Chaplin's Art of Comedy

Starring:Charlie Chaplin
Studio: Image Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
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Sail right past the off-putting prologue (which sounds and feels like one of those hideous educational films from the 1950s) of this otherwise satisfying collection of clips from Chaplin's early work, and you'll be in good shape. Assembled by producer Samuel M. Sherman, the program consists of nine generous slices of Chaplin's one- and two-reel output at Essanay Studios, to which the great man fled for a spell in 1915 after feeling creatively constrained at Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Co.

Lots of good stuff here, though none of it is presented in its entirety. The classic "A Night at the Show," a cinematic re-creation of one of Chaplin's most beloved stage routines in England, is still hilarious, with the star playing dual roles as a drunk aristocrat and a disruptive peasant. "A Woman" finds the Tramp shaving his moustache in order to dress in drag (for a good reason, of course). "The Champion" is wonderful knockabout comedy featuring Chaplin's alter ego as a surprisingly effective pugilist, and "The Tramp" finds the star-director constructing one of his most delicate, even mystical, pieces. You can see much of this material in its complete state elsewhere, but this serves as a handy introduction to Chaplin's early growth as a master of broken hearts, belly laughs, and beauty. --Tom Keogh
Description
The original king of comedy! Nobody made the world laugh like Charlie Chaplin, whose genius forever elevated the genre of comedy. "Chaplin's Art of Comedy" is a documented cavalcade of some of Chaplin's wildest and most inventive humor. His classic films sequences are here, as well as rare footage unavailable until now.

The Chaplin Collection, Vol. 2 (City Lights / The Circus / The Kid / A King in New York / A Woman of Paris / Monsieur Verdoux / The Chaplin Revue / Charlie - The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin)
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The Chaplin Collection, Vol. 2 (City Lights / The Circus / The Kid / A King in New York / A Woman of Paris / Monsieur Verdoux / The Chaplin Revue / Charlie - The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin)
Starring: Charles Chaplin , and Charlie Chaplin
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00017LVRI
Release Date: 2004-03-09

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The second magnificent collection of Charlie Chaplin's work is even more stuffed with goodies than the first: six feature films, a round-up of two-reelers, and a new documentary, plus a cornucopia of deleted scenes and context. Each feature is accompanied by a half-hour "Chaplin Today" featurette, in which a filmmaker comments from a 21st-century perspective. Claude Chabrol extols the wicked virtues of Monsieur Verdoux and calls Chaplin "a thoroughly modern director," while Jim Jarmusch speaks gallantly on the political satire of the problematic A King in New York.

The Kid (1921), Chaplin's first feature, relates directly to Chaplin's own hard upbringing. The Tramp adopts a street kid (Jackie Coogan), in a seamless blend of slapstick and sentiment. For A Woman of Paris (1923), Chaplin experimented: straight, adult melodrama, with no Charlie onscreen (save for a brief cameo). 1927's The Circus is prized by many Chaplin critics as pure sublime comedy, less burdened by sentiment or politics than subsequent films. City Lights (1931) is an undisputed masterpiece; the Tramp befriends a blind girl, leading to one of the great bittersweet endings in film history. (Among the extras: a priceless seven-minute deleted scene involving little more than Chaplin and a piece of wood stuck in a grate.) With Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Chaplin turned his back on the Tramp and invented an elegant lady killer (literally); audiences disapproved, but the film stands as a fascinating essay on himself. Finally, after his exile from the United States, Chaplin made A King in New York (1957), which is mostly flat, except as autobiography.

