My Favorite Silent Film-Related Travel Memories! (So Far)

So if this was a normal spring, I’d be attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival right now, sitting in my usual spot in the darkened Castro Theater.  But just in case you haven’t heard, it’s not a normal spring, and my lovely festival has been postponed until November (fingers crossed me and my pals will all be there!). This is doubly sad since I usually head to Hollywood for a few day afterwards. Indeed, my soul cries out for those palm trees, that smell of blooming jasmine, those Walk of Fame stars,  even that weird jumble of street performers and tourists on Hollywood Boulevard getting bottlenecked by dumb sidewalk vendors selling cheap toys no one ever, ever needs.

You can’t see me because a vendor took up half the sidewalk to sell foam plastic emojis and I got trampled.

So in lieu of film festival revelries, I thought it’d be fun to share some of my fondest silent film-related travel memories (so far)! I love, love, love to travel, and some of my favorite trips have involved visiting sites related to the silent era. If there’s even a slight chance to stand on a street corner where Harold Lloyd once filmed or take in a rare exhibit of German Expressionist memorabilia, I’m there! So here are my reminisces. And please, when you’re done reading feel free to share some of your silent-themed travel experiences too!

6 Silent-Related Locations Still On My Bucket List

So thanks to several carefully-planned Hollywood trips, I’ve been very fortunate to visit some really cool silent-related locations, such as the site of the former Keystone studio, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Roosevelt Hotel, the Chaplin studio, Buster Keaton’s gravesite, the Egyptian Theatre, Musso & Frank’s, and the closest a stranger can legally get to Buster’s Italian Villa.

About this close (before the guard comes out).

I’ve also had priceless experiences at both the Buster Keaton Convention in Muskegon, Michigan and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. For a classic film lover, each and every one of these experiences was a dream come true–from the big festivals to the little moments like relaxing in L.A.’s Echo Park and thinking, “That’s the same lake all those Keystone comedians had to jump into!”

If the water wasn’t…questionable, I would totally jump in too.

But there’s still several places I’m bound and determined to visit one day, and as of right now these sites are in my top 6:

My Review Of The TCM Movie Locations L.A. Bus Tour

Here’s the first in a few posts recapping the highlights of my recent week in Hollywood. Hope you enjoy!

As you may remember, after attending the San Francisco Silent Film Festival earlier this month I also went on a good long trip to Hollywood. This time, not only did I revisit some beloved locations like Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Chaplin studio (I finally achieved my goal of having Breakfast at Charlie’s), the Cahuenga alley and Echo Park (which to me is actually Keystone Comedy Park), but I sought out some new places too (like finally making it to the Griffith Observatory, 10/10 would recommend). And after being asked by about 50,000 people handing out fliers on Hollywood Boulevard if I wanted to go on a tour, I decided that yes, actually I would like to try out a tour.

Ah, but little did the 50,000 flier-touting people know that I already had a tour booked. And not just any tour–the TCM Movie Locations bus tour!

Whee!!!

Georges Méliès: Pioneer Of Cinematic Spectacle

[His films] had a visual style as distinctive as Douanier Rousseau or Chagall, and a sense of fantasy, fun and nonsense whose exuberance is still infectious…. —David Robinson

His full name was Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, and he was born on December 8, 1861 in beautiful Paris. His wealthy parents, Jean-Louis-Stanislas Méliès and Johannah-Catherine Schuering, owned a successful factory for high-quality boots. Their parents imagined that Georges and his older brothers Henri and Gaston would simply take over the family business one day. But little did they know that Georges would not only take up a cutting-edge industry they had never even imagined, but that he would attain global fame as one of its greatest pioneers.

Silent-ology’s Handy Tips For Visiting (Silent) Hollywood

Hola! Being still fresh from my first Keystone Kops Land trip, I thought it would be fun to share a few suggestions for how to plan a trip of your own. Because if you love silent movies (which you do) and haven’t been to Hollywood yet (aw, why not?) you simply have to go (asap!).

These tips are by no means comprehensive, since there’s a bunch of places I didn’t get to see. They’re also from my budget-travelling, see-everything-in-a-few-days, just-walk-everywhere-as-much-as-possible-for-Pete’s-sake-it’s-not-going-to-kill-ya perspective. But I’m hoping they might come in handy!