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 (1919-1921)

Contents: Sunnyside (1919), A Day’s Pleasure (1919) and The Kid (1921).

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. However, this edition's source prints are OK, but the analog video masters have a significant number of videotape glitches (especially in A Day’s Pleasure). As for the disc mastering, there are a large number of pulldown frames with overlapping picture information, which creates jerky movement in fast action.

Don’t consider buying this collection. The First National films have all been released on DVD home video and The Kid on Criterion Blu-ray Disc 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.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
DELTA ENTERTAINMENT has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.