The Early Genius of Leo McCarey (The McCarey Way)

With Live Piano Accompaniment by Hughes Maréchal

The Early Genius of Leo McCarey.

USA 1924-1929 | Leo McCarey | Programme de courts-métrages muets avec accompagnés live au piano par Hughes Maréchal | intertitres EN | 96' | digital

This programme presents a selection of silent shorts made during Leo McCarey’s formative years at Hal Roach Studios, where he began working in 1923. The films trace McCarey’s rapid ascent from gag writer to one of the studio’s key creative minds. Starting with scenario work and gag construction, he soon moved behind the camera to direct Charley Chase shorts, developing his instinct for performance, rhythm, and narrative structure. By the late 1920s, he was supervising productions and shaping the work of others, most notably by bringing together Laurel & Hardy as a permanent duo and defining their comic dynamic. Seen together, these shorts reveal McCarey’s rapid development as a filmmaker — cultivating his own voice, mastering precise timing, and refining character-driven comedy within the collaborative environment of Hal Roach Studios.

Au programme

 

The Poor Fish

USA 1924 | Cast : Charley Chase, Beth Darlington, Sammy Brooks

Mighty Like a Moose

USA 1924 | Cast : Charley Chase, Vivien Oakland, Ann Howe

Pass the Gravy

USA 1928 | Fred Guiol, supervision Leo McCarey | Cast : Max Davidson, Martha Sleeper, Bert Sprotte

Wrong Again

USA 1929 | Cast : Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Liberty

USA 1929 | Cast : Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

Org.: Cinémathèque