Film Details

In his landmark 1975 book The Silent Clowns, critic Walter Kerr writes that Raymond Griffith, a largely forgotten silent-era comic actor, “seems to occupy a handsome fifth place—after Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon—in the silent comedy pantheon.” The suave, mustachioed, unflappable Griffith, often attired in top hat and opera cape, uses his wits to extricate himself from disastrous situations. In his Civil War comedy and masterpiece Hands Up! (one of the few Griffith features to survive in its entirety), the dapper leading man plays a Confederate spy who tries to stop a gold shipment from reaching the Union army. This very funny film was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2005, and Robert Sherwood, film critic for The NY Times during the 1920s, even called it superior to Keaton’s The General! This afternoon New England’s ace silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis will provide live keyboard accompaniment to an archival 35mm print of Hands Up! (which has been preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation). Don’t miss it! 63 min.

This film will be rescheduled for a later date.