The Chaplin Revue gathers six essential short works, from the superb A Dog's Life (1918) to his last two-reeler, The Pilgrim. A separate disc contains film critic Richard Schickel's comprehensive documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin, which does nicely by Chaplin's life and his working process, with keen comments from admirers such as Woody Allen and Johnny Depp. This box set is more than film history; it's a living treasure. --Robert Horton

Description

The wonder. The magic. The genius. Now for an encore presentation with stunning new restorations, all-new special features and more. The Richard Schickel documentary, "Charlie" available exclusively in this Chaplin Giftset. THE CIRCUS The Little Tramp accidentally becomes a big-top star in the comedy that earned Chaplin a special Academy Award?. CITY LIGHTS A forever classic - and an American Film Institute Top-100 Movie. The Tramp becomes a working man, saving money for an operation that will restore a blind flower girl's sight. THE KID The Tramp and his ragamuffin sidekick (6-year-old Jackie Coogan) triumph over life's hard knocks in the landmark film that changed the notion of what a screen comedy could be. A KING IN NEW YORK/A WOMAN OF PARIS Chaplin jabs at social conventions! U.S. pop culture is the target of his satiric A King in New York. And the whirl of French high society frames director Chaplin's tragic love story A Woman of Paris.

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Certainly, Charlie Chaplin at this point in his career (1952) had earned the right to reflect on his years as an entertainer, and could make his film as overlong and soppy and sentimental as he darn well pleased. But that doesn't mean the rest of us have to abet this kind of melodramatic indulgence. Chaplin stars as Calvero, a fading clown who helps a paralyzed dancer regain the use of her legs and achieve great fame, but of course at grave cost to Calvero. The film is famous for featuring the only onscreen teaming of Chaplin with the other legendary comic of the silent era, Buster Keaton, and is equally infamous for Chaplin having allegedly cut out most of Keaton's best bits in their sequence together. How much Chaplin sabotaged his own movie to keep Keaton from shining has been much debated, but consider: In Keaton's autobiography, he calls Chaplin the greatest screen comic of all time. In Chaplin's autobiography, he never mentions Keaton. --David Kronke

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A fading comedian and a suicidally despondent ballet dancer must look to each other to find meaning and hope in their lives.

The Great Dictator - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)

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The Great Dictator - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)
Starring: Henry Bergman , Charles Chaplin , Chester Conklin , Henry Daniell , and Robert O. Davis
Manufacturer: Creative Design Art
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000096IB8
Release Date: 2003-07-01

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Since Adolf Hitler had the audacity to borrow his mustache from the most famous celebrity in the world--Charlie Chaplin--it meant Hitler was fair game for Chaplin's comedy. (Strangely, the two men were born within four days of each other.) The Great Dictator, conceived in the late thirties but not released until 1940, when Hitler's war was raging across Europe, is the film that skewered the tyrant. Chaplin plays both Adenoid Hynkel, the power-mad ruler of Tomania, and a humble Jewish barber suffering under the dictator's rule. Paulette Goddard, Chaplin's wife at the time, plays the barber's beloved; and the rotund comedian Jack Oakie turns in a weirdly accurate burlesque of Mussolini, as a bellowing fellow dictator named Benzino Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria. Chaplin himself hits one of his highest moments in the amazing sequence where he performs a dance of love with a large inflated globe of the world. Never has the hunger for world domination been more rhapsodically expressed. The slapstick is swift and sharp, but it was not enough for Chaplin. He ends the film with the barber's six-minute speech calling for peace and prophesying a hopeful future for troubled mankind. Some critics have always felt the monologue was out of place, but the lyricism and sheer humanity of it are still stirring. This was the last appearance of Chaplin's Little Tramp character, and not coincidentally it was his first all-talking picture. --Robert Horton

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Limelight
Starring: Marjorie Bennett , Barry Bernard , Claire Bloom , Nigel Bruce , and Josephine Chaplin
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
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Binding: DVD

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Description

Leading lady Claire Bloom called it a "fairy godfather" story. Historians said it was frankly autobiographical. Charlie Chaplin knew it as a love story. Chaplin plays Calvero, a vaudeville clown whom time has passed by in 1914 London. Although under few illusions about his own prospects for the future, he is able to impart his passion for life to Terry (Bloom), a young ballerina who believes she is paralyzed and can no longer dance. Calvero alternately nurses and bullies her to recovery and subsequent success as a prima ballerina. From this position, she is able to help Calvero enjoy one last triumphant moment just as he suffers a fatal heart attack. As his life is ebbing, hers is flowing in a brilliant solo ballet that ends the film.

