Serge Bromberg’s Saved from the Flame: Amazing Slapstick Comedies

All tickets just $10, plus free popcorn for Father’s Day!

A world-famous film preservationist and entertainer, Serge Bromberg brings his traveling show Saved from the Flame to the Film Society of Lincoln Center with “Amazing Slapstick Comedies,” a program of rare shorts with live music that conjures the dazzling wonder and excitement of early cinema exhibition.

Bromberg and his company Lobster Films hold one of the most important private collections of films. Culling from the best surviving prints and negatives from around the world, Bromberg and collaborators use the latest digital technology to painstakingly restore each work and present them as if they were screening a century ago. This year’s program, for which Bromberg also accompanies on piano and provides fascinating commentary, presents amazing discoveries such as The Battle of the Century, the legendary Laurel and Hardy short previously thought lost, and Daydreams, the classic Buster Keaton short restored from materials found in the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, and had survived only in mediocre versions until now! The program will also feature a “behind-the-scenes” look at the Lobster Films restoration process, which includes previously missing scenes from famous silent shorts by the Great Stone Face. With additional surprise movies up Bromberg’s sleeve, this very special event promises to be a blast from the past, yet one that is thoroughly modern and unforgettable.

The Battle of the Century
Clyde Bruckman, USA, 1927, 19m
This early Laurel and Hardy film in which the two scheme and fail to pocket insurance money features the duo before they officially took on their recognizable characters. Notorious for using over 3,000 cream pies in its climactic scene, The Battle of the Century survived for many years only in fragments until its complete reel was discovered in 2015.

Daydreams
Buster Keaton & Eddie Cline, USA, 1922, 18m
A young man leaves home to earn enough money to marry his hometown love, but when he sends letters to his sweetheart about his various odd jobs, she hilariously glorifies each one in her imagination. Restored from materials found in the Czech Republic, France, The Netherlands, and the United States, Daydreams survived only in mediocre versions until now!

The Blacksmith
Buster Keaton & Malcolm St. Clair, USA, 1922, 23m
Once considered a lesser work by Keaton, this newly restored and expanded version represents a substantially different film. The comic plays a blacksmith’s assistant who fumbles through daily tasks—and falls in love—in a hilariously knockabout performance.

Bromberg is an Officer of Arts and Letters, a member of the Board of Directors of the French Cinematheque, and the Chairman of the Board ECPAD (the French Army Film Unit), and has been the Artistic Director of the Festival Annecy International Animated Film for 15 years.

Special thanks to Cultural Services of the French Embassy; Cinémathèque Française; Národní Film Archive; Library of Congress; MoMA; Jon Mirsalis; Motion Picture Academy; Archives du Film du CNC; and Lobster Films (Paris).