Harold Lloyd

Then, there are classic silent comedies for the next three Mondays (Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, with live piano accompaniment), and coinciding with the Canary Wharf Jazz Festival (12-14 Aug), a few choice documentaries on Thelonius Monk.

This week's new film events 2011

The overlong sequence is coarsely conceived and devoid of physical logic—it's as if digital technology, which makes everything possible though not necessarily plausible, had been used to expunge any remaining cultural memory of the elegantly constructed movie chases pioneered by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

'Five': A Series Wakes Up at the Wheel Joe Morgenstern 2011

"The silent film star Harold Lloyd started building it in 1927, and he never finished the gate," he said.

A Night at a Hollywood 'Museum' Marshall Heyman 2011

But both of them were as infatuated with American popular entertainment – Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks, a landscape of skyscrapers and jazz – as they were with American technology.

Marx at the movies 2011

And no wonder: his movies are pure delight with Keaton easily the equal of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy, to name some contemporaries.

Michael Giltz: DVD: SciFi Silly, Serious and Everything In Between Michael Giltz 2011

Harold Lloyd wasn't a silent comedian as much as a bespectacled WMD.

Dan Lybarger: A Tale of Two Festivals: The Kansas Silent Film Festival and The True/False Documentary Film Festival Dan Lybarger 2011

I say this because, back in the silent era, stars like Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd insisted on performing all of their own stunts.

George Heymont: Second Chances, Unexpected Outcomes George Heymont 2011

I say this because, back in the silent era, stars like Lon Chaney, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd insisted on performing all of their own stunts.

George Heymont: Second Chances, Unexpected Outcomes George Heymont 2011

Harold Lloyd wasn't a silent comedian as much as a bespectacled WMD.

Dan Lybarger: A Tale of Two Festivals: The Kansas Silent Film Festival and The True/False Documentary Film Festival Dan Lybarger 2011

And no wonder: his movies are pure delight with Keaton easily the equal of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy, to name some contemporaries.

Michael Giltz: DVD: SciFi Silly, Serious and Everything In Between Michael Giltz 2011