Modern Times - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)

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Modern Times - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)
Starring: Norman Ainsley , Richard Alexander , Bobby Barber , Henry Bergman , and Stanley Blystone
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Release Date: 2003-07-01

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Charlie Chaplin is in glorious form in this legendary satire of the mechanized world. As a factory worker driven bonkers by the soulless momentum of work, Chaplin executes a series of slapstick routines around machines, including a memorable encounter with an automatic feeding apparatus. The pantomime is triumphant, but Chaplin also draws a lively relationship between the Tramp and a street gamine. She's played by Paulette Goddard, then Chaplin's wife and probably his best leading lady (here and in The Great Dictator). The film's theme gave the increasingly ambitious writer-director a chance to speak out about social issues, as well as indulging in the bittersweet quality of pathos that critics were already calling "Chaplinesque." In 1936, Chaplin was still holding out against spoken dialogue in films, but he did use a synchronized soundtrack of sound effects and his own music, a score that includes one of his most famous melodies, "Smile." And late in the film, Chaplin actually does speak--albeit in a garbled gibberish song, a rebuke to modern times in talking pictures. --Robert Horton

Laurel & Hardy: All New Adventure - For Love

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Laurel & Hardy: All New Adventure - For Love
Starring: F. Murray Abraham , Lara Bye , Timo Chaplin , Josh Cheny , and Susan Danford
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Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

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Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Manufacturer: MK2/Warner Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Product Description

Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, Written & Directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel. Includes interviews with Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Claire Bloom, Geraldine Chaplin, Syndney Chaplin, Milos Forman, Richard Attenborough, Norman Lloyd, Andrew Sarris, Jeanine Basinger, Bill Irwin, Marcel Marceau, David Raskin & Jeffery Vance + clips from many of Chaplin's classic films + rare home movies(inc. Charlie playing tennis with Groucho Marx) + much, much more. Premeried at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.

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Chaplin's Art of Comedy
Starring: Charles Chaplin , and Ben Turpin
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ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00000ILEJ
Release Date: 1999-06-08

Amazon.com

Sail right past the off-putting prologue (which sounds and feels like one of those hideous educational films from the 1950s) of this otherwise satisfying collection of clips from Chaplin's early work, and you'll be in good shape. Assembled by producer Samuel M. Sherman, the program consists of nine generous slices of Chaplin's one- and two-reel output at Essanay Studios, to which the great man fled for a spell in 1915 after feeling creatively constrained at Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Co.

Description

The original king of comedy! Nobody made the world laugh like Charlie Chaplin, whose genius forever elevated the genre of comedy. "Chaplin's Art of Comedy" is a documented cavalcade of some of Chaplin's wildest and most inventive humor. His classic films sequences are here, as well as rare footage unavailable until now.

City Lights - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)

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City Lights - Chaplin Collection (Limited Edition Collector's Set)
Starring: Jack Alexander (III) , Henry Bergman , Betty Blair , Virginia Cherrill , and Al Ernest Garcia
Manufacturer: Creative Design Art
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Release Date: 2003-11-11

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City Lights is a film to pick for the time capsule, a film that best represents the many aspects of director-writer-star Charlie Chaplin at the peak of his powers: Chaplin the actor, the sentimentalist, the knockabout clown, the ballet dancer, the athlete, the lover, the tragedian, the fool. It's all contained in Chaplin's simple story of a tramp who falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill). Chaplin elevates the Victorian contrivances of the plot to something glorious with his inventive use of pantomime and his sure grasp of how the Tramp relates to the audience. In 1931, it was a gamble for Chaplin to stick with silence after talking pictures had killed off the art form that had made him famous, but audiences flocked to City Lights anyway. (Chaplin would not make his first full talking picture until 1940's The Great Dictator.) After all the superb comic sequences, the film culminates with one of the most moving scenes in the history of cinema, a luminous and heartbreaking fade-out that lifts the picture onto another plane. (Woody Allen paid homage to the scene at the end of Manhattan.) This is why the term "Chaplinesque" became a part of the language. --Robert Horton

The All New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love or Mummy

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The All New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love or Mummy
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Release Date: 2000-01-18

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