Purviance, Edna

Unknown Chaplin: The Master at Work

Indispensable for any Chaplin fan and important and highly intriguing for anyone who cares about film history, this three-volume series offers the outtakes and unreleased tracks of the Little Tramp's storied career. Archivist Kevin Brownlow and David Gill meticulously and ingeniously piece together previously unseen footage from Chaplin's private collection, demonstrating in part 1 how painstakingly the director developed gags in such short films as The Cure and The Immigrant. Part 2 is less essential, but offers the famous behind-the-camera intrigue of the making of his classic City Lights, a film in which pokey perfectionist Chaplin makes Stanley Kubrick look like a caffeinated, indie tyro rushing through production. Part 3 demonstrates how Chaplin recycled ideas he discarded early in his career for use in later film. It includes a historic first--one of the first extended sequences Chaplin shot trying to break out of the Little Tramp mold. Doubly amazing is how fresh and funny and effective Chaplin's filmmaking remains today, nearly a century later. --David Kronke

With bowler hat, mustache and cane, Charlie Chaplin became one of the twentieth century's most recognized and beloved icons. But for decades, the secrets to his timeless film magic were presumed lost forever to the cutting-room floors of a bygone era. Now, available on DVD for the first time, UNKNOWN CHAPLIN captures the cinematic genius as he was never meant to be seen. Using countless reels of footage and outtakes Chaplin had wanted destroyed, film archivists Kevin Brownlow and David Gill have meticulously crafted an essential and fascinating documentary homage to the Little Tramp who will no doubt keep us laughing until the last flickering frame. Featuring the following programs: MY HAPPIEST YEARS: Early shorts reveal how constant re-working of sight gags led to Chaplin's first triumph. THE GREAT DIRECTOR: The Kid, The Gold Rush and City Lights--by 1918, Chaplin is the movie industry's top director. HIDDEN TREASURES: See the original opening sequence to Chaplin's City Lights with a new musical score. DVD Features: How UNKNOWN CHAPLIN Was Made; Two Bonus Shorts: The Making of The Count and Chaplin Meets Harry Lauder; Chaplin Biography; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection

The Kid (2 Disc Special Edition)

The Kid is one of the purest expressions of Charlie Chaplin's art on film. It unites Chaplin with a boy he had spotted in a vaudeville act, 6-year-old Jackie Coogan--whose life would lead to the child-protective Coogan Act and a role as Uncle Fester on TV. The story has the Tramp adopting an abandoned waif and teaching him streetwise survival skills. The gags are flawless, but for Chaplin the huge advance (other than a running time longer than his two-reelers) was the exploration of a rich vein of sentiment; the emotionally wrenching separation of the Tramp and the Kid is probably the most Dickensian sequence ever captured on film. Chaplin drew on his own rough childhood for the material (and may have been inspired by the death of an infant son immediately before beginning the project). Jackie Coogan's gift for mimicry allowed him to replicate Chaplin's exacting direction, making him the perfect Chaplin co-star. --Robert Horton

For the first time as a filmmaker Chaplin stepped into feature-length storytelling with this tale of the down-but-never-out Tramp (Chaplin) and the adorable ragamuffin (6-year-old Jackie Coogan) who rescued as a foundling and raised in the School of Hard Knocks by the Tramp is his inseparable sidekick. Memorable scenes include a lesson in table manners the bully brawl and the Tramp's angelic dream. The Kid earns its wings.Running Time: 199 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC UPC: 085393764524

Slapstick Festival - 35 Shorts

Hilarious slapstick skits from comedy's golden age! This collection includes such legendary performers as Laurel & Hardy Our Gang Fatty Arbuckle The Keystone Kops Buster Keaton The Three Stooges. W.C. Fields and Charlie Chaplin!Included:1. Bad Boy (Silent)2. Baloonatic The (Silent)3. Bangville Police The (Silent)4. Bear Shooters5. Blacksmith The6. Boat The (Silent)7. Brideless Groom8. Cure The9. Daydreams (Silent)10. Dentist The11. Disorder In the Court12. Easy Street (Silent)13. Electric House The (Silent)14. Fatal Glass of Beer The15. Fatty's Suitless Day (Silent)16. Follies of Our Gang17. Ghost Parade18. Golf Specialist The19. Her Painted Hero20. Just Ramblin' Along21. Love Speed and Thrills (Silent)22. Mabel & Fatty's Married Life (Silent)23. Malice in the Palace24. Mud and Sand25. My Wife's Relations (Silent)26. Oranges and Lemons (Silent)27. Paleface The (Silent)28. Playhouse The (Silent)29. Rink The (Silent)30. Schools Out31. Sing a Song of Six Pants32. Stolen Jools The33. That Little Band of Gold (Silent)34. Waldo's Last Stand35. Wife and Auto Trouble (Silent)System Requirements:Running Time: 665 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY/SLAPSTICK UPC: 683904505965 Manufacturer No: MV50596

