Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
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The Chaplin
Mutual Comedies
90th Anniversary Edition
(1916-1917)
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Contents: The Floorwalker (1916), The Fireman (1916), The Vagabond (1916), One A.M. (1916), The Count (1916), The Pawnshop (1916), Behind the Screen (1916), The Rink (1916), Easy Street (1917), The Cure (1917), The Immigrant (1917), The Adventurer (1917), The Gentleman Tramp (1975) and Chaplin’s Goliath (1996).
Charles Chaplin was delighted when he began fulfilling his 1916 contract with the Mutual Film Company, a distribution outfit that handled the films of many of the top film producers of the time. The contract was the first made with Chaplin’s own production company, which meant that he could produce his comedies with total creative control.
The Mutual comedies show signs of Chaplin maturing as a cinema artist. His Mutual stories became more carefully constructed and less reliant on senseless bash-and-bop slapstick. The gags show flashes of comic brilliance.
— Carl Bennett
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 Film Preservation Associates
2006 DVD edition
The Chaplin Mutual Comedies (1916-1917), black & white, 301 minutes total, not rated,
including The Floorwalker (1916), black & white, 25 minutes, not rated, The Fireman (1916), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Vagabond (1916), black & white, 26 minutes, not rated, One A.M. (1916), color-tinted and color-toned black & white, 27 minutes, not rated, The Count (1916), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Pawnshop (1916), black & white, 26 minutes, not rated, Behind the Screen (1916), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Rink (1916), black & white, 25 minutes, not rated, Easy Street (1917), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Cure (1917), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Immigrant (1917), black & white, 25 minutes, not rated, The Adventurer (1917), black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Gentleman Tramp (1975), color and black & white, 78 minutes, not rated, and Chaplin’s Goliath (1996), color and black & white, 52 minutes, not rated.
Film Preservation Associates, distributed by Image Entertainment,
ID2477DSDVD, UPC 0-14381-24772-5.
Four single-sided, dual-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD discs, 1.20:1 aspect ratio image in windowboxed 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), ? Mbps average video bit rate, ? Kbps audio bit rate, Dolby Digital 48 kHz 2.0 stereo sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, chapter stops; four plastic DVD trays in cardboard wrapper box (reissued in four-disc DVD keepcase); $59.99.
Release date: 11 July 2006.
Country of origin: USA
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This DVD collection of the twelve Chaplin Mutual contract films features windowboxed video transfers from premium 35mm prints, including additional footage and quality improvements from film materials which have surfaced since David Shepard’s earlier laserdisc and DVD editions, including new orchestral scores composed and conducted by Carl Davis.
Some of the video transfers are the same as for the VHS and 1995 laserdisc editions.
The special features include the documentary The Gentleman Tramp (1975), narrated by Walter Matthau, with excerpts from My Autobiography read by Laurence Olivier; Chaplin family home movies, including scenes of Chaplin at home near Vevey, Switzerland; the documentary Chaplin’s Goliath (1996) on Chaplin star heavy Eric Campbell; “The Mutual-Chaplin Specials,” an appreciation by Jeffrey Vance, author of Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema; “Making The Gentleman Tramp," a reminisence by Richard Patterson; and a stills gallery containing more than 90 images from the collection of Jeffrey Vance, many never before published.
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USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
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