A sobering thought about A Hard Day's Night

After the 1 pm Thursday screening of A Hard Day's Night at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, I am going to host a brief dialogue with high school students (and anyone else who wants to stick around after the closing credits). And I can't help thinking: If someone had shown me a 50-year-old film when I was a high school student -- it would have been a silent movie.

Like this one, with Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle:


Or this one, with Mary Pickford:


Or this one, with Charlie Chaplin (and a musical score later added by Chaplin himself):