Silent Era : Home Video Reviews

Silent Era Home Page > Home Video > The Essential Charlie Chaplin Collection

Reviews of silent film releases on home video.
Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett
and the Silent Era Company.
All Rights Reserved.

The Essential
Charlie Chaplin Collection
(1914)

Contents: Cruel, Cruel Love (1914), The Star Boarder (1914) [The Landlady’s Pet] (1914), Twenty Minutes of Love (1914), Caught in a Cabaret (1914), A Busy Day (1914), The Fatal Mallet (1914) and The Knockout (1914).

Delta Entertainment
2003 DVD edition

The Essential Charlie Chaplin Collection (1914), black & white, 89 minutes total, not rated, including Cruel, Cruel Love (1914), black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, The Star Boarder (1914) [The Landlady’s Pet] (1914), black & white, 13 minutes, not rated, Twenty Minutes of Love (1914), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, Caught in a Cabaret (1914), black & white, 16 minutes, not rated, A Busy Day (1914), black & white, 6 minutes, not rated, The Fatal Mallet (1914), black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, and The Knockout (1914), black & white, 25 minutes, not rated.

Delta Entertainment, 82 454, UPC 0-18111-24549-4.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 24 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at ? Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.99.
Release date: 18 March 2003.
Country of origin: USA

This budget DVD collection follows the suit of other Chaplin collections: put as few films onto as many discs as possible, regardless of print quality and sell them as cheap as possible. And don’t expect them to be mastered from anything but subpar 16mm and 8mm reduction prints.

Don’t consider buying this collection for the Chaplin Mutual films. The Mutual films have all been released on DVD home video in far superior editions transferred from 35mm prints. Cobra Entertainment (successor to Delta) rereleased remaining stock of this disc onto the market in 2010.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.