Coolidge Defeats Davis And La Follette Combined

So it's happened, Jesse Walker has made it back to the silent era.  We're talking 1924.

https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-year-la-follette-took-his-shot-our.html

Here are his top ten:

1. Sherlock Jr.

2. L'Inhumaine

3. Cartoon Factory

4. Ballet Mecanique

5. Au Secours!

6. He Who Gets Slapped

7. Girl Shy

8. The Last Laugh

9. The Crazy Ray

10. The Navigator

1924 was a pretty good year and this is a pretty good list (even with all the shorts listed).

Sherlock Jr. should be on top--a special film, even for Buster Keaton (though it wasn't appreciated at the time).  And I agree it's better than The Navigator, which should also be on the top ten list.  The Navigator for a long time was ranked second only to The General, but I think that's partly due to availability as well as its original popularity. On the other hand, Girl Shy is ranked too low--one of Harold Lloyd's best, it should be #2. (Just last week I recommended it to a friend who asked for a good Lloyd title that wasn't The Freshman or Safety Last.)

As for the shorts, Cartoon Factory shows you how special the Fleischer's were even back then. Ballet Mecanique is one of those neat French experiments of the time.  Au Secours! has Abel Gance working with Max Linder, a fascinating combination (even if Linder had done better work before while Gance would next do Napoleon!).

He Who Gets Slapped should be on the list--a Victor Sjostrom film starring Lon Chaney and featuring Norma Shearer and John Gilbert, the film helped establish the fledgling MGM studio.  The Last Laugh, a great Murnau film, should be even higher.  The Crazy Ray is a fine and weird start to Rene Clair's career.

I haven't seen the experimental film L'Inhumaine.

Jesse has no honorable mentions list.  For that matter, he hasn't seen enough from 1914 or 1904 much less 1894 to do more top ten lists (though he does mention Les Vampires, The Impossible Voyage and Autour D'une Cabine). So this is the end of the line.

Films that might have made my top ten:

Entr'acte

Hot Water

Greed

The Marriage Circle

Monsieur Beaucaire

Other Films Of Note

Alice's Spooky Adventure, Beau Brummel, Captain Blood, Captain January, Dante's Inferno, Dorothy Vernon Of Haddon Hall, The Extraordinary Adventures Of Mr. West In The Land Of The Bolsheviks, Felix Finds Out, Forbidden Paradise, Her Night Of Romance, Icebound, The Iron Horse, Kid Speed, The Last Man On Earth, Manhandled, Manhattan, Monsieur Don't Care, Die Nibelungen, Peter Pan, Pleasures Of The Rich, Quo Vadis, Romola, Rupert Of Hee Haw, Scaramouche, The Sea Hawk, The Snob, So Big, Symphonie Diagonale, Tess Of The D'Urbevilles, The Thief Of Bagdad, Thy Name Is Woman, Triumph, Waxworks, What Every Woman Knows, Why Men Leave Home, Wide Open Spaces, The Wolf Man, Yolanda