SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

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Paul E. Gierucki
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SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Paul E. Gierucki » Wed Apr 16, 2014 6:08 pm

From our friends at Flicker Alley:


FLICKER ALLEY PRESENTS CHAPLIN’S MUTUAL COMEDIES (Limited SteelBook Edition) and THE MACK SENNETT COLLECTION, VOL. ONE

Flicker Alley, in association with the Blackhawk Films® Collection, CineMuseum, and Keystone Films, releases two landmark box sets—Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies (Limited SteelBook Edition) and The Mack Sennett Collection (Vol. One)—presented in brand-new, beautifully restored editions.

Release Date: July 29, 2014

(Los Angeles, CA - January 16, 2014) - Flicker Alley, the Blackhawk Films® Collection, CineMuseum, and Keystone Films invite you to celebrate the lives and work of two silent comedy icons with the dual-release of Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies (Limited SteelBook Edition) and The Mack Sennett Collection (Vol. One), both highly anticipated, newly restored collections never before seen on home video.

Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies (1916–1917)
DVD/BD Combo Set (Limited SteelBook Edition)
S.R.P. $59.95

Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies/ 1916-1917/ 400 minutes / US/ Directed by Charlie Chaplin / Produced by the Mutual Film Corporation
UPC: 6-17311-67859-2 ISBN: 1-893967-85-9

In the comedies Charlie Chaplin created for the Mutual Film Corporation, Chaplin sometimes played an inebriate, a fireman, or a prop man in a movie studio; but most of all, he further explored and developed his celebrated Little Tramp character that would soon join Falstaff and Don Quixote in the pantheon of immortal comic characters.

Flicker Alley and The Blackhawk Films® Collection are proud to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Little Tramp with the premiere of Chaplin’s Mutual Comedies, a 5-disc Blu-ray/DVD box set, presented for a limited time in a collector’s edition SteelBook case. The
collection features 12 newly restored films (The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A.M., The Count, The Pawnshop, Behind the Screen, The Rink, Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, and The Adventurer), all scanned under the aegis of Association Chaplin at a resolution of 2,000 lines from original 35mm prints gathered from archives all over the world, then digitally assembled and restored, a collaborative effort of Lobster Films in Paris and L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy. Each film offers the option of either improvised piano accompaniment or a full orchestral score. Among the many well-known composers and musicians featured are Robert Israel, Donald Sosin, Stephen Horne, Neil Brand, Timothy Brock, Carl Davis, Eric Beheim, Antonio Coppola, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Maud Nelissen, and Gabriel Thibaudeau.

Bonus Materials Include:

• A 34-page booklet with rare, behind-the-scenes images, and an extensive essay by film historian and author Jeffrey Vance (Chaplin: Genius of Cinema).

• The home-video premiere of a 52-minute documentary by Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange, The Birth of the Tramp, which chronicles Chaplin’s rise to stardom in concordance with early cinema’s growth from fairground attraction into an international industry.

• Chaplin’s Goliath by Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald, which tells the story of Charlie’s nemesis Eric Campbell, who achieved screen immortality with his appearances in eleven of these comedies.

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The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. One (1909-1933)
3-disc Blu-ray Set
S.R.P. $59.95

The Mack Sennett Collection (Vol. One)/ 1909-1933/ 316 minutes / US/ Produced by Mack Sennett for The Keystone Film Company & Mack Sennett Comedies UPC: 6-17311-67879-0 ISBN: 1-893967-87-5

The Keystone Film Company, under the guidance of pioneering producer and director Mack Sennett, was the birthplace of classic American slapstick comedy. This historic studio was at one time home to a staggering number of silent screen luminaries including Mabel Normand, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Harold Lloyd, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Beery, Harry Langdon, Marie Dressler, Ben Turpin, The Keystone Cops, Ford Sterling, Charley Chase, Al St. John, Mack Swain, Edgar Kennedy, Billy Bevan, Louise Fazenda, Eddie Quillan, and countless others. Even Hollywood icon Charlie Chaplin, still the world’s most recognized actor, introduced his beloved Tramp character under the auspices of Keystone. Later, under the Mack Sennett Comedies banner, Sennett went on to produce a new generation of sound comedies, some in early color, featuring the likes of W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Lloyd Hamilton, Andy Clyde, and more.

Now, for the first time, thanks to Flicker Alley, CineMuseum, and Keystone Films, over 100 of the best surviving Sennett comedies have been gathered from around the world, fully restored, and digitally re-mastered in HD for home video. The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. One features the first 50 of these films.

These new editions have been painstakingly reconstructed by CineMuseum and Keystone Films using original 35mm nitrate, archival negatives, preservation materials, and sometimes the lone known surviving film print, from the collections of the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern
Art, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Blackhawk Films®, Lobster Films, the Richard M. Roberts Collection, Gierucki Studios, and dozens of privately held archives.

The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. One premieres a wealth of rare, unknown, and previously thought lost footage which had been locked away in vaults and unseen for nearly 100 years!

Finally, these long neglected classic comedies may once again be seen as originally intended.

Produced for video by CineMuseum, LLC and Keystone Films, LLC. Restorations compiled and directed by Paul E. Gierucki.

