Pair from ‘Silk Hat’ comedian

Friday, October 16, 2009

GOFFSTOWN – He was a silent film actor who really couldn’t talk, thanks to a childhood vocal injury.

He was Raymond Griffith, the “Silk Hat” comedian, whose film star popularity in the 1920s rivaled that of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

But Griffith’s lack of a speaking voice prompted an abrupt end to his on-screen career when talkies arrived in 1929. Most of his starring feature films have since disappeared, causing Griffith to be virtual unknown today.

But the elegantly dressed comic, who as a youngster attended St. Anselm Prep School in Goffstown, will return to the cinematic spotlight once again Saturday, Oct. 17 with a double feature of two of his few surviving works.

“Paths to Paradise” (1925) and “Hands Up!” (1926), a pair of comedies regarded as his best, will be screened with live music at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Dana Center for the Humanities at St. Anselm College. Admission is $7 per person.

“Griffith’s character was that of a worldly, shrewd and quick-thinking gentleman, usually dressed in a top hat and a cape, who enjoyed outwitting con artists and crooks at their own game,” said Jeff Rapsis, who has composed and will perform new scores for both films. “It turns out he was very different from Chaplin or Keaton, and so were his films – they seem a bit more cynical and so perhaps more modern. But we’ve shown them before and they hold up well with a live audience today.”

“Paths to Paradise” stars Griffith as a polished con man who competes with a feisty female jewel thief to steal a heavily guarded diamond necklace.

The film finishes with a wild car chase through the California desert.

Unfortunately, all existing prints of “Paths to Paradise” are missing the final 10 minutes, but the film ends at a point that completes the plot and provides a satisfying finish.

“Hands Up!” features Griffith as a Confederate spy during the Civil War whose mission is to prevent a shipment of gold from reaching Northern forces. The film survives complete and is considered by most critics to be Griffith’s masterpiece.

Both films were produced and released by Paramount Pictures, where Griffith was under contract in the 1920s as one of the studio’s leading stars.

The screenings are part of Mirthquake, an annual four-day festival of classic silent and early sound comedy films in southern New Hampshire, which runs from Thursday, Oct. 15, to Sunday, Oct. 18, and includes screenings of films in theaters in Keene, Manchester, Wilton and Concord.

“All of these films were designed to be seen in theaters by large audiences, not on a small television screen by people sitting at home,” Rapsis said. “Mirthquake aims to recreate the lost magic of early cinema comedy by bringing together crucial elements for its success – the best available prints, projection on the big screen, a live audience, and, in the case of silent films, live music.”

Born in Boston in 1895, Griffith injured his vocal cords at an early age, rendering him unable to speak above the level of a hoarse whisper. After appearing in circuses and attending at least one year (1905-06) at St. Anselm, he went on to serve in the U.S. Navy prior to World War I and in 1915 wound up in Hollywood, where the movie business was already booming.

Early on, Griffith worked at Mack Sennett’s Keystone studio, where he developed a reputation as an excellent actor on screen and a superb comedy writer and director. He eventually concentrated on behind-the-camera duties, making him Sennett’s right-hand man for a time, but he eventually moved to the then-new Paramount studios in the early 1920s, where he began to appear again in on-camera roles.

Griffith’s mastery of character parts made him immediately popular, prompting Paramount to star him in his own movies starting in 1924.

In the next few years, he completed a dozen feature films, most of which today are lost due to neglect or improper storage. If not cared for properly, older film stock will decompose and sometimes burst into flames. About 80 percent of all silent film is presumed lost due to this and other factors.

Following the arrival of sound pictures in 1929, Griffith’s lack of a speaking voice forced a return to behind-the-camera work, with one notable exception: he played a non-talking role as a dying French soldier in Lewis Milestone’s World War I classic “All Quiet on the Western Front,” (1930) which won that year’s Academy Award for Best Picture.

As a producer, Griffith’s work included the classic family film “Heidi” (1937) and “The Mark of Zorro” (1940). He retired in 1940, and died in 1957 at age 62 after choking at a Los Angeles restaurant.

“Though he’s not as well known today as Charlie Chaplin or Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Raymond Griffith was doing some really good work during the peak of his career,” Rapsis said.

“It’s great that the public will get a chance to appreciate the two wonderful Griffith films as part of this year’s Mirthquake.”