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2.0 out of 5 stars
Not as bad as expected, Dec 26 2002
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.
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