Charlie Chaplin Marathon

Rating:
Summary: Fine, not WOW-ing
Review: A pretty decent collection and includes the first full-length feature, hence historically important. However, the sound quality is one of the worst possible on a DVD..and is sometimes annoying..though the picture quality is reasonable for the price. Not a bad piece for a collection, if the Image and Mutual Versions is out-of-bounds for your wallet. If you are expecting a "real" DVD-like quality, you will be disappointed. Though, that is the result of the source itself.

Rating:
Summary: Fine, not WOW-ing
Review: A pretty decent collection and includes the first full-length feature, hence historically important. However, the sound quality is one of the worst possible on a DVD..and is sometimes annoying..though the picture quality is reasonable for the price. Not a bad piece for a collection, if the Image and Mutual Versions is out-of-bounds for your wallet. If you are expecting a "real" DVD-like quality, you will be disappointed. Though, that is the result of the source itself.

Rating:
Summary: terrible
Review: Avoid at all cost,This is one of the worst collections I have ever seen.It has lame music and annoying sound effects.Save your money and buy one of the Mutuals or Essanay collections

Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as expected
Review: First of all, this review is for the Laserlight dvd "Charlie Chaplin Marathon", which has different content from other dvds that this review may appear on.

What we have is is three readily available Chaplin short films, and the feature "Tillie's Punctured Romance".

The three short films, "The Immigrant", "The Rink", and "The Vagabond", are three of Chaplin's best from the Mutual Films period, 1916-1917. In this edition, the films are presented in copies from the Blackhawk collection, with the 1930's era Van Buren soundtracks added on. The picture quality is surprisingly good for a budget dvd, the soundtracks are as horrible as they have always been, and the films are not as restored as the copies on the Image "Chaplin Mutual Films" collection. This makes the dvd not a bad starting place for the Chaplin novice.

However, the copy of "Tillie's Punctured Romance" is a horror, a very bad print, missing many shots and scenes, with a narrator droning endlessly on to try and make sense of this choppy film. It is an abomination, and it saddens me to think that people might be buying this instead of the Image dvd of the film. The Image dvd is fully restored, and looks and sounds a good as possible.

The verdict - this disc may pass for someone who isn't that interested in Chaplin, but it is not for the discerning fan. There are many discs to recommend instead of it.

Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as expected
Review: First of all, this review is for the Laserlight dvd "Charlie Chaplin Marathon", which has different content from other dvds that this review may appear on.

What we have is is three readily available Chaplin short films, and the feature "Tillie's Punctured Romance".

The three short films, "The Immigrant", "The Rink", and "The Vagabond", are three of Chaplin's best from the Mutual Films period, 1916-1917. In this edition, the films are presented in copies from the Blackhawk collection, with the 1930's era Van Buren soundtracks added on. The picture quality is surprisingly good for a budget dvd, the soundtracks are as horrible as they have always been, and the films are not as restored as the copies on the Image "Chaplin Mutual Films" collection. This makes the dvd not a bad starting place for the Chaplin novice.

However, the copy of "Tillie's Punctured Romance" is a horror, a very bad print, missing many shots and scenes, with a narrator droning endlessly on to try and make sense of this choppy film. It is an abomination, and it saddens me to think that people might be buying this instead of the Image dvd of the film. The Image dvd is fully restored, and looks and sounds a good as possible.

The verdict - this disc may pass for someone who isn't that interested in Chaplin, but it is not for the discerning fan. There are many discs to recommend instead of it.

Rating:
Summary: A 1914 CURIO.
Review: Historically important as the very first feature length comedy, it's also a pleasingly funny little show. Con man (25 year-old Charlie) sweet talks country gal (45 year-old Marie) into stealing her Papa's money and running away with him to the Big City-where he dumps Marie and goes back to his flame Normand. Meanwhile, Dressler has inherited a fortune.................. This little flick contains a hilarious tango scene at the wedding party and we get to see the Keystone Kops in the final scenes. A novel curiousity for which director Mack Sennett pulled out all the stops!

Rating:
Summary: Image Entertainment Release
Review: Please ignore the reviews for this video that refer to it as a Laser Light release. THIS IS NOT A LASERLIGHT RELEASE. This DVD is remastered by Image Entertainment with a new score. The image quality is pretty good considering this is a film from 1914! Image Entertainment is the best out there when it comes to releasing silent films on DVD. Image Entertainment remasters all their silent films from the best available 35mm nitrate source and they create new scores for the films. Don't let the other reviews turn you off from experiencing this early silent film gem.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Restoration!
Review: Quality prints of Chaplin's Keystones are so hard to find! This is one. Image Entertainment has done it again. The quality is crisp and clear. Highly recommend!

This review is for the Tillie's/Mabel DVD, NOT the Chaplin Marathon!

Rating:
Summary: Not bad
Review: Sure,the sound is very,very annoying,but the picture quality is suprisingly good.The picture quality on the three short films is good,but the picture on Tillie's Puntured Romance is horrible. This is good for its price.Worth buying if you're too cheap to buy the Image DVDs.

Rating:
Summary: First feature comedy
Review: The reviews on this page seem to be referring to two or three different editions of "Tillie's Punctured Romance." So let me start by saying that I'm reviewing the Image DVD version (which also contains the one-reeler "Mabel's Married Life" as a bonus feature) and not the Chaplin marathon which seems to be the recipient of the bad reviews here.

"Tillie's Punctured Romance" is an important film for a couple of reasons. It was the very first feature length comedy, providing film comedy an alternative to one- and two-reel shorts. It was also the last film with Charles Chaplin as merely an actor; he began directing all of his films after this.

In addition to its importance, "Tillie's Punctured Romance" is still enjoyable to watch. The print on this DVD is a little rough in places, a few times switching from what appears to be a nice 35mm print to a seemingly worn out 16mm print and then back again within the same scene. But overall, this is a quality presentation of the film when you consider the fact that it was made in 1914.