Chaplin at Keystone: An International Collaboration of 34 Original Films

STREAM DIGITAL EDITION 

4-DISC DVD BOX SET

Flicker Alley is proud to present Chaplin at Keystone, a 4-disc DVD boxed set of . These editions feature all-new musical settings by outstanding practitioners of silent film accompaniment: Eric Beheim, Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Frederick Hodges, Stephen Horne, Robert Israel, Rodney Sauer and The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Ethan Uslan, and Ken Winokur's band Tillie’s Nightmare with the UCLA Film and Television Archive restoration of Tillie's Punctured Romance.

Charles Chaplin came to Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios late in 1913 as a little-known British vaudevillian, and after a year, had not only established his Tramp character, learned to write and direct his own films, and also achieved public recognition as a star comedian. Although Keystone did not publicize its performers by name, standees of Chaplin's likeness outside theatres sufficed to attract audiences. Some of the films, especially Tillie's Punctured Romance, remained in theatrical distribution for decades.

The fact that all but one of the Chaplin Keystones exist is due, of course, to the star’s enormous subsequent popularity. Most of the original Keystone negatives, however, were simply printed away and the survival of all but a few of these films depends upon a very few original prints, a larger number of reissue prints, and some duped prints from later years. With the support of Association Chaplin (Paris), 35mm full aperture, early-generation materials were gathered over an eight year search on almost all the films from archives and collectors around the world, and were painstakingly pieced together and restored by the British Film Institute National Archive, the Cineteca Bologna and its laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata in Italy, and Lobster Films in Paris.

Most are now clear, sharp and rock-steady, although some reveal that their source prints are well-used and a handful survives only in 16mm. One can now understand Chaplin's meteoric rise, for it is possible for the first time in generations to see clearly what clever and imaginative films he made at Keystone. This set includes the following 34 short films from 1914:

Making a Living; Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal.; Mabel's Strange Predicament; Between Showers; A Film Johnnie; Tango Tangles; His Favorite Pastime; Cruel, Cruel Love; The Star Boarder; Mabel at the Wheel; Twenty Minutes of Love; Caught in a Cabaret; Caught in the Rain; A Busy Day; The Fatal Mallet; The Knock Out; Mabel's Busy Day; Mabel's Married Life; Laughing Gas; The Property Man; The Face on the Bar Room Floor; Recreation; The Masquerader; His New Profession; The Rounders; The New Janitor; Those Love Pangs; Dough and Dynamite; Gentleman of Nerve; His Musical Career; His Trysting Places; Tillie's Punctured Romance; Getting Acquainted; His Prehistoric Past

BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:

• 40-Page Booklet - Providing an overview of the importance of the Chaplin Keystone comedies and detailed notes on the individual films by film historian and author Jeffrey Vance (Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema)

• Inside the Keystone Project - A short documentary detailing the international restoration efforts

• Silent Traces: Inside the Keystone Locations - Historian John Bengtson takes a "then and now" look at several Keystone film locations in a 10-minute filmed tour based on his book Silent Traces

• A Thief Catcher - A short excerpt recently discovered by Paul E. Gierucki, with Chaplin as a Keystone Cop

• Charlie et sa Belle (Charlie's White Elephant, 1916) - An animated film directed by John Colman Terry and H.M. Shields

• Rare Image Gallery - Featuring photographs from the Jeffrey Vance Collection, Association Chaplin (Roy Export Company Establishment)