The Chaplin Revue (2 Disc Special Edition)

Seven Charlie Chaplin two-reelers are included on this two-disc set, including The Chaplin Revue, a 1959 compilation comprising three silent comedies (A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms, and The Pilgrim). Among the high points are the flawless A Dog's Life, in which the Tramp befriends a mutt (among its sublime routines is a superbly executed scene with Chaplin stealing pastries from a street vendor), and the ambitious Shoulder Arms, which sends Charlie to the trenches of World War I. There's also The Idle Class, which casts Chaplin in two roles: as the Tramp, and as a foppish rich man with a weakness for drink (and a weakness for absent-mindedness, in a brilliant scene in which he forgets his trousers). A Day's Pleasure is a lark with good gags aboard a swaying boat, while Sunnyside is downright peculiar at times--though Chaplin's addled dance with imaginary nymphs is pure acrobatic daffiness. --Robert Horton

That Charles Chaplin's Little Fellow (his own name for the Little Tramp) is such a Comic Everyman enabled the master moviemaker to place the character in all manner of situations. That versatility abounds in this treasure chest of seven marvelous movies made for First National between 1918 and 1923. Included are such touchstones as Shoulder Arms (his popular portrayal of World War I trench life) The Idle Class (skewering the rich) and The Pilgrim (lampooning small-town hypocrisy) along with the charming and hilarious views of family life and romance in A Dog's Life A Day's Pleasure Sunnyside and Pay Day.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 085393446024

The Kid [Remastered] 1921

'The Kid' is a powerfully emotive and wonderfully hilarious motion picture and a tremendous breakthrough in Charlie Chaplin's oeuvre. Chaplin hadn't filled a film so fully with pathos since 'The Vagabond' (1916), and then it was in a very limited way, subject to the confines of two-reel length. Additionally, 'Sunnyside' (1919) was a failure. The feature length of 'The Kid' also allows Chaplin to elaborate and refine the gags, pranks and set pieces, and with the support of Jackie Coogan, it's one of his funniest comedies. The parent-child relationship has proved potential as sentimental entertainment, and, for me, not many have neared Chaplin in exploiting that formula in 'The Kid.' The sequence where they take the kid, for a workhouse, away from the tramp is probably the most powerful and endearing tearjerker moment in the film--or of all film. In addition to Chaplin and Coogan, Edna Purviance is also quite effective in the dramatic side of the picture. Furthermore, Chaplin and cinematographer Roland Totheroh's photography had by now improved vastly over their work at Mutual, and Chaplin was already an eccentric perfectionist, but the musical score added to the 1971 release, composed by Chaplin, taken from Tchaikovsky, gives the emotive parts its most verve. Of the slapstick, one of my favourite scenes involves the tramp in fear of a bully. It's reminiscent of his Mutual short 'Easy Street' (1917), which is made especially clear when the bully bends a lamppost with one punch. There are many other great moments of humorous pantomime and farce in this film. Yet, 'The Kid' is much more than that, which makes it such a breakthrough; the slapstick fills the plot, and there is more of a developed plot here than in Chaplin's previous work. This was the beginning of the tramp as the sympathetic, pitiful hero, as well as clown, that's so recognizable and beloved to this day. Moreover, the dream sequence is an ingenious plot device; it adds dimensionally to the narrative and asserts its themes while delaying the inevitable conclusion of the outer narrative to poignant effect. It's also funny in a silly way. It's somewhat analogous to the outer reality story, although with much ambiguity. I wasn't always sure Chaplin was making any clear point, such as with the Christ image earlier in the film, but that seems unimportant; 'The Kid' affects the emotions and isn't aimed at engaging the mind. At six reels, with more sets and a developed plot, this film was already an expansion compared to Chaplin's previous films; the dream sequence satisfyingly expands the narrative depth, thus making 'The Kid' Chaplin's first complete feature.

