SilentComedyMafia.com

I just pre-ordered the "Becoming Charley Chase" DVD set through Deep Discount. It's current pre-order price is about $15 less than Amazon just to let you know.

Jim K

Deep Discount isn't showing any artwork yet.

Their price is really good on this one.

By the way, has there been any word on their semi-anual sale? It is usually 20% off, but this November it was 25% off!
They usually have the June sale going by now.

Agnes McFadden

Agnes McFadden wrote:Deep Discount isn't showing any artwork yet.

Their price is really good on this one.

By the way, has there been any word on their semi-anual sale? It is usually 20% off, but this November it was 25% off!
They usually have the June sale going by now.

Agnes McFadden

Agnes, I was wondering the same thing. I haven't received an email on that yet (though I have received many Deep Discount emails on selective sales of stuff that has not interest to me). Hopefully in the next couple of weeks.

I just e-mailed Deep Discount, and I have a phone number to call them if I need to do that.

I will post any news that I get.

It won't help with the Chase release just now unless the sale gets delayed ( it is only on current DVDs- no pre-orders with the sale price).

Agnes McFadden

The e-mail response that I recieved from DDD was - absolute crap...........................So I did call them.

I was told that the sale will go on, but it will be a little later. Hopefully it will fall late enough for me to get "Becoming Charley Chase" in this sale, but not so late that I have to wait too long.

They said that they wil send out e-mail allerts and will make phone calls ( as they did in November when they raised the discount to 25% - hopefully a bit of forshadowing).

I will post here as soon as I hear anything concrete.

Agnes McFadden

Deep Discount just sent out notices that their summer sale is starting.

Lucky for us that it was postponed, since it would have been over by now, normally.

Since it is later this year, it will run until August 2.

Since this will now pass the release date of "Becoming Charley Chase", I now have that on my list and will order on July 28 (the sale prices are only valid for released discs).

Agnes

I'm in the process of going through the 4 DVDS; much enjoying viewing the Jimmy Jump shorts, some co-starring the winsome Martha Sleeper and Catherine Grant, for the first time. Do any starring vehicles spotlighting these stellar leading ladies exist?

Made a point of promoting "Becoming Charley Chase" on my blog at:
http://psychotronicpaul.blogspot.com/20 ... omedy.html

Paul F Etcheverry wrote:I'm in the process of going through the 4 DVDS; much enjoying viewing the Jimmy Jump shorts, some co-starring the winsome Martha Sleeper and Catherine Grant, for the first time. Do any starring vehicles spotlighting these stellar leading ladies exist?

Martha Sleeper spent most of her time at Roach Studios (1924-1927) appearing in support (albeit often delightful support) of such starring comedians as Chase, Max Davidson, Glenn Tryon and Arthur Stone.

She was, however, given the chance to appear in larger starring/or co-starring roles in some of the two-reel All-Star (in other words, no particular star) series and in the cheaper one reel films.

Here's a few of the extant ones that you may want to check out.

Martha stars in the Roach one-reeler SURE MIKE (filmed in February 1925 and released May 24, 1925). She appears opposite Jimmy Finlayson and is supported by such Roach regulars as William Gillespie and Lyle Tayo. A young Fay Wray also appears in the film.
She also has a pretty good part in the Roach two-reel All-Star comedy THERE GOES THE BRIDE (filmed June-July 1925 and released October 25, 1925) opposite Lucien Littlefield.
One of my favorites of her later films for Roach has her playing with both Jimmy Finlayson and Stan Laurel in the two-reel All-Star comedy SHOULD TALL MEN MARRY? (filmed April-May 1927 and released January 15, 1928).

Martha left the studio in the Fall of 1927. The last film she shot was the Max Davidson classic PASS THE GRAVY (filmed in October 1927)

She continued acting in films for various studios, mostly in small roles, well into the 1930s. She even returned to Roach in 1932 when she played a bit part in laurel and Hardy's THE CHIMP.

Joe Moore

There's an interesting, but also ridiculous conversation going on on Dave Kehr's blogsite about BECOMING CHARLEY CHASE, which also underlines why auteurists really will never get Silent Comedy, nor much else in film history for that matter. I really love the references to "McCarey's FLUTTERING HEARTS" (which he didn't even direct) and "Eddie Cline's THE RAG MAN" (an auteur at MGM, yeah right!), but we're again belittling Clyde Bruckman's work with the major comedians even when those major comedians were fighting for his services. Auteurists never learn.

Here's the blog:

http://www.davekehr.com/?p=367


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Eech, I see what you mean: "....but Leo McCarey seems to be the presiding auteur of his series." The funniest thing about the "auteur theory" is how they took the French word for "author", i.e. writer, and used it to so thoroughly diminish the contributions of any writer who did not direct his own work.