The Chaplin Collection (Warner and M2K): reactions? (1 Viewer)

[Roger Rollins]

The Lloyd films BELONG with either KINO or IMAGE. Either company would do a splendid job with them. They would lavish care upon them, and get them the widest possible distribution.

The reality is that the market for silent films is very limited, and indeed Harold Lloyd's films are even harder to market because the estate's surpression of them for years has led to his being virtually forgotten.

Let's hope the Lloyd trust comes down to earth, recognizes the truth in front of them, and makes a deal with either of these fine companies to release those gorgeous new video transfers they have created, which have aired on TCM.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The Lloyd films BELONG with either KINO or IMAGE. Either company would do a splendid job with them. They would lavish care upon them, and get them the widest possible distribution.

Both Kino and David Shepard produce superb editions of silents. However, do you ever see press releases for their DVDs? How many in stores? Many online stores will only have a handful of their DVDs, if at all.

Many sites won't publish any information on silent film DVDs and when they do, it usually has to be a HUGE title or from a major company. In the last 6 months, the Warner Chaplin DVDs have gotten a huge amount of publicity. Reviews are popping up on major sites. I might be wrong, but they may even be in brick & mortar stores by now.

What makes matters worse is that Kino doesn't send out screeners. Many reviewers will simply pass over their DVDs because they didn't recieve one.

 

[Tony Scello]

I'm ashamed to say I've never seen any of Chaplin's work except for a few film clips over the years. I'm thinking about picking up one of the recent WB releases to get my feet wet and was looking for opinions on which one of the four is a "must-have" in terms of movie/performance and quality of disc. Thanks.

 

[Brandon Conway]

i thought that i read the new disc's would have the image release versions and the diferent cut versions too. via branching of some sort.

Tony - The Gold Rush has both versions.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I'm ashamed to say I've never seen any of Chaplin's work except for a few film clips over the years. I'm thinking about picking up one of the recent WB releases to get my feet wet and was looking for opinions on which one of the four is a "must-have" in terms of movie/performance and quality of disc.

IMO, Modern Times would be a good start. (City Lights is my personal favorite, but that's going to be released in the fall)

 

[Mark Zimmer]

Kino sends digitallyOBSESSED! plenty of screeners, often 2 months in advance of street date.

But whether or not Kino would do a good job of publicity is beside the point. The Lloyd Trust has criminally devalued the comedian's films by suppressing them ruthlessly, and then acts surprised when no one wants to drop millions of dollars into their laps. If I were one of the Lloyd heirs, I would be suing for maladministration of these once-valuable assets.

 

[Derek_McL]

Mark I couldn't agree with you more (I love the digitally Obsessed website which has excellent reviews of the silents and other classics, keep up the good work), the Lloyd Trust's attitudes are best summed up by their website : rarely updated with the latest theatrical screenings or anything else. People on their forum have been asking about DVD releases for at least four years and they won't even release them on a limited basis to avid fans (all the films are restored as screened by TCM in the US) but are willing to sell would you believe copies on degradable VHS !

As I said before its about time these films were made available to the wider public !

On a happier note which of the new Chaplins is a must have is a difficult one. Modern Times is certainly very entertaining and full of good gags. The disjointed nature of the film also makes it an excellent Chaplin sampler with episodes in The Factory, The Department Store, The Prison and The Nightclub where Charlie is a singing waiter. So as a starter Modern Times is ideal although I thought the extras apart from the documentary on the film sounded a bit disappointing.

If you want Chaplin's best film and I think its easily in top ten best ever made it just has to be The Gold Rush. You have the bonus here of two different versions of the film : the sound version with Chaplin's narration is compromised but still entertaining and a good introduction to silent film if you're not used to it,what us Chaplin fans are looking forward to seeing is the longer silent version (about 25 minutes longer).

So effectively you are getting two for the price of one and although they present the same story they sound significantly different enough to be considered two separate equally enjoyable experiences. For that reason based on the extras and quality of the film put together The Gold Rush must be considered the must have among this initial quartet but serious film fans will probably want to get them all.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Warning: Judging by running time discrepancies (compared to the Image DVDs) the R1 Warner DVDs are PAL to NTSC conversions from MK2's PAL transfer. If you have PAL capable equipment, you will get a much better picture from the MK2 (R2-France) DVDs.

Any more info on this subject would be appreciated, but from what I have seen so far, it is pretty much an open and shut case.

Ted

Studios: NO MORE PAL to NTSC CONVERSIONS, PLEASE!!!

 

[Enrique B Chamorro]

I have very poor self control!!!
I just put in an order for the 4 new films and
I think I will also keep the old Image films.
If scene by scene the new versions of Gold Rush,
Modern Times and the Great Dictator can replace
the old Image versions, I may donate the old
versions to my local public library?

 

[Brian PB]

Can someone clarify a point that came up in another forum? The original Warner press release from May 2002 talks of "newly remastered versions of eighteen classic Charlie Chaplin feature films." It also says "the titles in the Charlie Chaplin Collection range from his 1925 silent classic The Gold Rush, to his 1958 feature, A King in New York."

I assumed this collection would include the First National shorts (which I wouldn't call "features"), but they were all made before 1925 (as were legitimate features like The Kid and A Woman of Paris.

