Watch: 1990 'Siskel & Ebert' Special Celebrating Silent Movies

One of the most important achievements of the famous film-review show “Siskel & Ebert” was in the way that it took film criticism out of the strict niche of buffs, academics, and snobs, and made the study of cinema accessible to general audiences. For proof, you don’t have to look further than this 1990 episode where legendary critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert attempt to get their audience to give silent films a chance. Their tactical approach is clever, since they begin the episode with the genre that general audiences would be most familiar with: comedy.

READ MORE: Remembering Roger Ebert 

Siskel and Ebert make sure to praise the amazing efforts of silent-era comedy superstars like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, while admitting that as far as silent films were concerned, comedy was the one genre that retained a chunk of its popularity after the move to talkies because of the visual gags having timeless universal appeal. By easing the audience into the world of...