Film Forum

A delightful introduction and surprise for most audiences, this collection features newly-restored short comedies by Iowa-born Charley Bowers (1889-1946), a wildly inventive director, comedian, cartoonist, and animator... some might even call him an American surrealist. Mixing live-action with animated puppets and objects, Bowers helmed a score of little-known mini-masterpieces, many starring himself.

This exhaustive introduction to Bowers’s oeuvre, over 2 hours of material, includes the shorts Egged On (1926), He Done His Best (1926), Fatal Footsteps (1926), Now You Tell One (1926), Many a Slip (1927), There It Is (1928), and It's a Bird (1930). With an introduction by filmmaker, distributor and archivist Serge Bromberg, founder and chairman of Lobster Films. Approx. 151 min.

A FLICKER ALLEY RELEASE

Reviews

“Bowers is a cross between Buster Keaton and Rube Goldberg… one need only watch a single Bowers short from the 1920s to become a follower, if not a proselytizer.”
– Leonard Maltin