Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Essential Charlie Chaplin

This is topic The Essential Charlie Chaplin - review and warning in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2003, 06:55 AM:

Just in case anyone was considering purchasing this 12 DVD collection of Chaplin's short films from the Keystones up to the First National releases...don't.

Although I have only skimmed through a few of the discs, I have found that the quality is absolutely terrible in virtually every regard.

First, the basic picture quality leaves much to be desired. Clearly the master film source had been through multiple dupes, as the contrast muted out a lot of the humor by not being able to see all of the detail in the bright and dark areas of the picture. Also, the film source these DVDs were transferred from were in terrible condition, loaded with scratches, horrendous amounts of dirt and splices that are not there in other film and video copies of these films.

Second, where are the text captions??? The couple of Mutual films I looked at were completely missing the intercut dialogue slates! I would guess the transfers were made from a foreign print in another language and the fine folks at Delta Entertainment figured no one wanted or needed to read what was being said and just chopped it out.

Third are the "scores"...if you could call them that. While several scores exist to these films, the one thing they all have in common that I have seen is that the music follows the action on screen. These do not. Literally, it sounds like someone started the film and an album of generic piano music and just let it play alongside the picture. There are also no sound effects, which add to the humor. But even as bad as the "scores" are, I noticed that "The Kid" (and probably others) is completely silent.

Finally the cropping is ridiculous. I have ran many Chaplin prints and am very familiar with what is visible in the picture. On these DVDs, even with underscanning there is a terrible amount of cropping of the actor's heads in long shots and no two films have the same amount of safe area. (It is common for video releases of older films to have thin black bars around all 4 sides of the picture to help ensure that regular televisions can see everything.) I can only imagine how terrible these DVDs would look on a normal television.

This 12 DVD set by Delta Entertainment is a disgrace to Mr. Chaplin and his fans. Avoid this release.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-01-2003, 06:57 AM:

On the cropping issue, I wouldn't mind guessing that they telecined full gate silent elements using an Academy mask.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 07-01-2003, 08:11 AM:

When I saw "City Lights" (1931) on DVD earlier this year, the image had black bars on each side of the image area. The print quality was great. Only gripe: The default soundtrack is a new digital-stereo recording that sounds too bright and perfect. The original 1931 track is the best, and you have to hunt for it.

People seeing rotton prints of these classics may not even consider watching anything else that is old. Why release crappy prints on DVD anyway?

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-01-2003, 08:53 AM:

The new WB releases of "Limelight", "The Great Dictator" & "Modern Times", look very nice. "The Gold Rush" was also released too. But I only was sent the first three titles.

Delta Entertainment releases alot of low end DVD's, most are
of PD type prints. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2003, 07:57 PM:

Bruce,

There are a few versions of City Lights (my favorite Chaplin film) on DVD. Do you remember which company put out the one you saw?

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 07-01-2003, 08:54 PM:

Brad, it is a CBS/FOX release.

I look forward to seeing the other Chaplin titles also. I have several VHS recordings of Modern Times that all have the complete 'nonsense song,' along with sprocket noise in the background all over the soundtrack!

When these copies were made, was there nobody actually listening to the dub? One was recorded from the 'old' AMC, and the other is from TCM. They are not the same print, either.

I'm afraid that people today will ignore the classic Chaplins if they cant see fine-quality copies. Is the Roy Export Company (The copyright holder) behind all of these foul copies? I surely hope not.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-01-2003, 09:25 PM:

The DVDs I have for Modern Times and City Lights are from Image Entertainment (out of print). The quality is pretty darned good on them, but supposedly Warner recently got the rights to Chaplin's personal duplicate negatives that have not been handled quite possibly since each film was finished. Chaplin ordered these personal copies to be the first thing struck off of every finished film as a way to try and preserve his own work. The quality of them should be above and beyond anything we have ever seen.

By the way, does anyone know who got the rights to the Blackhawk collection? They had the best scores and prints for all of the classic silents from Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, etc.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-02-2003, 01:59 AM:

quote:
When I saw "City Lights" (1931) on DVD earlier this year, the image had black bars on each side of the image area.

If those were vertical bars then the telecine operator took care to preserve the 1:1.15 (approx.) 'early sound' ratio that was briefly used between the arrival of Movietone and the standardisation of the Academy ratio in 1932 (basically, the same frame dimensions as 35 'scope but without anamorphic compression). I once saw a VHS release of Sunrise which also preserved the full height frame: sadly, such careful transfers seem to be exceptions which prove the rule.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 07-02-2003, 07:39 AM:

Hi Leo.

The bars are on the left and right of the image. Image looks almost square on the TV screen.

Brad. as you know, I LOVE Chaplin films. I look forward to getting new DVD's of these titles.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-02-2003, 08:21 AM:

Yup, that's the early sound ratio alright. It was caused when an optical soundtrack was placed over a full-gate silent frame. This obliterated a strip of picture along the left-hand side of the frame, thus turning the full-gate ratio of 1:1.33 into almost a square. Projectionists soon started using plates and lenses to crop the remaining frame top and bottom and magnify what was left to fit their screens (no adjustable masking in those days) and for about 3-4 years there was ratio chaos. This was especially the case for films that were released with both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film: DoPs had no idea whether their composition would be cropped in projection or not.

