Imagine a scene where a young man in a suit is scaling a clock tower with his bare hands. He climbs onto the edge of a window sill where he balances precariously. He gets his bearings and believes he’s finally safe when someone knocks him down and he grabs the only thing he can, the hour hand of the clock. But the clock face falls forward under his weight and his hands start to slip. His hat falls off and drops several stories to the ground.

You must be watching an action movie. Some James Bond-esque character infiltrated a gala to spy on a drug lord. But when he risked being discovered, he climbed out the window. With no place to go, he was forced to climb to the roof. So begins our action sequence.

Or you could be watching a silent film. Specifically, a comedy called "Safety Last" filmed in 1923.

When people today think of silent films, they think of melodramatic romances, uncomfortable little dances, and over-the-top pantomiming. But as someone who has studied silent film, specifically silent comedy, I’ll just tell you that some of these guys had more balls than our most famous action stars today. They scaled buildings and jumped off of them, they ran on top of moving trains, they jumped out of moving cars, and they did it all in real time, many of them without stunt doubles. Men like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd acted in and directed most of their films, and they performed all or most of the stunt work with little to no special effects. And when they did use special effects, they were building things that no one had used on film before.

There was no handbook for onscreen stunt work and the actors and stuntmen had to learn everything themselves or from someone who had learned it by themself. There was no established way of doing jumps and car chases and fight scenes safely, except for what stage performers had been doing in vaudeville. They learned on the job, and sometimes that just meant throwing themselves down a flight of steps and hoping it looked good on camera. And it usually did.

So basically, these guys were beasts.

They did things on camera that some of the best stunt men won’t do today. Buster Keaton was known for telling his crew to film until he yelled “cut” or died. He would walk on the set and simply start performing and see what worked.In one of his movies, "The Goat" Keaton jumps from one building to another. Except he misses and that wasn’t really planned. But rather than scrapping the scene or redoing it, or you know, dying, he worked in a bunch of new gags. And it was kind of great.

So rather than watching a movie you’ve seen a thousand times, look up Chaplin, or Keaton, or Lloyd on YouTube and watch one of their films. First off, you’ll sound cultured when you casually bring up the fact that you’ve seen a silent film. Second, you’ll feel cultured. Third, it’s not that big of a time commitment.I understand if you don’t feel like giving 2+ hours to something you’re not sure you’ll like but most silent movies were around an hour. "Sherlock Jr." is only 45 minutes… And fourth, you’ll be surprised by how much you enjoy it. Silent films are not simple, poorly directed, or boring just because they’re old. They can be complex, visually stunning, and shockingly impressive when it comes to plot, acting, and especially stunt work.

"The General," "Our Hospitality," "Girl Shy," "Grandma’s Boy," "The Freshman," "Modern Times," "The Kid"… I’ll just leave those titles there; in case you want to get started.