Flicker Alley Chaplin Essanay shorts announced

[All Darc]

Few mistakes... but it do not devalue the effort and hard work they had restoring the films, searching the best film elements.

The contrast was corrected in the DVD release, as we can see in some youtube vídeos.

There was alsosome weird contrast choices in the Mutuals BD, in Easy Street, where a scene looked like very dupe while in the DVD the contrast was fine. The Mission had some flat contrast and some crushed blacks too in diferente scenes. The Cure also have some "flat white contrast"scenes .

Oh God.
There's always some obvious mistake that can easily be corrected... I can't understand.

[martin arias]

There are a few more, I'm afraid.

Of course, I don't mean with this that the collection isn't wonderful, but I note them anyway.

1) The first intertitle on A WOMAN, "A Happy family", is missing.
2) There is a short sequence of the captain and his second asking for food missing in SHANGHAIED which fills the gap existing after Charlie dissapears on the left dancing with the lamb's foot on the second reel. That sequence is on 16mm prints.
3) There are two gaps on POLICE. One at the very beginning, during the fruit shop scene, on the original film, after Charlie takes the banana and notices he has no money, he folds the banana back again before giving it back to Leo White. This scene is complete on some Super 8 and 16mm prints and adds a gag that goes unnoticed with the present gap. Another gap is at the very end of the film, when Charlie leaves the house. This second sequence was complete on previous DVD restorations, but on the new one Charlie puts his hat on and then he's automatically out of the house. On previous versions you actually watch him going out.
4) The casting card for THE BANK reads SENOGRAPHER instead of STENOGRAPHER (that card was ok on previous versions).

[martin arias]

There are also two shots missing at the reel change of A JITNEY ELOPMENT which can be seen on this print at 11:33 after the title GET OUT

[martin arias]

And also on Jitney Elopment a short fragment at the beginning of the second reel that shows the car with Edna and Leo White arriving. On the new restoration the car is already still. And near the end, the shot where the car falls into the sea is missing.

[bigshot]

The UK version of this has been announced for a late January release. Any word on extras and soundtracks?

[WaverBoy]

Hopefully the U.K. release will put the missing shots back in.

[jjbluecaps]

DVD Beaver's review is on. Unfortunately, nothing new on that.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm

[bigshot]

I think the Spanish, Flicker Alley and BFI versions are all the same as far as the films themselves. The Spanish one is cheaper and doesn't have supplements. The BFI and Flicker Alley are a little different in supplements. Not much difference between the three. Not like the Mutuals where BFI was the clear winner.

[jjbluecaps]

I think the Spanish, Flicker Alley and BFI versions are all the same as far as the films themselves. The Spanish one is cheaper and doesn't have supplements.

Well, it has other supplements, like "Hooray for Charlie", "Little Tich and his big boots", and "The Little Tramp", but nothing important.
The problem with the Spanish BD is that it has some work-in-progress prints.

[WaverBoy]

So the missing shots are still missing in the U.K. set?

[bigshot]

The problem with the Spanish BD is that it has some work-in-progress prints.

I heard that about the Mutual set, but not the Essanays... And then the additional work that was completed in the Flicker Alley Mutuals set threw the audio out of sync, so the cure was worse than the disease.

[jjbluecaps]

The problem with the Spanish BD is that it has some work-in-progress prints.

I heard that about the Mutual set, but not the Essanays... And then the additional work that was completed in the Flicker Alley Mutuals set threw the audio out of sync, so the cure was worse than the disease.

Yup, also with the Spanish Essanay set. Sometimes there's a 480p resolution or non-restored shot, etc.

[bigshot]

Can you point me to somewhere that lists the shorts that are different in the Essanay set? With the Mutuals Cineteca signed off on the Spanish disk, then Flicker Alley did some tweaks, then BFI fixed Flicker Alley's mistakes and added more scores. The basic film transfer looks the same in all three. I think the sync problem was from someone at Flicker Alley disagreeing with Cineteca Bologna's frame rate and changing it with a different pull down, not restoration or additional scenes.

[jjbluecaps]

Can you point me to somewhere that lists the shorts that are different in the Essanay set? With the Mutuals Cineteca signed off on the Spanish disk, then Flicker Alley did some tweaks, then BFI fixed Flicker Alley's mistakes and added more scores. The basic film transfer looks the same in all three. I think the sync problem was from someone at Flicker Alley disagreeing with Cineteca Bologna's frame rate and changing it with a different pull down, not restoration or additional scenes.

But there's no difference on the Essanay set. I mean, the Flicker Alley and BFI.
The own DVD Beaver review says that there's no difference between the two, except for the Bit rate.
The only problem with some shots is on the Spanish set, but I mentioned because I have it - isn't wrote anywhere (I think).

Anyway, I was hoping that BFI had corrected the missing shots and wrong intertitles, like in the Mutual set. Too bad.
P.S.: I'll never stand the enormous gap in THE ADVENTURER.

[WaverBoy]

Extremely disappointing news. I'll save my money then. I guess we're still waiting for the definitive editions of both the Mutuals and the Essanays.

[bigshot]

The BFI Mutuals are as good as you can hope for, but you have to be region free.

[martin arias]

What does "The BFI Mutuals are as good as you can hope for" mean? I already have some four sets of the Mutuals. The last one I bought, from Flicker Alley, has a terrible gap in the middle of "The Adventurer". By the way, and I don't want to start with this again, all existing sets have a terribly incomplete version of "The Immigrant".

[bigshot]

The restoration of the films themselves were done by Cineteca Bologna. The differences between sets when it comes to the films are minimal- just a little noodling with edits and speeds. The main difference between the sets are the scores. The Spanish mutuals are OK- one set of live scores with a good band. The Flicker Alley set uses the same scores as the Spanish set, but because they chose to alter the speed of several of the shorts, the sync is way out. BFI has the live band scores in good sync, and then adds the Carl Davis scores- personally supervised by Davis. To me, that blows the other two out of the water. I was hoping the Essanays would have a second score with BFI, but it appears all three releases are pretty much the same except for the extras.

[monks19]

What about the Lobster Films sats (France) ? Do they still have the missing elements like the BFI or FA ?

[Doff Hat]

Can you point me to somewhere that lists the shorts that are different in the Essanay set? With the Mutuals Cineteca signed off on the Spanish disk, then Flicker Alley did some tweaks, then BFI fixed Flicker Alley's mistakes and added more scores. The basic film transfer looks the same in all three. I think the sync problem was from someone at Flicker Alley disagreeing with Cineteca Bologna's frame rate and changing it with a different pull down, not restoration or additional scenes.

But there's no difference on the Essanay set. I mean, the Flicker Alley and BFI.
The own DVD Beaver review says that there's no difference between the two, except for the Bit rate.
The only problem with some shots is on the Spanish set, but I mentioned because I have it - isn't wrote anywhere (I think).

Anyway, I was hoping that BFI had corrected the missing shots and wrong intertitles, like in the Mutual set. Too bad.
P.S.: I'll never stand the enormous gap in THE ADVENTURER.

David Shepard wrote a quick note about the difference in the Spanish Essanay Blu rays in this thread here, that you both took part in. He only listed Police and A Night Out specifically:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19507" target="_blank" target="_blank

It was based on this that I gave the Spanish Essanay blu rays a miss, and waited hopefully for a BFI version (since I am UK based and the FA set was a more expensive option). So looks like the wait is over and I'll be getting this BFI Essanay blu ray set.

[bigshot]

Not very specific on differences. I'm sure the BFI set will be fine. I'm satisfied with the Cineteca Bologna restorations on the Spanish discs. More scores would have made me a lot more tempted.