The Alice Howell Collection <small>by Kurt Dahlke</small><hr /> The Alice Howell Collection: From where we are now, it's weird to think of these silent comedies as being filmed and released 25 to 35 years after the advent of motion pictures. I mean, with the first true examples of 'film' coming from the mid-1880s, you'd think that by 1914 a picture like Shot in the Excitement, featuring early film comedienne Alice Howell, would look more sophisticated. Aah, but those were the olden days, when horse-drawn carriages still regularly shared the road with motor cars. This 2-disc collection of silent motion picture comedies, curated by Steve Massa and Ben Model, features Alice Howell, one of the earliest and well-renowned stars of slapstick comedies, who was active from 1914 to 1926 or so. The titles included here on disc one are the aforementioned Shot in the Excitement (1914, 14 minutes), Father was a Loafer (1915, 13 minutes), Unde...Read the entire review »