Slapstick Masters

Of all the silent-comedy compilations released by Image Entertainment and Kino Video, Slapstick Masters is a perfect primer for new students of the genre. It's timelessly accessible, serving up three classic "two-reelers" from acknowledged comedy greats (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy) while shining a deserved spotlight on the lesser-known Monty Banks in "Chasing Choo-Choos," excerpted from the 1927 slapstick feature Play Safe, and featuring one of the zaniest, most incredibly dangerous chase scenes of the silent era. And while each of these films has been improved from previous DVD releases (with corrected intertitles, better source materials, and digital mastering), the selling point is the accompanying music by the Alloy Orchestra, a Boston-based trio specializing in new, jauntily percussive scores for vintage films. Alloy's playful work here is absolutely marvelous, honoring the traditions of silent-movie music while vastly improving its musical parameters. The films are great by themselves, but with music by the Alloy Orchestra, they're masterpieces to be enjoyed by anyone, anywhere, any time. --Jeff Shannon

A King In New York/ A Woman Of Paris

A King in New York
A King in New York, Charlie Chaplin's penultimate film--featuring his final starring performance--was made in 1957 but wasn't officially released in America until the '70s, when it, surprisingly enough, won an Oscar for Chaplin's score. What took so long? Thanks to his politics and unorthodox personal life, Chaplin was pretty roundly hated by the late '50s, but had the movie been better, someone might've brought it stateside sooner. Chaplin plays King Shahdov of Estrovia, on the lam when revolution grips his homeland. In New York, despite the occasional indignity, he's treated as royalty until he takes a stand against the commie-hunters, a plotline that hit way too close to home at the time (Chaplin, remember, was ahead of everyone in attacking Hitler when he made The Great Dictator). There's one inspired bit, as Shahdov orders dinner over the din of a supper club, but overall, the satire is strident, and Chaplin's takes on such things as technology and pop music make him look decidedly like an old fogey. --David Kronke

A Woman of Paris
At the height of his popularity, Charlie Chaplin chose to make a straight dramatic feature--without himself in a starring role. The plot of A Woman of Paris is perhaps not new: after a tragic misunderstanding, a small-town girl (former Chaplin paramour and longtime co-star Edna Purviance) goes to Paris and becomes the mistress of a rich playboy (Adolphe Menjou). But if the outline is familiar melodrama, the film still looks remarkable for its measured, adult attitude toward its characters; they are not black or white, but complicated, sophisticated shades of gray. Menjou, in particular, is a charming and thoroughly delightful cad. The film's matter-of-fact spirit on the subject of how adults conduct their sexual lives is also impressive. Critics loved the picture, but audiences did not, and Chaplin soon returned to comedy. He can be glimpsed, disguised, in a one-scene walk-through as a clumsy train porter. --Robert Horton

The eternal clown, Charlie Chaplin believed that the best solution to any problem was to poke fun at it. Thus, as fascism was the target of "The Great Dictator," the ills he saw in 1950s society were the targets at which he shot his satirical arrows in "A King in New York" (1957, 109 min.). The story is about an overthrown monarch who arrives in New York to find that his prime minister has absconded with all his funds. Running up massive bills in his hotel, he is persuaded to make television commercials. Meanwhile, the monarch meets a precocious lad who is being harassed by government agents to betray his parents. Frustrated by a society that pays enormous sums of money to buffoons and hucksters while undermining its own constitution is eventually too much for the monarch, and he leaves the country, but not before he passes on to the young boy the hope for a better future. Also included on this DVD is the legendary silent movie of manners, mores and morals, "A Woman of Paris" (1923, 91 min.), the first Charlie Chaplin film in which he did not appear.

The Kid / A Dog's Life

A Chaplin double feature starring Edna Purviance and Jackie Coogan. "The Kid" (1921, 68 min.) was director Charlie Chaplin's first full-length film and is considered one of his best. Co-starring five-year-old Coogan, whom Chaplin discovered on a Los Angeles vaudeville stage, "The Kid" is the story of a child abandoned in a limousine by his unwed mother (Purviance). When The Little Tramp finds him, he tries unsuccessfully to find a home for the boy. Obliged to keep him, The Little Tramp teaches the youngster about life on the streets and just as they have bonded and become a family, the boy's mother returns in a bittersweet finale. "A Dog's Life" (1918, 35 min.) is not only the satisfying story of canine and human underdogs succeeding in spite of the odds against them, it's also a series of side-splitting gags and slapstick routines that are as funny today as they were when the film was released and became an instant hit.

Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, Vol. 02

Volume 2 includes: "The Tramp" "By the Sea" "Work" "A Woman" "The Bank" and "His Regeneration." Digitially mastered and speed corrected with piano music by Eric James and orchestral score by Robert Israel.System Requirements:Running Time: 135 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 014381541427 Manufacturer No: ID5414DSDVD

Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, Vol. 03

Volume 3 includes: "Shanghaied," "A Night in the Show," "Burlesque on 'Carmen'" (all 1915), "Police," "Triple Trouble" (both 1916). Digitially mastered and speed corrected with piano music by Eric James and orchestral score by Robert Israel.