Ernie Kovacs’ silent comedy short “Baseball Film” (1951) is added attraction, tying it to Dallas VideoFest’s Kovacs Award ceremony occurring the following night
THE CAMERAMAN (1928) is arguably Buster Keaton’s last great silent comedy feature, with its popularity among fans growing in recent years thanks to a new digital restoration released in 2019. The film is full of brilliantly executed physical comedy sequences and set pieces, and boasts the production values and style of MGM, where Keaton made this film. Buster plays a tintype photographer who aspires to be a newsreel cameraman to impress a charming young woman who works for MGM’s newsreel department, played by Marceline Day. Despite a series of hilarious mishaps with the second-hand movie camera he’s acquired, Buster manages to fail upward, winning the day, a job as a cameraman and the heart of the girl he loves.
One of the standouts in THE CAMERAMAN is a scene at an empty Yankee Stadium in which Keaton pantomimes a baseball game, playing every member of both teams. In 1951, Ernie Kovacs and a small crew from the Philadelphia station, WPTZ, where he was hosting his TV program, created a 5-minute 16mm film in which Kovacs portrayed all the players and fans at a baseball game. This short, known simply as “Baseball Film,” will also be screened due to its thematic connection to the Keaton film and in conjunction with the Ernie Kovacs Award ceremony, presented on November 22, to Fred Armisen, by the Dallas VideoFest.
“The connection between the two films is a bit ironic,” says silent film historian and Kovacs archivist Ben Model, “since Keaton and Kovacs wound up working together briefly in 1962. We don’t know if Kovacs saw or remembered the Keaton film, although this comedy routine had been around for decades, originating in vaudeville by Frank ‘Slivers’ Oakley, which Keaton would certainly have seen or known of. I’m thrilled that we’ll be bringing this hilarious Buster Keaton film to Dallas, and I’m honored to get to accompany it with my score at the historic Texas Theatre.”
Dallas VideoFest presents the Ernie Kovacs Weekend, Friday, Nov 21-22, at the Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd. – Oak Cliff/Dallas).
ERNIE KOVACS WEEKEND PASSES & PACKAGES
$23.50 — Friday night: THE CAMERAMAN with Ben Model
$28.75 — Saturday night: Fred Armisen’s Ernie Kovacs Award presentation
$30 — Fred Armisen album 100 Sound Effects
$75 — Both nights with VIP reception
$100 — Both nights with VIP reception + Armisen album
Tickets: VideoFest.org/Kovacs
ABOUT BEN MODEL
Ben Model, who founded Undercrank Productions in 2013, is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists and has been a resident film pianist at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City since 1984 and for the Library of Congress since 2008. He accompanies silent films on piano and theater organ regularly at MoMA, the Library of Congress, the Silent Clowns Film Series (NYC), the Cinema Arts Centre (Huntington, NY) and at many theaters and schools around the US and internationally. He is a regular performer at the TCM Classic Film Festival, the Kansas Silent Film Festival, and CapitolFest. His composed silent film scores are performed regularly by orchestras and concert bands around the U.S. and Canada. His recorded scores can be heard on numerous Blu-ray releases from Kino Lorber, Milestone Films as well as his boutique label Undercrank Productions, and on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Model is a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, where he teaches silent film history. He is also the archivist for the Ernie Kovacs/Edie Adams collection and has programmed three DVD box sets of Kovacs’ TV shows for Shout Factory. Model is co-editor of the book “Ernie In Kovacsland,” which was published in 2023 by Fantagraphics Books, and the author of “The Silent Film Universe,” published in June 2025 by Undercrank Productions. He is based in New York City. Website: silentfilmmusic.com
