Charlie Chaplin: Early Masterpieces Box Set (1915 – 1917/Koch DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C     Extras: C     Shorts:

 

A Woman (1915)                                 B

The Bank (1915)                                 B+

The Rink (1916)                                  B

The Pawnshop (1916)                         A-

By The Sea (1916)                              A-

The Immigrant (1916)                        B+

The Fireman (1916)                            A-

The Adventurer (1917)                       B+

A Dog’s Life (1917)                             A-

 

 

Of all the characters in cinema the one name that stands above all when it comes to comedy is that of “The Tramp”, the immortal creation of Charlie Chaplin.  Even those that may have never sat and actually watched an entire film from the man can still recognize his presence.  Many forget his contributions as an early pioneer as a director as well as an actor, but among the biggest silent era directors his name is up there with D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, F.W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang, although these figures were doing longer features and then would nearly vanish once the sound years came into being.  Eisenstein would make a handful of films during that period as did Lang, but most of the giants from the silent era fell, just ask Norma Desmond.  

 

The survival of his material however has been all over the place as much of the early work has been destroyed, ruined, or missing.  The prints that do remain are often in poor shape, even despite Warner’s recent attempt to bring forth some of his classic feature film that have extensive restoration and preservation given to them, restored for DVD.  However, Koch has issued this earlier DVD box set with three discs containing nine of the early Chaplin masterpieces.  There are three shorts per disc and they vary in length.  Disc One is about 58-minutes, Disc Two is 55-minutes, and Disc Three is 79-minutes.  The three discs run chronologically and you can tell just how mature Chaplin was becoming with the material as time progresses.  Not only do the segments become a bit longer, but they also become enriched with multiple themes, unlike some of the beginning films like A Woman (1915), which is centered around one idea. 

 

Anyone that is familiar with the pioneering of early silent film knows that it all began with a very short subject that could entertain the audience such as a dog walking or firemen putting out a fire.  Even a Trip to the Moon!  As cinema became more advanced technically so did the subject matter and inventors like Chaplin started handling more in-depth material. W.C. Field’s would also become a major figure alongside Buster Keaton to approach single ideas and transform them into comedic outings that would also intertwine multiple themes.  Check out W.C. Field’s Six Short films DVD, reviewed on this site.  

 

All of the shorts are in their basic 1.33 X 1 original ratio, which has been removed several generations based on the quality that ranges here.  Most of these are very scratched up and have various problems throughout due to age and mistreatment.  However, the idea of just having these together in a set is a sure delight.  New music has been added to each short, which works pretty well.  One big mistake most make when thinking about silent films is that no music was used, which is quite the opposite.  Music was the voice of these silent films, which added the necessary life to these pictures.  Sound has always been an important part of cinema.  The only complaint here is that the music is repetitious and almost becomes annoying at certain times.  It’s presented in a 1.0 Mono setting, which is a clean Dolby Digital track, but with this being a set of newer recording why wasn’t multi-channel considered as it was applied to the restored version of Metropolis or at least simple or Pro Logic-encoded Stereo?

 

Two films of recent that truly touched on the spirit of the silent era would be Peter Bogdanovich’s brilliant 2002 film The Cat’s Meow (reviewed on this site) and Shadow of the Vampire (2001) starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.  While both are entirely different, The Cat’s Meow offers a new revelation on Charlie Chaplin and makes one want to revisit Citizen Kane (1941) again.  Shadow of the Vampire, on the other hand, takes an interesting look at the production of F.W. Murnau’s classic Nosferatu (read the essay on this site for that). 

 

One great advantage is that this set from Koch is very inexpensive and offers a nice amount of films for a small price.  Not only that, but it would be a great beginning point for those that are still passionate about the silent era in general since most of that material is non-existent in the DVD market.  This might also be a nice companion to the Warner box sets that have been issued with his sound films such as City Lights, The Great Dictator, and many other of his hugely memorable films.

 

 

-   Nate Goss