The First National shorts include:
A Dog's Life (1918/2 reels)
Shoulder Arms (1918/3 reels)
Sunnyside (1919/2 reels)
A Day's Pleasure (1919/2 reels)
The Idle Class (1921/2 reels)
Pay Day (1922/2 reels)
The Pilgrim (1923/4 reels)

Features would include:
The Kid (1921/6 reels)
A Woman of Paris (1923/8 reels)
The Gold Rush* (1925/9 reels)
The Circus (1928/7 reels)
City Lights (1931/9 reels)
Modern Times* (1936)
The Great Dictator* (1940)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Limelight* (1952)
A King in New York (1957)
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)

Altogether, this would make 18 films, so maybe the Press Release was poorly written. Thoughts?

*= Part of the The Chaplin Collection, Volume 1, which was released July 1st.

Note that 1 reel roughly contains 10 minutes worth of film

 

[Randy A Salas]

What makes matters worse is that Kino doesn't send out screeners.

Yes, it does. But very selectively and only by request--meaning that the company approves each media source for each title. The company generally avoids web sites and focuses on print media.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

Yes, they appear to be Pal conversions as every few frames have interlacing artifacts. And the runtimes are a bit shorter. My Image dvd has the 1942 cut of "Gold Rush" clocking in at 72 minutes, while the 1942 cut only runs 69 minutes on the new Mk2 disc

The frames on the left are from the new Warner/MK2 dvd, while the ones on the right are from the Image dvd. I have tried as best as possible to line the same frames side by side, The first and last two frames pretty much tell the whole story.

Plus the new version crops quite a bit off of the left and top of the frame



Here is a 1024 pixel wide higher rez version (380k) of the same images.

 

[Peter Kline]

Sorry no sale. I'm very disappointed because of the cropping and particularly the PAL conversations. WHY????????????

 

[Rain]

I'm not surprised.

The Image/Kino editions were bound to be a tough act to follow.

I'm glad I picked up the ones I wanted while they were still available.

 

[Patrick McCart]

While the ghosting isn't correct...

The cropping isn't wrong. The older DVDs were not framed, but rather windowboxed to reveal nearly all of the frame at all times. The films were meant to be cropped on all 4 sides in projection. The Warner-MK2 DVDs reflect this. I'm still appalled that Warner would accept transfers like this from MK2. You'd think they'd make MK2 create an NTSC version alongside the PAL one.

(One note though: Kino didn't work on the 2000 editions, only David Shepard, which are simply DVD versions of his laserdiscs)

 

[Rain]

Patrick,

Do you really think that the framing on the new DVD looks more proper than that on the Image DVD?

 

[Bill Burns]

Nuts. I just bought the dang thing. Happily, I only ordered The Gold Rush, but you'd honestly think this would've come up before the discs streeted (David Shepard surely understands the difference between a PAL and an NTSC master?? Why wouldn't he mention, in those comments quoted earlier, that only those with PAL equipment and the original PAL discs would enjoy a superior video experience? Just shows to go ya' -- even the experts overlook the obvious every now and then).

But speaking of a superior video experience -- ghosting artifacts aside, I still don't see much improvement (if any at all) in detail or contrast on the sound version in those stills posted above. Remove the ghosting and interlace problems, and I still prefer the Image disc, again based on those shots: the contrast and fine detail look similar or the same (the former a bit darker on the Warner disc, but to no particular avail in the quality of the picture), while Image's transfer is full aperture, and whatever the theatrical intentions, I do love full aperture (The Iron Mask is also full aperture).

Oh well. This remains the only way to own Kevin Brownlow's restoration of the silent version of The Gold Rush on DVD, and between that and the supplements, it may be worth the money. But the other titles are absolute no sales unless the conversion artifacts are drastically improved in future releases. Kino's The Iron Mask has motion blur trouble I'd associate with a PAL-NTSC transfer (it's a Kevin Brownlow restoration as well), but the "flutter" and ghosting of bad PAL conversions doesn't seem to plague that generally beautiful release (I assumed it was a 3:2 pull-down problem, perhaps suggesting some sort of inferior video source, but Artisan's copy of Topper in their recent Topper/Topper Returns may also be a PAL-NTSC conversion, and a bad one at that; the sequel is not). Assuming The Gold Rush's screenshots above are representative of the experience with each of the titles in this set, WB has seriously, and rather shockingly, dropped the ball on one of their most important classic banners: Chaplin.

I'll comment further once I've had a chance to watch my copy, which should be here tomorrow. I may toss the first disc, replace it with the Image disc, and thus have the silent and a definitive sound version of the film. But again, I'll comment further once I've seen the discs for myself. Thanks, though, Brian, for a very important heads up for prospective buyers.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The 1942 version is near-correct or correctly framed. The MK2 version cropped the left side so much because it would have been masked by the soundtrack. The Image DVD used a source without the soundtrack, which resulted a lot more image.

It's a good representation of a 1.33:1 silent film being coverted to 1.37:1 sound.

 

[Damin J Toell]

It's no surprise that the 1942 Gold Rush is framed differently. Indeed, David Shepard warned the world about this almost 2 years ago. WB/MK2 is just presenting the film as is to be expected. One can't really blame them for doing it the way the Chaplin Estate wants it to be done.

As for the PAL->NTSC conversion, this may be a deal-breaker for me. Speedup I might be able to handle, but ghosting is unacceptable. Thankfully, I already own all of the David Shepard/Image discs (except for one), and so this may be dropping off of my want list...

DJ

 

[Derek_McL]

For us in the UK buying PAL discs at least according to what I understand at the moment means we will lose out on the extras but those screen shots certainly appear a bit blurry.

Oh well maybe I'll go to Paris and buy the French versions !