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

Charlie Chaplin Marathon (1914-1917)

Contents: Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), The Vagabond (1916), The Rink (1916) and The Immigrant (1917).

The inclusion of the three short films gives the viewer a good slice of what Chaplin’s creative progress was during his Mutual years. The Vagabond amplifies story themes that Chaplin had discovered in 1915, during his Essanay contract years. Heroic self-sacrifice now pays off in the winning of true love. The Rink represents a nod to Chaplin’s vaudeville and Keystone past, being inventive and funny slapstick throughout. But, what is going on with Edna’s party hairstyle? And, it is well known that in the story of The Immigrant Chaplin finally coalesced his comedic and poetic tendencies. The result is a funny and heart-warming mix that is a precursor to Chaplin’s masterpiece, City Lights (1931).

— Carl Bennett

Budget-line home video releases are always a hit-or-miss gamble for consumers. For the money, Laserlight’s Charlie Chaplin Marathon DVD compilation is both a hit and a miss.

On the other hand, the other Chaplin shorts on this disc are a minor hit (for the money). Three short comedies that Chaplin made under his Mutual Film Corporation contract have been chosen to fill out this disc. All three of the films have been transferred from 35mm prints prepared by Blackhawk Films. Each of the films features the Winston Sharples music and sound-effects soundtrack prepared by Blackhawk. The quality of the transfers, and of the sound, is comparable to the original 1980s laserdisc releases of these films. The picture image retains most of the films’ original greyscale tones and picture detail. The transfer cropping is tight but is different from the 1980s laserdiscs, indicating new transfers from the same source materials. Because each source print was from the Blackhawk sound versions (all produced at the sound film speed of 24 fps), each of the Mutual films on this disc run noticably faster than the original camera speed of approximately 18-20 fps. Despite the faster speed, we sometimes like to return to these older Blackhawk prints to enjoy the silly sound effects that accompany the slapstick action.

For our comparative reviews of the individual films in this collection, see our Tillie’s Punctured Romance on home video, The Immigrant on home video, The Rink on home video and The Vagabond on home video pages.

Overall, the DVD may be well worth having if you do not already own the better editions of these films, produced for home video by David Shepard, available on DVD and videotape. Certainly, the DVD is worth the less-than-ten-dollars it can be had for, despite the substandard edition of Tillie’s Punctured Romance.

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.
LASERLIGHT DIGITAL has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

This low-budget DVD collection is nothing more than a 2002 Delta Entertainment repackaging of the remaining, unsold stock of the 1999 Laserlight edition. Since the only thing new about this Delta edition is its cardboard slipcover, its content is the exactly same as the Laserlight edition reviewed above.

This one isn’t recommended either.

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 KEYSTONE comedy films available on home video.