The Chaplin Mutuals, Vol. 3

Amazon.com

By 1916 Charlie Chaplin was the most popular comic actor in America, but it was the 12 brilliant comedy shorts he directed during his 16 months at Mutual Studios that turned Chaplin from an inventive comedian to one of the greatest directors of the American cinema. "Fulfilling the Mutual Contract, I suppose, was the happiest period of my life," he wrote in his autobiography, and no wonder: with unprecedented freedom, an enormously lucrative contract, and a company of creative artists at his personal disposal, Chaplin turned the studio set into his creative playground. Always one to latch on to the comic possibilities of inventive props, he turned an escalator into the centerpiece of The Floorwalker, his first film for the studio, where his rapscallion clerk continually incites the store's crooked manager (Eric Campbell). In One A.M. , Chaplin steps out of the Tramp persona to play an inebriated gadfly at war with his home, battling everything from a staircase to a suit of armor to a resistant Murphy bed, all seemingly set on keeping him from getting to sleep. The Pawnshop shows the Tramp in a more aggressive role than we're used to, goofing and playing practical jokes on his coworkers, while The Rink puts him on roller skates for a burlesque ballet on wheels. Each short becomes a comic workshop as Chaplin investigates the slapstick possibilities of an array of props and situations while refining his persona as the down but not out everyman. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Features four films made for the Mutual Film Company: One A.M., The Pawn Shop, The Floorwalker, The Rink. Includes new digital stereo scores by Michael Mortilla.

Customer Reviews:

This DVD was great, but the new restored 90th Anniversary Edition is better........2006-06-25

Up until 2006, these were the best copies on DVD. But now David Shepard and Image Entertainment have restored the missing footage and re-mastered the films , addressing the complaints mentioned below.

So buy the "Mutual Restored 90th Anniversary Edition" instead of this edition.

You have to watch it silently.......2000-09-25

If you start wondering in the middle why this isn't remotely funny (as I did), it's because of the time gap in the Barney-like music juxtaposed with a film of some 80 years ago - because it was really meant to be viewed in a nickelodeon.

But you have not lost your sense of humor. In "The Rink" you will see that these comedies are the result of Chaplin's tireless choregraphy and perfectionism. And it's not just for film,English, or theatre students, but any curious person watching these films to judge if he was truly a genius or not -in lieu of his personal life. It would be hard not to find something enduring and unexplainable about them. END.

Good quality!.......1999-09-30

Unlike Madacy, Image Entertainment obviously cares about quality. The prints are good, though I'm sure some film archive somewhere has better. The DVD doesn't have any extras to speak of except a short essay on the box, but all in all it's a good DVD because of the video quality. I only wish they'd put the films in chonological order across the three volumes.

Average customer rating:

This DVD was great, but the new restored 90th Anniversary Edition is better.
Slapstick as an art form
The best of Chaplin's Mutual comedies are on Volume 1
Curleycue_82 has it down!
Also in defense of the Little Fellow...

The Chaplin Mutuals, Vol. 1
Starring: Albert Austin , Henry Bergman , Kitty Bradbury , Eric Campbell , and Frank J. Coleman
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305075522
Release Date: 1997-11-19

Amazon.com

Charlie Chaplin entered a period of tremendous artistic freedom and creative growth when he embarked on his 12 films for Mutual Studios in 1916. As he neared the conclusion of his contract, he became increasingly more ambitious and mixed his tried and true comic formula with social commentary for two of his most enduring works. The Immigrant finds the promised land less than rosy for peasants herded like cattle on the ship and wandering the streets of New York looking for work and food, but the Tramp's ingenuity and resilience make him into a symbol of hope for the future as well as a comic riposte. Easy Street is Chaplin's most successful mix of social issues and slapstick comedy. As a rookie cop in the city's toughest neighborhood, a slum overrun with bullies, drug addicts, and gangsters, the goodhearted Chaplin isn't above a little unconventional policing--when his billy club proves ineffective on gargantuan Eric Campbell's thick skull, he resorts to gassing him with a compliant street lamp. The balance of the tape emphasizes lighter fare: The Adventurer finds Charlie as an escaped convict who hides out in a high society party crawling with cops. When the Tramp decides to take The Cure, he comes prepared with a trunk full of alcohol, which quickly inebriates the guests and staff of the sanitarium. The revolving door becomes a comic centerpiece (like the escalator in The Floorwalker), which befuddles the inebriated Chaplin and infuriates gout-stricken nemesis Eric Campbell. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Charlie Chaplin was the biggest star in film when he signed with the Mutual Company in 1916 for the then-unheard-of sum of $670,000. The twelve films he made for Mutual reflect Chaplin's attempt to use comedy not just as a series of gags, but as a search for genuine, universal truths. Digitally mastered from early generation 35mm negatives, these works provide considerable testimony to Chaplin's skills as both a comedian and a filmmaker. This volume includes the shorts "The Immigrant," "The Adventurer," "The Cure" and "Easy Street" (all 1917).

