festival in the late 1970s, I was at those screenings with Rohauer in NYC (Mabel Langdon joined us in L.A.).

[Mike Gebert]

Summing up, Bruce and Mike represent anecdotal evidence that Kerr's book led some of its readers to order comedy titles from Blackhawk

On, I believe, such a microscopic scale that it would have been undetectable, I hasten to add. In my case, I would say that a far greater influence from Kerr's book was on what silent comedies I booked at the University of Kansas while running the college film society in the early 80s; there, I actually had a five figure budget to spend, unlike as a teenager buying for my own purposes. And I pretty well worked through anything that Kerr talked about and was available in 16mm at the time.

My comedy film viewing education during the 70's consisted mostly from my local libraries and museums. Like Mike, I used Kerr's book as a reference to track down gaps in the comedians filmographies. But it did seem that after his book came out there were more film series in my town devoted to the silent clowns.

But it did seem that after his book came out there were more film series in my town devoted to the silent clowns.

Now there's a correllation worthy of additional research, probably more so than my original query, and much easier to determine.

Thanks to everyone.

MJH