THE IDLE CLASS A/B Cameras Comparison

[WaverBoy]

Sadly, there are also significant extant hunks of footage long missing from THE CURE and THE IMMIGRANT, unseen since they were first chopped up for reissue, even missing from the current Blu-ray incarnations; I have uncut versions with the missing bits recovered from toy projector prints and reinstated by Doug Sulpy. The Mutuals need one more go-round to put the last of the missing pieces back, get rid of the motion artifacting caused by maladroitly repeating frames, and get us some better scores—I’m usually a huge Carl Davis fan, but his Mutual scores are an uncharacteristic whiff from a home run king. My ideal would be for all of the Van Beuren scores to get re-orchestrated and re-recorded with new judiciously placed sound effects.

[Smari1989]

I do think the music on the Mutual collection that Flicker Alley released in 2014 works very well, though.

About the First National shorts again -- in the ancient thread referred to earlier, Mr. Shepard said to have seen original versions of A DOG'S LIFE, THE IDLE CLASS, PAY DAY and THE PILGRIM, and of course SHOULDER ARMS. The only ones he didn't mention (as far as I could tell, didn't actually read the whole thread) were SUNNYSIDE and A DAY'S PLEASURE, but I'd think that, at least, the Pathé reissue of SUNNYSIDE may very well still exist. It's unfortunate that these versions of the films remain unseen and unavailable since they were released especially because Chaplin couldn't have even known they existed; had he had access to these original, presumably decent-looking prints, it stands to reason that he'd have used them, rather than relying on second-best takes simply because they looked good in terms of picture-quality.

I know, it wouldn't be a costless affair to make them available again; but Mr. Shepard offered to restore the original print of SHOULDER ARMS himself back in the day, and he still got no for an answer. The "Revue" versions wouldn't have to become unavailable, they could live side by side with the original versions, as is now the case with the "silent" and "sound" versions of THE GOLD RUSH.

[Smari1989]

I have to modify an earlier statement I made here -- apparently, there is/has been disagreement as to whether or not Chaplin knew about Totheroh's method of "restoring" the First Nationals.

[Gary]

A criticism of the Criterion silent Gold Rush on the Brenton Film site was what made me think the Warner version is preferable. Although I can't vouch for it, here's what Brenton says: "Chaplin cannibalised the silent version’s original negative for his 1942 sound reissue, meaning a large chunk was cut from the left edge to accommodate the optical soundtrack. Some footage no longer exists in full aperture prints, so Photoplay’s 1993 silent version restoration had to incorporate cropped film from the sound version. Sadly, when Criterion scanned the 1993 restoration in HD, they saw fit to crop said footage again to maintain a consistent aspect ratio throughout. This was a very unwise decision; The Gold Rush will never be returned to its original pristine state and Chaplin already unwittingly compromised his silent version forever. It makes no sense to compound the problem by compromising the film even further. Criterion severely underestimated the ability of audiences to tolerate a black bar appearing occasionally at the side of the screen, and it’s the same mindset that led to lesser quality extant footage being wilfully omitted from Chaplin’s Keystone restorations. In short, this is wreckstoration."

[Smari1989]

Well, this I can't answer unfortunately; I wasn't aware of the allegations that the most recently released "silent" version of GOLD RUSH had been unnecessarily "cropped." I've preferred Criterion's version because, other than the fact that it looks very nice to me, I think an orchestral track is needed to do such a feature full justice (although the piano score on the WB version is very nice in its own right).

At least it's my understanding that, for the 1942 reissue (which the silent reconstruction, after all, has borrowed heavily from), Chaplin for the most part didn't have to rely on alternate takes.