Customer Reviews:

This DVD was great, but the new restored 90th Anniversary Edition is better........2006-06-25

Slapstick as an art form.......2005-06-21

This is the best single volume of Chaplin you can own -- 4 masterpieces from his most creative period, the Mutual films of 1916-1917. Later films like The Circus and The Gold Rush are to a large extent refinements of the ideas first produced here, and are not significantly more satisfying to watch.

The Cure and The Adventurer are in the style of classical two-real slapstick comedy -- not much of a story, but a small number of ideas mined for considerable comic potential. The Cure is somewhat a throwback to Chaplin's Essanay period, where the humor tends to derive from his character's inability or unwillingness to abide by social rules. In this case, Charlie (not appearing as the tramp character) is a recovering alcoholic in a sanatarium who arrives with a suitcase full of liquor, fights with the staff and other patients, and flirts with, and eventually wins, the heart of a fellow patient, played by Edna Perviance. The Cure demonstrates Chaplin's creative growth since the Essanay years by having more diversity in the comic situations, from the classic "rub down" by the sadistic masseur to various encounters with the staff.

The Adventurer's comic roots are closer to the Keystone years, with two long police chase scenes, including one at the beginning, probably unprecedented in the history of films at the time. The chases, however, are light-years away from the crude, chaotic Keystone versions. Here the humor arises from with the ballet-like grace with which the tramp eludes his pursuers.

By contrast to these films, The Immigrant and Easy Street are so dense in comic possibilities that they could easily have been successful feature-length films -- they compress suspense, drama, pathos and character development into 20 minutes of non-stop eye candy. These films replace non-stop comic situations with a combination of memorable comedy and genuinely moving encounters, such as at the end of The Immigrant, where Charlie persuades a playfully reluctant Edna to seek out a Justice of the Peace, all while being caught in a pouring rain. The best comic moments in The Immigrant involve Eric Campbell as the sadistic waiter. Again there is humor heightened by suspense, as we but not the tramp know he has no money to pay the bill. Chaplin perfectly builds the suspense to its satisfying climax, as the tramp once again uses his wits and quick reaction to avoid disaster.

Easy Street is justly viewed as the best of this series, which makes it the best of Charlie's best. Like The Immigrant, it is perfect in economy and execution, but has arguably the most memorable scene in all of Chaplin's movies, the encounter on the street with Charlie the cop and Eric Campbell the king of the street bullies. Again there is humor blended with suspense, as Charlie shyly enters the scene after we have witnessed the carnage that Eric has caused. The encounter again builds flawlessly and climaxes with Charile using a gas light to subdue his nemesis. The rest of Easy Street, from the opening scene in the ghetto mission, to the hopeful conclusion, combines refined humor with compassion for the poor without being preachy.

The only disappointing aspect of this collection is the background music -- it consists of an amateur score performed on an annoying synthetic piano which often does not match well with the action. Turn the volume down and, if you must, listen to some good jazz of the same period while you enjoy the films -- maybe King Oliver. Or leave it quiet -- Charlie will inspire music in your head.

The best of Chaplin's Mutual comedies are on Volume 1.......2004-10-15

The two-reel comedies that Charlie Chaplin made during his one-year contract with the Mutual Film Corporation are considered his best shorts. Having been offered $500,000 from Essanay to stay, Chaplin signed with Mutual for $10,000 a week for one year and a $150,000 signing bonus. More important, Mutual gave Chaplin virtually complete control over his shorts as writer, director, and star. It was during this period that Chaplin refined his filmmaking techniques and set the stage for moving on to longer and better films, from "A Dog's Life" and "The Kid" to his silent feature films such as "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times."

Fortunately Kino started restoring Chaplin's work with both Essanay and Mutual, tracking down the best surviving 35mm negatives, digitally mastering the prints to clean them up, and then adding re-orchestrated musical scores. "The Chaplin Mutuals, Volume 1" actually offers the last four of the dozen two-reelers Chaplin did for Mutual, all of which were released in 1917 and all of which co-starred Edna Purviance as the Tramp's leading lady and had Eric Campbell in the role of the heavy:

"The Immigrant" (Released June 17, 1917) is arguably the best of Chaplin's shorts. He filmed 24 hours of footage over two months to produce a 21-minute film when most two-reelers were shot in two days. When Chaplin began, filming the restaurant scene (with Campbell as the head waiter), the film was going to be about the bohemian life, but the scene was too short and he decided to make the Tramp and the young girl immigrants, creating the opening sequence on the boat and the happy ending. Starting with the simple gag of the Tramp leaning over the ship's railing turning out to be something other than what we think, "The Immigrant" is classic Chaplin.

