When Louise Beaudet, film curator and head of the Animation Department at the Cinematheque Quebecoise, presented the films of Charles R. (Charley) Bowers at PFA in November 1983, a small audience was treated to the astounding discovery of a forgotten genius, and Beaudet was invited to repeat the presentation at the San Francisco Film Festival.
In the surrealistic world of Bowers' comedies of the 1920s and '30s--in which he stars with marionettes and animated objects as his co-stars via a stop-motion animation process of his own invention--eggs hatch Ford automobiles, a Christmas tree grows out of a farmer, a mouse shoots a cat with a revolver, Charley grows a bush which in turn sprouts cats, etc. etc. His work did not go unappreciated in its day; a contemporary Photoplay review raves about his “glorious idiocy” and calls Bowers “a master of camera wizardry: every short feature bearing his name proves the camera is a monumental liar.” But the joys of Bowers' slapstick surrealism were a thing of the past until Louise Beaudet became instrumental in the rediscovery and revival of his work. Leonard Maltin, likening Bowers to two other belatedly recognized comics, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, writes, “Bowers' work is technically dazzling and hilarious at the same time. Either one would be enough to earn him a niche in film history; to combine those qualities is formidable indeed.”

The films included in tonight's program are: A Kick for Cinderella (1916-22); Egged On (1926); A Wild Roomer (1926); Now You Tell One (1926); Pete Roleum and His Cousins (excerpt) (1939) and It's a Bird (1930).