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Sound of Silent Star -- Sound of Silents

By Bob Mondello
Published August 6, 2005 at 12:00 AM EDT
Buster Keaton, silent film star, circa 1923
Buster Keaton, silent film star, circa 1923

Buster Keaton at home, circa 1962.
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Buster Keaton at home, circa 1962.

Part 1: Buster Keaton and the Ukelele

Quest for Sound Curator Jay Allison and Lost and Found Sound brings us Buster Keaton. Listener Bob Borgen has a tape of the silent film star at a party in 1962. Some friends gave him a ukelele and recorded his songs, stories and memories of Vaudeville.

Part 2: Sound from the Silent Film Era

Film critic Bob Mondello reviews the days of silent films and how the introduction of sound forever changed the beauty and benefit of silence.

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Bob Mondello
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.
See stories by Bob Mondello