ERNIEKOVACS.NET SILENTS PLEASE PAGE

"Silents Please" was a show that Ernie hosted on ABC – TV, Thursday Nights from 10:30PM to 11:00PM. For the diehard Kovacs fan it’s little more than a curiosity in my opinion; Ernie’s involvement in it is quite minimal. There are some points of interest however and if you come across this DVD in a bargain bin someplace (which is probably where it will be), I would suggest adding it to your collection if you are an avid Kovacs Collector.

The program consisted of famous films of the Silent Era condensed into half an hour and narrated by the program’s producer, Paul Killiam. Ernie provides the intro and closing to each half – hour from the den of his Los Angeles home. That in itself is enough to make even the average Kovacs fan want to view these because Ernie’s private den was the stuff of legend due to the Kovacsian way in which it was set – up; with a certain amount of clutter, many interesting artifacts and lots of cigars!

The two episodes I viewed contained the films "The Son Of The Shiek" starring Rudolph Valentino and "The Road To Yesterday" which is an old Cecil B. DeMille film from 1925. The airdates of these shows are a bit hard to pin down; Diana Rico"s book "Kovacsland" says the show aired from March 23rd to October 6th 1961; the David Walley book "The Ernie Kovacs Phile" does not seem to mention the show at all (perhaps I’m not looking hard enough, I know David visits this site so I hope he'll correct me if I’m wrong); and the following website from the Classic TV Archive says the show ran from October 4th to October 13th 1960 and then again from March 23rd to October 5th 1961. Both sources agree on the night, time and network.

As you can see, the dates are close; the Classic TV Archive just seems to add some earlier, extra dates. But, when I searched the library of congress website for the show I got the following dates for the episodes I viewed:

"The Son Of The Shiek" – August 4th, 1960
"The Road To Yesterday" – September 14th, 1961

So who knows? The airdate of "The Road To Yesterday" falls into the agreed upon time frame; The airdate of "The Son Of The Shiek" proceeds any of the dates listed (it may actually be the first episode and the date is actually a copyright date; The Library of Congress refers to these as a "publishing dates").

Now onto the actual shows. I’m not a huge silent film fan, so my interest in viewing these was more to see Ernie and old time commercials either with or without Ernie (preferably with). The Ernie episodes on this DVD have BOTH those criteria. "The Road To Yesterday" was sponsored by Ralston Purina and most of the spots are for Chex Cereals. I also saw spots for Alka Seltzer and One – A – Day Vitamins.

"The Son Of The Shiek" was sponsored by Dutch Masters Cigars and has some company produced spots and some of Ernie’s classic one minute spots for Dutch Masters. There is also another Chex Cereal spot in this episode.

Both episodes have Ernie doing the intro and closing, in which he discusses some history of the films, the actors, etc. and in the episode sponsored by Dutch Masters stands there with a box of the cigars talking about how "wonderful" they are (most Kovacs fans are aware that in reality he only smoked Cuban Cigars!). I would say that the total time for the old commercials and Ernie’s commentary in both episodes is about 10 minutes so if you’re not interested in silent films and don’t really want to see the other material mentioned then don’t bother with this DVD. If you love silent films and Ernie, then this is definitely for you. As the films are being shown they are being narrated by the program’s producer, Paul Killiam.

The DVD itself is issued by a company called "TV Classics" and actually belongs to a friend of mine who thinks he got it in a Tower Video. I’ve seen product from this company before, specifically old kinescopes of Groucho Marx hosting "You Bet Your Life" with the commercials for DeSoto Plymouth included. I have never seen the "Silents Please" DVD however and am not sure how to get it. The website for TV Classics does not list it so ebay is probably your best shot. If you look to the right column on this page you will see a scan of the DVD cover so you know what to look for. The shows look OK; it’s basically kinescope type quality. The audio on the films and commercials is good but Ernie’s audio on the intros and closings seemed low to me. There are actually three episodes on this DVD; in addition to the two reviewed here there is another in which the film "The Thief Of Bagdad" is shown. However, it does not feature Ernie and it has no commercials so I skipped it.

That’s my review for today folks. As Ernie would have said "It’s Been Real!"– Al Quagliata, JANUARY 10 2006

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