Sparkling Classic Gems: ‘Rose,’ ‘Sherlock,’ ‘Girl Shy’

Michael Verhoeven’s 1983 “The White Rose,” a taut, absorbing and richly textured account of that small group of heroic Munich university students who risked their lives by disseminating anti-Nazi handbills, screens Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Goethe Institute, 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 110. This is the first of four Tuesday evening presentations of films dealing with student resistance against Hitler. Lena Stolze stars. Information: (213) 525-3388.

The Nuart’s presentation of Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.” on Friday and the Silent Movie’s showing of Harold Lloyd’s “Girl Shy” Friday and Saturday offer a unique opportunity to compare two of the greatest silent comedians in peak form in films made the same year, 1924. “Sherlock Jr.” will be accompanied by San Francisco’s estimable Club Foot Orchestra in a live performance of its original score; “Girl Shy,” which will be accompanied on the organ by Dean Mora, commemorates the centennial of Lloyd’s birth.

Keaton and Lloyd often played similar types in similar situations, as in the case of these two films. However, their responses and the way they expressed them were distinctly different. Keaton is the impassive tilter at life’s absurdities, possessor of an astringent, modernist sensibility and an extraordinary sense of the visual, and Lloyd is the affable average Joe, whose ordinary, All-American persona made it easy to overlook his formidable instinct for comedy that grows out of everyday situations.

There must have been untold millions of young American men who identified with Harold Lloyd, the ultimate small-town guy. Without his prim, unflattering trademark glasses, Lloyd was a handsome man, but once he put them on he became a nerd who had to overcome considerable shyness and timidity to win the day--and the girl. At a time when Valentino reigned as the supreme romantic idol on the screen, Harold Lloyd must have offered lots of nice fellows with bigger dreams than self-confidence considerable reassurance and inspiration.

In “Girl Shy,” which was directed with a deft, exhilarating touch by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, Lloyd plays an apprentice to his tailor-uncle. Although clearly virginal, he has authored, in his spare time, “The Secret of Making Love,” a tome he fervently believes will bring him fame and fortune. When by chance he meets a demure heiress (Jobyna Ralston), his almost pathological shyness is integral to his attraction for Ralston, used to being pursued by fortune-hunters.

“Girl Shy” is wonderfully dexterous and graceful but really takes off in a breathtaking race-to-the-altar sequence that anticipates the climax of “The Graduate” by 43 years. Lloyd’s commandeering of every kind of vehicle from car to streetcar to horse is at once exuberantly, hilariously kinetic but also liberating--for him and for us. Also on the bill: two delightful 1919 Lloyd two-reelers, “From Hand to Mouth” and “Bumping Into Broadway.” Information: (213) 653-2389.

Without a doubt “Sherlock Jr.” is one of Keaton’s most inspired efforts, a visual tour de force that reveals his tremendous awareness of the resources of the camera. Keaton is a small-town movie theater projectionist--he’s studying to be a private eye via a correspondence course--whose pursuit of a pretty girl (Kathryn McGuire) is sabotaged viciously by a rugged guy identified as the Sheik (Ward Crane). Falling asleep on the job, Keaton dreams that he is entering the mystery melodrama on the screen, reveling in his brilliance as a detective. (Shades of Woody Allen’s decades-later but less complex “Rose of Cairo.”)

“Sherlock Jr.” is one of those unpretentious comedies with beguiling charm and throwaway humor that ask no more than to entertain but nevertheless are open to considerable psychological and symbolic interpretation; such is Keaton’s sophisticated mastery of the visual that “Sherlock Jr.” becomes a playful consideration of the levels of reality and of fantasy.

The Club Foot Orchestra typically manages to be contemporary and amusingly eclectic yet always true to the spirit of the film. Also screening are Rene Clair’s Dada-esque 1924 “Entr’acte,” for which the Club Foot performs Erik Satie’s original score, and Otto Messmer’s 1929 cartoon “Felix the Cat Woos Whoopee,” both gems.

Information: (310) 478-6379.