In 1932 AMPAS published a proposal to print a matte between each frame in order to restore the old ratio, albeit using a smaller amount of surface area on the film magnified a bit more, which is the Academy ratio we have today.

Nowadays early sound films are almost always cropped to Academy in projection or telecine. This ratio can easily be projected - just use your 'scope backing lens and plate without the anamorph. But it's very rare to get a video which uses a vertical letterbox to preserve it - in fact the Sunrise VHS is the only one I've seen.

Posted by Christos Mitsakis (Member # 143) on 07-02-2003, 09:05 AM:

Brad,
The DVD of "City Lights" you're asking is from Image Entertainment ID9881 CUDVD (unfortunately out of print). As Bruce mentioned, by default the soundtrack is a new recording of the restored score by Carl Davis. However you can chose to listen to the original soundtrack from the sound options menu.
All Chaplin releases from Image are very well done with exveptional (for the age of the films) picture. (it was sad that they searched world wide to find prints in good condition and in complete form before the digital "cleaning").

Chaplin DVDs issued from Image are the following (If you run upon one of them just grab it imediatelly):

- Chaplin Mutuals, 3 vols
-Chaplin's Essanay Comedies, 3 vols
-Tillie's Punctured Romance/ Mabel's Married Life
-A First National Collection
-The Kid / A Dog's Life
-The Circus
-The Gold Rush (1942 version)
-City Lights
-Modern Times
-The Great Dictator
-Monsieur Verdoux
-A King in New York / A Woman of Paris
-Limelight
-Chaplin's Art of Comedy (documentary)

I hope that All of film-techers Chaplin fans will find this informative.

Christos.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 07-02-2003, 08:03 PM:

Thanks, Christos.

I rented the "City Lights" DVD at our local library. The CBS/Fox logo was recorded on the disc. I didn't read the fine print. This has to be the same version. The first time I watched the feature, it was with the modern score. I laughed my head off, and cried a little for the blind girl. But, I watched it again with the original recording and liked it much better. The sync was better with the original.

Posted by Christos Mitsakis (Member # 143) on 07-03-2003, 03:43 PM:

The "new" score has minor alterations in orchestration (not unmusical though). I suppose to clarify certain lines that sound "mudied" in the old recording. But having beeing used to the original, there's always a strange feeling when I listen to the restored score. It has been released on CD also.
There is a restored score for "Modern Times", but so far it has been performed live with the picture, no CD or DVD.
BTW. check perhaps the sole existing color scenes from the shooting of "Great Dictator", in the supplementals of the new WB edition.

Regards,
Christos

Posted by Robert Harris (Member # 1712) on 07-22-2003, 08:15 PM:

The mutual Chaplin's or at least the majority of of their original negatives...

yes, I've said original negatives...

are owned by uber-archivist and gentleman, David Shepard.

Anything of lower quality should be impermissable.

RAH

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-22-2003, 10:19 PM:

Is there any way of knowing which video releases were from the original negatives, or from Chaplin's personal dupe negatives?

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-15-2003, 10:41 PM:

quote:
By the way, does anyone know who got the rights to the Blackhawk collection?

David Shepard.

Posted by Bill Carter (Member # 156) on 08-16-2003, 01:23 AM:

David Shepard (who once worked for Blackhawk in Davenport, Iowa) bought the 16mm negative library some years after Blackhawk's demise. His company, Film Preservation Associates, can still provide new 16mm prints of this material. Some titles have even been upgraded since the Blackhawk days. David does indeed own the bona-fide Chaplin Mutual negatives. Newly struck, full-silent-aperture 35mm prints from these elements can be booked theatrically from Kino International in New York.

David produced the now out of print Image discs of the Chaplin features, which were originally mastered for Laser disc. Working with the Chaplin estate, he used the best elements made available to him for those masters. David is also responsible for the amazing Buster Keaton multiple box set, the "good" versions of Chaplin's Keystones, Essanays, and Mutuals, plus a staggering number of other silent features and shorts that are/were available from Image Entertainment (disc) and Kino International (VHS).

The lousy Chaplin discs that Brad mentions in the beginning of this thread keep cropping up again and again, from several different companies in a variety of packaging. Some of these masters were created by shooting projected 8mm (NOT a typo--8mm)
prints with a camcorder. This is absolutely the worst you'll ever see these public domain shorts look. Unfortunately, the box art on the new Warner Bros. DVD set looks very similar to some of these horrible ones. Don't get fooled.

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 08-16-2003, 09:18 AM:

The Chaplins I have on 16mm I have replaced most of them over the years due to better source material available....possibly due to Mr. Shepard's input. I started collecting Blackhawk 16mm as a teenager in the 1960's. In 1969 I was in Davenport with a traveling show as a stage electrician / followspot operator and spent the afternoon at the "red brick" building that housed Blackhawk Films. The staff treated me as a VIP and where happy to show the magic they did on their premises.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 08-16-2003, 09:14 PM:

I saw "The Gold Rush" on TCM, I believe it was, a few weeks ago. I couldn't get over how good it looked! It looked like it was shot yesterday!

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 08-17-2003, 07:28 AM:

Brand-new 16mm prints of great silent titles once carried by Blackhawk are available again at www.filmclassic.com.