Bonus Materials Include:

• 16-page full color booklet filled with rare images, production information, restoration notes, and Keystone - Sennett player biographies

• New music scores from acclaimed silent film accompanists Philip Carli, Ben Model, Dennis Scott, Andrew Simpson, and Donald Sosin

• Commentary tracks from noted comedy historians Brent Walker, Richard M. Roberts, Steve Massa, Stan Taffel and others

• Memorabilia galleries featuring vintage lobby cards, glass slides, posters, scripts, studio photographs, The Mack Sennett Story by film historian Joe Adamson, and rare audio recordings

• Long unseen rarities: newsreels, trailers, outtakes, Sennett-Color films, the dedication of the Mabel Normand soundstage, This Is Your Life Mack Sennett, and much more!

Available for pre-order from http://www.FlickerAlley.com

Gary Johnson
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:53 am

Congrats CineMuseum!

And they said it couldn't be done.
Well, I said it couldn't be done. But I was also the guy who said we could never fly to the moon.
And we didn't fly. We rocketed....

Pasquale Ventura
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Pasquale Ventura » Thu Apr 17, 2014 11:14 am

Paul, is THE MACK SENNETT COLLECTION Vol.1 available on DVD?
The article only mentions BluRay.

Paul E. Gierucki
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Paul E. Gierucki » Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:51 pm

Flicker Alley is initially releasing it on BR only, Pasquale, but indicate they will consider a DVD version if there is sufficient interest.

Pasquale Ventura
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Pasquale Ventura » Thu Apr 17, 2014 1:37 pm

That's a nice way of saying "no". Oh well, that's that.

Joe Migliore
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Joe Migliore » Thu Apr 17, 2014 4:48 pm

Pasquale Ventura wrote:
That's a nice way of saying "no". Oh well, that's that.


Pasquale, I, like you, have made it this far without getting a Blu-ray deck; but now we're halfway through the Teens, and I'm starting to realize that it's probably a good idea to have a Blu-ray player in the house. I'm certainly not going to miss the Sennett box, with all those commentaries, for want of Blu-ray accessibility. Back in the Eighties I held off buying a CD player until I heard the SGT. PEPPER CD. (I could hear Ringo brushing the snare on "When I'm Sixty-Four", and I was a convert.) I think this is one of those moments.

Paul E. Gierucki
Godfather
Posts: 251
Joined: Sun May 31, 2009 4:23 pm

Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Paul E. Gierucki » Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:13 pm

As I have said elsewhere, the decision to release in BR was a difficult one for all
parties involved. The home video market is changing almost daily and production
dollars were extremely limited. Everyone ultimately agreed that Blu-ray would
best represent the project as we originally intended -- a great deal of time and
effort went into producing in HD. Releasing on DVD instead of BR seemed a step
backward. Quality presentation has always been our first consideration.

As such, Flicker Alley is offering the collection at a price equal to that of a DVD
only set, and there is an additional discount available if ordering the limited
edition Chaplin Mutuals bundle. Hopefully this will take some of the sting out of
the process for those who are upgrading to BR.

Personally, I can tell you that these films have never looked better than they do
here. The HD versions are really worth the price of admission.

-- PG

Agnes McFadden
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Agnes McFadden » Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:58 pm

What perfect timing!

No one else gave Chaplin such a wonderful birthday persent (isn't 125 a milestone birthday?).
I am so happy to see this finally released...after all your hard work!

As to the decision to go Blu-ray, bravo!
I have noticed that some films that have required a great deal of restoration have come out in Blu-Ray only.
It just doesn't properly represent all that went into a detailed restoration to not release it on the best definition possible.
I even had to get my 85 year old father a Blu-Ray player after I tried in vain to buy him some new releases of old films only to find the new box set restorations were Blu-Ray only. Getting him the player, paying for it, and setting it up were not a problem for me. Writing down all the directions for him and going over it many times was dooable.
Having to go over the directions of working it at least 10 times ever time I see him ... a bit more of a challenge.

But it is worth it.
Many films in SD are fine on DVD, but when so much effort has gone into HD restorations of 100 year old films, best quality format is the way to go.

Thanks so much, Paul.
I am looking forward to ordering these.

Agnes McFadden
Agnes McFadden

Gary Johnson
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Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Apr 17, 2014 6:17 pm

Agnes McFadden wrote:Having to go over the directions of working it at least 10 times ever time I see him ... a bit more of a challenge.

Agnes McFadden


We've all been there......going back to VHS machines

Pasquale Ventura
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Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 7:52 pm

Re: SENNETT and CHAPLIN MUTUALS available for pre-order!

Postby Pasquale Ventura » Thu Apr 17, 2014 7:03 pm

Joe Migliore
Pasquale, I, like you, have made it this far without getting a Blu-ray deck; but now we're halfway through the Teens, and I'm starting to realize that it's probably a good idea to have a Blu-ray player in the house. I'm certainly not going to miss the Sennett box, with all those commentaries, for want of Blu-ray accessibility. Back in the Eighties I held off buying a CD player until I heard the SGT. PEPPER CD. (I could hear Ringo brushing the snare on "When I'm Sixty-Four", and I was a convert.) I think this is one of those moments.


Joe it's a matter of finances. Some of us do not have the money to run out and buy a BluRay player, even an $60 one. I don't. For the past two years when this Sennett collection was announced I skimped and saved in anticipation just to get it. Now I am told tough Flicker Alley is catering to the blu ray snobs and shutting other consumers out. It would have been possible to get the set, but not a new player as well. In a couple of years isn't Sony introducing a entirely new HD format? What then, bluray is out dated?
As much as I would like to have it, there will be one less set sold. Very disapointing indeed.

Pasquale


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