 Chaplin
At Keystone
(1914/Shorts/BFI Region 2/Two/PAL Import DVD Set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B Shorts/Films: B+
PLEASE
NOTE:
These DVDs are in the Region 2/PAL format and can only be operated on
machines capable of playing back Region 2/PAL discs. This DVD set
can be ordered from our friends at BFI in the U.K. at the website
address provided at the end of the review.
Charles
Chaplin has company in the silent era of great comic actors,
including Charley Chase, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but Chaplin
would be the only one to survive into the sound era and be the most
well-known and successful of them all. Retaining his popularity to
this day, he has been a constant subject of home video releases, but
the quality has been shaky. We have even covered several sets. Now,
after a huge eight year project that pulled the resources of several
archives, the first highly prolific year of Chaplin's career has been
restored and gathered in a strong, rich DVD collection. In 1914,
Chaplin made his name at the legendary Keystone Studios and Chaplin
At Keystone
has arrived on DVD from BFI. It includes 34 of the original 35 films
he made (plus a preview of a newly discovery short in the extras),
reconstructed in their best versions since they debuted nearly 100
years ago.
The
four-DVD set offers the following classics in an incredibly prolific
year. In this time, he invented The Tramp, found his way quickly
into being a strong presence on screen, was a year ahead of Birth
Of A Nation
in showing the permanent impact a director can have and was as vital
to creating
the comedy genre as follows:
Disc
One
Making
a Living / Kid Auto Races At Venice, Cal / Mabel's Strange
Predicament / Between Showers / A Film Johnnie / Tango Tangles /
His Favourite Pastime / Cruel, Cruel Love / The Star Boarder /
Mabel at the Wheel / Twenty Minutes of Love / Caught in a Cabaret
Disc
Two
Caught
in the Rain / A Busy Day / The Fatal Mallet / The Knockout /
Mabel's Busy Day / Mabel's Married Life / Laughing Gas / The
Property Man / The Face on the Barroom Floor / Recreation
Disc
Three
The
Masquerader / His New Profession / The Rounders / The New Janitor /
Those Love Pangs / Dough and Dynamite / Gentlemen of Nerve / His
Musical Career / His Trysting Places
Disc
Four
Tillie's
Punctured Romance (feature
length, but in parts)
/ Getting Acquainted / His Prehistoric Past
HER
FRIEND,
THE BANDIT
was made/released between The
Fatal Mallet
and
The
Knockout,
but remains missing for now, but hopefully not forever. I have seen
more than a few of these shorts before, but I am always amazed how
funny they are, remain and how extremely well they hold up for their
age. So good, you forget they are silent at times, Chaplin was a
comic master from the start, which is more obvious when you see him
in non-Tramp roles. He could be funny any way he choose and when you
see these shorts, you understand why he had the worldwide impact he
had.
All of the shorts were
originally shot in 35mm film, but many survived in second-generation
prints, damaged or incomplete prints and even 16mm and 28mm
reductions. The immense work that went into saving these films is
nothing short of amazing and each DVD has a final chapter with text
explaining how the films were saved, reconstructed and all the great
people and parties responsible. Though the quality can vary within
some of the shorts, the 1.33 X 1 black and white 540i PAL image on
all of them is better than any previous DVD (or old 12-inch LaserDisc
for that matter) editions.
Sometimes the area of
the frame changes because the films were later issued with a
soundtrack, which permanently threw out a sliver of the original
image on the left hand side of the frame! Some of the rougher
footage may be so because of censorship issues and hardly any of
these had been archived at all, not even by Chaplin's estate, known
for their extensive restoration and preservation of his later films.
Sometimes, the quality of the image is amazing, especially for its
age and rates higher than the average rating listed, but other
footage can show its wear. Once you start watching, you get so
involved that it is not as problematic, but these are all High
Definition transfers with extensive work just to fix them up to be
this good and it is a giant step forward for silent cinema
preservation. All the shorts also include music scores presented in
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 192 kbps Stereo tracks. The result is you
will not find better copies of these films anywhere else!
Extras
include the 1916 animated short Charlie's
White Elephant
(6 minutes) by John Colman Terry and Hugh Shields featuring Chaplin
and Keystone live-action co-star Roscoe ''Fatty'' Arbuckle, Inside
The Keystone Project
(2010, 10 minutes) short about the extensive international
restoration efforts behind the films in this collection that took
eight years, Silent
Traces
(2010, 12 minutes) by author and historian John Bengston on several
of the Keystone locations that has to be seen to be believed, a
Stills Gallery and Extracts from A
Thief Catcher
(1914, 7 minutes) a film recently rediscovered by Paul E Gierucki,
with a cameo of Chaplin as a Keystone Cop that no one knew existed
and makes it Keystone film #36 Chaplin made at the studio. Could
there be more?
As
always, BFI has also included a terrific booklet with illustrations,
extensive credits on the participants in the restoration project, a
strong essay entitled Chaplin
At Keystone: The Tramp Is Born
well written by Jeffrey Vance and a guide to every single short
including summaries of its storylines, when it was released, who it
also starred, how many reels does it run, who directed and how it was
saved.
The result is a
remarkable, stunning collection that sets a new high watermark of all
silent shorts collections. I hope it is the beginning of many more
and has few precedents (like the Charlie Chase set we reviewed
elsewhere on this site). Chaplin was on his way, next stopping at
the Essanay and Mutual Studios (now in Blu-ray sets of their own)
before becoming a founder of the original United Artists. Silent
films are some of the greatest films ever made and when you see them
looking this good, you'll understand why.
To order, go to the
following link:
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_18231.html
- Nicholas Sheffo
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