SilentComedyMafia.com

Happy New Year to all Members!
I hope this will be a better year, because the last sure was not my year.

In these days I'm working on a book.
It's too bad that Charley Chase's best period, the silent period - I'm a fan of silent comedy, in my view his sound era is interesting but not outstanding - doesn't have the largest survival rate. Many of these films are lost today, but the worst is that nothing (or almost) is known about them. Gems as IS EVERYBODY HAPPY, THE BOOSTER, RUBY LIPS, LOUD SOUP and THIN TWINS non only are gone, but it is also difficult to determine their contents. In my book, I try to reconstruct their stories and I need of some informations (photos, stills, reviews).
I ask you an help, dear members.
I will be grateful.

Thanks in advance.

You can find reviews on the Media History Digital Library page, here: http://mediahistoryproject.org/. Keying in "Charley Chase" using the Lantern search engine will yield every mention of Chase in a multitude of trade reviews.

Hi Rob,

My antivirus signals an alert every time I try to access on that site.
Infact, this problem arises again.
I'm interested on reviews only for the shorts I mentioned.
Are there any of these?

All of Chase's late silents were reviewed by the trades. Since they were released by MGM, cutting continuities were submitted to the Library of Congress for copyright purposes. So it is possible to get a sense of what the plots were like, though without the films we can never enjoy Chase's performance.

Yes, I know.
I've written to Zoran Sinobad of LoC (back in november) but he has totally ignored my request.
Work and family obligations don't permit me to get back to the States in good time for this purpose.
I am waiting to receive an hand from someone and, in the meantime, I'm in search for some stills.
Private messaging on this forum and my facebook profile are open to all.

Thank you.

Having all those abundant trade periodicals is handy and all, but the search for the actual films are still ongoing, is it not?

I was under the impression that we are living in a time of the Chase revival. MODERN LOVE (29) has been uncovered and restored, soundtracks to his early talkies are being discovered and matched up to it's silent counterpart, while fragments to his lost films continue to be unearthed by tenacious film archaeologist's. Check out the number of DVD releases featuring Chase this past decade. He is no longer the ignored, forgotten comedian.

There once was a time when there were major hole's in L & H's silent filmography, but as their popularity grew in the sixties so too did the digging to fill those holes. Time may not be on Charley's side, as it was for The Boys, but the time when those films were first made may still be their salvation. The late silent period saw the major studio's become less interested in their silent product as talkies were the new rage. Even a corporate company like MGM might have looked the other way when some of their prints never returned from their world distribution jaunts. I still believe that foreign archives are the best bet to find some of those missing Chase titles that Lorenzo write's about.