"Easy Street" (January 22, 1917) would be my choice for the second best of the Chaplin Mutuals. Reformed by Edna, the Missionary's daughter, Chaplin plays a cop whose beat is a wretched slum area, hence the irony of the title. There is a short but intricate chase scene before Edna is kidnapped by a dope addict and has to be rescued by Charlie. On the one hand there is lots of slapstick in this one, but you also have a depiction of urban poverty and violence that is a bit unsettling if you can stop laughing long enough to think about what you are seeing.

"The Adventurer" (October 22, 1917), the last of the films Chaplin did for Mutual, has him Chaplin a convict who escapes after a lengthy chase scene and end up rescuing not only the lovely Edna, but her mother and obnoxious fiance. Hailed as a hero, and presumed to be a wealthy yachtsman as is so often the case in these comedies, Charlie is invited to a dinner party at the Judge's mansion where it is just a question of time before his true identity is revealed.

"The Cure" (April 16, 1917) has Chaplin as a wealthy inebriate who is trying to dry out at a sanitarium where once again the lovely Edna catches his eye. If you have ever seen a clip from this one it is probably Chaplin's comic use of the revolving door and the poor guy with the gouty foot. The big joke is that the supply of booze he has brought in a trunk to survive the experience of sobering up ends up being dumped into the mineral spring, which makes for a lot of happy people in the end.

With "The Immigrant" and "Easy Street" this collection offers two of the very best of Charlie Chaplin's two-reelers. If, for some reason you wanted to only pick up one of the three volumes in this set then this would definitely be the one. But I think the whole set is worthwhile, certainly superior to everything Chaplin did with Keystone and Esssanay and clearly setting the stage for what would follow. I had a class once where I showed one work from each of the five periods of Chaplin's career, defined by the studio he worked for, to show how he progressed from simple reelers like "The Fatal Mallet" to my favorite, "City Lights."

Curleycue_82 has it down!.......2003-07-18

I agree with you Curleycue_82. I couldn't wait to write a review to these people!

Also in defense of the Little Fellow..........2003-07-18

In response to this review: "I don't believe that Chaplin achieved comedic excellence until his features. These shorts are crude physical humor and totally unfunny. Dated stuff."

Amazon.com

Charlie Chaplin refined his trademark character the Little Tramp through his short films at Mutual Studios with the help of his two key costars: burly, barrel-chested Eric Campbell, his hulking physical opposite who forever played the bullying nemesis (often behind a positively demonic beard), and sweet-faced Edna Purviance, the alternately demure and plucky innocent he's forever courting, saving, or simply mooning over. In The Count, Chaplin and Campbell crash a society bash under false identities to woo a rich lovely, but Chaplin soon reverts to his impulsive instincts and turns the posh gathering into an anarchic free-for-all. The Vagabond, Chaplin's second Mutual short, is a rural melodrama of a young girl saved from abusive guardians by the resourceful Tramp. Favoring pathos over slapstick, it looks forward to the sentimental melodrama of his features to come. As a lowly menial in The Fireman, Chaplin is cheerfully oblivious to the chaos he causes to the ordered firehouse and still manages to emerge a hero. Finally, Behind the Screen thumbs a nose at the movies in general and Mack Sennett (Chaplin's old boss) in particular with a lampoon of the studios that concludes with the invention of the pie fight ("I don't like this highbrow stuff," comments one victim). Equal parts class clown, downtrodden social outcast, and sentimental softy, Chaplin's continued appeal lies not merely in his comic invention but his dogged defiance of authority, class, and convention, and these classic shorts preserve the edginess he smoothed out in later features. --Sean Axmaker

Description

Features four films made for the Mutual Film Company: The Count, The Vagabond, The Fireman, and Behind the Screen. Includes new digital stereo scores by Michael Mortilla.

Customer Reviews:

This DVD was great, but the new restored 90th Anniversary Edition is better........2006-06-25

Quite a dvd!.......2002-03-05

First of all, I am actually reviewing The Chaplin Mutuals, Vol. 2 DVD, not a vhs tape or collection. I'm expecially NOT reviewing any videotapes by the Madacy corporation, which are very poor quality, difiicult to watch, and an embarassment to the Chaplin legacy.

Anyways, to the DVD in question. These four short films have been carefully restored by Davis Shepherd, and it shows. The prints are well done, there is footage restored that had been missing for years, the image is sharp, and most of the film flaws have been minimized as much as humanly possible without detracting from the film itself.

Sadly, these are amongst the first dvds produced, and the quality of the video compression leaves something to be desired. Zooming in on the image at all produces an appalingly distorted picture. People with high-definition tv sets may notice a lot of compression artifacts in the picture. These faults are not the fault of David Shepherd - the discs simply need updating, which is sadly unlikely since they probably don't sell that well.

But the material on the dvd is fantastic. The films are mostly very funny, though you have to adjust your tastes a bit for the humor of 1916 - 1917.

You can't do much better than this for Chaplin! (Oh, and by the way, you can find a variety of cheaper Chaplin collections. Be warned, though, that they are a vastly inferior product, with poor film quality, terrible soundtracks, and even worse video compression! You money should go to these excellent restorations!)

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